The dozens of declassified documents reveal a dramatic story of hardball politics played at the highest levels of government and with the highest of stakes, not only the outcome of the pivotal 1968 presidential election but the fate of a half million U.S. soldiers then sitting in the Vietnam war zone. [For details, see Consortiumnews.com's "LBJ's 'X' File on Nixon's 'Treason.'"
However, in 1973, Rostow's decision to keep the file secret had consequences. Though Nixon was forced to resign over the Watergate scandal on Aug. 9, 1974, the failure of the U.S. government and press to explain the full scope of Nixon's dirty politics left Americans divided over the disgraced President's legacy and the seriousness of Watergate, whether the cover-up was worse than the crime.
Even today, four decades after Watergate as some of the key surviving players finally conclude that the scandal was much bigger than they understood at the time, the full dimensions of the scandal remain obscured.
Nixon's interference with Johnson's peace talks is still not regarded as "legitimate" history despite the now overwhelming evidence. In an otherwise perceptive article, Woodward and Bernstein still don't appear to understand what happened in 1968 and why Nixon would have been so worried about the missing file and what it might reveal.
Nor has Official Washington come to grips with how Nixon's destroy-your-enemy politics continues to infuse the Republican Party. After the Watergate scandal, a series of failed investigations let Republican operatives off the hook again and again, from the 1980 "October Surprise" case over Carter's Iran hostage negotiations (nearly a replay of Nixon's 1968 gambit) to the various Iran-Contra crimes of the Reagan-Bush years to George W. Bush's political abuses and national security crimes last decade.
Viewed from a historical perspective, one could conclude that Watergate was an anomaly in that at least some of the perpetrators went to jail and the implicated President was forced to resign. Nevertheless, a top lesson that the Washington press corps drew from Watergate was the gross misunderstanding that "the cover-up is worse than the crime."
Looking back, Woodward and Bernstein, who built their careers by exposing that cover-up, agree that those pearls of wisdom missed the point that the Watergate cover-up was a minor offense when compared to what Nixon was covering up.
Yet, possibly Nixon's worst crime -- obstructing peace talks that could have saved countless lives -- remains outside Official Washington's conventional wisdom.
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
