Andrew Jaffe: Leaves on the Line

I'm just the right age that Watergate was the formative political experience of my life: I don't really remember anything before it (except for a few hazy memories) and everything since has been tainted by it. Watergate, along with the debacle end of the Vietnam war (which I also remember, albeit mostly because they pre-empted Batman for the cease-fire ceremony), marked the true end of the 60s, although really those two events were their culmination. And, in some way, we have Mark Felt, just revealed by The Washington Post as Deep Throat, to thank for it. (Of course, hippy idealism gave way to the Me Decade, the Carter interregnum, and then the recently revalorized Reagan, not to mention Watergate reporter/hero Woodward sucking up to Bush II.)