International effects of Watergate scandal

debirlfan

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I'm trying to find out how the rest of the world looked at the Watergate scandal. Was it pretty much ignored? Pointing and laughing by countries that didn't like us anyhow? Other international fallout?

I've tried Googling this, but all I seem to find is the way it affected the US, and I have to admit that it all happened before I became interested in politics.
 

alleycat

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One thing to remember, Nixon was still popular in a few places overseas. Some thought he was being treated unfairly.

I'm pretty sure there was more condemnation from overseas (what else is new), but it wasn't universal.
 
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Haggis

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One thing to remember, Nixon was still popular in a few places overseas. Some thought he was being treated unfairly.

I'm pretty sure there was more condemnation from overseas (what else is new), but it wasn't universal.
IIRC, a number of countries were appalled that Nixon couldn't control his press. Saddam Hussein was one (not that Saddam was a country, but you know what I mean). I seem to remember him talking about that in an interview with, I think, Barbara Walters.

On the other hand, it got Nixon traveling to both Russia and China--something I doubt he would have done had he not been trying to draw attention away from Watergate. Both of those trips wound up being, I believe, good things.
 

debirlfan

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Hmm, I was hoping that there was more of an international condemnation. I may have to work with the American reaction.

(Am looking for a reason to cover up a major political scandal about a dozen years later - I suppose American lack of faith in the political system would be sufficient, but was really looking for an international angle.)
 

King Neptune

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You might want to see what you can find here:
http://www.newspapers.com/?xid=106&gclid=CJ_Iu8_B0LkCFUyY4AodvlMAqw
or
http://newspaperarchive.com/welcomepagev3?gclid=CMvh3f_B0LkCFcqh4AodsBgATw
or search on google for news archives. I was trying to do that search on economist.com when I got these and other results.
http://www.economist.com/news/unite...t-legacy-its-37th-president-crooked-statesman
http://www.economist.com/node/4033626
htthttp://www.economist.com/node/13983256p://www.economist.com/node/113283

You might want to see if you can get anything from the archives of non-U.S. newspapers. If you lice near a large library see if they have archives of a decent newspaper that you could spend a few hours looking through.
 

Haggis

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Hmm, I was hoping that there was more of an international condemnation. I may have to work with the American reaction.
Well, first of all, Watergate was initially about cheating to win an election. It's not as if that doesn't happen in other countries. Then it turned into being more about a lying politician. Same thing. International condemnation would have been sort of a pot kettle affair.
 

Weirdmage

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Hmm, I was hoping that there was more of an international condemnation. I may have to work with the American reaction.

(Am looking for a reason to cover up a major political scandal about a dozen years later - I suppose American lack of faith in the political system would be sufficient, but was really looking for an international angle.)

That would put you in the mid 1980s. The only thing I could think about that could be an international reason to cover up a US political scandal at the time is if it would effect Glasnost/Perestrojka. For example if a high up US official had said something that meant Reagan and Gorbachev couldn't meet in Reikjavik. -Googling, I found that the meeting meant a bit less than I remembered from the time. But I'm staying with my suggestion of something effecting Glasnost/Perestrojka.
 

Xelebes

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I remember reading that in Canada, Trudeau offered support to Nixon in the typical secret diplomatic channels. The people in Canada were upset and took it as an opportunity to indulge in the "thankfully we're not like those guys," as we are wont to do.
 

benbenberi

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I was on a family vacation in England the summer of 1973, and I remember watching the Watergate hearings on British TV.
 

eyeblink

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I was eight in the summer of 1973, and I remember we were on a family holiday (in the UK, may have been France in an area when you could still pick up BBC Radio 4) when Nixon resigned: we heard the news on the radio. Given my young age, I didn't know any of the details of the story then, but I was certainly aware that something major was happening.