Watergate! So Many Years Ago!

We’ve just finished observing the 40 anniversary of Richard Nixon’s resignation from the Presidency. It brought back so many memories.

by Charlie Leck

Back then I worked for a company called The Bureau of National Affairs (BNA). I called on law firms and introduced them to the various and many services and publications that BNA could provide them in order to keep them up to date about the latest news and court decisions within various fields of law. I really loved my work. I respected the company for which I worked. The lawyers I called on respected my company also and most of them seemed to respect me.

It was difficult to get in to see people during the Watergate hearings, however (1972-1973). Every law firm would have the television on and a host of lawyers would be surrounding the television, watching the intriguing hearings about what caused a handful of Republican cronies to break into the National Democratic Headquarters in the Watergate office complex. Our company sales records showed that the downtrend in sales activity was a national phenomenon.

What a time that was? Members of the Senate panel in charge of the investigation became near rock stars in the nation. The chairman of the investigating committee, Senator Sam Ervin (North Carolina) became an incredible celebrity during the long investigation. I took to him and admired him and loved to hear him speak in that slow, extended drawl. Ervin loved to call himself “just a country lawyer,” but he was sharp as a tack about the U.S. Constitution and he was a remarkable examiner of witnesses during the public and televised investigations. Some of us forget that Senator Ervin also worked on the Senate committee that brought down the scoundrel Senator Joe McCarty in 1954.

Those of us who were around during the Watergate investigation will never forget the hours and hours we spent watching the U.S. Senate investigation panel on television. We witnessed, time and time again, amazing revelations about the seriousness and audacity of the boss in the White House at the time.

The scandal, of course, led to the very first and only resignation of a sitting U.S. President. Richard Nixon stepped down in shame and guilty of the abuse of law. America’s newspapers and the U.S. Senate had taken the nation to the place where they could really see the President’s new set of clothes for what it really was.

It was an incredible time in the history of the United States. Watching it unfold in front of us, we the people of the United States of America were witnesses to truth that was totally unvarnished by political obfuscation because we saw it all live and up-close.

Amazing! Forty years ago!

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