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Bob Dole In 1972, Sen. Bob Dole moved into an apartment in Washington's Watergate complex -- also home to offices of the Democratic National Committee. But Dole was in Chicago on the night of the break-in. As the national chairman of the Republican Party, Dole defended Nixon during the early stages of the Watergate investigation. In Oct. 24, 1972, he delivered an impassioned attack on The Washington Post, accusing editors and reporters of "the most extensive journalistic rescue-and-salvage operation in American politics" to boost George McGovern's failing presidential candidacy. He handed off his duties as party chairman to George H.W. Bush after the 1972 elections, but remained a Nixon loyalist. In September 1973, Dole introduced an unsuccessful Senate resolution to stop live television coverage of the Watergate hearings. "It is time to turn off the TV lights," he said. "It is time to move the Watergate investigation from the living rooms of America and put it where it belongs -- behind the closed doors of the committee room and before the judge and jury in the courtroom." Watergate loomed as a major issue in Dole's difficult reelection campaign in the fall of 1974, but he survived and went on serve five terms in the Senate. He made three unsuccessful bids for the presidency, winning the Republican nomination in 1996, but losing in the general election to incumbent President Bill Clinton. Not long after the vote, Clinton presented Dole with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Dole is an attorney and still lives in the Watergate complex with his wife, Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-N.C.). |
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