Many -especially those who only know Watergate from the movie "All The President's Men" - don't realize how severe and endangered the US Government really was at that time. As the Supreme Court was deciding US verses Richard Nixon (a 9-0 vote), the court was also considering what to do should the president order troops to occupy the Supreme Court building. Yes, Washington was becoming that scary back then. Nixon's own people, by this point, had ordered the military to ignore any presidential request to launch missiles until confirmation came from a select group (which included the Sec of Defense). Yes, they even worried that Nixon might go berserk.
One must also remember that outside of Woodward and Bernstein, litteraly no one was doing any serious reporting on Watergate. As Nixon was parading in his second inauguration, jurors who were deliberating the Watergate burglar trial watched the Nixon motorcade go past. Hardly any news sources were reporting on Watergate then. And yet the crisis could have (doubtful but some still worried about the possibility) developed into a coup.
When were the last time there was no network TV and no commercials for continuous weeks for every minute of the Senate Watergate hearings. Literally no commercials and no TV during those weeks. Same with the impeachment hearings. It was back then that serious a threat to the US Constitution. And as we all well know, Nixon was a crook. He even lied about being a crook on national TV.
IEEE Spectrum reports on the man who led a study on those missing 18.5 minutes on those tapes - James Flanagan of the Bell Labs. The tape had been erased in at least five segments. Erasures that required hand operation of keyboard controls (at least 5 times) and definitely not by the foot pedal or by accident as Nixon's secretary Rose Mary Woods had speculated. The tape has been preserved so that some day a technology might recover those 18 minutes where the Watergate conspiracy is said to have been discussed in detail.
But there is no doubt people like Deep Throat and Judge Sirica are classic examples of what a Medal of Freedom winner are suppose to be.
However who would want it. A man who even violated principles well taught in 500 BC, Ambassador Bremmer, and who created the Iraqi insurgency, is a Medal of Freedom winner. Clearly the Medal does not deserve such stellar American heroes such as Mark Felt.
A remaining question is how important was Felt to Woodward and Bernstein - who have said so little about Felt. It is quite possible that Woodward and Bernstein would have been removed from their Watergate investigation had not Mark Felt come forward. The 'powers that be' back then were so adverse to suggestions that Watergate existed - which was why Watergate was so little reported outside of the Washington Post. Back then, the US could unilaterally attack any nation and that other nation "must have been wrong". The mentality of those times - the president was never wrong. Never.
Again, most don't realize how severe and endangered the US Government really was at that time. Few have any idea of the balls it took for Ms Graham to permit those Watergate stories be reported. Washington had become a very scary place in Nixon's time.
Lets also not forget when the US came closest to all out Nuclear war. Not during the Cuban Missile Crisis. It was during the height of the Watergate scandel.
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