June 17th, 1972.
At the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C., a group of five men broke into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee. It wasn’t a common burglary; their goal was to dig up dirt and wiretap the offices. Despite being burglars, they were very sloppy, and as a result, they were caught in the early hours of the morning.
After the break-in, a journalist for The Washington Post named Bob Woodward and, later, fellow Post journalist Carl Bernstein would unravel a complex conspiracy involving federal and executive officials in political sabotage operations. Whether it be the fact that the two men who orchestrated the break-in, George Gordon Liddy and Everette Howard Hunt, were former FBI and CIA respectively, or the fact that four of the five burglars Hunt knew due to his anti-Castro operations with the CIA, or that the fifth burglar, James McCord, was not only a former CIA agent but also the security chief for CREEP (Committee to Re-Elect the President). While all this seems like a ton, Woodward and Bernstein would uncover way more, stuff that I will never be able to summarize in this, so I highly recommend doing your own research.
Ultimately, the President, Richard Nixon, would be re-elected. It was only after his re-election that the full extent of what happened would come to light; the release of Woodward and Bernstein’s book, “All The President’s Men,” certainly didn’t help Nixon either. With the public clamoring for him to be impeached, Nixon would step down from the presidency, becoming the first and only president to date to do so; Nixon’s vice president, Gerald Ford, would pick up the mantle.
In 1976, two years after Nixon’s impeachment, Woodward and Bernstein’s book, “All The President’s Men”, would be adapted into a movie of the same name. Starring Robert Redford as Bob Woodward and Dustin Hoffman as Carl Bernstein, the movie would delve into the conspiracy aspect of the whole investigation. Woodward and later Bernstein entered it like others with the belief that it was just a break-in, but the more they dug, the more they uncovered. It increasingly becomes more treacherous, whether it be the White House discrediting the Washington Post, or Woodward’s source telling him straight-up that he’s in danger.
For the most part, the movie is accurate. Sometimes, they had to simplify stuff, but overall, it doesn’t take away from the movie. No history movie can be completely correct, and for a director to balance narrative with accuracy is quite the challenge, but it feels really nice to see someone actually put in the time to at least make it know what it’s talking about.
If you are into these stories of political intrigue, mystery, and conspiracy, I cannot recommend this movie enough. The movie is really captivating, in both terms of cinematography and content. Considering that Nixon resigned in 1974, and the movie came out in 1976, Watergate was still fresh in everyone’s minds. A loss of trust, of security and prestige, and ultimately, a loss of faith.
As the movie ramps up, you really feel the paranoia intensify; it keeps you on the edge of your seat as you realize the extent of the scandal. In today’s climate in regard to the news, it really hits different. There is always skepticism in regard to the news now, whether it be AI, political polarization, or pure clickbait.
“All the President’s Men” and the Watergate scandal show just how important the press really is, how even in the face of a federal machine, eager to stomp it out, they continued digging, all for the sake of the truth. I hope that we can one day stomp these detractors and falsifiers out; however, with the way things are, it seems there’s no rollback.
