THE FALL OF NIXON
Watergate and the Crisis of American Democracy, 1972-1974By James Prescott Marlowe
Length6h 7m
About this audiobook
The complete narrative history of Watergate — Richard Nixon, the cover-up, Deep Throat, impeachment, and the resignation that proved no president is above the law, 1972-1974.
Shortly after midnight on June 17, 1972, security guard Frank Wills found tape covering a door latch in the Watergate complex. He removed it. An hour later, new tape covered the same latch. He called the police. Officers found five men in surgical gloves on the sixth floor of the Democratic National Committee headquarters — carrying $2,300 in sequentially numbered bills, surveillance equipment, and a lock pick. Their leader was James McCord, security director of Nixon's Committee to Re-Elect the President.
This is the story of how that third-rate burglary became the greatest constitutional crisis since the Civil War. Across twenty-four chapters, historian James Prescott Marlowe traces the Watergate scandal — from the 1972 break-in through the Saturday Night Massacre, the Supreme Court's unanimous ruling in United States v. Nixon, the smoking-gun tape, and Richard Nixon's resignation on August 9, 1974 — and examines the reforms and lasting questions it left behind.
Inside this Watergate history:
The culture of dirty tricks — CREEP's sixty-million-dollar operation, Donald Segretti's sabotage network, and Gordon Liddy's GEMSTONE program (Chapter 1)
The cover-up's mechanics — the June 23 smoking-gun tape, the hush-money pipeline through Herbert Kalmbach, and Dean's "cancer on the presidency" warning (Chapters 3, 11)
Woodward, Bernstein, and Deep Throat — how W. Mark Felt, passed over for the FBI directorship, guided the Washington Post's investigation from inside the bureau (Chapter 5)
The Saturday Night Massacre — Nixon's firing of Archibald Cox and the resignation of Attorney General Richardson (Chapter 7)
United States v. Nixon — the unanimous Supreme Court ruling that executive privilege is not absolute, sixteen days before the resignation (Chapter 10)
August 9, 1974 — the East Room farewell, the double V-sign on the South Lawn, Ford's "our long national nightmare is over," and the pardon that cost Ford the 1976 election (Chapters 12, 20)
The reforms and the reckoning — the Federal Election Campaign Act, FISA, and the Church Committee's intelligence oversight revolution (Chapters 21-24)
Watergate produced Haldeman and Ehrlichman's convictions, the only presidential resignation in American history, and constitutional precedent on executive privilege that governs American law today. Can democratic institutions hold the most powerful official in the world accountable? They can. But it is not guaranteed.
For readers of Bob Woodward's ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN and John Dean's BLIND AMBITION.
Audiobook details
GenreHistory, Biography and Memoir
Length6 hrs 7 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Introduction
2Author’s Note
3Prologue: The Break-In
4PART ONE: THE CRIME (1972)
5Chapter 1: CREEP — Nixon's Committee and the Culture of Dirty Tricks
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6Chapter 2: June 17, 1972 — The Watergate Burglary
7Chapter 3: The Cover-Up Begins — Hush Money, False Statements, and Obstruction
8Chapter 4: The 1972 Election — McGovern, Nixon's Landslide, and the Buried Story
9PART TWO: THE UNRAVELING (1973)
10Chapter 5: Woodward and Bernstein — The Washington Post and Deep Throat
11Chapter 6: The Senate Watergate Committee — Sam Ervin and the Public Hearings
12Chapter 7: The White House Tapes — The Saturday Night Massacre
13Chapter 8: The Enemies List — Nixon's America and the Politics of Paranoia
14PART THREE: THE END (1973-1974)
15Chapter 9: Articles of Impeachment — The House Judiciary Committee
16Chapter 10: The Supreme Court Decides — United States v. Nixon
17Chapter 11: The Smoking Gun Tape — The President Is Guilty
18Chapter 12: August 9, 1974 — Nixon Resigns
19PART FOUR: THE CAST OF CHARACTERS
20Chapter 13: Richard Nixon — The Man Who Did This
21Chapter 14: John Dean — The Counsel Who Turned
22Chapter 15: H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman — The Palace Guard
23Chapter 16: Archibald Cox and Leon Jaworski — The Special Prosecutors
24PART FIVE: THE BROADER WATERGATE
25Chapter 17: The Plumbers — Ellsberg, the Pentagon Papers, and White House Crime
26Chapter 18: The CIA, FBI, and the Abuse of Government Power
27Chapter 19: The Press — Journalism, Freedom, and the Watergate Story
28Chapter 20: Gerald Ford — The Accidental President and the Pardon
29PART SIX: LEGACIES
30Chapter 21: Congressional Reforms — Campaign Finance, Intelligence Oversight, and FISA
31Chapter 22: The Imperial Presidency — Executive Power After Watergate
32Chapter 23: The Cynicism Dividend — Watergate and American Trust in Government
33Chapter 24: Nixon Rehabilitated — The Complicated Legacy of a Disgraced President
34Epilogue: The Pardon
35Acknowledgments
36Selected Bibliography
37About the Author
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