WAS WATERAGATE REALLY SUCH A BIG DEAL?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000201180029-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 19, 2010
• Sequence Number: 29
• Publication Date: August 9, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/19: CIA-RDP90-00806R000201180029-8
ARTICLE APPEARED
QN PAGE
Benjamin J. Stein
WASHINGTON POST
9 August 1984
Was Watergate
Really Such
A Big Deal?
It was a summer's evening,
Old Kasper 's work was done,
And he before his cottage door
Was sitting in the sun;
And by him sported on the green,
His little grandchild Wilhelm inc.
Peterkin came to ask what he had found
That was so large, and smooth, and
Round .. .
" 'Tis some poor fellow's skull, said he
Who jell in the great victory ...
But what they fought each other for.
I could not well make out.... "
"And everybody-praised the Duke,
Who thisgreat fight did win. "
"But what good came of it at last?"
Quoth little Peterkin.
"Why that I cannot tell, "said he;
"But 'twas a famous victory. "
LOS ANGELES-When I told my two college stu-
dent assistants, Juliette Capretta and Vicki Stewart, that
I was going to write something to mark the 10th anni-
versary of Watergate, each one looked at me with her
big brown eyes and said, "What was that?" as if I were
mentioning one of my usual "braino" teasers on them,
like "prohibition" or "Iwo Jima."
But after a few minutes of talking to them, I realized
that I was learning the lesson-as usual. Because when I
tried to tell them'what Watergate was about, I became
like Old Kasper in Southey's "Battle of Blenheim." Try as
I might, I could not say what it was about.
As I have made my way around the city by car and
the nation by phone, I find that my problem is not
unique. Really, who now knows what Watergate was
about. What was all the shouting about?
It has been 10 years. Temperatures in Washington that
August were as hot inside the air-conditioned halls of the
Capitol and the nation's great newspapers as they were
on the sidewalks. A committee of the House of Repre-
sentatives had voted to impeach a president for only the
second time in history. There were dark rumors of the
president's putting troops and tanks around the White
House. There were smoking guns and conspiracies and
resignations and heroes who broke the news.
But after all this time, who can say what was going
on? We know who bombed Pearl Harbor after 43 years.
We know who shot John F. Kennedy after 20 years.
Most of us know what the Depression was after 55
years. But it has only been 10 years since Richard
Nixon resigned, and who knows why he had to do it?
Really, after we say that Watergate was the name of
an office building where there was a burglary, what do
we know of the storm that followed? Could it have been
about a president who lied? Surely not, because presi-
dents are still lying, about what their tax cuts do to the
working man, about why U.S. Marines get blown to bits
in their sleep. Even presidential candidates lie openly
about what their fathers did, what their names are, and
why they were in the military. Even vice presidential
candidates lie about where their money comes from and
who their husband's business associates are.
Could it have been because he spied on his campaign
opponent? Surely not, because one of the most loved
president of modern times had his opponent's most se-
cret campaign briefing books, and no one says "boo."
Could it have been that he misused the CIA? Again, not
possibly, since after him, the CIA was sent to wage se-
cret wars and unseat governments, and no one asks for
impeachment now.
But it was a famous victory, surely. It proved the
strength of our investigative journalists. It showed "the
system worked." But now, in the light of time, who,
who in a hundred million, can say what any one revela-
tion of any Washington Post article was? Bernstein and
Woodward hve grown great and rich from their work,
and they deserve it as much as Cher does, but what did
they do? What was one bombshell they exposed? What
was one threat to the republic that they caught just in
time? What did it show about investigative journalism
except that reporters can become stars, too, just like
used-car salesmen? After all this short decade, what
sticks to the ribs as something they did that was heroic?
But, finally, the system worked. That positively was
what Watergate proved. Satisfied now, little Peterkin?
Yes, but how did it prove the system worked? If
whatever Nixon did was so obscure that no one can
even remember what he did any longer, if it is shrouded
in the mists of forgetting after only 10 years, how dras-
tic could it have been?
More to the point, if we cannot even remember what
Richard Nixon's crimes were, why did we kick him out?
If he didn't do anything memorably terrible, how could
the system possibly have worked by removing him from
office? In the retrospect of 10 years, it all looks more as
if the system did not work. If the nation chased a presi-
dent out of office for the only time in 200 years and no
one clearly remembers why, something went drastically
wrong, not drastically right.
But perhaps even that is beside the point. Perhaps
the only point now is that everyone has forgotten. Rich-
ard Nixon is respected again, at least in influential quar-
ters. The press is back to reporting about man bites
dog. The relentless wars between the free and the un-
free go on at the margins of each as they will until one
side exists no more.
When my Valley Girls ask me why I have a file of let-
ters from Bob Haldeman or how I got my shiny White
House cuff links, I will no longer even try to tell them
what happened. No one knows, and no one remembers
any longer, after all, except that it was a famous victory.
Benjamin J. Stein, a Hollywood writer and pro-
ducer, was a speechwriter for presidents Nixon and
Ford, specializing in economic and transportation
issues.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/19: CIA-RDP90-00806R000201180029-8