oooh, I bet you're wonderin' how I knew

a "Time-line" of Watergate and related events:

late 1969  

Daniel Ellsberg makes copies of classified documents which revealed that the government had knowledge, early on, that the war could most likely not be won, and that continuing the war would lead to many times more casualties than was ever admitted publicly

[approx. 2 months later]
January 1970 - June 13, 1971

[for 1 and a half years] the copies of the documents "floated" privately, being shown to some U.S. senators who opposed our involvement in the Vietnam War, and a few other people -- Ellsberg wanted senators to release them on the Senate floor, & told them they shouldn't be afraid to go to jail for 10 years, if it would mean ending American involvement in Vietnam

June 13, 1971 

 the first of nine excerpts from, and commentaries on, what became known as The Pentagon Papers -- published in the New York Times

[2 mo. go by]
August 1971 --

a couple of guys who work for Pres. Nixon (who was said to be incensed over the documents being made public -- "We've got to stop these leaks!") met with E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy in a basement office in the Old Executive Office Building.  Planning to break into the office of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist to get personal information about Ellsberg (the "leaker") that could be used to publicly discredit him.  They called themselves "Plumbers."  ("We're gonna plug leaks...!")

[1 month goes by]
September 1971  

The office of Lewis Fielding, Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist, is burglarized.

[9 months later]
June 17, 1972  

the break-in at the National Democratic Party HQ in the Watergate Hotel in Wash. D.C.  -- five men arrested

[1 year later]
summer, 1973

hearings being held in the U.S. House of Representatives, chaired by Sam Ervin (North Carolina), on the Watergate case

[2 months later]
October 20, 1973

the Saturday Night Massacre
Pres. Nixon tried to stop the Watergate investigation by having the Special Prosecutor, Archibald Cox, fired.  Elliott Richardson quit, rather than fire Cox, as did William Ruckleshaus -- someone else fired Cox, but what good did that do, for the president?  Soon another special Prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, was appointed, and the investigation went on.

[approx. 1 mo. later]
Nov. 1973

The 18 1/2 minute gap on one of the president's tapes was discovered.  The public was outraged because it seemed like someone was erasing stuff from the tapes -- dishonesty and misuse of power seemed to hang in the air, like smoke

[9 months later]
August 1974

President Nixon resigned; Vice President Gerald Ford became the President.  (Meanwhile, in a side note -- Gerald Ford did not run with Nixon in 1968 -- Nixon's original Veep had been Spiro Agnew, who resigned his position in the administration in October 1973...whole other thing....)

======================================
It was a lot of stuff.

It was during, like, a period of 4 years and 8 months, approximately.
"Late" 1969 (let's say November),
TO
August 1974.

I remember hearing about the Pentagon Papers.
Later learned of the Watergate break-in.
I didn't link those together, then -- but -- it was the same guys, or some of the same ones -- E. Howard Hunt, G. Gordon Liddy -- (Here -- here's a Rule:  Never do business with men who have no first name, just an initial....would that work??...)

When I was in junior high and starting high school, I saw what was going on with the Watergate "case," but did not connect it with the war in Vietnam, but now I see it does connect.  The controversy, the protests, brought some people in power into a frame of mind where the "Plumbers" seemed like a good idea....

Also -- the Plumbers only got put together (bunch of grown-ups playing cloak-and-dagger games) because of the Pentagon Papers, and that happened due to Vietnam involvement.

==========================
It's enough to give you "an Excedrin headache."
I would like to have these items drawn on a big sheet, going along an actual line, a real, visual "Time-Line" that you could look at like a map.
Because then a person can see it better, and understand it better....

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