Watergate and showergate

Once, the catchword for the crime-of-the-century was Watergate.  So let’s call this one Showergate, because, well, damning evidence was found in a shower at the Mar-A-Lago estate.

I’m reminded of Watergate just now because exactly fifty years ago, in May of 1973, the Senate Watergate Committee, chaired by Democrat Sam Ervin, held two weeks of hearings.  The televised proceedings of witnesses being questioned by senators and their staff engaged a large fraction of the American voting public.  It also convinced that audience of President Richard M. Nixon’s guilt.  Prior to the hearings only 31% thought that Nixon had committed any crime; after the hearings, 59% did.

To my chagrin, there has been almost no celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of this important set of hearings, but the indictment of former president Donald Trump provides reasons to recall them.

Primary among the reasons is the behavior of the Republicans during that period. On the Ervin committee there were three: Howard Baker, the “ranking” member; Connecticut Senator Lowell Weicker; and Ed Gurney, the first Republican elected to the Senate from Florida since the Civil War.  Fred Thompson, later a senator himself, was the minority counsel.  Of the senators, Baker was the most outraged by the behavior of men in the White House, and has been seen retrospectively as a scourge of Nixon.  However, initially his famous question, ‘What did the president know, and when did he know it,’ was designed not to expose Nixon’s guilt but to see if there was any possibility of pinning the problems on lower-ranked people who might not have informed the president of their illegal activities.  But Baker quickly became convinced of Nixon’s culpability.

To the contrary, Gurney’s constant position was to deny that Nixon had anything to do with crimes committed by his underlings, and to publicly refuse to concede that these were any real crimes.  Over the years, Gurney has been excoriated for having refused to believe the truth when it was staring him in his face — but his stance on Watergate is the model for today’s Congressional Republicans in the wake of the indictment of former president Donald Trump.

It should be noted that in 1973, too, most Congressional Republicans were more in the Gurney camp than in the Baker camp.  These included two future presidents.  Minority leader of the House of Representatives Gerald Ford had used his power in 1972 to quash inquiries that would have led earlier to the exposure of White House crimes, and remained a staunch Nixon defender through the period when much evidence of White House and Nixon crimes were being discovered.  Ford’s willful denial of Nixon’s criminality was among the reasons that Nixon chose him to replace the disgraced Spiro Agnew as vice-president.

George H.W. Bush, former congressman from Texas and former ambassador to the United Nations, was then chairman of the Republican National Committee, chosen because of his demonstrated fealty to Nixon.  During this period, Bush turned himself inside out many times to deny wrongdoing by the Republican president, long past the moment when the magnitude of the crimes had become too obvious to be dismissed.

Senator Barry Goldwater, noted for his personal integrity, was quite aggrieved by Nixon’s behavior and that of the White House staff; yet he took the position for the longest time that Watergate was petty shenanigans and a political matter for which the president should not be held accountable except by voters at the polls.

Just as a reminder, forty different people were eventually convicted of crimes relating to Watergate.

In the year following the Ervin hearings, the majority of Republicans in the voting public, and even some in Congress, did turn on Nixon.   Finally, it was this leaching away of political support among Republican senators — conveyed to Nixon by Goldwater in a meeting in the Oval Office in August 1974 — that convinced Nixon to resign before he was impeached, convicted and removed from office.   

Will that pattern be followed again?  Will Republicans ever decide that the evidence of Trump’s criminality is real and overwhelming?  It is those Republicans’ moral and civic integrity that is at stake now.

Salisbury resident Tom Shachtman has written more than two dozen books and many television documentaries.

The views expressed here are not necessarily those of The Lakeville Journal and The Journal does not support or oppose candidates for public office.

Latest News

Wake Robin developers reapply with P&Z
Wake Robin Inn is located on Sharon Road in Lakeville.
Photo by John Coston

LAKEVILLE — ARADEV LLC, the developer behind the proposed redesign of Wake Robin Inn, returned before Salisbury’s Planning and Zoning Commission at its May 5 regular meeting with a 644-page plan that it says scales back the project.

ARADEV withdrew its previous application last December after a six-round public hearing in which neighbors along Wells Hill Road and Sharon Road rallied against the proposal as detrimental to the neighborhood.

Keep ReadingShow less
Housatonic lax wins 18-6 versus Lakeview
Chloe Hill, left, scored once in the game against Lakeview High School Tuesday, May 7.
Photo by Riley Klein

FALLS VILLAGE — Housatonic Valley Regional High School girls lacrosse kept rolling Tuesday, May 6, with a decisive 18-6 win over Lakeview High School.

Eight different players scored for Housatonic in the Northwest Corner rivalry matchup. Sophomore Georgie Clayton led the team with five goals.

Keep ReadingShow less
Troutbeck Symposium 2025: the latest chapter in continuing a vital legacy

Participating students and teachers gathered for the traditional photo at the 2025 Troutbeck Symposium on Thursday, May 1.

Leila Hawken

Students and educators from throughout the region converged at Troutbeck in Amenia for a three-day conference to present historical research projects undertaken collaboratively by students with a common focus on original research into their chosen topics. Area independent schools and public schools participated in the conference that extended from Wednesday, April 30 to Friday, May 2.

The symposium continues the Troutbeck legacy as a decades-old gathering place for pioneers in social justice and reform. Today it is a destination luxury country inn, but Troutbeck remains conscious of its significant place in history.

Keep ReadingShow less
Roaring Oaks Florist launches self-serve flower market

Terence S. Miller, owner of Roaring Oaks Florist in the new self-serve area of the shop.

Natalia Zukerman

Just in time for Mother’s Day, Roaring Oaks Florist in Lakeville has launched a new self-serve flower station next to its Main Street shop, offering high-quality, grab-and-go bouquets from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., seven days a week — including Sundays when the main store is closed.

Owner Terence S. Miller, who bought the shop 24 years ago at just 20 years old, calls the new feature “a modern twist on an old-school honor system,” with some high-tech updates.

Keep ReadingShow less