Penelope’s Loom

Well, Nixon’s White House was not really like that!  It was rather more like this:   Alright. I know that the Custer analogy is totally obvious. Yet the important thing to remember here is that this is how Nixon perceived his situation by 1973–a general watching his command slowly being stripped away by really pissed off Indian warriors. The events leading up to Nixon’s resignation in August, 1974, became ever more dramatic, as revelations gradually revealed the extent of the coverup. So, how did those threads begin to unravel? One of the first was the death of the spouse of one of the watergate burglars, Dorothy Hunt. Married to E Howard Hunt, she was killed in a plane crash in Chicago in 1972, and yet in her purse was approximately some $10.000 in sequential bills. Some agencies, such as the FBI (and Mark Felt, whom some of you may know by his nom de plume, "deep throat") knew instantly when the money was found, that there was mischief afoot.  And, so began the long journey

 Watergate was one of the more complicated Gordian Knots of American political history.  While it appeared to be about a break-in at the Democratic National Committee Headquarters in Washington DC (which were of course located in the Watergate complex), it was actually about so much more--a systematic series of covert actions by the men in Nixon's White House, that broke literally every political law we have in this country.  Watergate began as a weird story about some middle aged former spies, who were arrested for breaking and entering the home court of the opposing political party, one fine early morning, and ended with the resignation of a president. So, how did it begin?  Well, in a former post, I dealt with Nixon's history of political dirty tricks, particularly in terms of winning elections.  Remember ratfucking?  By 1972, Nixon was convinced that the radical Left was gunning for him.  He was obsessed with the fact that the radical Left was somehow going to sabotage his

Richard Nixon came to government at a ridiculously young age right after World War Two where he had a marvelous career as a card shark while serving in the Pacific theater.  As a young congressman, Nixon did his best to represent his rural Californian district. Oddly enough, JFK came to congress in the same year. For a brief space of time both freshmen found some comfort in the display of their staunch anti-communist credentials.  Nixon proved to be something of a genius in taking advantage of his political opportunities, and a few years saw him taking a senate seat away from liberal Helen Gehagan Douglas.  It’s also of note that Nixon s tactics in that campaign earned him the nickname of “tricky Dick” from Douglas—a nom de plume that would follow him for the rest of his political career.  What kinds of shenanigans ?  I can only refer you to the term popularized during Watergate—“ratfucking”.   Should you wish greater insight into this method of political dirty tricks, let me recommen