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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