Watergate with Dan Modlin Modlin Global Analysis Newsletter

Welcome. Thank you for joining us for this edition of the Modlin Global Analysis Podcast. We regularly talk about international affairs as well as economics and politics, and it's always helpful to notice how much these themes often interact with each other. And we'll continue in that discussion throughout this year. And in all these episodes, but it is worth noting, specifically, we're going to go back in history and talk about Watergate and this interaction of international politics and the Watergate scandal that we're many of us are familiar with. I'm glad to be joined. In by Dan Modlin this week, we're going to twist the tables and I'll be asking and Dan questions. And it's particularly interesting because throughout his life he has been fascinated by the Watergate scandal. And as a student, he did extensive research on this question and his revisited—frequent times. So Dan, thank you for joining us on this. And our first question to you is although Watergate was generally considered to be a domestic story doesn't it have some international politics connections to it?
Dan
Yes, thank you, Kevin. It's something a lot of people don't realize that the roots of the whole Watergate scandal really go back to the Pentagon Papers incident in which a Rand analyst named Daniel Ellsberg was accused of leaking documents to the New York Times that became known as the. Pentagon Papers and these were internal documents from the Defense Department. Which had analyzed some of the mistakes made during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations in the war in Vietnam, Richard Nixon's name was not in the Pentagon Papers, but he was very concerned about the leaks. As it turns out, he and Henry Kissinger in that time were involved in some of the diplomacy that. Would later lead to. Opening some of the doors with China and they were very concerned that some of the information from the Pentagon Papers, even some of the documents that hadn't been released yet. Referred to some surveillance flights that the US had carried out over China and they were concerned that that could impede their progress in talking with Chinese leaders. So there was very definitely an international aspect to this. Another interesting side light of this was that Ellsberg, the person who's widely recognized as the person who leaked the Pentagon Papers, had actually had a mentor named Henry Kissinger in his past. Going to Garrett M Graff in his very interesting book, Watergate and New History, Kissinger was concerned that if that former student would continue to leak documents, that would reflect badly on him, and it would also obviously have an impact on some of their diplomacy. But according to graph. Kissinger then encouraged Nixon to take a hard stand on. Leaks and that hard stand was what led directly to some of the corruption and illegal activity that became known as the Watergate scandal.
Kevin
You know, this is fascinating because, well, you've spent a significant amount of time thinking about Watergate. I've been interested in the Cold War era of this same time period. And I've read biographies on Kissinger. And this was a very important mark both in the history of what we would know with Watergate, but also the relationship that Kissinger has throughout the administration. And this feeding of basically paranoia that comes from that and we see. The Nixon and Kissinger bond kind of strengthened through this paranoia, right? So they have a greater trust basically through developing distrust of others. And just as I mentioned earlier, you've had these interesting stories that you've shared with me throughout my life. Of being at the Watergate hearings, and in fact, you were there the day Attorney General John Mitchell. So I know all of us would enjoy hearing some of the macro pieces that you've heard, as well as what was it like being there?
Dan
It was a very interesting experience and to put it kind of in context, I don't know of anything that happens currently that h