Finished (Audiobooks) - "Kissenger: A Biography"- Isaacson and "The Nixon Defense: What He Knew and When He Knew It" - John Dean

I must say, I'm finally glad to be done listening to both "Kissenger" and "The Nixon Defense" - both of which are fine if you are interested in the Nixon years (Kissenger goes a  little farther, through Ford, and then post-White House years), however, as both are long, listening to them back to back was a little too much "Kissenger".
I have a basic interest in this particular era, as I remember these events when I was a kid - I was 8 when the Watergate break-ins occurred in 1972, and 10 when Nixon resigned in 1974.  I certainly didn't know (or maybe even care) what the events were about, I remember thinking in 1974 that 1972 was "so long ago" that I was surprised anybody cared about it.  This sounds odd, but seems to be the window that Fox News operates in now - forget the past, blame the closest Democrat right now.

Though I'm far from the right politically, I do find the Nixon event such a loss - he did open China and the Soviet Union and did some really good international work.  The whole Watergate thing is so petty in comparison, though it did reveal the lack of respect for process and branches of gov't in the Nixon years (and I'd content in Reagan and Bush Jr. as many of the same background folks were operating).

Kissenger, who's still considered brilliant, really didn't do much in Vietnam, delaying an earlier solution for political reasons and extending the war unnecessarily.  I  think the handwriting was on the wall that the U.S. was leaving, it might have been done a year or two earlier, with fewer deaths.
The need to keep score and take credit for the international events, traits of both Nixon and Kissenger, demean both to a degree.  Seems childish in hindsight.  Kissenger's willingness to skip over the state department in making plans and large scale treaties seems to be a much bigger "issue" than the shoddy break-ins of Watergate.

All in all, I'm glad to be moving off this section of history.  I find it full of "what ifs" - what if Nixon was less paranoid - would that have avoided the "leftist media" image that is still pervasive in the U.S.?  Would a full-disclosure of Watergate before the 1972  election have provided the clean slate needed for a complete 2nd term?  If the Kissenger-Nixon deals with China and the U.S.S.R. had been handled "normally' thorough normal state department processes, could a more lasting set of treaties be in place, reductions in nuclear arms and maybe a more stable world here in the post 2000's?