THE MYSTERIES OF WATERGATE: What Was Never Told to the Public

Watergate was our country’s, perhaps the world’s, most impactful political scandal, resulting in the conviction of over forty Nixon Administration officials and the resignation in lieu of impeachment of a President who had just been re-elected in the most lopsided electoral college defeat in history. 

The scandal is also recognized as journalistically impelled, and thus the founding charter for today’s style of what is called “investigative” journalism.

But after literally thousands of Watergate articles by the Washington Post, followed by hundreds of Watergate books, numerous movies, documentaries and television treatments, the public still has not been told what Watergate was truly about. Yes, Richard Nixon resigned, as he should have, and was guilty of obstruction of justice. So, case closed, correct? 

Not really. During Watergate, both the public, and, yes, the White House, was not provided information clearly known to both the Washington Post and to the President’s legal advisor, John Dean, the former which still touts its Pulitzer Prize for its reporting, the latter who still poses as a Boy Scout caught in bad company. While “counterfactual” or “alternative” history is always a fraught enterprise, it will prove a fascinating exercise nonetheless to learn what for fifty years has been concealed from the public about this definitive, journalistically celebrated scandal.

John O’Connor is a San Francisco based trial lawyer and former federal prosecutor who has tried cases in state and federal courts throughout the country.