Credit: Far Out / U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia / Original Newspaper Cutting
Mon 17 August 2026 2:30, UK
The Watergate scandal was the cherry on top of an America that had lost serious confidence in itself.
Peace and love felt like ancient history as the 1970s lumbered on. While still enjoying the big state fruits of the post-war consensus – a golden age of social mobility and provisions enthusiastically robbed from future generations in only a few short years – the Baby Boomers indeed navigated a bad mood that hung in the air, an ennui that cast its grey fog across much of the Western World.
The FBI and CIA’s paranoid domestic surveillance sparked a deep mistrust among the public, OPEC’s oil embargo spiked an economic downturn that gifted plenty of grist to the mill for conservatives eager to rip up the social contract, Vietnam’s napalm nightmare waged on, rising crime rates weighed heavily on the national consciousness, and Hollywood’s output dwelled in the murkier tales of Taxi Driver, Chinatown, and The Godfather’s explorations of moral ambiguity before a certain lightsaber space opera injected some optimism to the box office in 1977.
But the decade’s disillusionment was horribly confirmed by Watergate. When faith in political institutions was at its lowest, five shady operatives connected to President Richard Nixon’s Republican reelection bid were arrested after breaking into the Democratic National Committee HQ in Washington DC’s Watergate complex to illegally wiretap the offices.
After a tip-off from a source known as “Deep Throat”, later revealed as FBI official W Mark Felt, The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncovered links between the burglars right through to the highest office in the country.
What followed was a devastating chain of events that led to the ‘smoking gun’ discovery of Oval Office recordings confirming Nixon’s involvement, and his resignation in August 1973 to avoid the almost certain congressional impeachment.
A stain of corruption the 37th president was never able to shake off, Watergate’s controversy over half a century ago signals just how low standards have dropped, as the current administration can wade through serious allegations of sexual assault, impeachment over “incitement of insurrection” in light of the 2021 Capitol building storm, and directly demanding the Georgian Secretary of state magic up vote numbers to fraudulently claim an electoral victory.
Further reading: From The Vault
So, what was number one when the Watergate scandal broke?
While cinema was greenlighting dark and gritty pictures, and big chunks of the music scene were likewise reflecting the febrile times, be it Detroit’s garage rock or the urban belligerence at the heart of Funkadelic or Sly and the Family Stone, the Hot 100 chart toppers, as ever, flash a contrary sentiment to the drama engulfing 1972’s political rot.
When Virgilio González, Bernard Barker, James McCord, Eugenio Martínez, and Frank Sturgis were arrested on June 17th, 1972, Sammy Davis Jr’s rendition of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory’s ‘The Candy Man’ sat at the Billboard singles top spot for three weeks, as well as standing as the only ever number one single for the old Rat Pack crooner.
In the cynicism that pervaded 1972’s cultural landscape, it turns out that a slice of sugary pop escape was just what the public wanted, foreshadowing the sorely needed fantasy transport Star Wars offered a shaken public near the decade’s end.
