ABSTRACT
Waiting for the President to come into that hail-and-farewell meeting the morning after 1972’s Election Day, Henry Kissinger turned to Peter Flanigan, who had just said something about the McGovern ineptitude and joked: “If McGovern had kept after the Watergate, he would have made wiretapping popular.” There was an appreciative chuckle at Henry’s remark from the whole staff; the break-in at Democratic headquarters must have been one of those madcap escapades that some low-level crazies tried to pull off, which Democratic chairman Larry O’Brien tried to exploit and dismally failed. Even the Washington Post had given up beating that dead horse, and in the final weeks before the election, dropped the story completely.
