From: mfenster@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (mark andrew fenster)
Subject: Re: Hey! What about Watergate?
Originator: mfenster@silver.ucs.indiana.edu
Organization: Indiana University, Bloomington IN.
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 1992 19:22:38 GMT

  (hawkeye (andy) :: ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu) writes,
>|discussions on the topic (mostly to do with who Deep
>|Throat is --- a far less interesting question that asking
>|who Bob Woodward is), but most of them have been basic
>|and superficial.

>So who *is* deep throat?  Obviously he is still alive because the name has not
>been revealed by Woodward himself.

I see.  Once Woodward, unimpeachable source that he is, reveals the secret
identity of his famous and omniscient source, the mysteries of
Watergate will be revealed.  BTW, CBS's self-congradulatory and somewhat 
silly documentary a few months back said it was L. Patrick Gray; Colodny and
Gettlin ("Silent Coup") say it was Haig.  I'm sure everyone involved
in it has been identified as deep throat somewhere by someone.

>|1) Why did they get caught?
>|2) What were their actions and their arrest a part of (i.e., larger
>|machinations by Nixon, by those out to get Nixon, or by some
>|other hidden conspiratorial group)?

>Completely bogus, leading questions. 

A fair cop.  Guilty as charged.  Sorry if it offended you.

> IMHO Watergate should be looked at with pure objectivity since there
>is so much factual, accountable information to go on as compared to a 
>single event like JFK being assasinated.

The logic here escapes me a bit.  If you're satisfied with the "factual,
accountable information" that we have on Watergate, fine.  "Pure
objectivity," though, I'll let stand for itself, and won't try to get into
that battle over objectivity, its meaning and its possibility, particularly
in matters as tricky and intentionally obfuscated as Watergate. 

But I'm notsure what you mean by the comparison with the "single event" of 
JFK.  Presumably if you don't accept the "factual, accountable information"
available from the WC et al (and I don't want to get into JFK --- that's
precisely what my original post was meant to avoid), then you see the
assasination as encompassing more than one event, just as if one were
to look at Watergate as more than simply a botched break-in one would
look at more than the single event.  This is not to say that if one
sees conspiracy with JFK that one must see it in Watergate --- rather,
the logic you're using to dismiss my (admittedly leading) questions
doesn't seem to make sense to me.

>I can answer question 1.  They got caught because a security guard found the
>open door.  That is why they got caught.  You asked, so you got an answer.

Great.  Just like saying LHO was caught because he was arrested.  (BTW,
the door wasn't open, there was inconsistency with tape on a door knob
that alerted the security guard.  Nit picky.  Sorry.)

Hey, if you don't think Watergate was any more than what we already
seem to know, fine.  The spirit with which I asked my (leading)
questions was the same Colodny and Gettlin (and I'm not endorsing
their book --- I just think it and the reaction it caused are interesting)
found when they toured behind the book and found that, "Americans
remain perplexed about Nixon's downfall, and we found a mostly receptive,
sometimes skeptical, audience to our revisionist history of [Watergate].
Callers lit up phone lines --- liberals and conservatives alike ---
to agree or to argue with us on scores of radio shows across the country"
(p. 470, paperback edition). I'd just like to see the bandwidths lit
up by something other than JFK for a change, is all...


> hawkeye (andy) :: ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu 

Mark Fenster
mfenster@silver.ucs.indiana.edu