to annotate Watergate

In the movie Nixon, there's a scene where John Dean waits to meet E. Howard Hunt.

(John Dean is portrayed by the actor who played Frasier's brother Niles on the TV show "Frasier."  Hunt is played by Ed Harris...[Ed Harris is getting to be, like, the new Gene Hackman.  He's around, all over, everyplace....])

Dean waits on a big, thick, concrete bridge -- very architecturally beautiful -- majestic....It's dark out, and quiet except for low-rumbling thunder.

(There's an old stereotype where the trite writer begins a story with the sentence, "It was a dark and stormy night..."  Peanuts cartoonist Charles M. Schulz used that in a "Snoopy" sequence....
But -- though some might call it corny, "dark and stormy nights" are
well-used -- often-used -- because they're effective!  A writer has to strike a balance....)

The dark-and-stormy-night in Nixon is very effective -- Dean waits, in darkness, alone, and suddenly E. Howard Hunt is beside him.
Dean, startled, admonishes Hunt, "If you'd been this stealthy at the Watergate, we wouldn't be in this mess."
[Thunder:  rumble, roll, rumble....]

They converse -- after some back-and-forth, Hunt tells Dean, "You're going to learn that Richard Nixon is -- the darkness -- reaching out for -- the darkness.  Sooner or later, it's either you or him.
...Your grave's already been dug, John."

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In one part of the movie, where aides (Haldeman and Ehrlichman, I think, or maybe just Haldeman--) are informing Pres. Nixon that Howard Hunt is connected to the break-in at the Watergate....The president says, "Hunt?  Howard Hunt?"  He pales, his eyes look scared and concerned, and he says the name so fast and staccato, it sounds like one syllable -- "Hunt?  Hahrd Hunt?"

You know him, sir?

Neh -- I -- I know -- what he is.  I know what he -- tracks back to.
...Take care of it; keep it out of the White House. ...

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When Nixon (dir. Oliver Stone) came out -- (was thinking it was 1997, but Google Free Encyclopedia says 1995) I thought of going to see it, and wanted to, but didn't.  I couldn't.  Hadn't recovered from Stone's JFK yet. 
I felt like -- I don't know.
Intense.
Thought-provoking.
Provoking.
I don't know.
Leave Nixon alone.

I just didn't go see it at the time, on the big screen. 
Now -- I've seen it on a DVD disc.

When I was a freshman in high school Watergate-related events were unfolding -- the president had ordered special prosecutor Archibald Cox fired -- two different people -- Elliott Richardson, and a Ruckleshaus -- resigned rather than carry out the order.  Someone else -- Bork -- fired Cox.  News stories called it "the Saturday Night Massacre."

One Sunday after church, I had a notebook and TIME Magazine, and I began cutting out photographs and captions and small columns of type from stories about Watergate, and arranging them on the pages of my notebook, and taping them in.  I wrote in some of my own observations.  And kept cutting and taping.  Searching for the magazine, my father found me doing this, & he asked What are you doing?  I let him look at the notebook pages, and he goes, "Why, you're -- annotating TIME Magazine!"
"What's 'annotating'?"
"That -- what you're doing.
pause
Why -- are you doing that?"
I didn't know why I was doing it.
Said, "I don't know."

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I was figuring out -- when President Nixon resigned I was a couple months short of 16.  Watergate had been -- seeping out, spattering us, for two years.  That was one-eighth of my life up to that point.  It would be like if something in the news was going on now, that had been going on for 6 and 3-quarters years.  Something that intense, and surprising, and strange, and unexpected.

It was a feeling of fascination, and of anguish, simultaneously.

------------------  "I know what he is.  I know what he tracks back to."

"Your grave's already been dug."

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