II I ,k fEW r IAA USINESS LEADERS home. announced that Secretary Judiciary Cemoottee charred bun in flu bill of • Control Of hl. entton•on ger will remain ill his Cabinet. owns tharilit "Ti" ItO Ii issid Mr Steno's sacrifire for hpecjiestu. he did not refer to Judiciary ring detested for I very saddest Inc charge. that In doe cover-up .51 Watergate used guyerlinOnt agencies such as the only Agency and the (Mensal the President's addruas, S leg Aid irmed s statement dec ' 44. no agreement or understandin g10niatue. esicket or his repreouttativ toter. See preterit. said the rehetina in any way to the aid in his sorski mid that his office agreurent ur undeista dot elemw like was informed y ported. 7 deciines, Jenvorski tb Wye tilt le in any say In cried • t,thaniciee his uded by sh may (a‘1 5 President ,.ant who hate UM I to -loto together sitergad." had (bought it won h Ault 'bee of the Watergate e ;;C:. tarns Is MO day% however. it has broom ems I no longer have a strong enough ue Congress to Justify amtinning that said Camas "unanimously oiled" litm to 51 1 the charger against hint, hi said that he would not fuse the nip the duties of hu office In oilfield um, vs needs a fult•time Presolent IAA Right. MI Nixon said. The reeignati sea announcement Mat be Is re j. that 1 OM be hero Alexandria Nene, pra d the tirovnina at "114 pledged to impose dent Funk SI.,. • -.re and ice will is III c, . the uutpateiA that may he led to this in peace bad rove M the Wh he sant. My trate Him--And ellltI011/" in all t Our. 1,0 WI Mil. hy said. add 11,1 Ile W1116 It is a safer ml tut all I rit.tdftil 111: Mg is what doped I Idr. I.stn SI 'What I 1141* I tri: my leave the eudeme, 3y Evan lived through turbult d uncle - Thomas of Theodore beresel 1011 la whose fate is ervil lm and who. If Ite 1416 'al Ally " rd great 0040110 Oil tut fe said hit Mount atIon h. I !or a courier of a tory Si 11—Ifti I I!WWI I . tiee and the People' twiddle ' I I . mg, the LI Cd gi.4, peace in Mat sr • And w , the pdministratin had hem nuclear arms race ma gnat and finally destroy toga am clear star will n longer I o countries. he rather dun III c exudate toned 2.02d y,ws Mi tag Ho leaves fite with minting te ho • tried on be Vice Proud • hut yet morning. the P Went cg spent mush of the day ng hideaway r king no , • to lastromute bus ma. ad rissistant director W. Mark Felt pin.. NM. Nixon a h left lb walk to the Et ire Oft Odin& the gates wan U.S. flit hte walked early u the Ste; At the SOB, hr. Ninon for a ii with the leaders of Conger seen president pro tem to the to, klik mayority leader If Scott I N. M. C UNDERSTANDING DEEP THROAT: Why a source took on a president then, and how Nixon's fall shapes us even now. li4=i- *lad a i BY EVAN THOMAS THREE DECADES ON, MANY, IF NOT MOST, Americans know about Watergate from the movie "All the President's Men." Boiled down to its melodra- matic essentials, the film is a timeless quest story. it shows two young seekers—newspaper reporters handsome enough to be Robert Redford, cool enough to be Dustin Hoffinan, guided by a wizard in a cave (Deep Throat in a garage)—toppling the Evil Empire (Richard Nixon's White House). The filmmaker, Felt at the late Alan Pakula, deftly used lighting to enhance the FBI; Nixon bows out the feel of a Manichaean struggle. The newsroom where the reporters work is always bright, open, a place of truth. Almost everything else is dark, shadowy—nests of liars and prevaricators. How long ago, and how romantic, the story seems. Reporters are not exactly heroes these days. Anonymous sources like Deep Throat are in disrepute, and many large news organizations, including NEWSWEEK, are under fire for their mistakes. What happened to the days when re- porters were searching for truth, instead of gabbling on talk shows? "All the President's Men" was a great morality tale, and true enough mom LEFT: POLARIS. DAVID HUME ASSARAY-GSTII IMAGES 22 NEWSWEEK JUNE 13. 2005 0 o I i • A 1LS tir 6 7 w^13 M 20 21 2728 Watergate was at heart a power struggle. Truth and justic e pla about The Washington Post reporters and man at the FBI—shed new light on the true but only a part. It was largely a behind-the- advis editors it portrayed. But it was only nature of the scandal and its lasting effects. scenes contest for control. At times high- Impe a movie. It does not tell the whole story, Felt's motives were the subject of instant and minded, at other times brutal and raw, the turnc or even the real story, of the Watergate intense debate (Felt himself suffers from forces vying for control shifted the center of force scandal, and it gives a misleading picture dementia), but they were almost certainly gravity in the nation's capital in profound Pent of the real stakes involved. mixed, in ways that are important to under- and lasting ways. Only now, 35 years later, is peop The larger truth about Watergate —the es- standing the story. the pendulum beginning to swing back. to fin sential "hackstory," ifyou will—became clear- The real story, like real life, is murkier, The loss in Vietnam and the crime of the er last week, when the actual Deep Throat more mundane, more ambiguous than the Watergate gave a bad name to "national comiurttet stepped out of the shadows and, with movie version. But it is also more telling and security" and "executive privilege," noble a nudge or two from his fan-tily, revealed him- relevant to today's headlines. It is not primar- phrases Nixon frequently invoked to justify anhyd ni self: W. Mark Felt, 91, a flail old man, smiling ily a story about the press or the search for his illegal acts. The scandals had the ef- and blinking for the flashbulbs. His identity truth. Rather. Watergate was at heart a pow- fect of undermining executive authority — chin( and rank at the time of Watergate—No. 2 er struggle. Truth and justice played a part, of dismantling what the historian and JFK irg d 24 NEWSWEEK JUNE 13, 2005 macrons( FROM LEFT: PARE GODFAC-1 MADE wORAN. WARMED 9S • PAIDEDFEST, GERALD 4ERDER1- Kay Graham, Bernstein, Woodward, Simons and Bradlee discuss The Washington Post's Watergate coverage (left): Redford and Hoffman portray reporters in a newsroom cast as a beacon of truth (above); Woodward and Bernstein (below) reunite in Washington after Deep Throat's identity was revealed rtice played a part. But it was really a contest or control. adviser Arthur Schlesinger Jr. called "the authority for any peccadillo, no matter how push back, and with some success. lb much Imperial Presidency" Power was, in effect, minor or distant. of the electorate, the lines have been drawn. e turned over from its traditional and most The impact on government was, for bet- Increasingly the proms and Congress—or If forceful executors—the White House, the ter and for worse, predictable. True, there anyone who questions authority—are cast as 1 Pentagon, the intelligence agencies—to the were no more J. Edgar Hoovers running se- the bad guys, as unpatriotic or irresponsible. people and organizations that are supposed cret sinister empires. On the other hand, Bush wants to restore the executive power to function as a check on power: the courts, bureaucrats became timorous, or, in the that Nixon squandered. His critics think he if the press, congressional watchdog com- lingo of government, "risk averse." They has already overreached. His supporters Li mittees. The 1970s saw a rise of a new were afraid that if they took any chances, cheer him for trying to save the county and e counterestablishment—populated largely they'd have to hire a lawyer or read about for rolling hack the antiauthoritarian excess- by reporters and lawyers—all conjoined themselves in an article by Bob Woodward. es that were the legacies of the 1960s, of Viet- and interlocked in one giant scandal ma- But pendulums do swing, especially nam and Watergate. chine that, at times, seemed bent on bring- when they get a hard shove. Ever since 9/II, How did we get from there to here—and ing down anyone in an official position of President George W. Bush has been trying to maybe hack again? The story begins with 3' JUNE 13. 2005 NEWSWEEK 25 Politics Richard Nixon, cunning, bright, able and, as time went on, ever more paranoid. The young Nixon was a southern California striv- Watergate Revisited: Folio er. Insecure about his degrees from Whittier Passed over for the FBI directorship and wary of Nixon's imperial ambitions, W. Mark Fell )ecame De College and Duke Law, he had tried to make clues drove "Woodstein" to dig where others didn't dare. A look back at the twists and turns of Vatergate- it in New York, but the fancy firms rejected him, sending him back west. It was in poli- • WATERGATE EVENTS AND REVELATIONS FELT'S ROLE tics, however, not in law, that Nixon found his metier.