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It Didn't Start With Watergate
New reprint of book by best selling author of The Man and the Myth. This carefully documented book highlights the hypocracy that has gripped both the beltway and the entire nation. Details political corruption beyond lies and fund raising scams. A well-written expose of dirty tricks, corrupt political battles, illegal wire-tapping and coverups by the press. Describes presidential abuses of the IRS, FBI and vote-fraud that has been ignored or blatantly covered-up by the mainstream media. Activities that are still rampant today. A classic, historical account of down-and-dirty political machinations that never seem to gain the attention of the American public. This volume illustrates the shame of corrupt practices that stains both political parties. Thus is our democracy demeaned. A bite of history unknown to most.
478 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1977
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About the author
Victor Lasky
29 books1 followerA longtime conservative columnist, Victor Lasky got his start in journalism in 1940 as a copy boy for The New York Journal-American. During the Second World War, Lasky worked as a correspondent for the Army newspaper Stars and Stripes covering the war in Europe. After the war, he joined the staff of The New York World-Telegram, where he assisted Frederick Woltman with his Pulitzer Prize-winning articles on Communist infiltration and co-wrote a book on Alger Hiss's trial with Ralph de Toledano.
During the 1950s Lasky worked as a screenwriter, and from 1956 to 1960 he was in charge of public relations for Radio Liberty. In 1962 he began writing a syndicated newspaper column, ''Say It Straight,'' for the North American Newspaper Alliance, which ran for the next two decades, as well as a series of controversial books about contemporary politicians.
During the 1950s Lasky worked as a screenwriter, and from 1956 to 1960 he was in charge of public relations for Radio Liberty. In 1962 he began writing a syndicated newspaper column, ''Say It Straight,'' for the North American Newspaper Alliance, which ran for the next two decades, as well as a series of controversial books about contemporary politicians.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
July 13, 2022
At the height of the Watergate scandal, Art Buchwald published a column where he jokingly offered stock responses for Nixon supporters to his critics (among them “What about Chappaquiddick?" repeated ad nauseum). Victor Lasky's It Didn't Start With Watergate is basically that column played straight, with the same talking points made at tedious length. Lasky was a conservative columnist and longtime friend of Nixon: he helped launch the future president's career through his coverage of the Hiss case and wrote several books depicting the Kennedys as the spawn of Satan. Thus it's little surprise that the bulk of this book rehearses Democratic misdeeds which he claims exceed Nixon's crimes. If Lasky's case seems convincing on its surface, it doesn't survive examination: he indiscriminately lists real abuses, like Roosevelt's internment of Japanese-Americans (which he concedes "might have been motivated by racism") or the Kennedy-Johnson wiretaps of Civil Rights leaders, alongside things few people would find shocking: JFK's removing the tax exempt status of segregationist lunatic Billy James Hargis, say, or the prosecution of Jimmy Hoffa, or Lyndon Johnson trying to uncover Anna Chennault's sabotage of the Paris Peace Talks in 1968. Few readers in 2022 will swallow his claim that Johnson aide Walter Jenkins was a security risk due to his homosexuality. But Lasky really gives the game away when he suggests that FDR's Lend-Lease Program was the equivalent of Nixon bombing Cambodia; after all, both were done without congressional consent! Both were unpopular with large swathes of the public! Therefore, both were equally bad - right?
"Two wrongs don't make a right," Lasky solemnly intones early on, "but they make an acceptable precedent." This sophistry might be less obnoxious if Lasky weren't arguing that Nixon did nothing all that bad. When he's not insisting that Donald Segretti was a harmless prankster, that Nixon merely made "unfortunate" remarks about Jews or that the Plumbers were a reasonable response to national security leaks, he's arguing that the Democratic Party had foreknowledge of the break-in and somehow tricked Nixon into doing it. He claims with a straight face that the '72 campaign was "one of the cleanest in American history" and dismisses well-documented misdeeds, like Nixon's involvement in milk industry price fixing or the Hunt-Liddy plot to murder Jack Anderson, as liberal fabrications. He attacks the "liberal media" even while citing columnists and reporters who defended the Administration or attacked its critics. He even accuses Nixon's traducers of McCarthyism, a head-scratching charge from an author who'd allied with McCarthy and still defended him decades later. But, like a lot of conservatives defending the indefensible, Lasky assumes that you've never read anything else he's written, presumably including earlier passages of this book.
Perhaps it's better if you hadn't. Because it's abundantly clear that Lasky isn't interested in holding all politicians to an equal standard, and he certainly isn't concerned about corruption or good government. Rather, he's arguing that any crimes committed by a Republican are justified because some Democrat, somewhere did something bad, too. This "at least I admit it" mindset remains familiar today, though at least Lasky can point to real abuses of power by Kennedy, etc.; his modern equivalents have to invent "scandals" from whole cloth and treat them as worse than things that actually happened. Still, it's depressing that fifty years and several scandal-plagued presidents later, Republicans are still asking "What about Chappaquiddick?"
"Two wrongs don't make a right," Lasky solemnly intones early on, "but they make an acceptable precedent." This sophistry might be less obnoxious if Lasky weren't arguing that Nixon did nothing all that bad. When he's not insisting that Donald Segretti was a harmless prankster, that Nixon merely made "unfortunate" remarks about Jews or that the Plumbers were a reasonable response to national security leaks, he's arguing that the Democratic Party had foreknowledge of the break-in and somehow tricked Nixon into doing it. He claims with a straight face that the '72 campaign was "one of the cleanest in American history" and dismisses well-documented misdeeds, like Nixon's involvement in milk industry price fixing or the Hunt-Liddy plot to murder Jack Anderson, as liberal fabrications. He attacks the "liberal media" even while citing columnists and reporters who defended the Administration or attacked its critics. He even accuses Nixon's traducers of McCarthyism, a head-scratching charge from an author who'd allied with McCarthy and still defended him decades later. But, like a lot of conservatives defending the indefensible, Lasky assumes that you've never read anything else he's written, presumably including earlier passages of this book.
Perhaps it's better if you hadn't. Because it's abundantly clear that Lasky isn't interested in holding all politicians to an equal standard, and he certainly isn't concerned about corruption or good government. Rather, he's arguing that any crimes committed by a Republican are justified because some Democrat, somewhere did something bad, too. This "at least I admit it" mindset remains familiar today, though at least Lasky can point to real abuses of power by Kennedy, etc.; his modern equivalents have to invent "scandals" from whole cloth and treat them as worse than things that actually happened. Still, it's depressing that fifty years and several scandal-plagued presidents later, Republicans are still asking "What about Chappaquiddick?"
July 30, 2010
Watergate is kind of a hobby of mine. I don't know why exactly. Maybe it started with that high school desire to become a journalist and uproot corruption. Then as I became a journalist I realized, as did Dave Barry, that there may indeed be corruption out there, but I had no idea how to find it. So now I'm a tech writer who reads a lot about Watergate.
Most of the literature out there is highly negative, but mostly for the right reasons. This book, by conservative columnist Victor Lasky, takes a dim view of the media's treatment of Nixon and his cohorts from the viewpoint that, yeah, Nixon and his buddies weren't the smartest in the history of this nation of ours, but that the media made it worse by focusing on his sins while giving Democrats from FDR to Lyndon Johnson to John Kennedy a pass on their nefarious mischief, which, especially in the case of the latter, included wiretapping, recording conversations and using governmental bodies from the IRS to the FBI to the CIA to harass political enemies.
Lasky makes some good arguments over the bias of the media -- something we'd all be wise to be aware of, given the current poisoned political climate.
Five stars, definitely. Well worth reading if you enjoyed "Woodstein's" All the Presidents Men and The Final Days.
Most of the literature out there is highly negative, but mostly for the right reasons. This book, by conservative columnist Victor Lasky, takes a dim view of the media's treatment of Nixon and his cohorts from the viewpoint that, yeah, Nixon and his buddies weren't the smartest in the history of this nation of ours, but that the media made it worse by focusing on his sins while giving Democrats from FDR to Lyndon Johnson to John Kennedy a pass on their nefarious mischief, which, especially in the case of the latter, included wiretapping, recording conversations and using governmental bodies from the IRS to the FBI to the CIA to harass political enemies.
Lasky makes some good arguments over the bias of the media -- something we'd all be wise to be aware of, given the current poisoned political climate.
Five stars, definitely. Well worth reading if you enjoyed "Woodstein's" All the Presidents Men and The Final Days.
February 7, 2023
Author has a good point and backs it up with much research and plausible facts.
However, once one has been convinced of the thesis the diatribe of evidence eventually becomes somewhat pointless to continue to consume and so I gave up on this book about a third of the way in.
However, once one has been convinced of the thesis the diatribe of evidence eventually becomes somewhat pointless to continue to consume and so I gave up on this book about a third of the way in.
April 5, 2019
So what? It didn't end there either. And in the decades since Watergate, Republicans have done far worse. Bill Clinton lied about sex. Republicans made trump President.
January 23, 2013
Read it based on recommendation from MM
Very dense, packed with citations and research, all about how Nixon's quagmire at Watergate was not an unusual or outrageous abuse of presidential powers, but rather something that all other presidents before him had done—if anything, their violations had been far worse, and they had all been massive bastards, assholes, villains. However, what they had that Nixon didn't was a friendly mainstream press, which hounded Nixon (this matches with Nixon's/GOP's power mechanics of the day). Not too sure how trustworthy the entire book is: Lasky has also written "JFK: The man and the myth". Skimmed most of the second half, skipped numerous parts. Really, very boring after a while to read of once after another incident of official malfeasance, etc.
Very dense, packed with citations and research, all about how Nixon's quagmire at Watergate was not an unusual or outrageous abuse of presidential powers, but rather something that all other presidents before him had done—if anything, their violations had been far worse, and they had all been massive bastards, assholes, villains. However, what they had that Nixon didn't was a friendly mainstream press, which hounded Nixon (this matches with Nixon's/GOP's power mechanics of the day). Not too sure how trustworthy the entire book is: Lasky has also written "JFK: The man and the myth". Skimmed most of the second half, skipped numerous parts. Really, very boring after a while to read of once after another incident of official malfeasance, etc.
July 22, 2013
Really fascinating stuff on JFK and RFK wiretapping, but lessens a bit once it gets into the Watergate apologia. Sill worth a read.
Read
September 7, 2017Very good, lots of insider information.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews