In an essay written in 1977, the historians Morton Borden and Otis L. Graham, Jr., asked: “What If There Had Been No Watergate?” The scandal that forced the resignation of the president, they pointed out, could have evaporated at a number of junctures except for a series of unlikely developments, not least the almost accidental discovery of the Oval Office tape recordings. Those recordings revealed unequivocally not only that President Richard Nixon had engaged more or less continually throughout his presidency in “dirty tricks,” some of them blatantly illegal, against people he labeled “enemies” but also – in the particular case of the break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate building complex in Washington, DC – that he had personally directed the attempted cover-up of the burglary.

The investigation that followed uncovered much that was rotten in American politics, from the gross violations of the Corrupt Practices Act (which had outlawed direct campaign contributions by corporations) through abuses and attempted abuses of the various investigating agencies of government: the IRS, the FBI, the CIA, and the military intelligence agencies. It was hard not to descend into woeful cynicism.

If Richard Nixon had not resigned the presidency, he faced almost certain impeachment by the House of Representatives and conviction by the Senate. In July 1974 the House Judiciary Committee, in a bipartisan vote, charged the president with sixteen specific counts of unlawful conduct. They included (1) obstruction of justice, (2) conspiracy, (3) making false statements, (4) illegal wiretapping, (5) subornation of perjury, (6) violation of civil rights, and (7) illegal use of IRS information, plus eight other particulars.