As someone who has a master’s degree in political science, I am somewhat embarrassed
to say that my first reaction to the congressional hearings on Watergate was one of extreme
annoyance: the networks cancelled all regular programming in favor of televising the hearings.
This meant that all the soap operas I watched were effectively cancelled for weeks. But my late
father was home in the afternoons a lot that summer, and I began watching the hearings with him.
I was soon quite fascinated at the spectacle.
Although the breakin at the Democratic headquarters at the Watergate, a complex of
offices, stores and luxury apartments, on June 17, 1972, happened as I was heading into my junior
year in high school, I don’t remember much about it. I do remember that it was an election year,
and having been a supporter of Robert Kennedy and then Hubert Humphrey in 1968 with some of
my classmates at Hilltonia Junior High, I wasn’t particularly interested in the 1972 election. Nixon
not only beat the South Dakota Democrat George McGovern, he whipped him like he stole
something, winning every state but Massachusetts. He finally seemed to have reached the summit
