Fifty years ago this week, the country, the state’s 3rd congressional district and the city did not take the route some said they should or even would. As a result of those routes not taken, history was altered.
As 1974 opened, the winds of Watergate swirled around the White House and the administration of President Richard Nixon. The word “impeachment” — then whispered only in reverence — had been mentioned for Nixon involving the crime and suspected cover-up of the 1972 break-in of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C., but was no fait accompli.
Two men came to Chattanooga that first full week of the new year — one a U.S. senator and one a future U.S. senator — to tell local contingents the scandal might just blow over.
First up was U.S. Sen. Howard Baker, R-Tennessee, who told attendees at the 97th annual meeting of the Greater Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce at the Chattanooga Choo Choo that the greatness of America “is still before us,” and as long as Americans have faith in fulfilling that greatness “you won’t even remember Watergate.”
The state’s senior senator already was vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Campaign Practices (Watergate Committee), and already had uttered his famous question about Nixon’s depth of knowledge on the scandal: “What did the president know, and when did he know it?”