Thom reviewed The Watergate Girl by Jill Wine-Banks
Review of 'The Watergate Girl' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
This is a memoir of Jill Wine-Banks, focused mostly on her time as a prosecutor during Watergate. I have not watched her on MSNBC, but I do have an active interest in history. This book summarized the facts and feelings of that era in an excellent way.
The manipulation and maneuvering that Nixon and staff did to avoid prosecution is legendary. I for one would love to know what was on those 18½ minutes of tape, "accidentally" erased between 5 and 9 times. Even without that likely damning evidence, Nixon's casual disregard for the law is evident here, and reminiscent of a more recent president - touched on by the author in the epilogue.
I say memoir, because there is more than Watergate here. The author's marital troubles and affair are teased early on as a possible lever against her - but nothing came of it later in the book. …
This is a memoir of Jill Wine-Banks, focused mostly on her time as a prosecutor during Watergate. I have not watched her on MSNBC, but I do have an active interest in history. This book summarized the facts and feelings of that era in an excellent way.
The manipulation and maneuvering that Nixon and staff did to avoid prosecution is legendary. I for one would love to know what was on those 18½ minutes of tape, "accidentally" erased between 5 and 9 times. Even without that likely damning evidence, Nixon's casual disregard for the law is evident here, and reminiscent of a more recent president - touched on by the author in the epilogue.
I say memoir, because there is more than Watergate here. The author's marital troubles and affair are teased early on as a possible lever against her - but nothing came of it later in the book. An equally interesting history of this time could have left this part out. If those troubles behind the scenes colored her judgement, I didn't see it in the text. Later portions detail her pioneering work with the Army and then MSNBC - both very interesting.
Coming back to the point, this is a really good history of what happened, and how the checks and balances worked at that time. My hope (and the author's) is that they continue to work into the future. This book was also a fairly quick read. The audiobook has the introduction and epilogue read by the author herself.