STONEWALL: The Inside Story of the Watergate Prosecution

Another book on Watergate must be greeted with some skepticism. The story has already been told from several different angles by various participants, and anything further on the subject ought to either present some new information or a new interpretation of the information already available. This book does neither. John Dean (Blind Ambition) and others have given the details of the crime, and Leon Jaworski (The Right and the Power), the second Watergate Special Prosecutor, has provided the main outline of the prosecution. Ben-Veniste and Frampton, two young lawyers on the Special Prosecutor's staff, have nothing really significant to add to these stories, although they do give a great deal more information on the decision-making process and daily activities of their office than does their former boss. Their account emphasizes Archibald Cox's deference to the office of the Presidency and his consequent reluctance to pursue Watergate to the Oval Office, thereby delaying the investigation. They also suspect Jaworski of maneuvering President Ford into granting Nixon's pardon, relieving Jaworski of the burden of making a decision on whether or not to indict the former president. But this is too little and too late to give importance to an additional book-length study of Watergate.