#Non-fiction Watergate A New History
- Author: Garrett M. Graff
- Title: Watergate A New History
- Genre: non-fiction (793 pg)
- Rating: A++
- #NonFicNov (starting reading in October!)
Bad news: The book is very long…and I’m afraid if you’re not a “history buff” you may give up after 50%. But there is a reason it is a challenge….Graff’s excellent research! Sometimes a book appears interesting but you are not sure if you’ll finish it. There is an EXCELLENT audio version of this
Good news: Once the book enters the “investigation” period by the Washington Post (Woodward and Bernstein) it picks up steam! Names of the Watergate ‘plumbers’, Nixon aides and politicians of the early 1970s are till fresh in many baby boomer’s minds.
Good news: The book does NOT re-investigate Watergate but adds many, many informative footnotes that bring this political tragedy up-to-date with what we know now.
Personal: I was fascinated in the insights G. Graff gives the reader about Nixon’s character and state of mind while his political world is crashing down around him. Nixon would vanish to his “private” office, sip his scotch on the rocks and sometimes Al Haig ….was running the govenrment b/c Nixon was inebriated, intoxicated with alcohol…wasted.
#ExcellentRead…..if you like history..or not!
NOTES:
September 18, 2024 – page 39
4.69% Just finished chapter 3 The Chennault Affair. I knew Nixon was a devious, shifty politician but never knew about this! Graff’s book Watergate: A New History…is NOT just a rehash of history but reveals new info!
September 19, 2024 – page 70
8.41% I thought a book about Watergate would be somewhat boring but still interesting to read about. Well, I stand corrected…this book is a page tuner! Nixon wanted to bruglarize Brooking b/c they had a report in their safe that could expose some “secrets” about Nixon. FBi was not good enough so Nixon hired ex-CIA E. Howard Hunt. N: ” I want to crack down on every goddamn leak”…I know how to play this game”.
September 20, 2024 – page 150
18.03% “I’m not a crook.” Who said that? While reading this book at times I gasp at what Nixon was prepared to do: secret taping conversations, even Kissinger did not know about it, keeping tapes about Daniel Ellsburg in WH safe so Nixon could claim “executive privilage” and keep them away from grand jury. Funny, feesl like Nixon was just as bad as Trump…but without the graft of selling bibles, sneakers and coffee mugs!
September 23, 2024 – page 170
20.43% Nixon compiled “enemies lists” like other people would make a grocery list!
Fun fact:
An admiral at the Pentagon was spying on Nixon by getting his hands on files in Kissinger’s office!
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