I was only thirteen yrs old in 1972.
Something stupid and crazy happened in June of that year. It happened so silently it was only a blip on the radar, and probably only a couple of the local newspapers carried the story: a local hotel and office complex had been broken into by a few guys, in the middle of the night. It wasn’t anywhere near a national story, and even if it were, at the age of eleven, my world only consisted of my neighborhood, and probably a mile or two circle surrounding it.
I probably only read the comics in the newspaper and was way too young to be interested in watching the news. Funny thing though about this local so-called office burglary? The perpetrators were all wearing suits. This caused a lot of people to scratch their heads, especially reporters who, as a normal part of their job, monitored court proceedings, and saw these five “burglars”, in suits, come before a judge the next morning, for their arraignment.
A few months later, in the fall of 1972, right before the presidential election, a grand jury indicted the five men with violation of federal wiretapping laws.
Richard Nixon was reelected in November that year, with five hundred and twenty (520) electoral votes, with his opponent George McGovern, only getting 17.
It was truly a landslide victory for President Nixon.
A couple of months after the presidential election, in January, 1973, the burglars were convicted and sentenced.
But rather than end there, the scandal and its investigation broadened into President Nixon’s reelection campaign committee, and then, to his actual WhiteHouse staff.
It took awhile, but people / reporters started putting two and two together, and this local burglary story eventually became national news.
And in the spring of 1973, eventually enough evidence mounted against members of the president’s own staff, forcing President Nixon’s top advisors to resign in disgrace.
During that summer of 1973, the United States Senate established a committee to investigate this scandal, in order to get to the bottom of it.
As time wore on, this was almost the only news that people cared about, it was in all of the newspapers, not just the Washington papers, but all of the metro papers and it was on the news most every night.
I can imagine, I think, that this Washington DC scandal was what everyone talked about at the office water cooler. If I had been, perhaps, five years older, out of high school, and maybe already in college, I can imagine young adults arguing with their dad’s over this scandal, and everyone wondering what it all meant, and who knew what, and when did they know it, and how far up the chain did it go.
Being a 13-14 yr old kid, in seventh/eighth grade, all I was interested in was playing basketball, reading my books, playing saxophone, watching Batman!, and just wanting girls to like me. I wasn’t into reading the newspapers, I wasn’t into listening to Walter Cronkite or Dan Rather on the tv. There wasn’t anything called the internet. No one had a computer in their house, no one even thought that someday, a huge room-sized computer could be made small enough to place on a table in their house. People thought Star Trek’s “communicators” were cute, but it never occurred to them that that technology would be created in their lifetime, only twenty years later.
I was only thirteen/fourteen yrs old, I didn’t know what was going on. I’m pretty sure my dad (or my mom) hadn’t a clue either. I am not able to recall whether or not any of our social studies classes touched on these “current events” or not.
The story, scandal and conspiracy expanded even further during the next year, into early 1974, and there was talk about “impeaching” the President. No one had ever heard this terminology used before. No one knew what it meant.
But more and more stories were being published each and every day, more and more newscasts were being aired regarding President Nixon, and how his own party did not believe him any more, how they thought he was in it from the very beginning.
Then, we learned that there apparently was a taping system in the WhiteHouse and it had recorded conversations between President Nixon and his staff during the first few days after that burglary of that office complex.
President Nixon claimed executive privilege and did not want to turn over any of those tapes.
The Supreme Court of the United States somehow got involved and eventually ruled that our President had to turn over the tapes to the special prosecutor.
Only problem was, one tape had an issue, it had an 18-1/2 minute gap, that apparently had been erased. This tape, coincidently, was made on the first evening after that original burglary, and on it were conversations President Nixon was having with his Chief of Staff as well as his most senior advisor.
People in the nation didn’t know what to think, congress didn’t know what to think. Was our President, this man who we had just reelected less than two years ago, was he involved since day one, knowing about the burglary, and directing his people to cover it up, to conceal evidence of their involvement, of his own involvement?
Eventually, pressure from the nation, from the newspapers, from the evening news programs, from the magazines, from congress, from almost everyone, was too great for him, and President Nixon resigned in early August, 1974, in disgrace, after less than 18 months into his second term in office.
It took more than a few years for the nation to heal. You see, while this thing was happening, the country became divided. People could not believe their President would be capable of this, could be this corrupt. While others felt otherwise, they felt his corruption, they heard his lies, and understood them to be lies.
“I am not a crook”.
“I am not a crook”.
“I am not a crook”.
I was only thirteen when the burglary occurred. I was fifteen when he resigned. I didn’t know anything about government, I didn’t know anything about politics. I didn’t know anything about “corruption”. I didn’t know the difference between “good” and “bad” presidents. I didn’t know anything about anything. I was just a stupid teenage kid.
I read Woodward and Bernstein’s “All the president’s men”, when I was in high school. I watched the TV movie, based on that book. I’ve now read more than a few biographies on President Nixon over the last twenty years or more.
I’m now fifty seven years old. I’m no longer a stupid kid any more.
I now know about corruption, I now know when people are lying. I now know what makes a “good” President and what makes a “bad” President.
History teaches us things.
It’s taught me a few things during my subsequent adult years.
“I am not a crook”.
“I am not a crook”.
“I am not a crook”.
Ever since the beginning of the 2016 presidential election campaign, someone has been trying to separate the county into factions, and he is now our president. In some respects it’s been working, in other respects, it’s obviously not. I feel it’s better to get our current President out of office as soon as we can. Otherwise, in my opinion, he will continue to rip this nation apart, in more ways than one.
#IPersisted
#IResisted
#iAmNotACrook
#Resist
