{"id":5277,"date":"2018-04-20T09:50:21","date_gmt":"2018-04-20T13:50:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/?p=5277"},"modified":"2025-07-09T12:33:19","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T16:33:19","slug":"an-accident-of-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/2018\/04\/20\/an-accident-of-history\/","title":{"rendered":"An Accident of History"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Sometimes the biggest stories are accidental.\u00a0 Such began one of the biggest stories in the history of Washington, D.C.\u00a0 It was the story of a bungled burglary, two reporters and a president.<\/p>\n

In July of 1972, Bob Woodward, a freshman reporter for The Washington Post, was assigned to cover a burglary at the Watergate office complex.\u00a0 Five men were caught after breaking into the office of the Democratic National Committee, located at the Watergate.<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t take long for Woodward to realize that this was no ordinary burglary.\u00a0 The suspects each had large amounts of cash, bills with consecutive serial numbers.\u00a0 One of the burglars was found with a piece of paper on which was written a telephone number for the White House.<\/p>\n

Through research for the story, Woodward received a tip that confirmed a link between the burglars and the White House.\u00a0 As the story was becoming more complicated, Woodward was assigned a partner, Carl Bernstein, a seasoned reporter.<\/p>\n

One of the most notorious figures in the Watergate story was an old administration official known only as Deep Throat.\u00a0 It would be this informant who would guide Woodward and Bernstein to an almost unbelievable truth.<\/p>\n

Deep Throat would meet with Woodward in a dimly lit parking garage.\u00a0 The exchange of what each knew would be in small doses. The recurring advice given by Deep Throat was to follow the money.\u00a0 With deadlines, sketchy sources and an editor reluctant to print anything obtained from unnamed sources, the reporters pursued every lead and went through hundreds of documents.<\/p>\n

Shortly after Richard Nixon was sworn in for his second term as President, the Senate appointed a special committee to investigate the Watergate scandal.\u00a0 With what was reported in The Washington Post and the discovery by the Senate committee of secret tapes, Nixon\u2019s presidency began to unravel.<\/p>\n

The diligent work of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein brought one of the biggest scandals in political history to a head.\u00a0 It only takes one word, Watergate, to describe the impeachment and downfall of President Richard Nixon. The scandal also involved the CIA, FBI and members of the president’s cabinet.\u00a0 The purpose of the break-in was to find anything damaging against the democratic presidential candidate running against Nixon and assure that the president would be re-elected.<\/p>\n

Watergate did more than bring the president down.\u00a0 It also became a catch phrase for many scandals to follow, by dropping the \u201cwater\u201d and adding a new word.\u00a0 There have been many scandal \u201cgates\u201d over the years since Watergate.<\/p>\n

One might think that elected officials would take a page from the Nixon years.\u00a0 It might be wise for them to realize that as long as there are politicians, there will be journalists following every move they make, looking to become the next Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes the biggest stories are accidental.\u00a0 Such began one of the biggest stories in the history of Washington, D.C.\u00a0 It was the story of a bungled burglary, two reporters and a president. In July of 1972, Bob Woodward, a freshman reporter for The Washington Post, was assigned to cover a burglary at the Watergate office […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7381],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archives","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5277"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8684,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5277\/revisions\/8684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}