I promised I'd give you some of my projects from PATH, and so here is my report on our not so beloved ex-president Nixon.
About 4 months ago I saw an episode from a British sci-fi show called Doctor Who. The episode featured Richard Nixon, pre-Watergate. The fact that Nixon appears in British sci-fi tells me that Nixon (and Watergate) has become a sort of icon, and more of a pop culture image than historical figure. Instead of referring to Nixon from history, we push him on people to call them dishonest. It’s also a bit like how we refer to Hitler; He’s just another word for evil. An example of this is Speechgate: Obama wants to have a speech on Wednesday; The other people asked if they could have it Thursday. Obama changes it to Thursday. Fox News has a fit. People basically just but “gate” at the end of the word to make it sound scandalous. And, even nowadays you’ll still see comedians doing a Nixon impression: head nodding, hands in peace signs, and saying “I’m not a crook”.
Nixon is mostly known for taping his conversations. He actually ordered taping system that was installed in the white house that automatically recorded all conversations, though few white house employees were aware this system even existed. Alexander Butterfield testified to the tapes existence, and the tapes were subpoenaed.
Nixon Initially refused to hand the tapes over, claiming they were vital to national security. Nixon’s lawyers revealed that Tape 342, a conversation in the oval office, had a 18 1/2 minute gap. Though the president’s personal secretary claimed it was her fault, nobody believed her, and people began to seriously doubt Nixon’s innocence. The legal battle for the tapes continued for a year, until Nixon released 1,200 pages of conversations between him and his aides. But the Supreme court wanted more than selected transcripts, and ruled that the full tapes must be released. Finally one of the newly received conversations revealed that Nixon knew about the Watergate robbery earlier then he had said. This was the “smoking gun” tape. Nixon claimed this was a “lapse of memory”. (Yeah, right.) Nobody believed him, and he was told by the Republican leaders that he was about to be kicked out of office, so he resigned.It’s interesting, though, that Nixon’s legacy is being dishonest, while a lot of political leaders are too: Nixon was just unlucky enough to get caught. It was his obsession with taping himself that got him caught. If he hadn't taped himself, nobody could prove he was involved in Watergate, and he would have got off clean.
Bibliography: Wikipedia, Watergate site, Nixon library.
Here is part of that episode I was telling you about.
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