Just Finished Reading: All The President’s Men by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward (FP: 1974)

It started like so many momentous things do – with a sloppy example of overreach, with an arrogant abuse of power and with a reporter sent to produce a nothing story to be tucked way back on page 10. But what that reporter found was a loose thread and, as we all do from time to time when presented with such an enticing thread he pulled on it. The more he pulled the more thread emerged. The identity of the burglars at the Watergate building was intriguing. The fact that their lawyer appeared out of nowhere to defend them and then there was the evidence found on the men themselves, sophisticated bugs, Cuban literature and a strange cheque. More threads to pull, more stories to follow up on, more names, more links – certainly too much for one reporter. So Bernstein was assigned with Woodward to ‘get to the bottom of things’ and report back. Now they were digging as well as pulling on threads and the more they dug and the more they pulled the more was revealed about the seemingly simple attempted break-in. Looked at from a distance the Watergate break-in was like a hill on a flat plain, but with perspective it began to look like a small hill that was part of a much wider range of hills with the faint impression of much larger mountains behind it overshadowing the whole range. The more names they collected and the more links between them pointed increasingly to a truly frightening prospect. The burglars it seemed where only part of a much wider and much deeper conspiracy to manipulate the democratic process in America, to win at all costs, to discredit opponents, to intimidate those who could not be discredited and to ‘do what it takes’ to cover the whole thing up. Some of the names were known in every American household. Most where unelected appointees but some, it seemed had been elected into office and it was just possible that at the very centre of things was the occupant of the highest elected office in the land. If that was true…….

Of course we all now know how it ended for Nixon and his corrupt administration. Oddly we are being reminded of those turbulent times by the echoes of the present corrupt administration. History, we are told does not repeat itself but sometimes it does rhyme. The tune from 1974 and 2018 is similar enough that people from both eras can hum along with relative ease. I found myself more than once gasping at the similarities between Watergate and whatever the hell people are going to call the Trump Presidency. The story reads like a true detective novel which, in a sense, it was as the co-authors of this classic tale of political overreach track down leads, figure out clues and publish their regular findings in the Washington Post. Luckily for them their paper took its duty as the Fourth Estate seriously and despite threats and an increasingly focused dirty tricks campaign continued to post stories about the widening conspiracy until other papers picked up other threads and began pulling on them too. Before long the trickle of bad news for the Nixon Presidency became an unstoppable flood. But, just like the movie starring Redford and Hoffman as the reporters in question, the story portrayed was only half finished. The Watergate hearings, the Nixon tapes and the President’s resignation in disgrace would be reported in other books. This one, however, shows how it all started, how the ground was laid for what came later and what can be done when the media is courageous enough to talk truth to power.

Not being wholly familiar with the details of the events – despite being a teenager at the time - some of this especially early on in the text went over my head a little. I was familiar with the outline (both from basic history reading and from the movie) but the detail, and the names of many of the people involved were new to me. Of course by the end of the book I could ‘see’ the major players in my mind’s eye and was familiar with their individual stories. The book made the whole cast of characters – both good and bad – human to me. It also, like all good works like this, made me want to know more so expect much more of this turbulent era to come. If you ever wanted the inside scoop on Watergate or wondered at the historical echoes to the present this is definitely a good place to start. Recommended (R6).