This is a curious article which hints at so much but draws back from discussing what is now known to be a closer approximateion of the truth than the Woodward-Bernstein version encapsulated in their book and the subsequent film.

Perhaps the best explanation is found in Jim Hougan's book Secret Agenda which although written more than two decades ago is still better than most others. Another source is Robert Merritt's Watergate Exposed, the reprint update of which has just been published.

It now seems tolerably clear that Nixon was deposed in a CIA operation by elements of the military and intelligence organizations that were concerned that Nixon and Kissinger's moves with regard to China in particular posed a threat to their setting of the US foreign policy agenda that they had controlled since the 1963 coup d'etat that killed Kennedy.

One of the fascinating aspects of the Watergate story is how the same cast of characters, Hunt, Sturgis, Bush the elder etc crop up and play key roles just as they did in 1963. And for the same motives as James Douglass' seminal book JFK and the Unspeakable make abundantly clear. Australia's mainstream media has not even reviewed this latter book which demonstrates just how we have been captured by the same forces that control the American mainstream media. My local library (Brisbane) does not even carry a copy.

I agree therefore that Watergate is far from dead, just not for the same reasons as your correspondent. Until we confront the reality of modern day power politics and tolerate the blather about Nixon, the Kennedy assassination, 9/11 etal the more dangerous our democracy becomes.

Quote; " Nixon wasn't a bad egg ? ".
Yes, and Jimmy Hoffa was a thorough gentleman, and Italy's Bruscolini a holy Saint.

Never in US History has any President resigned, and caused so much dissension and despair amongst Americans. Truly, his nick name " tricky dickie " was aptly inscribed in stone. He disgraced the Oval Office, past and present Presidents, and left American Foreign Policy in tatters. He continually lied to Congress and the American people.

US's 37th President, he presided and authorized the infamous Watergate break-in, and when investigated by the FBI, pulled strings to have it aborted. He authorized CIA agents to lie on oath, commit theft, and then absolved himself of any wrong doing. He pulled a Pontius Pilate act, and washed his sticky hands of the whole squalid affair. He had NIL scruples, and how he was ever nominated for High Office by a Republican Party is palpable. Evidently all his Life, he manipulated the system. His loathsome greed was his ultimate undoing.

His tenure in

cont..

yes, what is astounding about the entire episode and nixon is that when he died he was lauded from the skies. then president clinton gave a eulogy - and not a single word was said by any of these public figures about the crimes and consequences wrought under the direction of nixon as president. it is not following a conventional line to acknowledge the criminality of this period: that other periods may also have elements of 'the same' does not make nixon's period any less problematic (in mild terms). reading the transcripts of the tapes - they are fully published in accessible format (book! and no doubt online) is revelatory. it is also important to observe the difference in the us supreme court's position on holding that the tapes were publishable and should be open (with judges appointed by both sides of politics in agreement), as against the us supreme court's split over the gore-bush issue and the court's substandard majority decision on that.

His tenure was credited with America's War on Drugs. His legacy, the Us is the drug capitol of the World. He presumably served in the Navy 1942-46, and was awarded 2 Service Medals, even though he drove a desk, and was never exposed to any fighting. He escalated the Vietnam War, and bombed Hanoi, even as Peace talks were being negotiated in the UN. His twisted doctrine was a double entendre, as was his corrupt checkered life. During his pivotal occupancy in the White House,he pardoned and commuted 926 hardened criminals, including members of the Mafia, mobsters,racketeers,and rapist.

The Watergate tapes reveal all - which led to Daniel Elsberg's incarceration, after he released the Pentagon Papers - the forerunner of Julian Assange's wikileaks.

His greates achievement was to abolish the Gold Standard at Breton Woods. It gave the US Treasury permission to print greenbacks willy-nilly, and is responsible for the devaluation of the World's Reserve Currency. His Govt sold off all the Gold in Fort Knox ?

It is a cause of concern the Aussie dollar is worth more than the greenback, with the USA 7 trillion debt, and escalating. Quixotically, it makes exports more expensive, cripples our Trade balance,and costing more job losses and unemployment. Our Manufacturing Industries are already marginalised, and whatever perceived advantage it once had, has evaporated. Dozen's have moved offshore where it is simpler to do Business, pay less or no tax, and less hassled by an avaricious Union inspired Labor Govt - bent on self destruction,

Importantly,Overseas labor is less expensive, and they possess a work ethnic which leaves our's for dead.

I doubt that there are many people that remember Richard Nixon they remember what other people remember of him and that he was a bad, nasty man. He broke the law for goodness sake how unique is that in America?

In my mind Richard Nixon was the best President the USA has had in my time he had an insight and vision for the future of America and the world. He was the most popular President outside his country and the Americans crucified him for what was a storm in a tea cup.

American Presidents have steadily being getting worse the only one that showed any degree of leadership was President Clinton. He balanced the US budget, he down sized government but he lacked generosity to the under privilege and concentrated his attention on that 5% of undecided voters that elect a President in the US today.

Does the USA seriously think that bankrupting the world and adding on to its deficit by waging two unnecessary wars that it has found a magical bullet to get off with relatively free of pain?. So simple and brilliant print money without asset backing?

The world hasn't started to pay for its mismanagement and vanity and it is leaving it to our children and their children and their children's children to solve this mess. And who are President hopefuls on the Republican side? Palin and Donald Trump? Yes America can go down quite considerably why don't they try Paris Hilton she knows as much about politics.

Imagine what would have happened if Nixon hadn't forged strong ties with China? Where would the USA turn to for money. Saudi Arabia? Everyone knows they bow to the Federal Reserve five times a day as it is.

Why do we have to see people as either all good or all bad? Why do we find it so difficult to see nuances?

We are ALL flawed human beings. None of us is all good or all bad. To borrow a metaphor from Christianity, we are ALL sinners.

None of us have any right to be self-righteous.

Some people are so bad that whatever goodness there may have been in them is irrelevant. The three monsters of the 20th Century, Hitler, Mao and Stalin (HMS?) fall into that category. But in most cases there is some good and some bad in all of us.

Was Nixon a nasty paranoid? Yep.

Was he a bad president?

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if “nice” people were also good leaders and nasty people were bad leaders? Alas the world is rarely that tidy. As Gatt points out Nixon had many positive accomplishments.

Nixon does not remotely compare to the total disaster that was George Bush. Yet on a personal level it appears that Bush was a much nicer, more considerate, less paranoid man than “Tricky Dicky”.

I remember the Nixon years. Nixon usually, not always, reasoned rationally. Unlike Bush and, I fear, Obama, he was not bought and paid for by corporate interests.

In judging his actions in South East Asia it is important to remember that he inherited a terrible war from the Kennedy / Johnson Administration. There were more troops in Vietnam when Nixon took office than in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.

It is also important to remember the context of the Cold War. Back then the USSR did not look like the ramshackle empire it degenerated into in the 1980s.

And yet Nixon did extricate the US from Vietnam. He did end the war.

And given his record in establishing the EPA I think he would have been on the side of those who want to reduce emissions.

At the time I felt that Nixon had to go. But I found the self-righteousness of his antagonists very distasteful