Keith Olson's Watergate Book Reviewed Essay

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Review/Analysis of Watergate: The Presidential Scandal that Shook AmericaOlson begins his tale of Watergate by noting that “Richard M. Nixon intended to shape national policies according to his political agenda and his personal likes and dislikes” (5). The main theme here is that Nixon did not serve the interests of the American people but rather his own interests. The Watergate scandal revealed the reality of this situation to the nation, and the nation pushed back—including members of his own political party—so that he ended up resigning from office. That is the theme that Olson focuses on in his book Watergate: The Presidential Scandal that Shook America. However, politics being complicated, and the US government having a vast treasure trove of secrets, can one really rest easy in adopting such a simple view of the Watergate episode? Perhaps there was more going on than Nixon’s own personal interests. Perhaps Nixon was as much a victim of Watergate as the DNC offices that his plumbers were allegedly targeting.One must consider, after all, that two Kennedys had been assassinated, along with Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X. The 1960s were a horrible period in America. People literally thought the nation had turned into a banana republic. In fact, that was Eisenhower’s reaction when hearing that Ruby shot Oswald on live TV (Talbot). Nixon may not have had anything to do with any of those assassinations—but one thing is clear: the scandal of Watergate surely pales in comparison to every single one of those murders. Yet the outreach and scorned heaped upon Nixon is more than is heaped upon almost any other president—except perhaps Donald Trump. But readers could easily draw parallels between Olson’s characterization of Nixon and the popular press’s characterization of Trump in the White House.

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Both presidents have been painted as being personally motivated to lie, cheat, conceal, and deceive.Olson does a good job of making the case against Nixon. He sets the…

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…intent on starting WW3 with Russia, does he not? The point is that Nixon should not be viewed or portrayed or condemned as totally abominable or corrupt. There is a lot more going on with Watergate than most chronicles like Olson’s will attempt to explain—and that can be said as fact simply by looking at some of the plumbers involved in the break-in and their connections with intelligence going all the way back to the 1960s. Hunt, for instance, like had much to tell about a certain assassination, as Talbot reminds his readers.Overall, the book is a very good read, interesting, sharply focused, and well-written. But the perspective of the author focuses perhaps a bit too much on Nixon as a conniving crook. Undoubtedly Nixon had secrets—but undoubtedly many others in Washington did as well. Olson’s exclusive focus on Nixon’s attempt to cover things up and hide tapes from Congress does not allow for a deep penetration into the mysteries of Washington. It….....

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