Questions about Nixon and Watergate

[Winston]

There's something I never understood about Watergate. Since Nixon was already going to win according to all the polls, why did he need to cheat and send people to break into the Democratic offices, and risk his whole career? It doesn't seem to make sense.

Also, did Nixon ever confess to orchestrating Watergate? What did he say in the David Frost interview?

[swincor]

Well, first it's never been firmly established what the burglars were looking for when they invaded the Watergate complex. We can only assume they wanted either sensitive or embarrassing information on the Democrats to use against them for the upcoming 1972 election or beyond.

Second, it's very plausible, and even likely, that Nixon did not have prior knowledge of the attempted Watergate break-in, as he normally left such black bag operations for his underlings to handle. Considering the legally treacherous nature of the black bag operations, the imperative by his underlings to keep such activities from being traced back directly to their boss, not to mention the stupidity of burglarizing the headquarters of the opposition party, it would have been both insane and suicidal for Nixon to have known about and ordered the break-in.

The Watergate break-in was essentially carried out by men recruited and funded by Nixon's top-level subordinates, notably John Ehrlichman and John Mitchell. It was Ehrlichman who created the Plumbers Unit, a sort of in-house security unit that had carried out the burglary of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office a year earlier in 1971.

(Ellsberg at the time had just released to the press a massive trove of documents called the "Pentagon Papers" which was a secret history of the Vietnam War.)

Yes, the whole incident was both foolish and unnecessary. Going after Ellsberg like that was especially reckless, and may have emboldened Nixon's men to commit the Watergate break-in.

And no, Nixon never did confess to orchestrating Watergate, as he probably had nothing to do with it anyway. In the interview with Frost, he did acknowledge putting the country through the wringer during that whole period, and sounded quite apologetic, although no apology was actually uttered by him.

[Winston]

Roger Stone, a long time political insider in Washington DC, reveals in this speech and interview some things about Nixon and Watergate and his pardon, that the American people were not told and have been covered up. He has a new book about it too, called "Nixon's Secrets: The Untold Story of Watergate and the Pardon". Apparently, the CIA tried to assassination Nixon several times, but failed. The power cabal were pissed that Nixon pulled troops out of Vietnam which made defense contractors lose their profits, and that he normalized relations with China, which they didn't want.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEF7vpmqZOI[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWpJ7ubN_6g[/youtube]

[Winston]

I don't get something. We've all seen photos of Nixon at Bohemian Grove, the camp of the elites and their secret societies which run America. So why didn't the secret society that Nixon belonged to, protect him during the Watergate scandal?

[Winston]