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Most citizens did not respond to Watergate. Neither did important elements of the American press. Both seemed to accept the words of leading officials in the Nixon administration that Watergate, whatever else it was, had no connection with the White House or the Nixon re-election campaign apparatus.
The statements were unequivocal. Mitchell, who had left his post as attorney general to head the Committee for the Re-election of the President immediately set the tone for the denials that followed.
Those arrested at the Watergate, Mitchell said, "were not operating either in our behalf or with our consent." As far as McCord was concerned, Mitchell said: "The person involved is the proprietor of a private security agency who was employed by our committee months ago to assist with the installation of our security system. He has, as we understand it, a number of business clients and interests and we have no knowledge of these relationships."
On behalf of the President, press secretary Ziegler said then that he would not comment on a "third-rate burglary attempt." He added that "certain elements may try to stretch this beyond what it is."
Six days after the break-in President Nixon made his first comment on the case. He said that Ziegler and Mitchell had "stated my position, and have also stated the facts accurately." He added:
"This kind of activity, as Mr. Ziegler has indicated, has no place whatever in our electoral process, or in our governmental process."
But gradually pieces of the Watergate story began to surface. White House connections, although tenuous, were established as the names of E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy became associated with high-ranking officials.
It is a matter of history that The Washington Post, and particularly two young reporters on its metropolitan staff, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, provided much of the material that made Watergate a name known around the world.
It was their reporting of such things as an elaborate campaign of espionage and sabotage directed by prominent associates of the President, of the relationship between such people as Donald Segretti with White House appointments secretary Dwight Chapin, of the existence of secret cash funds used to finance the sabotage-espionage operations, and of the links between ranking officials with the undercover work lead, eventually, to an unraveling of the case.
It is also a matter of history that The Post and its reporters became the principal objects of attack by the administration.
"The Post has maliciously sought to give the appearance of a direct connection between the White House and the Watergate -- a charge The Post knows -- and a half dozen investigations have found -- to be false," said Clark MacGregor, chairman of the Nixon re-election committee, last Oct. 16.
That same day Ziegler said:
"I will not dignify with comment stories based on hearsay, character assassination, innuendo or guilt by association . . . The President is concerned about the technique being applied by the opposition in the stories themselves . . . The opposition has been making charges which have not been substantiated."
Nine days later Ziegler termed the reports "a blatant effort at character assassination that I do not think has been witnessed in the political process in some time."
In November, after the election, the official denials continued.
"The charge of subverting the whole political process, that is a fantasy, a work of fiction rivaling only 'Gone With the Wind' in circulation and 'Portnoy's Complaint' for indecency," said Charles W. Colson, a key White House aide.
In a vitriolic comment issued at the peak of the presidential campaign, Sen. Robert Dole (R-Kan.), then chairman of the Republican National Committee, attacked what he called "political garbage" printed about the Watergate." . . . The Washington Post is conducting itself by journalistic standards that would cause mass resignations on principle from the Quicksilver Times, a local underground newspaper."
Within six months Dole was calling publicly for the resignation of Haldeman and Ehrlichman and saying "the credibility of the administration is zilch, zero."
Mr. Nixon himself had already expressed his own strong conviction that "no one in the White House staff, no one in this administration, presently employed, was involved in this very bizarre incident." He made that statement at a White House press conference last Aug 29.
At that time, he praised the work of his White House counsel, Dean, in investigating the Watergate case.
"The other point I should make," he said, "is that these investigations, the investigation by the GAO, the investigation by the FBI, by the Department of Justice, have, at my direction, had the total cooperation of the -- not only the White House -- but also of all agencies of the Government.
"In addition to that, within our own staff, under my direction, Counsel to the President, Mr. Dean, has conducted a complete investigation of all leads which might involve any present members of the White House staff."
It was then that Mr. Nixon said, "I can state categorically that his investigation indicates no one either in the White House or the administration was involved."
In his press conference that summer day, Mr. Nixon dealt at length with his hopes for the future. He spoke of winning the election and building a "new majority," and of his desire to receive "a positive mandate."
The President then spelled out his goals for his next four years. In doing so he returned to the theme that had helped him win in 1968 -- of a need to bring the country together.
"Four years ago the country was torn apart, torn apart physically and torn apart inside. It has changed very subtly, but very definitely. What we need in this country is a new sense of mission, a new sense of confidence, a new sense of purpose as to where we are going."
On Nov. 7, Mr. Nixon won his great victory and by the time of his second inauguration on Jan. 20 it seemed that America was on the verge of a new era of peace abroad and reconciliation at home. He moved swiftly to implement his new goals, scrapped economic controls he had imposed earlier, hailed the return of America's prisoners of war from Vietnam, and set out to fashion the new majority that would place his imprimatur on the year to come.
Now, only three months later, Watergate, the scandal that would not die, has overtaken him and his administration. And Richard Milhous Nixon, who has expressed so many times the personal problems of dealing with crises, is confronted with one of a magnitude that faced his presidential predecessors Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, Warren G. Harding and, more recently and in a different context, Lyndon B. Johnson.
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