THE FALL OF NIXON
Watergate and the Crisis of American Democracy, 1972-1974By James Prescott Marlowe
Length5h 53m
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
Length5 hrs 53 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateJun 2, 2026
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Introduction
2Prologue: The Break-In
3PART ONE: THE CRIME (1972)
4Chapter 1: CREEP — Nixon's Committee and the Culture of Dirty Tricks
5Chapter 2: June 17, 1972 — The Watergate Burglary
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6Chapter 3: The Cover-Up Begins — Hush Money, False Statements, and Obstruction
7Chapter 4: The 1972 Election — McGovern, Nixon's Landslide, and the Buried Story
8PART TWO: THE UNRAVELING (1973)
9Chapter 5: Woodward and Bernstein — The Washington Post and Deep Throat
10Chapter 6: The Senate Watergate Committee — Sam Ervin and the Public Hearings
11Chapter 7: The White House Tapes — The Saturday Night Massacre
12Chapter 8: The Enemies List — Nixon's America and the Politics of Paranoia
13PART THREE: THE END (1973-1974)
14Chapter 9: Articles of Impeachment — The House Judiciary Committee
15Chapter 10: The Supreme Court Decides — United States v. Nixon
16Chapter 11: The Smoking Gun Tape — The President Is Guilty
17Chapter 12: August 9, 1974 — Nixon Resigns
18PART FOUR: THE CAST OF CHARACTERS
19Chapter 13: Richard Nixon — The Man Who Did This
20Chapter 14: John Dean — The Counsel Who Turned
21Chapter 15: H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman — The Palace Guard
22Chapter 16: Archibald Cox and Leon Jaworski — The Special Prosecutors
23PART FIVE: THE BROADER WATERGATE
24Chapter 17: The Plumbers — Ellsberg, the Pentagon Papers, and White House Crime
25Chapter 18: The CIA, FBI, and the Abuse of Government Power
26Chapter 19: The Press — Journalism, Freedom, and the Watergate Story
27Chapter 20: Gerald Ford — The Accidental President and the Pardon
28PART SIX: LEGACIES
29Chapter 21: Congressional Reforms — Campaign Finance, Intelligence Oversight, and FISA
30Chapter 22: The Imperial Presidency — Executive Power After Watergate
31Chapter 23: The Cynicism Dividend — Watergate and American Trust in Government
32Chapter 24: Nixon Rehabilitated — The Complicated Legacy of a Disgraced President
33Epilogue: The Pardon
34Acknowledgments
35Selected Bibliography
36About the Author
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