Peteran Democher Som Eruin is chairman of the Senate investigation commission.
It's crisis time in Washington, with dimplecheeked John Dean before the Senate investigation commission spilling all the beans about the Watergate affair. Nixon was able to put off this showdown for a week thanks to the visit of comrade Brezhner, whose press describes Nixon as the victim of a right-wing plot agrinst the new found harmony between Russia and the US. But Nixon's well tried tactic of turning attention away from domestic problems by scoring big foreign policy 'victories" will not be able to take the pressure off him this time. Dean's testimony contains enough dirt to bring about the end of Nixon's political cureer and touch off a major crisis for the American political systems.
The stench of corruption now envelopes all branches of the government and everyone connected with the Nixon administration. The FBI, the CIA and the Department of Justice have all been exposed as tools of party ing the same laws they claim to enforce. The the money-grubbing lackey of big business, always ready to give away big tax exemptions, and Robert Kennedy, of Martin Luther King, and of Malcolm X. The scandal is now so immense, involving so many different sections of the state machine and the ruling class, that it threatens the stability of the American capitalist political order.
The Republican Party has become very widely discredited; the mass of Americans have lost an immense amount of confidence in the Presidency, traditional keystone of the whole state machine; Nixon himself has lost all credibility. Public opinion polls now suggest that a majority think Nixon is guilty of involvement in trying to cover up the Watergate affair and should therefore resign.
Why has Watergate turned into the biggest political crisis in 20th century US history? The answer to this question lies in significant developments that have been going on within the American ruling class in recent years. The Nixon administration represents the interests of a distinet section of the American ruling class. These are the business men of the 'southern rim" that stretches between California and Florida. His victories in 1968 and 1972 were their victories; his politics and methods are also theirs. advises his friends on their stockmarket speculations, and Agnew openly boasts of his desire to get rich in a hurry.
The newly-rich on the way up are not usually very particular about the means they use to get ahead, Since 1969 political payoffs by big business, and the violation of all standards of "legality and Justice in American government; have reached astonishing proportions, even by the usually flexible standards of capitalist society:
The political corruption uncovered since Watergate is just another side to the financial' pursuits of this regime. Kemaing un power is an essential part of the strategy of this group to enrich themselves. Nixon has always been a right-wing political thug. He first rose to the heights of power under the banner of McCarthyite red-baiting, and has been involved in election lixing. bribery, and smear campaigns from his first clection in the 1940's.