Fred Emery

Well, I don't know why the whole Watergate kerflufle fascinates me so.

Maybe it's because it was the history that I lived through, not just the history I read about.

Anyway Fred Emery had himself a good idea. Sit down in a comfortable chair with ALL the books that came out of Watergate, Nixon's book and John Dean's book and Erlichmann's book and all of them.

And the transcripts of the tapes.

And put the whole story together end to end correlating this one's memory with that one's memory with show more the tapes and the testimony. When there are conflicting stories, he tells you.

It's an amazing achievement. I think Emery is very fair about the run-up to Watergate and the (sometimes reality-based) paranoia of the Nixon team.

But when someone is lying, he's not shy about saying so.

Everybody in the Nixon White House thought this was nothing to waste time on when they were working on peace in the Middle East and Arms talks with Russia and a sputtering economy.

And Nixon - not a foolish man politically - thought that the Watergate thing would come to nothing because other presidents before him had done the same and worse. Well maybe.

A fair and balanced book and a new look at a fascinating story.

This is the one that will last as long as Watergate and corruption in Government are talked about. show less

This book is a thorough and in-depth history of the Watergate Scandal. If you're looking for all the facts, this is your source; if you're looking for the juicy stories, better turn to the (auto)biographies of the main players.

A really fine book on this scandal and, next to reading the tape transcripts, the best reminder I know of what the Nixon administration was actually like.

About as comprehensive book as you can find about Watergate. Over 500 pages long, and includes a very large amount of quotes from the tapes. I was in my 30s when all of this happened, and I was interested in reading this book as a memory refresher. It did the job.