A Convoluted and Corrupt System

Ask students today to brainstorm a few adjectives to describe politicians and the words honest, trustworthy, and true will rarely come up. Descriptors that are provided over and over are crook, shady, and liar.

I have to wonder….is it the politician who is dishonest or does the dishonesty stem from such a convoluted and corrupt system that has been allowed to flourish?

In 1975, following President Nixon’s resignation from the White House, Americans were longing for a simpler time….a time when they felt they had a more honest relationship with the man inhabiting the White House.

Follow this link over to American Presidents for my post 1975: Nostalgic for Give ‘em Hell, Harry.

If I still haven’t gotten your attention then follow the link to discover what the band Chicago and Harry Truman have in common

Wordless: Ship to Shore Connections

Question: How does this ship have a connection to Watergate?

Remember the name, Bob Woodward? Yep, he’s the guy along with Carl Bernstein that helped bring down the Nixon White House with their Washington Post stories involving the Watergate burglary.

But did you know…..

At one point young Bob Woodward served in the US Navy and the ship in the image above was his first of many posts…The USS Wright.

In the book Silent Coup by Len Colodny and Robert Gettlin it is revealed that Lieutenant Woodward eventually ended up as a briefing officer for Admiral Moorer in 1969. Woodward was often doing Top Secret work as Admiral Moorer was then the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. One of his assignments was to act as a briefer for Alexander Haig….Not sure who he was?

Alexander Haig was the Military Assistant to the Presidential Assistant for National Security Affairs. Basically what this government-speak means is he was Henry Kissinger’s assistant in 1969. Later during the height of the Watergate mess Haig was Nixon’s Chief of Staff.

Kind of makes you wonder what sorts of things came up during those briefings between Woodward and Haig in the White House basement….In 1969, Woodward was basically a lackey in the Nixon Whitehouse, and by 1973 he was bringing the walls down around their ears.

Funny how things work out, huh? This also explains why many often mentioned Alexander Haig as a possible source for the infamous Deep Throat.

You can find other bloggers participating in Wordless Wednesday here

The Tale of the Tapes

Enter my father’s house and take a left into the great room, walk by the large screen television and hang a left into the foyer. Keep turning to the left and walk up the steps. Notice the graduation portraits of my sister and I. Take a left at the top of the stairs and you’ll find yourself in my bedroom. Go to the closet door and enter. Go all the way in….it’s a walk-in. Look to the right and you’ll notice a small doorway into another smaller storage area. Inside you’ll find boxes of old school papers, Seventeen magazines, my old green RCA record player that was my sister’s until she got married, copies of The Vorpal Blade, my highschool newspaper, my green trunk that I took with me to college, and you’ll notice on top of one stack of artifacts a dusty cassette player and a faded blue shoebox. Carefully lift the shoebox in one hand and the cassette player in the other, and take them ever so carefully into the bedroom and lay them on the bed. What you have just extricated from the relics of my younger days is directly related to August 8, 1974, the day that Richard M. Nixon became the first U.S. president to resign from office.

What could my relics possibly have to do with President Nixon’s resignation speech?

To find out head on over to American Presidents here for the rest of the tale…..