646
NOAM CHOMSKY
In comparison with the FBI programs of repression, all initiated under
the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations, Watergate was a tea party. Thus,
it is not true that Watergate exceeds other efforts at repression in scale. Quite
the contrary. Nothing attributed to Nixon and his cohorts begins to compare
with the measures undertaken
to
disrupt the left under the Democratic Ad–
ministrations of the 1960s, and continued by Nixon until 1971. Though the
Articles of Impeachment charge misuse of the FBI, the really extensive pro–
grams to deny constitutional rights of citizens were neither cited nor debated.
But Watergate does differ in kind from earlier efforts. Namely, the
targets in the Watergate affair were close to the political and ideological
center. The lesson ofWatergate is clear: against such foes, one will undertake
measures of repression only at one's peril. But against the Socialist Workers
Party, the Black Panthers, SNCC, or the New Left, virtually anything is per–
mitted. No issue of principle arises in the Watergate proceedings. Nixon's
crime was not the choice of means, but the choice of enemies.
The lesson is underscored by the response to Watergate in the liberal
media
(The Nation
being a notable exception). Thus, hardly an issue of the
New Republic
went by without a denunciation of Richard Nixon for his attack
on our sacred democratic liberties, bu t I recall no comment at all on the far
more extreme measures undertaken by the FBI against the left, exposed
during the same period. The same is true of the press quite generally.
The same point is driven home by the fact that the international crimes of
Nixon and Kissinger were excluded from the Articles of Impeachment. In
fact, they barely figured in the Committee debate. True, the matter of the
"secret" bombing of Cambodia was raised, but the emphasis was on the "se–
crecy," not the act of aggression against a neutral country. Furthermore, the
bombing of Cambodia and Laos was "secret" only because of the self–
censorship of the press. A few days after the systematic bombing of Cambodia
was initiated in March 1969, the Cambodian government protested vigor–
ously against "the latest bombing, the victims of which were Khmer peasants,
women and children in particular," and demanded that these "criminal at–
tacks" against "peaceful Cambodian farmers" be terminated at once. The
Cambodian Government called upon all countries "to double their effort to
put an end to these barbarous crimes against humanity." In January 1970 the
Cambodian Government issued an official White Book giving details of US
and GVN attacks on Cambodian villages, with names, dates, places and casu–
alty statistics. This was reported at once in the international press, as were
earlier eyewitness reports of the massive bombardment of Northern Laos, far
from any zone of combat, in an effort to destroy the Pathet Lao. Ample
evidence was available to the American press, which chose to remain silent.
There were a few exceptions, among them, a now famous article
in
the
NY
