A story ...

In 1994, I was teaching U.S. history and American government at Oak Ridge HS in El Dorado Hills, California.

I had three bright students who were my TAs. The 20th anniversary of Richard Nixon's resignation was a few months away. I decided to have ... 1/

my students -- Sherilyn Peek, Aaron Leahy and Nicole Poimiroo -- take on an extra project. They contacted dozens of people who were in some way involved with the Watergate saga. Politicians, lawyers, political appointees, journalists and others. 2/

They spent weeks, before the internet existed, tracking down addresses. Then they sent a short letter that asked the recipients to respond to one question: What should America learn from Watergate?

Before long, responses started to show up in my mailbox at school. 3/

Archibald Cox replied, and I'm especially struck by this sentence: "...we should be reminded of the corrupt influence of great power, especially when the power is in the hands of someone who is willing to resort to any tactics, however wrong, to retain and increase his power."4/

Richard Kleindienst wrote his response by hand ... "Our Constitution worked! The federal judiciary worked. The Congress and a free press worked. That our Constitution works is the magic of America." 5/