Nixon library loses Watergate whitewash

[ProSense]

Nixon library loses Watergate whitewash

By GILLIAN FLACCUS, Associated Press Writer 58 minutes ago

YORBA LINDA, Calif. - The privately operated Richard M. Nixon Library and Birthplace is now under federal control and researchers can pore over documents and tapes detailing "the good, the bad and the ugly."

After a simple opening ceremony Wednesday, library officials and docents shared champagne and cake before moving to the research room to view 78,000 newly released Nixon papers and 11 1/2 hours of audio tape.

"This is a great day for history. The hallmark of this new institution will be true acceptance and love for history — the good, the bad and the ugly," said Timothy Naftali, the museum's new federal director. "We are moving past the tribal squabble."

For nearly 20 years, library visitors were told the Watergate scandal was really a "coup" by Nixon's rivals and the investigative reporting team of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein offered bribes for their nation-shaking scoops.

The new library director is taking some of the whitewash off the scandal resulting from the break-in at Democratic headquarters in the Watergate complex in Washington and the subsequent White House cover-up. The revised account is a precondition for receiving 42 million pages of the former president's papers and nearly 4,000 hours of tapes from the National Archives.

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With the stamp of the federal system for library comes a major makeover for certain less-than-accurate exhibits — a relief to Nixon scholars who were frustrated by the way the private institution had portrayed the Watergate scandal and Nixon's foreign policy.

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[pepperbear]

1. It is hard to fathom how matter of factly they perpetuated those lies

about the Watergate scandal. They had their own version of "CLINTON DID IT."