On the 50th anniversary of the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon, perhaps it is time to admit that much of the nation was mistaken. As discovered in Part One, the Nixon Administration was spied upon by the Pentagon, infiltrated by CIA, and deeply disserved by its White House counsel John Dean III. Following the June 17, 1972 arrest of CIA assets for the break-in at the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate office building, President Nixon made the disastrous decision to cover up the collusion of the Committee to Re-Elect the President. That action began a two years-long odyssey that ended with his resignation. What was little known, but will be explored in this course, is how the President’s enemies conspired to remove him from office in a silent coup d’etat. Abusing the media, the judicial process, and the Bill of Rights, Nixon’s foes achieved through a scandal what they could not at the ballot box. Following the scholarship of Len Colodny, Robert Gettlin, Jim Hougan, Geoff Shepard, Ken Holland, and other researchers, we will discover what actually happened from August 1972 through August 1974.
*Class Dates: 11/6, 11/13, 11/20, & 11/27.