Constitutional Law, Military, Politics

Forty Years Later: The Lessons of Watergate

180px-WatergateFromAir220px-Nixon-departToday I will join a distinguished panel to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Watergate. I will be speaking with Liz Holtzman, member of the House Judiciary Committee during Watergate; Daniel Ellsberg, of Pentagon Papers fame; and Fritz Schwarz, Chief Counsel, Brennan Center for Justice and former Chief Counsel to the Church Committee. We will be discussing the legacy of Watergate in terms of our current controversies over FISA, war powers, presidential papers, and other executive abuses.


The event will be held in the National Press Club and is being organized by Common Cause. The panel will be held at 3:30 pm on March 13, 2013 at 529 14th St. NW, Washington DC 20045.

You can register to watch the conference here

69 thoughts on “Forty Years Later: The Lessons of Watergate”

  1. Dog, Martha Graham was a dancer.
    Katherine Graham was a publisher.
    I liked Martha Graham better. That woman could DANCE!

  3. Transcripts from June 1971:

    Nixon: “If we can get him [Daniel Ellsberg] tied in with some communist groups, that would be good…of course, that’s my guess…”

    Nixon (next day): “They [the Brookings Institution] have lot of material…I want Brookings, I want them just to break in and take it out…”

    Haldeman: “Yeah. But you have to have somebody to do it.”

    Nixon: “…You talk to [E. Howard Hunt]. I want the break-in…You’re to break into the place, rifle the files, and bring them in.”

    Nixon later came up with the idea of purchasing a fire-engine and fire-bombing the Brookings Institution with the Plumbers masquerading as fire fighters.

    Later John Dean, Nixon’s attorney, stated that he warned Nixon that if anyone got killed in the fire-bombing that Nixon risked being charged with man slaughter so the plan never got executed.

    From the book: “Watergate (Second Edition)” by Stanley Cutler 2010.

  4. Barking Dog:

    now that is interesting because I understand that Harriman used the depression and the Glass Steagall act to take on JP Morgan.

    Now that is just funny.

    That would mean Glass Steagall was a fascist tool to impede competition. Hmmmmmmmmm.

    “The micro-history approach of this article has pinpointed the specific individuals who were responsible for the Glass-Steagall Act’s provisions separating commercial and investment banking. More than anyone else, Winthrop Aldrich, representative of the Rockefeller banking interests, was responsible for the separation of commercial and investment banking. With the help of other well-connected antiMorgan bankers like W. Averell Harriman, Aldrich drove the separation of commercial and investment banking through Congress. Although separation raised the costs of banking to the Rockefeller group, separation hurt the House of Morgan disroportionately and gave the Rockefeller group a decisive advantage in their battle with the Morgans.”

    http://mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae1_1_1.pdf

  6. Bron 1, March 13, 2013 at 7:36 am

    according to G. Gordon Liddy, the lesson of Watergate is dont listen to John Dean when he wants a little black book with his wife’s name in it.
    ========================================
    The conference is going on now.

    The evidence is abundant and overwhelming that Nixon was the biggest crook to ever sit in the White House while pretending to be president.

  7. BarkinDog 1, March 13, 2013 at 9:33 am

    … I wonder if the present generations of Bush have investments with al qaeda folks from Saudi Arabia like Prescott did with the Nazis from Germany in 1942.
    ================================================
    They have now become Oil-Qaeda, a much more dangerous terrorist group than the fabled al-Qaeda.

  8. Can someone identify even one secret that Bradley Manning is accused of divulging to wiki leaks or anyone else that was damaging to the United States? Is this like the guy who stole the Atom Bomb secrets Klaus Fuch and gave them to the Russians? Did he divulge that we had bribed Iraqi people to overthrow their dictator?

    Why did Manning plead guilty to some charges if the pigs are going to charge him with more treason? Maybe he plead guilty so they would quit starving him and making him sleep naked in a cold cell night after night with not blanket or toilet paper.

    While we are at it here can we discuss the war crimes which America prosecuted at Nuremburg which are similar to the torture of Bradley Manning by our troops and poops at Quantico?

  9. Yes. BarkinDog: The lessons of the 1933 Parallels (70 years ago) need to be discussed alongside the so called lessons of the Pentagon Papers from forty years ago. If Georgie H. W. Bush was a Scion of Prescott Bush then he must follow in the Legacy (thats how junior got into Yale) of the Nazi investment broker. And if George W. Bush is a Scion of Prescott Bush then he two is a Legacy and a footprint of the Nazi investment broker. Ya cant take credit for grandpa’s supposed good deeds and not be accountable for his treason.

  10. I read the Daniel Ellsberg article which I found on the internet yesterday. Had Martha Graham been involved in posting some of the Manning leaks he might not be being prosecuted so vigorously and might not have been tortured. Martha Graham was publisher of the Washington Post at the time of Watergate. The Post and about four other newspapers published some of the Pentagon Papers. The question must arise today and JT could raise it- as to whether there is anything released by Manning which is truly dangerous to American National Security. I capitalizedd the first letters here on purpose. There seems to be a higher purpose here in the government’s efforts to kill Bradley Manning. There are many people in America who do not know what the Pentagon Papers incident (nice term) was about or who know who the hell Daniel Ellsberg is or was.

    This is part of the 1933 Parallels. i.e. the Parallels between: 1. the Nazi Germany which began with the Reichstag Fire, The Reichstag Fire Decree issued by Hindenburg and which culminated in the Holocaust; and, 2. the Saudi Arabia attack on 9/11 of the Twin Towers, Pentagon and (failed) White House, and subsequent Patriot Act and other Acts. In suppressing Manning, we are doing what the Germans did to kill off critics during the Nazi era. Same tactics different place. Same strokes for different folks.

    While you are at it folks check out Prescott Bush and his investment in Nazi treasure and his attempt to protect their investment here in AmeriKa. Here is a tidbit from Google regarding the father of our two scions:

    Bush was one of seven directors (including W. Averell Harriman) of the Union Banking Corporation, an investment bank that operated as a clearing house for many assets and enterprises held by German steel magnate Fritz Thyssen.[6][7] In July 1942, the bank was suspected of holding gold on behalf of Nazi leaders.[8] A subsequent government investigation disproved those allegations but confirmed the Thyssens’ control, and in October 1942 the United States seized the bank under the Trading with the Enemy Act and held the assets for the duration of World War II.[6]
    –end

    You can trade with the enemy and get away with it in Amerika. If you are a scion of a Yale grandee like Prescott Bush you can be President. All is forgiven. Same thing for grandson scion and gread grandson scion named George Prescott Bush who is no running for some office in Texas. The American traditions of “Scions” and “Legacies” needs to be discussed on this blog. Had Bradley Manning been a Scion his deeds would have gone unprosecuted. I wonder if the present generations of Bush have investments with al qaeda folks from Saudi Arabia like Prescott did with the Nazis from Germany in 1942.

  11. Watergate was a political “coup” to cheat the democratic system – this is the worst type of crime that a government servant can commit in a constitutional democratic republic. Watergate was probably kid’s play compared to his covert activities uncovered by the Church Committee – many of those crimes have since been declassified. Nixon even considered fire-bombing the Brookings Institution – a terrorist act!

  12. Nice elevator music … no one is speaking yet … people still being seated … will check back in when Ellsberg or JT are speaking.

  13. AY:

    I used to listen G. Gordon and when he first brought the subject up, I bought a couple of books. After reading the books, my opinion is that Watergate was a John Dean operation to protect his wife’s reputation. Nixon’s only crime was covering it up and he did so because he thought no one would believe he didnt ok it to begin with.

    Sex brought down Nixon. Not that I care, the only positive thing to say about Nixon is that he wasnt McGovern.

  15. Does this conference continue to the end of the year? One day seems to me to be enough for only one page in a book describing all the lessons learned, ignored, manipulated, denied,spun, glossed over, and repeated.

  16. Bron,

    Tacky, tasteless and true…. Most of all funny…

    Just sorry they didn’t do more…

  18. One lesson should be that if you allow criminals to go unpunished future criminals will use that to justify worse crimes in the future.

    How many toadies from the Nixon White House built the foundation for the Bush crimes?

  20. according to G. Gordon Liddy, the lesson of Watergate is dont listen to John Dean when he wants a little black book with his wife’s name in it.

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