For most baby boomers--that huge post-World War II population burst that struck the United States between 1946 and 1964--there have been certain historical events that so impacted their young lives that almost any member of that generation can tell you where they were and what they were doing during such moments: the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy; the Apollo 11 landing; the resignation of Richard Milhous Nixon as 37th President of the United States of America:
Richard Nixon left office at 12 Noon (Eastern Time), 35 years ago today (9 August 1974). And his resignation, like most such historical events, spawned an enormous amount of print. In addition to newspaper and magazine articles, publishers rushed into print all kinds of books focused on the central cause of Nixon's resignation, the complex of events that became known to the world as Watergate:
Because such a vast amount has been published about this event, folks building a private library focused on Richard Nixon, on Watergate, or on politics in general, often have to make some hard choices as to which books to pursue. Nixon himself, in his bid to recreate himself as an elder statesman after his resignation, wrote over a half-dozen books, only one of which (In the Arena, 1990) made any real attempt to address the issue of Watergate. Additionally, almost every major figure involved in the Watergate affair (as well as many of the minor figures) wrote a book about such involvement, usually in an attempt to absolve themselves of any responsibility for same:
Even building a mini collection focused on only the major players in Watergate could be a quite consuming exercise, given the dozens of books that were written by these folks. A more interesting challenge, perhaps, would be to take such a mini collection to the next level, by collecting such memoirs as signed First Editions, First Printings. Very few books meeting this latter qualifier remain available in today's marketplace....
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