Watergate [Hardcover]

With all that's been discovered, exposed, reported and chronicled on Watergate, writing yet another book, let alone a novel on this scandal seems an arduous if not impossible task. We all have our opinions and memories; our tally of the good guys and bad guys; and even a list of "What ifs?" All true, but Thomas Mallon's book is both fascinating and scary - not Hitchcock Psycho scary - but scary in how "real" this novel reads - regardless if it is "fiction".

The author uses an interesting mix of narrators - some well-known, some not so much - to tell the "story" of this third rate burglary, its aftermath and the subsequent downfall and resignation of President Richard Nixon. We meet Howard Hunt, ex-CIA, one of the burglars and maybe a little mentally unbalanced. Fred LaRue, good friend of John Mitchell, presidential aide and White House "bag-man". The First Lady Pat Nixon and Presidential Secretary Rose Mary Woods - both of these women exceptionally well developed in this book. Alice Roosevelt Longworth, the elderly first daughter of Theodore Roosevelt, acerbic, still mentally sharp and the only one who seems to be able to connect the tragic dots of this scandal. (Alice nicknames John Dean the TST - the tortoise shell(ed) tattler.)

Elliot Richardson, the attorney general removed during "The Saturday Night Massacre" - and former Secretary of Defense, HEW and Undersecretary of State - spends some time in the spotlight, and is on the receiving end of a few barbs. (I don't know much of Richardson's "history" to make a call, but that he is presented here as "opportunistic" is an understatement.) John and Martha Mitchell also each play a role - Mr. Mitchell, Nixon confidante, former AG, head of CREEP, and the long suffering husband who took his eye off the ball; Mrs. Mitchell, the intoxicated, shrill, and wildly indiscreet elephant in the room and on the phone. And of course at the center of all this is Richard Nixon, who although not portrayed sympathetically by any means, is still very human here.

Just as fascinating are some of the players given bit parts in the novel. (Maybe because they're still alive, but there seems to be more to the lack of attention here than that.) G. Gordon Liddy is never on center stage and is off-handedly referred to by several of the above as a macho, overzealous, incompetent buffoon. Henry Kissinger pops in and out of the narrative - usually obsequious and insecure when he does. And just to keep the reader on his or her toes, there are several fictional characters; one of which adds a whole new dimension to Pat Nixon.

I found this an extraordinary book - maybe a tad long, but I'm not smart enough to identify what's not needed - and one where you rarely, if ever, feel the presence of the author. Not an easy task when you think about it. The only caveat I have is the amount of Watergate knowledge one brings to this book. Mallon drops the reader right into the deep end of the pool with his novel, and even with a fair bit of Watergate lore in my head I had to refer to Wikipedia several times. Still well worth the read and one folks will be talking about for some time to come.

Fiction as history seems like a contradiction in terms. In the Author's Note to Harlot's Ghost, Norman Mailer suggests the opposite: "Novelists have a unique opportunity - they can create superior histories out of an enhancement of the real, the unverified and the wholly fictional." In Watergate, Thomas Mallon admits to "enhancing" the real especially in the case of main character Fred LaRue. The reader must decide if such enhancement reveals or obscures.

Mallon's narrative technique is an interesting one. Eschewing almost all of the best known Watergate locales (the Senate hearings, Executive Office discussions, the Washington Post newsroom, etc), the author follows the unraveling scandal in the stories of second or third level participants. The moral dilemma of John Mitchell's bagman Fred LaRue is portrayed as is that of Saturday Night Massacre victim Elliot Richardson. Less attention is paid to Richard Nixon than to wife Pat (who is finally humanized by Mallon) and to Secretary Rose Mary Woods (whom the author cannot help). The marriages of John and Martha Mitchell and of Howard and Dorothy Hunt take center stage. Most interestingly, Nixon confidant and daughter of Teddie Roosevelt Alice Longworth brings historical continuity to this retold tale.

I was a Watergate junkie in the seventies. I detested Nixon and, recovering from a leg broken playing baseball, I watched the Ervin hearings live each day and parts of the replay in the evening. Even so, there is much that is new to me in Mallon's book. The problem may be for those readers who are not overly familiar with all that transpired in the early seventies. The structure of the novel assumes the reader knows what is happening offstage where, in fact, the most significant Watergate actions occur. This may make the book challenging for the casual reader.

With that caveat, I recommend this book as morality tale and effective political journalism. We once again watch amazed as an administration fritters away the most one-sided presidential election victory in history through a combination of paranoia, moral ambivalence, incompetence and bad luck. Concerned with a fantasy that Fidel Castro may be funding the DNC, the Committee to Re-Elect the President places listening devices in Democratic party headquarters and then returns to check them at a later date. The government unravels from there and the most powerful men in the world end up in prison except the President whose pardon dooms his party's chances in the next election cycle. Through all of this, no one in the administration ever ponders what the moral path should be. Jeb Magruder tells LaRue: "You know, Fred, we're not covering up a burglary, we're safeguarding world peace."

It is said that prostitutes and ugly buildings become respectable if they survive long enough for public perception to sentimentalize the object of scorn. The same may be said about errant politicians. Nixon's image seemed to improve as he aged out of the public eye and as memories of the greatest scandal in American political history faded. Mallon's book, like the movie Frost/Nixon, is an effective antidote to the tendency to forget and thus to sanitize the past.

Back when I was a young university student who had been ardently behind George McGovern for President in 1972, I was greatly disappointed that Richard Nixon was re-elected by overwhelming landslide. However, it never occurred to me at the time to equate President Richard Nixon with the headlines that were burning across all the major national newspapers-headlines concerning a 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Headquarters in the Watergate Hotel.

As the ignoble tale of five men acting under the directions of the president's closest aides unfolded before our disbelieving eyes, as a corrosive trail of illegal wiretapping, illicit fundraising, devious cover-up, destruction of evidence, obstruction of justice, perfidy, calumny and just plain old dirty tricks lead straight to the oval office, I along with the rest of the American public was shook to my very core by the infamous scandal which tarnished the image of the highest elected position in the nation, which crippled government, and which caused us to loose faith in the presidency. Most Americans, I am sure, never suspected our nation to be so susceptible and so vulnerable to such crime.

That President Nixon could even allow such corrupt and covert perversions of executive will left most of us distrustful and pessimistic of the executive branch of government. I think we all grieved over the Watergate affair and wondered how the nation could ever recover from something as tragic and disgraceful...but we did!

And now, forty years later, we can finally look back with a different eye and see through the drama of history and perhaps find some comic relief in it thanks to author Thomas Mallon. Mallon adroitly takes us on a wild and wooly ride back in a time capsule directed straight at that infamous gateway to the greatest political scandal of twentieth century America...WATERGATE.

Mallon's interpretation is a fresh and humane treatment of the Watergate scandal. He breathes new life into Watergate's long and dizzying cast of characters, allowing us to get into their minds and look at the events of the Watergate catastrophe from their perspective.

Mallon spotlights the motivations of his cast characters in the Watergate affair as well as illuminates all the possible rationalizations they have for their own behavior. We come to understand why they do what they do from a more personal, intimate level. It is obvious that Mallon has done a superb job of researching his characters, right down to the quotations from them that he has worked seamlessly into the narrative and dialogue. The narrative is so familiar and close to the surface that the fiction begins to feel that it might be true after all!

History does not overwhelm Mallon's story but acts more as a backdrop for his clever plotting into the darkly humorous and melodramatic sides of those unforgettable events. The plot and the characters of WATERGATE may be historically accurate but not necessarily distilled from the obvious, more memorable headlines of the scandal that we are most likely to recall. Instead Mallon blends history with fiction so that actual history is not distorted, just embellished to entertain us and stir our imagination with a different twist to the old extensively dissected and vigorously debated plot.

WATERGATE is very authentic and at the same time it is new and imaginative plotting as well. The Watergate affair was of course a national tragedy but another non-fiction account would bound to be just more of the same sordid reading that we have seen over and over again for the last forty years. Instead with WATERGATE we have been given an intelligently crafted, fictionalized saga of drama, pathos, intrigue, suspense, romance, crime, and gossip.

Mallon brilliantly adds deeper dimension to the real Watergate characters we already know; brings lesser known characters to the forefront to add color and nuance; and creates highly credible new characters to drive the plot of WATERGATE to an intriguing denouement.

Mallon has proven that time has not dulled Watergate in our collective memory. With his splendid novel he has given us a sophisticated account of an event that took center stage in America forty years ago and still fascinates us to this day. I could have never imagined back in those heady university days that someday I would be entertained and even thrilled by the same events that rocked us so, eroded our public trust in our elected political leaders, and challenged our valued notions about the democracy we so cherish. All I can say is: "Bravo, Thomas Mallon for Watergate: A Novel!"