Revisiting the Watergate scandal with an enormous number of new revelations

Judy Woodruff:

Few presidential scandals occupy a place in America's culture like Watergate.

And, this summer, it will be 50 years since five burglars broke into the Democratic National Committee headquarters, setting off a series of investigations that ultimately led to the resignation of then-President Richard Nixon.

But as historian and author Garrett Graff told me recently, the scandal we all thought we knew was actually a series of events. That's the focus of his latest book, "Watergate: A New History."

Garrett Graff, welcome to the "NewsHour." Congratulations on the book.

So, it has been 50 years. A lot of books have been written. Why did you think it's time for another one, and another one that's 800 pages' long almost?

Garrett Graff, Author, "Watergate: A New History": Well, as much as Watergate has been sliced and diced over the years, it's actually been a quarter-century since anyone actually tried to lay out the full story start to finish, soup to nuts.

And, during that time, of course, we have had an enormous number of new revelations that actually really dramatically change the arc of the story that we thought we knew.

This is the first time anyone's tried to write a history of Watergate knowing the identity of Deep Throat, former FBI Deputy Director Mark Felt, outed as that famous source for Woodward and Bernstein.

The Nixon tapes have come out. New FBI files have been declassified. We have learned all sorts of things about some of the associated scandals with Watergate itself. And what I found in researching this is that the Watergate story that we thought we knew isn't what actually happened.

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