Our Congressmen will do everything possible to avoid it, because most of them have a deep and visceral sympathy, however denied and reluctant, for the “tragic circumstances” that led Richard Nixon to what even Evans and Novak call “the brink of ruin.” The loyal opposition has not distinguished itself in the course of this long-running nightmare. Even Nixon's oldest enemies are lying low, leaving the dirty work to hired lawyers and faceless investigators. Senators Kennedy, McGovern and Fulbright are strangely silent, while Humphrey babbles nonsense and Muskie hoards his energy for beating back personal attacks by Strom Thurmond. The only politicians talking publicly about the dire implications of the Watergate iceberg are those who can't avoid it -- the four carefully selected eunuch/Democrats on the Senate Select Investigating Committee and a handful of panicked Republicans up for re-election in 1974.

The slow-rising central horror of “Watergate” is not that it might grind down to the reluctant impeachment of a vengeful thug of a president whose entire political career has been a monument to the same kind of cheap shots and treachery he finally got nailed for, but that we might somehow fail to learn something from it.

Already -- with the worst news yet to come -- there is an ominous tide of public opinion that says whatever Nixon and his small gang of henchmen and hired gunsels might have done, it was probably no worse than what other politicians have been doing all along, and still are.

Anybody who really believes this is a fool -- but a lot of people seem to, and that evidence is hard to ignore. What almost happened here -- and what was only avoided because the men who made Nixon President and who were running the country in his name knew in their hearts that they were all mean, hollow little bastards who couldn't dare turn their backs on each other -- was a takeover and total perversion of the American political process by a gang of cold-blooded fixers so incompetent that they couldn't even pull off a simple burglary. . . which tends to explain, among other things, why 25,000 young Americans died for no reason in Vietnam while Nixon and his brain trust were trying to figure out how to admit the whole thing was a mistake from the start.

At press time, the National Affairs Suite in Washington had been re-opened and prepared for “total coverage.” Thompson arrived there July 7th, and we expect his reports soon.

Rolling Stone, #140, August 2, 1973

Fear and Loathing at the Watergate:

Mr. Nixon Has Cashed His Check

Gonzo 1 - The Great Shark Hunt

PART I

The Worm Turns in Swamptown. . . Violent Talk at the National Affairs Desk. . . A Narrow Escape for Tex Colson. . . Heavy Duty in The Bunker. . . No Room for Gonzo? “Hell, They Already Have This Story Nailed Up and Bleeding from Every Extremity.”