A forgotten US anniversary

Even while the United States was celebrating the 40th anniversary of hoisting its flag on the moon, another anniversary passed away almost unnoticed. On the same day President Obama described the Apollo XI crew as ���genuine American heroes���, Washington���s Watergate hotel was put up for auction after its owner could not pay back $40 million to P B Capital.

The hotel is part of the Watergate complex where the office of the Democratic National Committee was broken into on the night of June 17, 1972, by five burglars who were nabbed while planting listening devices. On August 1, 1972, The Washington Post reported that a $25,000 cashier���s cheque, earmarked for President Nixon���s re-election campaign, had wound up in the bank account of one of the burglars. The burglars were convicted, exactly 80 days after Nixon swept the 1972 elections.

On May 18, 1973, a US Senate committee began its hearings in the wake of media reports linking Watergate (as the scandal was termed) to the White House. On June 3, former White House counsel Dean testified that Nixon had discussed with him how to cover up Watergate. On July 13, White House appointments secretary Butterfield testified that all conversations in the presidential office were being recorded by Nixon.

July 24, 2009, is not only the 40th anniversary of the day Apollo 11 returned to Earth. July 24 is also the 35th anniversary of the day the US Supreme Court rejected Nixon���s claim of executive privilege and ruled that tape-recordings of White House conversations be handed over to the Senate committee. President Nixon resigned within days. Today, the USA proudly remembers the lunar landing of July 1969. Little attention is focused on the fact that that ���one giant leap for mankind��� was accomplished during the tenure of America���s 37th president, Nixon. It���s a bit like the dark side of the moon!