The Nixon Years and Watergate

In 1974, the year Beattie wrote "Imagined Scenes," the United States experienced one of the most disturbing political events of its two-hundred-year history. Two years earlier, in 1972, five men broke into the Democratic National Headquarters, housed at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. The burglars were caught, tried, and sentenced. No one, however, could have predicted the Pandora's box the break-in would open. By 1973, the scandal had grown to include Richard Nixon, then president of the United States, and most of his staff. In April of 1973, he told the nation in a televised speech that he did not have any foreknowledge of the break-in, nor had he tried in any way to cover up the break-in. He also told the American public that he was worth the sacred trust of the presidency.

There ensued a long investigation that continued to uncover evidence that...