Watergate: A New History

On June 17, 1972, five men were arrested as they had broken into the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate apartment complex. Initially dismissed as a third-rate burglary, a closer look at the apprehended men revealed something deeper. Anti-Castro Cubans and former CIA men made up the crew. They were dressed in suits, possessed sophisticated tools, and had money that was sequential in serial numbers.

The Nixon White House denied involvement, but the connections uncovered to the Committee to Re-elect the President (CREEP) couldn’t be denied. The initial investigators, reporters covering the story, didn’t know that a cover-up was already in the works. A sophisticated attempt at obstructing justice would flail as disgruntled men began to talk, and the house of cards would begin to fall. Watergate was just the beginning.

Watergate: A New History is a thorough record of the Watergate scandal from start to finish, albeit with the benefit of nearly fifty years of hindsight. Author Garrett Graff (The Only Plane in the Sky) surpasses expectations in relaying the impropriety that ensnared and doomed the Nixon presidency. His book is not another rehash of the public record, but rather a re-appraisal of the personalities involved in the story of a lifetime.