LEARNING:
History & Education | June 5, 2005
THE
DEEPER
MEANING
OF
"DEEP
THROAT"
A Posting in
"GordonTalk"
& "Comments
from Left Field"
Revealing
the identity of "Deep Throat",
as W. Mark Feld, former Number Two man at the FBI, not only
resolved one of the longest running mysteries in Washington -- where secrets are more apt to leak in thirty minutes than in
thirty years -- but also resurrected for many of us the bitter
memories and hard feelings of the Watergate era. And a whole lot
more, with profound implications for every last one of us.
If
9/11 marked "the end of innocence" for America in the world,
then Watergate marked "the end of innocence" for America at
home.
Truth
be told, the resounding effects of the Watergate scandals
represented the culmination of an extremely bitter era for our
country. It began with "a shot heard 'round the world":
The assassination of President John F. Kennedy, whose youthful
idealism and infectious enthusiasm had come to symbolize the US
enjoying the unprecedented prosperity and power we had amassed
in the post-War years. But in an instant, out of the blue, one
madman with a gun changed the course of history for the other
five or six billion of us then or now alive -- a concept so
mind-boggling as to inspire countless theories of conspiracy
(even without considering all the unearthly coincidences
unearthed).
From
that moment onward, the world that had seemed so bright seemed
to go all to hell.
"I
want to hold your hand!"
Sure,
the music and movies and TV shows of the Sixties were so great
that they are still replayed and rerun today like nobody's
business (and in commercials for everybody's business). How
much of what passes for entertainment today will be so popular
some forty years from now?
And
yes, we did fulfill JFK's dream of the New Frontier by "putting a man on the moon" before the end of the decade.
But did we follow through? We're lucky to get shuttles into
orbit anymore; our dreams of exploration have been down-graded
to second-hand experiences, fulfilled by robots (making,
admittedly, most wonderful discoveries) or by our fantasies in
movie theaters or in theaters at home (I don't think Columbus
could've discovered America from his barka-lounger).
Like
most memories, the Sixties have for many passed into the
romanticized realm of nostalgia; but for those of us who lived
through that "tumultuous decade", it marked the beginning of
the end for the relative peace and prosperity and, most
importantly, unity that we had enjoyed as a nation in the
Fifties...at least in the national psyche (as captured in all
its black-and-white glory, both visually and morally, in "Father Knows Best" and countless other shows produced for
that mind-melding new mass medium, of television).
The
Right utterly despised the Sixties because of all the civil
unrest, as "colored people" marched on the Capital and
rioted in the ghettos, and hippies burned their draft cards on
college campuses and did only God (who they said was dead) knows
what in their communes.
The
Left claimed they loved everyone but, in fact, hated all the
prejudice, all the poverty, all the pollution, all the
conformity, and -- above all -- all the War (never declared)
in Vietnam.
The
Right shouted, "America! Love it or leave it!"
The
Left answered, "America! Change it or lose it!"
The
Right told the Left to "work within the system", which was
easier said than done as assassins from the Right kept killing
political leaders on the Left.
Even
Gov. George Wallace, of Alabama -- who finally led the South
out of its traditional home in the Democratic Party and into the
eager, race-baiting, war-mongering embrace of the GOP and, thus,
helped set the stage for the Red State/Blue State divide we "enjoy" today
-- had his presidential aspirations
interrupted by a would-be assassin, as the Sixties turned into
the early Seventies.
By
then, the seemingly endless parade of flag-draped coffins
returning from Southeast Asia -- bearing the remains of
someone's son or father or brother or neighbor or... -- overwhelmed any geo-political arguments about Communist dominoes
falling halfway around the world. The majority wanted to put an
end to the war; President Nixon tried to bomb the "gooks"
into submission but, failing that, fumbled for a way to make "peace with honor".
Nixon
won praise far and wide for "opening the door" to the Soviet
Union and Red China and, thus, helping to thaw the frosty
relations of the Cold War (never mind the fact that he had risen
to power feeding the Red Scare hysteria, as by branding his
political opponents Communists or their sympathizers). He was
bringing an end to the Vietnam War (years after he got elected
with a "secret plan" to end it). And most significant of
all, he was seen as a God-fearing, patriotic American who
championed the "silent majority": Suburbanites from sea to
shining sea felt "he was one of us; not one of them
(you know, one of those uppity colored fellas or ungrateful
longhairs or...well, you know...)."
And
who stood in the way of Nixon's re-election? Other than
Wallace, taking some votes in the South for his third-party bid
(from a wheelchair)? None other than Senator George McGovern,
darling of the "radical" Democrats (I believe this would be
the only time that decriminalizing marijuana would be in the
Democratic presidential platform).
Nixon
was poised to win by a landslide, which, of course, he would.
Then
again, Nixon faced one other enemy, who had dogged him his
entire, "checkered" (pun intended) political career:
Himself.
More
to the point, Nixon's classically tragic flaw was his
insatiable paranoia.
With
a blatant and hypocritical contempt for the law, the "law and
order" President and All the President's Men would corrupt
the institutions of government at their command and turn a "third rate burglary" of the Democratic National Committee
Headquarters at the Watergate Hotel into the greatest political
scandal this nation had ever seen -- that is, that we were able
to see, and thwart, thanks to the courageous "whistleblowing" by Deep Throat and the dogged reporting by
Woodward & Bernstein and others in our still free press -- culminating, of course, in the unprecedented, inglorious
resignation of our nation's Chief Executive.
To
the Right, this was "The Poseidon Adventure", the world
turned upside-down.
To
the Left, this was "The Godfather", the abuse of power
inevitably ending in tragedy.
But
one thing everyone seemed to agree on: After all the bitter
disappointments ("the only war America ever lost") and
tragedies ("Where have all the young men gone?" "Has
anybody here seen my old friend John?"), after all the carnage and chaos,
after all the lies about body counts and cover-up about secret
tapes -- after all the betrayals -- only a
fool would believe anyone in Washington ever again.
So
when I see some "snake oil" diet pill being sold on TV and almost
bearing as a badge of honor a disclaimer that "these
statements have not been verified by the US Food and Drug
Administration", when I hear some guy on the radio rant about
the flying saucers in Area 51 that the government is hiding
from us, when I witness a couple army buddies blow up
the federal building in Oklahoma City, or when I fight a
seemingly endless battle against a political party that is doing
everything in its power to bankrupt the federal government and "starve
the beast", well, I have to wonder how different
things the world over might have been if the events of the
Sixties and early Seventies that culminated in Watergate had not
occurred.
Perhaps
Granny ranting on "The Beverly Hillbillies" about how "the
South shall rise again" would have remained in the realm of
farce.
Looking
at the
Red State/Blue State map of America today, I don't think
anyone is laughing.
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