A cow-orker has asked me for a book recommendation that would explain Watergate. This person is in her mid twenties, and didn’t live through it.
I can’t think of a “primer” tybe of book that would explain the basics without being too politically biased, one way or the other.
Any ideas from the teeming millions?
All The President’s Men tells the complete story from the ground up.
Thank you, plnnr! I saw this movie years ago, but having never read the book, I wasn’t sure how well it was done. Thanks again.
Actually, I’m not sure I’d recommend the book of All The President’s Men to a complete beginner, though it’s undoubtedly a great read. Not only is it primarily concerned with what Woodward and Bernstein were investigating, it was written with a contemporary audience in mind. It also stops before the end of the story (while their The Final Days drops in right before the end without filling in the background). A clearer introduction to the whole scandel might be Fred Emery’s Watergate. He’s a well respected British journalist who was the Washington correspondent for The Times during the events. For the anniversary of Nixon’s resignation, he made a TV series for the BBC in 1994 for which he interviewed most of the then surviving participants. If either you or your friend could get your hands on the series, that’d probably be ideal; otherwise, this is the book he wrote to accompany it. It’s notable largely for being a chronological narrative of the whole affair: he simply starts at the beginning and tells the story as clearly as he can. He doesn’t get bogged down in unnecessary theorising or chasing dead ends. The style’s fairly dry and the tale, even straightened out, is unavoidably complicated, so it won’t be to everyone’s taste, but he doesn’t assume much background.
Much thanks, bonzer. I think I’ll recommend both. Possibly read both myself, now that the subject has been brought back up.
Believe it or not, ***The Palace Guard *** by Dan Rather is an excellent Watergate primer.
John Dean’s Blind Ambition is a good read, although not without bias. Meanwhile, The Memoirs of Richard Nixon are boring as hell and extremely biased.
For a less-than-serious point of view:
Trout Fishing in the Reflecting Pool by Nicholas Von Hoffman and Gary Trudeau (yes, of Doonesbury fame).
While not quite a pleasing read from a literary entreatment standpoint, Silent Coup by Len Colodny and Stan Gettlin drew some high praise from some insiders to the affair (like John Mitchell and G. Gordon Liddy) even inspite of the rather frank treatment they received in the book.
The primary (but not the only) difference between S.C. and Blind Ambition-All the Presidents Men is the roll of John Dean. Dean sued the authors for libel and from what I understand has hadgreat difficulties in not only in proving that what Colodny and Gettlin wrote was libelous, but he couldn’t prove that it wasn’t true.
How the Good Guys Finally Won by Jimmy Breslin.
Its main distinction is that it concentrates on the political events leading up to Nixon’s resignation rather than the burglary/coverup itself. It’s also rabidly partisan–the major player is Tip O’Neill (that burbling sound is a regiment of conservatives frothing at the mouth), so don’t bother if you’re looking for an impartial rendering of the facts of the case.
But it’s an entertaining read, and (to me) a very interesting insight into the behind-the-scenes maneuvering that accompanied the impeachment.
Absolutely. This is one of the clearest and briefest descriptions of events. And the implications. Even though it has a nice unbiased approach, the conclusions are considerably more chilling than I anticipated.
After having lived through those times, as the “Who” once noted, you can only wish “we won’t get fooled again”.