Watergate And Floodgates

At the March 31 opening of the Nixon library's new Watergate exhibit, director and exhibit curator Tim Naftali, coming to the end of his months-long struggle against Nixon-Haldeman operatives, choked up for a moment while talking about his charming mother, Marjorie, and, well, a friend. A bit John Boehner-like, as Naftali smilingly notes; and might we also say Nixonian? In her comments, archives official Sharon Fawcett, with whom Kathy O'Connor and I worked for years to get the Nixon library into the federal system, appeared to overlook the first generation of archivists who worked on the Nixon White House materials.