http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnTlbU8UuCo

In July of 1974, the White House released subpoenaed tapes of White House conversations. One of these tapes became known as the “smoking gun”, a tape recorded on June 23, 1972, just six days after the Watergate break-in. On the tape, Nixon can be heard agreeing that the Director and Deputy Director of the CIA should be approached about asking the Acting Director of the FBI to halt the FBI’s investigation into the Watergate break-in, citing matters of national security. In this video, Trent Lott recalls first hearing about and reading the transcript of the Smoking Gun tape. While on vacation with his family, Lott received a call from a fellow Mississippi native who worked at the White House. Lott recalls that the man told him: “‘I think there’s something you need to read.’ And I think he maybe even described it as a ‘smoking gun.’ And so I got on a plane and flew back in.”

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Trent Lott On the Watergate Smoking Gun Transcript appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fy-GMcgymKk

Edward Brooke, former Massachusetts senator during Richard Nixon’s administration, discusses how he became the first republican to openly ask President Nixon to resign on November 4, 1973, shortly after the Watergate Scandal. According to Brooke, Nixon had lost the confidence of the American people, and because of that he should “spare the country from impeachment proceedings.” He also describes Nixon’s response, recalling that the former president said that this would be “taking the cowardly way out.”

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Asking President Nixon to Resign appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QazmVHAO0os

On September 26, 1960, John F. Kennedy–a young senator from Massachusetts at the time–and
Vice President Richard Nixon squared off in a hour-long debate–the first-ever televised presidential debate. While Kennedy looked confident, healthy and dapper; Nixon seemed sickly and underweight from a recent hospitalization. Approximately 74 million viewers noticed the difference. The debate rocketed Kennedy into the electoral spotlight and solidified the important role of television in politics. When Kennedy won the presidential election in November of 1960, he was reported to have said, “It was the TV more than anything else that turned the tide.”

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Televised Presidential Debate Between JFK & Nixon appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9LcAJOsFGg

On September 23, 1952, Richard Nixon, a California senator at the time, went on air to defend himself against accusations of an established fund–created by his backers–that would reimburse him for his political expenses. He says, “Not one cent of the 18 thousand dollars or any other money of that type ever went to me or my personal use.”

He famously states in his speech that the one gift he plans to keep a is a dog that his kids named Checkers: “A man down in Texas heard Pat on the radio mention the fact that our two youngsters would like to have a dog. And, believe it or not, the day before we left on this campaign trip we got a message from Union Station in Baltimore saying they had a package for us. We went down to get it. You know what it was? It was a little cocker spaniel dog in a crate that he’d sent all the way from Texas. Black and white spotted. And our little girl—Tricia, the 6-year-old—named it Checkers. And you know, the kids, like all kids, love the dog and I just want to say this right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we’re gonna keep it.”

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Nixon’s ‘Checkers’ Speech in 1952 appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJAqVXBZ0YI

Pulitzer Prize winner and journalist Bob Woodward remembers the Watergate scandal, his role in reporting on it and how it changed how we perceived the presidency. Specifically, Woodward highlights the “dirty tricks” used by the Nixon administration. Tricks such as the Watergate break-in and the leaking of then vice-presidential candidate Edmund Muskie’s medical records so that he would get dropped from the Democratic ticket. Woodward is left with the impression that President Nixon’s influence went so far that he could be sensed “in the ballot booth, with every voter, tampering with his or her vote.”

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Bob Woodward on Nixon’s ‘Dirty Tricks’ During Watergate appeared first on Witnify.

Author: Megan O’Toole

Members of the Hollywood Ten and their families in 1950, protesting the impending incarceration of the ten. Source: Creative Commons.

In the golden age of Hollywood, many film industry employees fueled a stable “studio system” by signing contracts with a select number of major studios. Between the years 1927 to 1963, five large studios including Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Paramount Pictures controlled the film industry–creating thousands of efficiently-made movies. Yet this system, which bolstered Hollywood’s economy, was rattled when politics started to play a stronger role in the production and distribution of films following World War II.

The reoccurrence of the Red Scare and the threat of communism led many talented individuals in Hollywood to face accusations of membership in the American Communist Party. The alleged communist members were threatened with being “blacklisted,” a practice that banned a person from any future employment in the film industry.

This practice began in 1947 when ten screenwriters were accused of being communists in the Hollywood Reporter. The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) required that the writers confirm their political beliefs but the committee found the accused to be in contempt of Congress because they refused to answer their questions. The committee also encouraged several witnesses such as Gary Cooper and Ronald Reagan to testify against the “Hollywood Ten,” and the ten were eventually given year-long prison sentences.

Following this “Hollywood Ten” incident, forty-eight executives from the major studios constituted the Waldorf Statement to publicly announce that the writers would be blacklisted. The president of the Motion Picture Association of America, Eric Johnston, and many others expressed that the studios “will not re-employ any of the ten until such time as he is acquitted or has purged himself of contempt and declares under oath that he is not a communist.”

Actress Jean Muir. Source: Creative Commons.

As skepticism about communist involvement grew, politics gained a larger influence over Hollywood and many more professionals in the entertainment business faced accusations. In 1950, a publication called the Red Channels from Counterattack Magazine listed 151 men and women who were supposedly involved in communist actions. This list was taken seriously in Hollywood, and many of the accused persons were blacklisted and denied livelihood for many years. The list included major celebrities like actor Orson Welles and folk singer Pete Seeger–only some performers were able to clear their names by testifying in front of HUAC regarding their political beliefs.

However, some people involved in the film industry, such as actress Jean Muir, were unable to find work even after testifying. In a series of interviews with the Hollywood Reporter, Marsha Hunt, Cliff Carpenter, Lee Grant, Norma Barzman, and Walter Bernstein discuss what it was like to be cast away from Hollywood for many years after achieving success there. The blacklisted Hollywood writers mention that they needed to consider using pseudonyms in order to continue writing screenplays again. Grant also recalls the disgust she felt once actors were encouraged to betray fellow members of the Hollywood community to HUAC as communists.

The blacklisting period in Hollywood was steeped with anxiety and suspicion–and it led to the infamous conclusion of many prosperous careers. This practice of blacklisting essentially ended in 1957 when professionals in the entertainment business started taking a firm stand against it. That year, Alfred Hitchcock hired the blacklisted actor Norman Lloyd and radio show host John Henry Faulk sued a firm for investigating him for communist affiliation. In the coming years, many other instances occurred when members of the Hollywood elite began to insist on returning talented blacklisted workers out of exile.

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[Blog] The Hollywood Blacklist appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5I733dMOUA

Former mayor of New Orleans, Louisiana, Ray Nagin, recalls the flooding of his city during Hurricane Katrina. He remarks on how failure to adequately handle the hurricane and prevent damages and casualties had much to do with poor communication between governing powers: “Some goofy laws that basically say there is not a clear distinction of when the federal government stops and when the state government starts.” Hurricane Katrina hit southeast Louisiana on August 29, 2005 and approximately 1,464 people in New Orleans died from this tragic natural disaster.

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New Orleans Mayor on Hurricane Katrina & What Went Wrong appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRqw-7KYpBg

Broadcast journalist Ted Koppel shares his opinions on what was most unsettling to him about the Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky scandal that emerged in 1998. In this video, Koppel says that Clinton having an affair with other women and being unfaithful to his wife was not what bothered him– what bothered him was that Paula Jones, who filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Clinton in 1994, did not get a fair hearing due to the former president lying under oath during his deposition. He then goes on to share an anecdote about a note he received from Clinton after he had gone on record with the New York Times Magazine saying Clinton was the toughest person to interview because he always felt that “he was two or three questions ahead” of him.

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Ted Koppel Discusses Clinton’s Political Scandal appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZESCoBk9OBs

CNBC reports live on July 3, 2013, the tumultuous night that Islamist Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi was ousted and placed under house arrest. The end of the Muslim Brotherhood’s short-lived regime prompted thousands of citizens to celebrate in Cairo. The “political reset,” caused an upheaval that was reminiscent to that of the Arab Spring when Hosni Mubarak was unseated in Egypt.

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Egypt Celebrates New Future After Government Coup appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEOGJJ7UKFM

In the wake of the Watergate scandal, U.S. President Richard Nixon announced his resignation from the presidency on August 9, 1974, in a televised speech to the nation. Following accusations of crimes committed by his administration including bugging the offices of political opponents–Nixon’s impeachment was inevitable. However, his resignation speech, broadcast from the Oval Office, was surprisingly well-received considering the embarrassing circumstances surrounding it. Nixon used the address as an opportunity both to offer his support for his successor, Gerald Ford, and to defend his own presidential career. While he briefly acknowledges his failures in office, Nixon devotes most of the speech to enumerating his successes.

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Nixon Announces Resignation In Speech to America appeared first on Witnify.