Saturday, December 29, 2012

All The President’s Men: Chapter 10-17


The next chapters of All The President’s Men, following my post of chapter 1-9, as the first inquiry of my The Well-Educated Mind Self-Project.

Chapter 10

After election Washington Post got a source who was willing to guide them to the right path on their Watergate journalism. The source said that Nixon’s assistant had done investigation about “news leakage”. Meanwhile White House had started to put hard pressure upon Washington Post.

Chapter 11

The two Washington Post reporters—Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward—were summoned to the court for asking questions to Watergate jury, but they could luckily get away from punishment. Watergate defendants were persuaded by CRP to plead guilty. The trial did not end satisfyingly.

Chapter 12

A senator started a thorough investigation of Watergate, he would challenge White House executives by summoning President’s assistants. It was found that Nixon’s team had screwed few other Presidential candidates’ campaign with dirty tricks; Senator John F. Kennedy was one of the victims. CRP finally issued subpoena for Washington Post and few other media.

Chapter 13

Washington Post found false campaigns conducted by Nixon’s team over some issues to stimulate public opinion. ‘Deep Throat’ said that President was furious of Watergate news leakage. White House wanted to get rid of Washington Post, but on the other hand they were also frustrated because the game was now near the end. The new FBI Director has been appointed, and his testimony had helped Washington Post to clear its reputation.

Richard M. Nixon

Chapter 14

Money was still flowing even after Watergate. There were first signs of catastrophe that would strike White House. President held a press conference saying that he would let his assistants testify in front of Watergate Senate Committee. Meanwhile few of his Advisors resigned, while the other started to whistle about his colleagues’ involvement in the scandal.

Chapter 15

President’s loyal men started to fight each other between themselves. Nixon’s Advisor—John Dean—had reported to him that two of his men knew all about Watergate, but those two persuaded Nixon to sacrifice Dean. Moreover, seemed that there had been many illegal activities like Watergate “from the beginning”, and at the end John Dean might be involving the President for covering up illegal activities.

Chapter 16

President Nixon announced resignation of his two most loyal men who had involved in Watergate. White House then made an open apology to Washington Post. It’s revealed that to investigate “news leakage” White House had done 17 tapping; Henry Kissinger—President’s Assistant for national Security—had given the authority to FBI. ‘Deep Throat’ warned the two reporters that the situation was getting more dangerous; CIA might have been watching them electronically. Meanwhile it’s obvious that President actively involved in the Watergate covering-up activities, but a president could not be indicted constitutionally when he was still serving. The biggest surprise was that the President even tapped his own office!

Chapter 17

White House finally submitted the tapping tapes, although there was one or two that had been erased. All the guilty President’s men were indicted one by one by the jury, and the House of Representatives finally started their investigation to impeach the President.


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Wednesday, December 26, 2012

All The President’s Men: Chapter 1-9


All The President’s Men is a history book about Watergate scandal that forced US President Richard Nixon to resign his office in 1974. I read this book for my The Well Educated Mind Self-Project. There would be two chapter posts, this one is for chapter 1-9, and there will be the second one for chapter 10-17. These chapter posts are part of the first level of inquiry for the project, the grammar-stage.

Two reporters of Washington Post doing reports of Watergate

Chapter 1

Five men were arrested for breaking-in the Democratic headquarter in Watergate. One of the main suspects (Howard Hunt) is a White House consultant.

Chapter 2

There was large sum of money in one of the Watergate suspects’ account which could be tracked to President Nixon’s Committee for Re-election of The President (CRP) campaign fund.

Chapter 3

A scheme of money laundering in Mexico was found, and interviews of CRP staffs revealed that the huge amount of money was used for Watergate’s tapping, and was distributed by highest level persons in CRP. Investigation was being held by the federal, but the final charges did not go as expected, the biggest evidence hadn’t mentioned at all.

Chapter 4

There had been some efforts to hide facts of Watergate tapping: documents were destroyed, staffs were under pressure to stay away from press, staffs were persuaded to give certain answers to FBI, and staffs possessed critical information were promoted after Watergate. Washington Post had a valuable source with nickname "Deep Throat".

Chapter 5

John Mitchell—Attorney General—was one of the controllers of the secret slush fund which was used for financing illegal intelligence activities against Democratic. There were four others related to it, one of them was from inside the White House. A security personnel named Baldwin confessed about the tapping.

Chapter 6

Nixon’s presidential campaign also used young attorneys—“Mafia USC”—to do political sabotage and espionage—“double spy”—to infiltrate the Democratic. There were more than fifty agents of White House who were directed to ruin the opposition and made the whole election collapsed.

Chapter 7

The “Mafia USC” recruiter had a relation with Howard Hunt; he was paid by Nixon’s private lawyer. Nixon’s campaign used provocateurs to sabotage Democratic convention, while Nixon’s Assistant was mentioned as one of the sabotage’s contacts. The Ministry of Justice had most of the evidences, but they have not done anything yet to follow up the case.

Chapter 8

Nixon’s Private Lawyer turned out to be one of five people who had the authority to withdraw the “secret fund”. Nixon’s Campaign Director finally held a press conference as a counter attack to Washington Post, but they still did not respond to the accusation.

Chapter 9

It was finally revealed that Nixon’s Assistant was the fifth person who controlled the secret fund, the key person of Watergate. Overjoyed with this, Washington Post made a mistake by publishing news which the reporters had misinterpreted their source. The investigation was then stuck.


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