All the President's Men (Two-Disc Special Edition)

So relevant today... know your History or you are doomed to repeat it!A look at real journalism! Before wireless phones, pagers, blackberries, iPads, iPods, word processors, personal computers, iPhones & ANY apps, there were just... Electric Typewriters, Copy machines, Western Union, USPS, wired telephones, pen/pencil and paper and shoe leather!

I first watched this movie not long after it was released in 1976. What could be more compelling than watching it again, on the eve of the 6th, one of those dates that will now be one for remembrance and reflection? A presidency that had no respect for law or, even more importantly, common human decency. That drug that is more powerful and corrupting than meth: power. “You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference,” was one of his famous quotes, self-pitying, after he lost the gubernatorial race in California in 1962. He would go on to hold many more, as we know, staging a stunning political come-back. As a classic “Nixon-hater,” I’d be tossed from any potential jury… yet, in the delicious ironies of history, my ability to write this review might be solely attributed to Richard Milhous Nixon. Sure, he was not thinking of me, encased in his own motives. Weaving its way through the military bureaucracy, his decision to “Vietnamize” the war in Vietnam (a bizarre concept, even that) led to my official “withdrawal” from the war. Instead of completing the standard tour (for the Army) in Vietnam of 365 days, I only spent 357 days. Eight glorious, perhaps life-giving days. Tricky Dick, bless ’im.From the personal to the national, the irony again, for the press did indeed, decisively, have Nixon to kick around again. Two young and hungry reporters, Carl Bernstein, played by Dustin Hoffman, and Bob Woodward, played by Robert Redford, go against the grain, even of their own newspaper, having a nose for one of the biggest stories of the 20th century, which confirm Lord Acton’s axiom about power corrupting. Jason Robards plays an excellent Ben Bradlee, the editor of the Washington Post. Tough, he is, with his “cub reporters,” but eventually he is willing to chance Katherine Graham's bosom in that old-fashioned ringer washer, one of the many threats that Bradlee received at the time, for performing his duty to himself and the American people. (She was the owner of the WP at the time.) “Run it” he would finally proclaim.The director, Alan J. Pakula, produced a tense, fast-moving, high-charged drama that seemed to reflect journalistic standards and customs at the time: the typewriter, the crammed desks in the open office floor plan, the hustle for the scoop and meeting the deadline. And this was one of the scoops that really happened.The fear. That is what struck me hard, yet again. The fear that we stress is more normally associated with totalitarianism: Stalin, Hitler, et al. It was SO difficult for Bernstein and Woodward to get someone to talk. Period. And for the record, virtually never. The game played by the informant, “Deep Throat,” that finally and dramatically Woodward called his hand on it. There was the fear of loss of the money for the mortgage, damage to the career… and more dramatically, the loss of life: “your lives are in danger.”Why, oh why? If all those political operatives and their dirty-tricks gamesmanship had not appealed to Nixon’s own underhanded ways of thinking and winning elections, including the red baiting of Helen Douglas, his Democratic opponent for the Senate in 1950, he almost certainly would have won the 1972 election with “peace at hand,” He won, but ultimately lost because of the dirty tricks.What was not in the movie, but I remember distinctly having lived through the period, was the stationing of Alexander Haig (by whom?) in the White House to prevent “unauthorized orders” being transmitted to the 82nd Airborne Division. Hum. And who determines that the Commander-in-Chief gives an unauthorized order, and how heavy are the fingerprints on the order.The events of January 06, a year ago, confirm the truths in the cliché about history not repeating but rhyming. And since time immemorial, the loyalty (or not) of “security,” has disturbed many a leader’s sleep. An essential viewing for all who fret about the democratic process. 5-stars, plus.

Every now and then, I like to take a look back at how things once were. I don’t remember Watergate, and I have never seen this movie before today - but by the end of this my head was spinning with so many thoughts, I couldn’t keep track of them all. The film’s main focus, of course, is on what came to be known as the Watergate Scandal… but watching it got me thinking about so many other things. I thought about how different journalism was in these days - were reporters really able to just walk up to government officials’ front doors, show up unannounced and be offered coffee? Journalism seemed to be so different in the 70’s. Newspapers really mattered back then, and people could only watch the news at certain times, at night. The whole culture was different, that’s for sure. I think Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman (two true movie stars, in every sense of the term) portrayed the reporters of the time in a very accurate way. (How does an actor go about becoming a movie star like these two, in today’s Hollywood? It’s not even possible anymore!). Is journalism really better now than it was back in these days? Does it have the same integrity? Are we really better off today, now that everyone has been given the opportunity to say whatever they want, about anything, 24 hours a day? Where is journalism headed? Looking back on past times (even if I don’t specifically remember them) helps me to see how it was - but it never offers any clues, as to how it might be down the road. As the end credits of this excellent, informative filmrolled along, I thought ‘Could something like this happen now?’ Everything is digital now; how do Democrats and Republicans today keep secrets from each other? Is it even possible to keep anything secret at all today? What a thought-provoking movie this turned out to be! I don’t feel that reporting (especially anything to do with news) nowadays is a particularly glamorous job; there are so many writers out there who work hard, but never seem to get the credit for what they bring to light. The Internet has changed the way we perceive news now, too - it seems to rely more on images than text, and click-bait is very overdone. Still, I hope all serious-minded journalists - or anyone looking to learn more about the exciting yet low-key period of the 70’s - will give this film a watch. The story is a little hard to follow (it sounds like it was complicated, and Nixon has to be one of the least-talked about American presidents in recent memory)… but it’s very informative, and it reminds us that we do have a colorful past to look back on, and learn from.