Suppose Watergate had not been uncovered? I'd still be on the City Desk.

There's hostility to lying, and there should be.

The fact of the Watergate cover-up is not nearly as interesting as the step into making the cover-up. And when you understand the step, you understand that Richard Nixon lied. That he was a criminal.

Nixon had some large achievements in foreign affairs. They will be remembered. But a president probably gets remembered for one thing, and Watergate will head the Nixon list, I suspect.

Way before Watergate, senior administration officials hid behind anonymity.

When you hear in the tape recordings Nixon's own voice saying, We have to stonewall, We have to lie to the Grand Jury, We have to pay burglars a million dollars, it's all too clear the horror of what went on.

Deep Throat's information, and in my view, courage, allowed the newspaper to use what he knew and suspected.