<p>Funny perspective on this subject from Louis CK:
[Louis</a> C.K. (Oh My God) 2013 - Nixon Resigning - YouTube](<a href=“- YouTube”>- YouTube)</p>
<p>I was 10 years old at the time so my main memory is of my parents being obsessed with it. I also remeber my mother (a democrat) getting into a big argument with her parents (republicans) over whether Nixon was a crook. Later in junior high I read All The Presidents Men and the book by John Dean (can’t think of the title right now) and was fascinated by the whole event.</p>
<p>I was 13 and mostly remember my parents watching the hearings and talking about them a lot. At that age, I remember being generally aware of what was going on from my parents, but was bored by the specifics. The whole time my mom spent in front of the TV, she was working on some crewel pillows, which we fondly referred to later as the “Watergate” pillows.</p>
<p>When I saw the movie “All the President’s Men” a few years later, I was fascinated by the whole thing and wished I had paid more attention when the events were actually happening.</p>
<p>I remember all of it and, as a naive HS senior, was pretty traumatized by the lot of it. I distinctly remember asking my dad if the country was going to fall apart when Agnew got the ax.
The night Nixon resigned, I was out with my HS friends carousing around NYC. They were all going away to college and I was going to live at home. Very personal memories against this historic backdrop.</p>
<p>I was in college and remember it well. Regarding Nixon’s dirty tricks team, I particularly recall his attacks on Ed Muskie, who was a fine man. The “Polack letter,” for example. And the attacks on Muskie’s wife, accusing her of being a drunk. Muskie’s famous speech defending her, standing outside in the snow, obviously emotional. The news media claiming he cried–he said he didn’t. There was snow melting on his face, so how could they tell? In any case, I would be HAPPY to vote for a man who would shed a tear in those circumstances!</p>
<p>I remember rushing home from work to watch the news to find out what had transpired that day. I also remember Rosemary Woods song: [Bill</a> Horwitz - If I Had a Friend Like Rosemary Woods - YouTube](<a href=“Bill Horwitz - If I Had a Friend Like Rosemary Woods - YouTube”>Bill Horwitz - If I Had a Friend Like Rosemary Woods - YouTube)</p>
<p>Here’s another song which makes a passing reference to this historical event:</p>
<p>[The</a> Clash - I’m so bored with the U.S.A. (lyrics) - YouTube](<a href=“The Clash - I'm so bored with the U.S.A. (lyrics) - YouTube”>The Clash - I'm so bored with the U.S.A. (lyrics) - YouTube)</p>
<p>And one which fits the actors in the scandal to varying extents:</p>
<p><a href=“The Clash - I Fought The Law - YouTube”>The Clash - I Fought The Law - YouTube;
<p>I remember the whole sad saga and followed all the news very closely… and also worked at the publishing company, Simon and Schuster on the publication of All the President’s Men. It was a very big deal for the entire company. I remember meeting Woodward & Bernstein and that one of the editors had to take Bernstein clothes shopping the day of the book launch party… I also remember that a signed first edition is on my bookshelf in the den.</p>
<p>I was a freshman in college when Watergate broke wide open. It was the first political event I followed, and I followed it avidly.</p>
<p>When the Ervin hearings were happening, dozens of students would gather in the dorm lounge to watch. It was positively gripping.</p>
<p>I was five. The only thing I remember is that we got a TV then. I only know that’s why we got the TV because that was the story of “how we got a TV.”</p>
<p>Up til then, my hippie parents believed TV was the devil.</p>
<p>After then, Saturday morning cartoons. </p>
<p>Politically, though, it is fascinating how much Nixon was what we would now call a liberal, in terms of his policy. What was a liberal back then?</p>
<p>I was living in D.C., working my first post-college job at the Corcoran Gallery, with daily views on lunchtime wakkabouts of the White House and the Watergate building. I was stunned to think I might have actually crossed paths with some of the people involved.</p>
<p>When Butterfield (?) slipped up and mentioned the existence of a taping system under Nixon’s desk, I wondered what motivated Nixon to do such a thing. Then I learned Nixon was so upset at the sight of 220,000 protestors, anti-Vietnam war, below his Oval Office window that he determined to tape his daily doings to have a record for history of his version of these years. </p>
<p>That moved me deeply because a couple of years before I was in the November March on Wasington, as a scraggly college student, feeling slightly hopeless as in “what difference can it make that I am here; I’m so cold; how can we possibly stop a war by marching with signs, etc” I thought these things while I marched.</p>
<p>To learn later that these and other marches caused Nixon to begin taping, his ultimate undoing, caused me a 180 degree turn in thinking. I realized that one never knows the impact of ones participation at the time it is happening. It affirmed for me that it is always valuable to participate, speak one’s mind, protest when necessary. Just do what one’s conscience requires, as the ripple impacts cannot be known or predicted in the moment.</p>
<p>That, and I remember how Maureen Dean kept playing with her earring throughout John Dean’s testimony.</p>
<p>I watched it the whole summer. It wasn’t a good time for those with technical backgrounds and I couldn’t find a job.</p>
<p>I was a junior in HS, and needed a newspaper clipping to bring in for current events. It was lunchtime and I had forgotten to check the papers that morning, and was bemoaning that fact to a friend. My friend, who had already had social studies in the morning, offered me the use of her article, which contained the first news of the break-in. It wasn’t a large article and we had no idea at the time of the implications. I followed the subsequent news with great interest.</p>
<p>Frank Wills! Watergate never gets revealed except for him.</p>
<p>[Frank</a> Wills (security guard) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Wills_(security_guard)]Frank”>Frank Wills (security guard) - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>There was even a ballad of Frank Wills.</p>
<p>I also remember the “Rose Mary Stretch”. We used to come up with all kinds of other stretches, named after other people, rather like a perverse form of yoga.</p>
<p>Book lady: like you, my HS also set up a TV for us to watch. There was a group of us that would gather every day and sit there mesmerized. I was a HS senior in 72-73 and this was a great introduction to the real world.</p>
<p>I also remember how handsome John Dean was and how beautiful his wife was. She had that classic Grace Kelly/Catherine Deneuve look.</p>
<p>Recently watched All the Presidents Men again. A bit outdated, but still very good.</p>
<p>I was in eighth grade. My teacher was rabidly anti-Nixonian and we used to talk about the hearings during social studies.</p>
<p>And since I grew up in NC, Sam Ervin was like a god, at least in my household.</p>
<p>I was a HS senior and pretty much ignored this early part. Too caught up with senior year stuff…plus we only had one TV and Dad was pretty much in control of what was on.<br>
The moment I will never forget was Nixon leaving the White House. My dad had driven me to the closest bus stop for my summer job after going to the credit union to sign papers for student loans. So I was in a strange place, standing around with my dad ( strange experience), when we had just listened to the leader of the free world exit in disgrace. Neither of us could quite figure out what to say, other than “I’ll never forget this day”</p>
<p>Remember the sensation that Maureen Dean caused, sitting behind her husband in the hearings? She was so Grace Kelly-esque.</p>
<p>I was a little kid. I remember nothing of the hearings but I do remember Nixon resigning. My dad made us watch it and I understood it was historically important but I was bored.</p>
<p>Crizello, we too just re-watched All the President’s Men. DS is a junior - the same age I was when Watergate broke, and he is studying recent US History. It seems so odd to me to see the events that I remember so clearly, be discussed in a HISTORY book!!!</p>