All The President's Men by Bernstein and Woodward (1970's, Politics)

All The President's Men 

By Bernstein and Woodward

1970's-Present

Politics

Thesis: 

The Nixon administration buried a massive scandal and tried to pin it on the underlings when in fact, Nixon himself had been running covert operations using government resources to undermine his political opponents.The journalist investigation that uncovered this led to a revolution in journalism. 

Specific examples/evidence that supports the thesis:

Summary:

This book follows the investigative journalism of Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward (of the Washington Post) that led to the uncovering of the Watergate Scandal. The president was deeply protected by many layers of lower officials who first tried to take to the blame for the strategy and plan to wire-tap the Democratic National Committee office. Once the entire story came out, it was realized that this particular event was small potatoes. In fact, the administration was using the CIA and FBI to conduct investigations on political opponents and wire tap to find dirt. This is how Nixon hand picked his political opponent for the presidency and squashed the campaigns of people he was worried might actually beat him.

This episode in history created a major skepticism towards the U.S. government and political morality.Also the abuse of power and misuse of government resources really changed how people saw the president and his power.

What does this tell us about Politics in the 1970's - Present day?
This historic episode along with the Vietnam War really changed the way American's viewed their government. It could no longer be assumed that the government would operate with America's best interests at heart.

What parts of the book can be applied to lectures?

General Thoughts:
It was interesting that the Washington Post had a really hard time pursuing the story, in that, they were encouraged to drop it because no other major news sources were doing it, also when Sloan recanted his story, he made them look like liers inventing stories. It was the first time that journalists really uncovered something of this magnitude. Journalism could actually change things and right wrongs, it was very inspiring for the profession

The Book was actually written because it was requested by Robert Redford how wanted to star in a movie version of their story.

Excerpts from Book Reviews: 

"This was a new kind of jolt to the American psyche about government, and it came on top of the already disconcerting experience of the Vietnam War, which really got people thinking about American government and policy. You had a whole new scrutiny that grew out of the Vietnam era and Watergate that changed tremendously how people — especially young people — looked at government. "

"Bernstein and Woodward found such people(people unhappy with their jobs/bosses, etc) in the White House, in the Justice Department, in the FBI, in the CRP, and even in competing news-gathering organizations. The people were rare and hard to find, but Bernstein and Woodward found that if they pushed against enough doors, eventually one would open."

" At one point, "Deep Throat" says that -the Administration was bugging throughout its tenure, and that the bugging of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate was "only natural." "The arrests in the Watergate sent everybody off the edge because the break-in could uncover the whole program."

My Highlighted Passages: