We’re just four months away from the most famous and impactful third-rate burglary in Washington history: Watergate.
The calendar will mark the date June 17, 1972, but the publishing world is already pouring out thousands of pages, starting with reporter Carl Bernstein’s autobiography and continuing this month with journalist Garrett Graff’s well-researched Watergate.
More are expected to follow, notably intelligence expert Jefferson Morley’s Scorpions’ Dance in June about the relationship between former President Richard Nixon and then-CIA Director Richard Helms and “their volatile shared secrets that ended a presidency.”
Most of the books have a unique angle. We got a sneak peek at New York Times bestselling author Graff’s, and it’s his view the event marked a turning point in Washington from a sleepy old political town to what it is today.
Graff also provided details that also help build his history into a great story. Consider this nugget on how Nixon celebrated writing his first post-presidency book that addressed Watergate:
“To celebrate the book’s completion, Nixon toasted from a bottle of brandy he’d only touched twice — once, with Kissinger, to mark the secret negotiations for the opening to China and a second time on his final night in the White House. ‘To the book and to the future,’ he said.”
