Let’s get the Watergate cliché out of the way first. It isn’t “always the cover-up” that gets you into trouble. It’s the crime. Failing to tell the truth about Downing Street parties may have been unacceptable. But the real problem was the parties.
After Richard Nixon’s men went down for obstructing justice and perjury there emerged the idea that if only they hadn’t covered up the whole thing it would all have been fine. Yet this ignores the burglaries.
The Watergate break-in was only one in a series of covert operations. Coming clean when the burglars were caught would have involved admitting White House involvement not just in Watergate but, at a very senior level, in earlier crimes. It was too late to, as the