What If...the Watergate burglary was NOT busted?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I28mQEVJQso

June 17th, 1972

The White House "Plumbers," the black-ops group assembled by the Nixon Administration to stop "leaks" within the administration, committed a second successful break-in at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C., which was serving as the National HQ for the DNC for the 1972 campaigns.

The earlier break-in, on May 28, the unit had many objectives, including finding any evidence (if at all) that the George McGovern Presidential campaign was being financed by the communist Cuban government....but mostly to plant "bugs" on the telephones of key DNC administrators.

But one of the bugs apparently malfunctioned, and the second break-in was committed to repair the bug.

The problem was that night patrolman Frank Willis discovered that on one of the door locks was duct tape....earlier he had found duct tape and removed it. Realizing that there were intruders within the building, Willis at 1:47 AM called the police and by 2:30 AM, all 5 burglars were arrested.

This would begin the great Watergate scandal that 2 years and 2 months later, would result in President Nixon resigning in total disgrace.

BUT.................

What if the "bug" had not malfunctioned? What if Frank Willis didn't notice the replaced duct tape? What if the breaking & entering work done by the Plumbers (financed by C.R.E.E.P.) was not detected?

Questions to be pondered:

(1)What would the state of journalism and the news media itself be if since the burglary was NOT busted, there would be no Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward investigating and discovering for weeks and months on end in unraveling the "big picture" and thus no ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN?

(2)Vice-President Spiro T. Agnew claimed that Nixon released the accusations of bribes/tax evasion against Agnew in 1973 in order to divert attention from the Watergate fire. Since its not a secret that Nixon hated Agnew and probably would have done his best to prevent Agnew's campaign to win the GOP Presidential nomination in 1976....If what Agnew claims is true, would Agnew have succeeded in winning the 1976 GOP nomination, or would the Nixon-backed candidate (Reagan?) triumph?

(3)On that note, Jimmy Carter in part got the 1976 Democratic nomination, and won the General Election, by campaigning himself as the "honest open government" candidate against the urine stain that was Watergate....would he still have gotten the nomination? If not who?

(4)Who would have won the 1976 election?

(5)Nixon administration figures like Pat Buchanan claim that if Watergate had not happened, and Nixon had completed his full two-terms of office, and without the molestation of the scandal, that America would have won the Vietnam War. Would that have happened or not?

(6)What about Gerald Ford?

(7) If Agnew, Reagan, or any other super Conservative Republican Hawk was elected President in 1976, is it safe to assume they wouldn't have continued Kissinger/Nixon's "Detente" foreign policy that was followed in our reality deep into Carter's Administration (until the Afghanistan invasion in 1979).

(8)What would have been the long-term American political ramifications? Would America be as distrust worthy of its government as it continues to this day?

(9)That said, it is possible that "Deep Throat" (disapointed FBI superior Mark Felt) would have let in Woodward on what happened. Would that have made a difference?

(10)Even if Watergate wasn't busted open, would Nixon's own self-destructive qualities have screwed him and his administration ultimately sooner or later?

What a can of worms you opened! Where to begin?

The accusations against Agnew resulted in a conviction, so that would have been public knowlege.

Carter also campaigned that he was a Washington outsider and didn't owe anybody in Washington anything.

The US and N. Vietnam were well into negotiations by the time Watrgate exploded, so had Nixon remained in office it was likely that there would have been a negotiated end to the war, not a US victory.

Reagan might have won the Republican nomination 76 and would have won the Presidency.

If Reagan would have been President since '76, there's a good chance that the Cold War would stil be going on.

Nixon didn't have that much time left in office when Watergate broke, so who knows what damage who wold have done.

What a horrible, horrible thought. I can't imagine what would've happened if Nixon didn't go down with such a bad image (worse than it already was). There would be more fools populating the earth, for sure.

By the way, Olivant, are you suggesting the U.S. was victorious in Vietnam, or did I read that wrong?

Wrong.

All the President's Men would never have been made, and I'd be a masterpiece down in my film list.

Woodward and Bernstein wouldn't have garnered the national fame that resulted from Watergate, but even without Watergate there was a growing distrust of government, the CIA, the oil industry. There was a politically active younger generation that questioned and defied authority as never before. The era of investigative journalism was on its way.

I don't think Agnew would have won another election in his life, and would have been convicted with or without Watergate.

I guess Carter would have won the nomination. He was a breeze of fresh air at a stagnant time. Reagan in '76 couldn't beat Ford, who had pardoned Nixon. A joke from "All in the Family" around that time was the Meatheasaying about Archie, "This from a man who didn't like Ford or Carter, so he wrote in Ronald Reagan." The studio audience laughed hysterically as Reagan was widely viewed as on the right wing fringe with limited appeal.

Mo Udall and Scoop Jackson were challengers to Carter in the primaries, but the only Democrat on the landscape who could have challenged Carter in '76 was Ted Kennedy.

I disagree with Buchanan on the VietNam War.

Without Watergate Ford probably would have retired as a Congressman.

Thought so. It's pretty indisputable we lost that one.

Going back to it, I think I understand what you meant now.

Great post.

Nixon had his fingers in a lot of pies, and Watergate was only the tip of the iceberg. There was his tax evasion problems, the break in at the Ellsberg psychiatrist office, all the money laundering by Mitchell, the whole existence of the plumbers, the dirty tricks stuff....any one of these things could easily have gone public, and then the other dominoes would fall. Nixon was by no means beloved ... even by people in his own party, and if this started hitting the fan and congressmen were going to lose their seats, I think he would have gone down anyway.

Everyone forgot about Forrest Gump. He was the one that called it in anyways.

Archie and Meathead would've had alot less to talk about.

Why? Archie would still call Rob Reiner a stupid hippie Pollack Catholic Meathead.

Anybody who is interested in further details about Watergate should read "The Final Days" by Woodward & Bernstein. It's as good as "All the President's Men," IMO. Much more detailed and focused on Nixon's last 12-18 months in office.

I agree with Dontomasso - if it wasn't the break-in, it would have been something else that undid Nixon. He was beyond paranoid. I mean, the guy had one of the largest margins for re-election in our nation's history (1972 election) and the man sulked for days that the victory was not decisive enough. He was always stung by the 1960 loss to Kennedy and became obsessed with destroying his opponents in any way possible during the rest of his political career.