The Watergate Complex in Washington

DAMIR FRAS OF THIN AND HOLGER, 15:06:12, 14:47



. BERLIN / MZ, the chic of the 70s has been preserved in the building - inside and out.The Watergate complex in Washington has indeed been a little dusty, but the fantastic view over the Potomac River across to Arlington remains. And the money has apparently also held.

It smells like it - the bouncer in a black suit at the opening of the portal indicates a servant, the porter has perfectly shaped manners, and above the eleventh floor of Watergate South opens a petite lady which door and ask for an interview.

Tina Winston told pretty quickly by a door. It would be a completely ordinary door from beige-geblicher color, you do not know that this is the door that leads to the biggest scandal in U.S. history: Watergate. Ah yes, now says Tina Winston, recently she was with her daughter at the Newseum in Washington, the journalism museum. And when they saw the door and remembers. It was precisely this door, "who has stowed away my husband Henry after breaking into a storage room, and then disappeared at some point."

The break-in. It was on the night 17 June 1972, as the security guard Frank Wills noticed that the door into the office building on the Potomac was a piece of tape attached. Wills suspected, an employee had put the tape stuck there in order to save the unlocking and locking-on. Wills took off the tape and the door. But he noted in his next turn, that another piece of tape stuck there. The guard called the police.

This takes its course a scandal that rocked the United States for two years in new shock waves and at the end of the resignation of President Richard Nixon leads. He rushes from the already raging still, apparently unwinnable war in Vietnam divided and insecure nation into the deepest crisis of the democratic self-understanding. But the Watergate scandal may also apply as a starting point for a new, confident, and fearless investigative journalism, an inspiration for generations. Because the center of the scandal was not only Nixon and his aides, but also two journalists, local editors of The Washington Post: Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward.

Woodward pursued first a matter of routine investigations to the burglary at the Watergate complex, which, as it turns out was fast, which housed there headquarters of the Democratic Party. The police arrested five men at the scene. They admit that they had broken the second time there. They did not judge properly functioning eavesdropping microphones that they put in a week before. One of the men identified as Jim McCord, who is in the Nixon reelection committee of responsibility for security issues and maintains contacts with the CIA.

Now Woodward and his colleague are stirring up amber. You take on the track, which soon leads to so-called plumbers group in the White House, which is active to close leaks in their own ranks and damaging disinformation by the opposing camp of the Democrats. Bernstein and Woodward make the case that Republicans have with Nixon's knowledge and taking advantage of the apparatus of the White House and the government set a conspiracy against the Democrats to the factory. The two journalists and their newspapers are from the White House under massive pressure, but they also have allies. An important role is played by an anonymous informant, "Deep Throat" called on the journalists with tips and helps them always a signal of whether they are on the right track. Only shortly before his death, in May 2005, his identity is revealed: it was Mark Felt, deputy chief of the FBI, always familiar with the progress of the investigation.He later uses the film "The Untouchables" as a monument like the Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford played reporters who are also honored with the Pulitzer Prize.

In the autumn of 1972, Nixon can still gain a triumphant victory. But then the revelations come thick and fast. It will reveal a system of illegal campaign financing, there are narrow illegal links between the party and the government apparatus, the White House repeatedly tried to intervene in the judicial and investigative authorities influence and bribe witnesses. And it turns out that Nixon's closest aides are implicated in the scandal: his campaign manager and former Attorney General John Mitchell, his chief of staff Bob Haldeman, John Ehrlichman his advisor. She and many other employees are accused in the course of time, there is a committee in Congress, and finally impeachment proceedings against Nixon.

As the summer of 1974 it becomes clear that the Republicans in Congress are no longer available to him and threatened with impeachment, he comes before her. On 9 August, he resigned as the first president in U.S. history. A legal prosecution, he escapes only because his successor Gerald Ford pardoned him for the sake of peace to the troubled country deeply.

Woodward and Bernstein are together again now written a text for the Washington Post, the first after 36 years. In it they write that Nixon was worse than they had thought at the time. Watergate was only a symbol for Nixon's entire tenure was. "During his five and a half year presidency, Nixon started and contributed five consecutive and partially overlapping wars - against the anti-Vietnam War movement, against the media, against the Democrats on the judiciary and finally to the story itself"

Henry Winston at that time the office suite 601, was broken into, let to the Democrats. He was the Watergate building manager. He can no longer tell it, he is seriously ill. His wife, Tina says, without the scandal would be the complex of apartments and offices, only one house remained among many. "But after Watergate had a certain aura," says the enterprising lady who lives continuously since 1974 in the house. "Many wanted to buy homes or rent a sudden."

Americans were not really Americans, if they had not tried to make profit from the affair.Tina Winston, then the owner of a fashion boutique in the building, had flown in from Paris and scarves with the name of her shop provided - "Colette of Watergate." In short, the lady says, smiling mischievously, from the scandal a transaction was made. "We have taken advantage of the scandal"

This is in principle to this day. After the recent crisis, re-sell the Watergate apartments.Tina Winston, who works alongside her daughter is still in the property market spread, a few brochures. There are offers to sell: a luxury apartment with two bedrooms, two bathrooms, thick hardwood hickory and enough space for a piano for $ 895,000.Penthouses here cost slightly more than three million: And yet nigh favorable.

The comfort and closeness to the White House have attracted many celebrities over the years. The former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had until recently an apartment there. Former presidential candidate Bob Dole, who lived here. And does a Judge of the Supreme Court still exists. Who is the one that would not tell Tina Winston. It is discreet in Watergate.

If Woodward and Bernstein are right, then Watergate was such a small portion of an iceberg that rises from the water. The larger part, Nixon apparently hate-driven policy rancor, was invisible under water. Tina Winston says she then heard very well that Nixon had promised law and order. Only he had not kept the promise. Oh, and Tina Winston says goodbye, they do so, that could repeat something like Watergate.