Watergate Archives - Public Seminar

History

Watergate Summer

In 1973, Robert MacNeil and Jim Lehrer’s determination to broadcast a Congressional investigation mattered to our democracy, and revolutionized television news

June 10, 2022 • by Claire Potter

In other words, alternative television showed government as it was, mainlining the excitement of democracy to a dedicated and growing group of political junkies. At the same time, seeing the investigation play out live provided reassurance that Watergate was a constitutional crisis but not, as Nixon characterized it, a plot ...

Watergate and the Lessons of History

June 17, 2017 • by Claire Potter

Forty-five years ago today, all the President's men were nervously awaiting the fallout from a break-in at an office at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C. where the Democratic National Committee had established its 1972 campaign headquarters. Naughty, naughty. The White House's shadow arm was a jolly crew nicknamed "the Plumbers." Among ...