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A review by professor_x
Watergate: A New History by Garrett M. Graff
5.0
A former president of the United States is facing four indictments. He’s also the only president to be impeached twice. As sad as these facts are, I also find them intriguing. Naturally I wanted to learn more about the subject of impeachment and about the president infamously associated with that word – Richard M. Nixon.
From what I’ve gathered from reviewers who’ve read other books on Watergate, it’s unanimous that this is considered the most comprehensive work available. Graff had access to troves of newly unclassified documents, letters, memos, notes, transcripts and other material. From this mountain of information, he masterly sculpts a narrative that, miraculously, is easy to follow. There’s a slew of characters involved – burglars, lawyers, counselors, congressmen, journalists, agents – enough to leave the reader boggled if it wasn’t for Graff’s talented writing. The man is a wizard.
By the end of the book, I was thoroughly horrified. I had no knowledge of the illegal bombings of Cambodia or about the Chennault Affair – Nixon’s attempt to stall President Johnson’s peace talks with Vietnam to end the war. Graff shows that Watergate wasn’t some random, one-time incident; it was the culmination of other scandals and the lack of oversight that created an environment in the White House of dirty politics.
The book is a whopping 673 pages or so, not counting the notes and bibliography sections, but the book reads like a political thriller, and it was never a bog. A masterful work indeed.
********************************************************************
If I took one lesson from this work, it is this – you can never trust government. It is made of people, and people are greedy, jealous, power-hungry, conniving beings. Republican, Democrat – doesn’t matter. It is the civic duty of a county’s citizens to be skeptical and to never stop questioning the veracity of its government. Thanks to a free press, the Gordian Knot that was Watergate slowly unraveled.
From what I’ve gathered from reviewers who’ve read other books on Watergate, it’s unanimous that this is considered the most comprehensive work available. Graff had access to troves of newly unclassified documents, letters, memos, notes, transcripts and other material. From this mountain of information, he masterly sculpts a narrative that, miraculously, is easy to follow. There’s a slew of characters involved – burglars, lawyers, counselors, congressmen, journalists, agents – enough to leave the reader boggled if it wasn’t for Graff’s talented writing. The man is a wizard.
By the end of the book, I was thoroughly horrified. I had no knowledge of the illegal bombings of Cambodia or about the Chennault Affair – Nixon’s attempt to stall President Johnson’s peace talks with Vietnam to end the war. Graff shows that Watergate wasn’t some random, one-time incident; it was the culmination of other scandals and the lack of oversight that created an environment in the White House of dirty politics.
The book is a whopping 673 pages or so, not counting the notes and bibliography sections, but the book reads like a political thriller, and it was never a bog. A masterful work indeed.
********************************************************************
If I took one lesson from this work, it is this – you can never trust government. It is made of people, and people are greedy, jealous, power-hungry, conniving beings. Republican, Democrat – doesn’t matter. It is the civic duty of a county’s citizens to be skeptical and to never stop questioning the veracity of its government. Thanks to a free press, the Gordian Knot that was Watergate slowly unraveled.