Richard Nixon, Watergate | featured news

Thomas Mallon's novel about the scandal that brought down Richard Nixon is a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner award for fiction. Published by Random House Inc., Mallon's "Watergate" was among five nominees for the $15,000 award. Three other books announced Wednesday were published by smaller presses, as judges bypassed such high-profile works of fiction as Louise Erdrich's "The Round House" and Junot Diaz's "This Is How You Lose Her."

Early in Thomas Mallon’s new novel about the Watergate scandal, President Nixon’s secretary wonders when her boss will get his own marble temple on the Mall. It’s the sort of arresting moment of naivete that frequently punctuates this witty, surprisingly humane dramatization of that vaudevillian chapter in American politics.

A federal judge has ordered the government to unseal grand jury transcripts of testimony by former President Richard Nixon about the Watergate scandal. Ruling in a lawsuit brought by a historian and several historical associations, Chief U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth ordered the transcripts to be unsealed.
The testimony was taken near Nixon’s California home in 1975 – after he had resigned in the wake of the scandal.