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| 1. The Early Years | 2. The Capitol Years | 3. Vice President | 4. Defeat |
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| 1. The Early Years | 2. The Capitol Years | 3. Vice President | 4. Defeat |
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Just as Richard Nixon's achievements as President seem to have been inflated by his rehabilitation and death, the stigma of Watergate faces the opposite fate. Even those obituaries that criticise Nixon for the criminal excesses of Watergate fail to fully capture the historicity of the time between 1972 and 1974. Instead, Watergate and Richard Nixon seem consigned to almost fondly remembered nostalgia. A few historians have tried to recapture the intense feelings of loyalty and hatred that Nixon created in his ongoing coverup of a "third rate burglary" on the Democratic Party headquarters in the Watergate Building in Washington D.C. The scholars at the Hofstra University who published a single volume on Nixon's achievements added a year later that "it seems appropriate to present what would be called the dark years of the Nixon period" in their own stand alone volume. As David Simon writes in the opening chapter, "The Watergate scandal that toppled the Nixon Presidency involved virtually every type of political deviance. These included (1) excessive secrecy, lying, and 'dirty campaign tricks,' political repression and violation of civil rights, (2) 'the fix' - accepting campaign contributions in return for personal favors, (3) acts that resulted in personal financial gain for the politicos involved, and (4) possible violations of the president's war making powers." [1] Underlying this broad list is the idea that Fred Emery proposes, that Watergate and the subsequent forced resignation of President Nixon were not the result of the Watergate break-in alone, but rather the culmination of "a pattern of malfeasance by him and his men" that began in 1968 during Nixon's campaign, and continued and intensified for the next six years. [2] But despite the more than ample selection of abuses of power from which to choose from, almost all Nixon's obituaries fail to describe the broader practice of political espionage of which Watergate was only a symbol. Certainly none of the official funeral eulogies even mention Watergate by name. The forced similes range from Nixon's "worst crisis of his life" from Henry Kissinger, to "he made mistakes" from Bill Clinton to almost complete silence from Bob Dole and Billy Graham. But Watergate also seems to defy description from the more critical obituaries. Michael Beschloss argues that "the historical image of the 37th president will probably be stereoscopic, with one eye always trained on Watergate" but apart from a brief mention of "political skulduggery" there is no further discussion of the acts which Watergate encompassed. Likewise James M. Perry mentions "the mean-spirited, mistrustful politician who betrayed himself and his country during his final Watergate years in the presidency" in a scandal "which began with a ludicrous break-in at Democratic headquarters by GOP agents" but that is the limit of his description. R. W. Apple is even more obtuse, referring to Nixon being "driven from office by the Watergate scandal", "the break-in ... and the frenzied, protracted efforts to cover it up" and finally Nixon's teary farewell from the White House, but nothing of what happened in between. Perhaps this inability of later historians to concisely capture the fraught emotions, the complex development off the scandal, and the powerful historicity of the Watergate moment, was also a phenomenon which allowed Richard Nixon his eventual rehabilitation. [1] Leon Friedman and William F. Levantrosser, eds., Watergate
and Afterward: The Legacy of Richard M. Nixon, Greenwood Press, Westport,
1992, ix, 5
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| 5. President | 7. Post-Watergate | 8. Death | 9. Afterlife | ||
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