To begin with, I want to send my best wishes to Diana in NoVa, and send her Congratulations! on the marriage of her son taking place this weekend. If she doesn't have time to join us, we will understand, miss her very much, and wish her well. Have fun, lovely lady, and we look forward to seeing you next week.
Now to my ever so humble attempt.
Although I already knew the denouement and the basic outline of the plot, when I first read All the President's Men, I had little knowledge of the smaller players who were nonetheless integral parts of the whole. I had no clue who Hugh Sloan was, much less his wife Deborah, the source of the quote in the title of this diary. But I soon discovered the parts they played in the unfolding drama that was the implosion of an imperial presidency.
Hugh Sloan was the treasurer of the Committee to Re-Elect the President*: Nixon, in this case. Sloan had been handing out money okayed by Mitchell without ever following up on what the money was actually buying. After the break in, however, all complacency about the piles of money was at an end. In the ensuing rush at CREP headquarters to get rid of the evidence, with ledgers being removed, shredded and some even burned, Sloan found he could no longer not see what was happening. His wife, Deborah, was said to be the impetus behind his resignation, but both of them were still loyal to the President. When he first talked to Bernstein and Woodward, Sloan felt sure the President had no idea what his hirelings had been doing in his name. At least that was his hope, which wavered as more information came to light. His sadness at the obvious becomes a barometer for how many true believers felt at the betrayal of someone in whom they'd truly believed.
The comment, "This is an honest house," was what Deborah Sloan told Carl Bernstein when he stopped by to question her husband about his knowledge of the large slush fund consisting of huge amounts of cash and large personal checks written by donors to the CREP.
In juxtaposition against the myriad fun house mirror distortions, outright lies, and what The Washington Post called the White House's "non-denial denials," Deborah Sloan's quietly dignified assertion is all the more striking. Pregnant at the time, Bernstein's respect and liking for her comes across on the page, and as a consequence, I saw her as sympathetic, where as being a true believer in Nixon at this point could make her seem either pathetic or sanctimonious.
In re-reading the book for this diary I found myself for the most part reacting in the same way I did all those years ago. The story starts off simply, but soon it reads like a combination mystery/spy novel. This time around I found myself laughing more at the sheer absurdity of some of the situations. Being older and wiser, or at least no longer quite as naive, I had a better appreciation of the risks that the reporters and the newspaper took. Details that shocked me years ago, now only leave me shaking my head. Partly I wonder that people at the level of the White House would do such things and think they could get away with it; partly I'm still amazed that two lowly reporters through a series of misadventures and sheer dogged persistence were able to hold the guilty people accountable in the court of public opinion, up to and including the leader of the free world.
I actually found myself surprised at one new thing I learned this time around. It wasn't in the book; it was information that I found doing research for this diary. I learned just how close we came to having a book that read more like a textbook. Since everyone already knew the outcome, a treatise that was didactic in tone would hardly have insured a ride to the best seller list, never mind making a critically aclaimed movie that was also successful at the box office. So it is with sincerity that I thank Robert Redford for saving us all from another boring Watergate book.
Read More
