Places and shapes of power, cours.

PLACES AND SHAPES OF POWER

• The power of the Media

        Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) (one of the founders of the American Republic, he wrote most of the declaration of independence 1776), he was the third president of the USA (1801-1809) → « Were it left me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without government, I should not hesitate for a moment to prefer the latter ».

        On the one hand a government without the control of newspapers and the ability to inform people of what the government is doing, of assessing and criticizing its policies (politiques), could hardly be democratic. Thus (ainsi), the government in question would almost inevitably be a dictatorship with no check to its power and President Jefferson was right to stress/emphasize this point.

        On the other hand, a society without a government would very probably drift towards anarchy and the law of the strongest.

        To conclude, a society needs both a government and newspapers. These two elements are prerequisites (conditions préalables) to a democratic society.

• Watergate brings down Nixon

        On the 17th of June, 1972, there was an attempt burglary in Washington DC in the Watergate Office Complex. A security guard called the Washington DC police after finding tapes covering locks on several doors. The five burglars were arrested and charged with attempted burglary and attempting to bug phone lines. Each burglar had thousands of dollars in his pocket. The five burglars were found in the office of the Democratic National Committee and they all had ties with the Committee to reelect President Nixon.

        Over the next two plus years, one of the great acts of investigative journalism unfolds. Two journalists called Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein who worked for “The Washington Post”, traced back the money behind the Watergate break-in to the committee to reelect President Nixon. It turns out that the committee had a slush fund (caisse noire) that financed all sorts of illegal activities which could be traced back to the President of the USA, Richard Nixon.

Nine months after the break-in, one of the burglars claimed that there was a high-level cover-up of the crime. Using clandestine information from an FBI source known as “Deep Throat” (in fact Mark Felt, associate director of the FBI), Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward start to find out about other illegal acts and it's their reporting that gets congress to ask questions to the White House.

        Woodward and Bernstein's investigations led them to the highest levels of government; White House counsel, John Dean was the first to testify against the President Richard Nixon, was involved in a cover-up of the crime.

In July 1973, it was revealed that Nixon secretly taped almost all White House conversations. The prosecutor demanded Nixon to turn in his recordings, he refused. But by June 1974, after 22 persons linked to the burglary were indicted on conspiracy charges, the Supreme Court ordered the secret presidential tapes to be turned over. When the tapes were finally submitted, investigators hear Nixon talking about the burglary and the cover-up. Nixon decided to resign.

WORDS TO REMEMBER:

        were it left me : if it was left to me / whether : si oui... ou non / the former... the latter : celui-là... celui-ci / a dictatorship : une dictature / a democracy, a democratic government / censorship : la censure → to censor : censurer / a law : une loi → to pass a law : voter une loi / a policy : une politique : politics : la politique en général / to assess : to evaluate : évaluer / anarchy / the law of the strongest, the law of the jungle / to criticize something : critiquer quelque chose / to hold (held, held) somebody to account : demander des comptes à quelqu'un / to act as a check to : constituer un frein à / to emphasize something : to stress something : insister sur quelque chose / tape → ruban adhésif / lock → serrure / to charge somebody with something accuser quelqu'un de quelque chose / burglary : cambrioleur ; burglar : cambriolage / to bug (bugged, bugged) : poser des micros / a tie : un lien / investigative journalism → work that involves trying to find out the truth about something such as a crime / to unfold → to develop / break-in → the entering of a building illegally or by force / to trace (back) → to find the origins of / to turn out → to happen to be in the end / a slush fund → a sum of money secretly kept for dishonest use / to claim → to declare to be true / a cover-up → an attempt to prevent something dishonorable or criminal from becoming publicly known / the throat → the passage from the back of the mouth down inside the neck / to lead, led led : mener / level : niveau / counsel : conseiller / to testify : témoigner / to involve : impliquer / to tape : to record : enregistrer, a recording/a tape : une bande magnétique/un enregistrement / to turn something in/over : rendre / to link : relier / to indict : condamner / prospect : perspective / to resign : démissionner / noon : midi / to grant : accorder

impeachment → charging a public official with serious misbehavior (mauvaise conduite) in office (en poste).

• An Interview of Bob Woodward

        For Bob Woodward, the great danger is secret government and President Nixon practiced secret government. Listening to the tapes now, you realize that President Nixon was using the presidency as an instrument of personal revenge and reward. The US presidency is not supposed to be that, it is supposed to be connected to the purpose of the country and Nixon's purpose was the low purpose of his political goals. Bob Woodward founds Nixon's administration small and the whole situation sad. He also emphasizes the extent of the criminality and the brazenness of it, the disregard of the law, the fact that he orchestrated a campaign to obstruct justice and protect himself. President Nixon paid hush money to people who could testify against his aides.

        Beyond the Watergate scandal, it deals with the dirty tricks operation which in Bob Woodward's opinion, was aimed at the heart of the democracy.

        A case in point is that President Nixon tampered with the democratic party primary because he wanted to run against Senator Mcgovern and not against Senator Muskie.

Thus, Woodward accuses Nixon of having smeared Muskie's primary campaign. It worked, President Nixon ran against Senator Mcgovern and beat him.

WORDS TO REMEMBER:

        reward : récompense / to connect : relier / purpose : but, dessein / to release, to capture : rendre, reproduire / focus : priorité, objectif / extent : étendue / brazenness : effronterie / disregard : dédain, indifférence / to obstruct : entraver / to hush : faire taire, se taire / a trick → a clever act meant to deceive / to aim at → to point, to direct / to tamper with → to touch or make (made, made) changes in something without permission (so as to cause damage) / to set off stride → to divert the normal course of / incumbent → holder of an official position / wire-tapping → listening secretly to other people's telephone conversations by an unofficial connection / and so forth → and other things of that kind

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