Watergate

WASHINGTON -- Twenty five years after the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon on Aug. 9, 1974, the saga of the man and his downfall continue to hang over the political life of the country.Yet another movie, a comedy entitled "Dick," in which his misadventures involving the Watergate break-in and cover-up are examined once again, is about to be released.At the same time, topping the best-seller lists in the New York Times and the Washington Post is the new book by Watergate sleuth Bob Woodward entitled "Shadow."

COLLEGE PARK -- You've read the book. You've seen the movie. Now own the tapes.For the first time, the National Archives is selling copies of the audiotapes that helped make Richard M. Nixon a former president.Twelve hours of Watergate recordings labeled "abuses of governmental power" will be released on Jan. 21. Only orders postmarked by Nov. 22 are ensured first-day delivery."Wow! I'm going to get online right now and order some," Christopher Beam, director of the Edmund S. Muskie Archives at Bates College in Maine, said when told of the sale.

"Shadow: Five Presidents and the Legacy of Watergate," by Bob Woodward. Simon & Schuster. 592 pages. $27.50.You may already know the story of the endless Whitewater investigation, but you probably do not know which government official, in private conversation, called someone else a bleeping bleep. You may remember the Iran-Contra investigation, but you may not know that at one meeting to discuss his plight, President George Bush wore a striped shirt with a white collar and banged on his desk with a plastic mallet.

WASHINGTON -- Slowly but unmistakably, the public is beginning to succumb to Clinton Fatigue.You can feel it moving quietly but relentlessly across the capital and the country, changing the national conversation, altering the political landscape.After seven years -- deep economic despair followed by infectious optimism, soaring rhetoric about high ethics followed by a tumultuous period of allegations, investigations and recriminations -- Clinton Fatigue is taking hold.Few presidents have dominated the American scene for so long as Bill Clinton.

All through the day on Aug. 8, 1974, and despite a continuing drizzle and leaden skies, crowds came to stand and stare at the White House through the black iron railings that encircle it. The mostly silent crowd came to keep a vigil and witness the final moments of the administration of Richard Milhous Nixon.The impending resignation of the the president was the final act in a drama that had its origins in the 1972 burglary of Democratic Party headquarters in Washington's Watergate complex.

WASHINGTON -- John D. Ehrlichman, who served as President Nixon's pugnacious defender and domestic policy chief and went to prison for his role in the Watergate scandals, died Sunday at his home in Atlanta. He was 73.Mr. Ehrlichman had been suffering from diabetes for about a year, his son Tom said yesterday.After serving time in prison for conspiracy and other counts, Mr. Ehrlichman made a new life for himself in 1978, first as a writer living in Santa Fe, N.M., and for the past several years as a senior vice president of Law Environmental, an Atlanta engineering company engaged in handling of hazardous wastes, his son said.

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes, a Maryland Democrat who earned national attention for his role in forcing President Richard M. Nixon from office, doesn't think much of the way his successors on the House Judiciary Committee are handling the impeachment drive against President Clinton."

WASHINGTON -- A quarter of a century after the political bombshell of Watergate burst on the country and ultimately brought down Richard M. Nixon, another president is facing allegations of a different sort that raise the specter of his presidency also coming to a premature end.That conjecture is itself premature because nothing has yet been produced to prove the charge that President Clinton had an affair with a young White House intern and then tried to...

Frenzy over Bill Clinton recalls Germany in 1936It amazes me that the actions of Whitewater independent council Kenneth W. Starr are tolerated.I strongly object to his tactics and broad scope of power. I think he sometimes feels as if he knows better than us mere mortals, and defends his heavy-handed tactics with such thoughts.Sometimes I feel like I am living in Germany, and the year is 1936.Robert J. LiebJoppatowneIt should come to no one's surprise that during an election year and in a county -- Howard -- that Republican Ellen R. Sauerbrey won during the 1994 gubernatorial election, Linda R. Tripp will not be prosecuted on charges of violating Section 10-402 of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article of the Annotated Code of Maryland.

After Kurt SchmokeDoes Baltimore need a return to William Donald Schaefer's "do it now" approach or more of the cerebral but detached style of Kurt L. Schmoke? Or something else?Send us your thoughts on the skills, experience and management style Baltimore should seek in its next mayor, who will lead the city into the 21st century.Letters should be no longer than 200 words and should include the name and address of the writer, along with day and evening telephone numbers.Send responses to Letters to the Editor, The Sun, P.O. Box 1377, Baltimore 21278-0001.

BERNARD L. BARKER, 92 Watergate burglar Bernard Leon Barker, one of the five Watergate burglars whose break-in led to America's biggest political scandal, died Friday in suburban Miami. The Cuban-born former CIA operative, who also participated in the Bay of Pigs invasion, died at his home after being taken to the Veterans Administration Medical Center the night before, said his stepdaughter, Kelly Andrad. He appeared to have died of complications of lung cancer, and he had also suffered from heart problems.

Jan. 4 1974 President Richard M. Nixon refused to hand over tape recordings and documents subpoenaed by the Senate Watergate Committee.

Don't look now, but the Republicans' 2008 savior-in-waiting, former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson, turns out not to be as infallible as some might have hoped. At a time when the Bush administration's failures and low approval ratings are drawing comparisons to the dark days of the Nixon White House, it turns out Mr. Thompson has a direct and more damaging connection to the ugly politics of the Watergate era: It has been reported that as a young staff aide on the congressional committee investigating Watergate, he was secretly funneling information to President Richard Nixon and his henchmen.

The senator, a Democrat, was speaking after the death of the former president. Levin called his fellow Michigander "a healer" who unified the nation after the ordeal of Watergate. ?We will honor his memory in many ways, but one immediate way is to return the Gerald Ford quality of civility to the nation?s capital.? Sen. Carl Levin

JOURNALISM THE SECRET MAN: THE STORY OF WATERGATE'S DEEP THROAT By Bob Woodward. Simon & Schuster, 249 pages. First off, The Secret Man, Bob Woodward's account of his dealing with Deep Throat, his legendary secret source, only adds incrementally to the vast body of knowledge already known about Watergate (thanks immeasurably to Woodward's own reporting in The Washington Post and his previous books). But as a portrait of the taut, complicated relationship between a reporter and confidential source who, overcoming his own conflicted motivations, puts everything at risk to disclose what he knows, it is a provocative, even stirring contribution.

ADMIT IT - was that about the biggest let-down you've had in years? W. Mark Felt is Deep Throat? Are you kidding me? That old guy in the flannel shirt who was smiling and waving with his family on all the newscasts - that's the guy who helped topple a presidency? That's the shadowy figure Bob Woodward was meeting in parking garages for info on Watergate, one of the most notorious political scandals in U.S. history? Oh. Well, OK. If you say so. But I think we can safely sum up, in a single word, the reaction of millions of my fellow Americans when the stunning news about Deep Throat's identity was first revealed.

PERHAPS FITTINGLY, W. Mark Felt's revelation that he is the legendary Watergate source "Deep Throat" failed to end the 30-year-old controversy. The Vanity Fair account released yesterday sparked questions about Mr. Felt's motives, and about whether any single source had actually played the near-mythical role in toppling the Nixon presidency accorded to Deep Throat. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the Washington Post reporters who have said they relied on the anonymous source to guide them at critical moments in their groundbreaking Watergate reporting, initially stuck by their refusal to reveal Deep Throat's identity until after his death.

WASHINGTON - The mystery surrounding one of America's most durable journalistic secrets was solved yesterday with the unmasking of an aging, retired FBI official as the anonymous Watergate-era source known as "Deep Throat." W. Mark Felt, 91, is quoted in a forthcoming magazine article as acknowledging that "I'm the guy they used to call Deep Throat." The article, in the July issue of Vanity Fair, describes Felt, who suffered a stroke in 2001, as being in failing health with a "memory for details [that]

WASHINGTON - Rose Mary Woods, the devoted White House secretary to Richard M. Nixon who found herself at the center of one of the great mysteries of Watergate after 18 1/2 minutes of a crucial White House tape were erased, died Saturday near her hometown in northeastern Ohio. She was 87. A spokesman for a local funeral home said that Ms. Woods died at a nursing home in Alliance, Ohio. Ms. Woods, who worked for Mr. Nixon for more than two decades and joined him in exile in California after his 1974 resignation as president, took part of the blame for the missing portion of a taped conversation between Mr. Nixon and the White House chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, on June 20, 1972, three days after the break-in at Democratic headquarters in Washington.

Susan T. Buffett, 72, the wife of billionaire investor Warren E. Buffett, died Thursday of a stroke at a hospital in Cody, Wyo., where she and her husband were visiting. Mrs. Buffett, a Berkshire Hathaway Inc. director, was listed this year by Forbes magazine as the 60th richest American, with a personal net worth of $3.1 billion. Though the Buffetts had lived separately for many years, she stood to inherit her husband's fortune. Mr. Buffett, second only to Bill Gates on the Forbes world wealth list, had said his Berkshire stock, valued at about $42.9 billion, would go to his wife upon his death and then to a foundation.