“We began during the course of that semester to watch tapes of the actual Watergate hearings. That was part of the class. It was never explicit that you had to be there but you showed up because there was lots of talking to do. We had to talk about Mr. Dean [the White House counsel]. We had to understand him. We had to unpack this person, the claims he was authored, his role. The Watergate hearings were extraordinary, a challenge to the constitutional authority that had largely survived the turmoil of the Vietnam War. Issues about Cambodia – can we go there, can’t we go there? — those were not the kind of threat for the republic that the behavior of the Nixon White House and the Committee to Re-Elect the President [CREEP] presented. This was a course on public authority. How will we govern ourselves? How will we decide on the questions of values? How we understand human dignity? How we understand the notion of freedom? How we understand the notion of the disciplines of citizenship? These were the basics of civics, 8th grade civics. Bob took you right back there and said every one of these words has to be unpacked. You couldn’t have a better teaching occasion than the drama, the characters. That’s what the Watergate hearings were, a perfect occasion for Bob.

–Don Dubendorf '75