Managing With Power

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Framing: How We Look at Things Affects How They Look

In the 1972 presidential election, Richard Nixon’s campaign operatives authorized the hiring of five Cubans to break into the Democratic National Campaign Headquarters in the Watergate apartment and office complex in Washington, DC and place listening devices on the premises. The Cubans were apprehended during the break-in, and the subsequent disclosures about campaign activities as well as the attempted cover-up of the Watergate scandal caused Nixon to resign in 1974. One might well ask, with Nixon running as an incumbent in 1972 against George McGovern, who was far from a mainstream candidate, why and how did this misadventure occur? The answer tells us something about the importance ...