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What Is A Historyscope?

Westerners are not only known as history ignoramuses, but double dumbass history ignoramuses when it comes to the history of journalism and journalists. Since I'm the one-and-only Historyscoper (tm), let me quickly bring you up to speed before you dive into my Master Historyscope.

In 1878 Hungarian Jewish immigrant Joseph "Joey the German/Jew" Pulitzer (1847-1911), who arrived in Boston, Mass. in 1864 and joined the Lincoln Cavalry, riding with Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen on Mar. 6, 1867 then started in 1868 as a reporter on the Westliche Post in St. Louis, Mo., joining the Repub. Party in 1869 and becoming a Mo. state rep. on Jan. 5, 1870 before switching to the Dem. Party in 1872 buys the St. Louis Evening Dispatch and St. Louis Evening Post, merging them into the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, its initial ed. of 4,020 4-page copies appearing on Dec. 12, turning it into the first modern newspaper to focus on scandals, pioneering yellow journalism; after acquiring the New York World in 1883, he has a breakdown from overwork in 1887 and goes blind, but just hops onto cruise ships and continues supervising his empire; on Apr. 10, 1907 he pub. the paper's platform: "I know that my retirement will make no difference in its cardinal principles, that it will always fight for progress and reform, never tolerate injustice or corruption, always fight demagogues of all parties, never belong to any party, always oppose privileged classes and public plunderers, never lack sympathy with the poor, always remain devoted to the public welfare, never be satisfied with merely printing news, always be drastically independent, never be afraid to attack wrong, whether by predatory plutocracy or predatory poverty."

In 1934 Chicago, Ill.-born William Lawrence Shirer (1904-93) is hired by the Berlin bureau of the Universal News Service, moving in Sept. 1937 to CBS-Radio in Vienna, becoming the first "Murrow Boy", moving to Berlin in 1939 and leaving in Dec. 1940, then returning in 1945 to cover the Nuremberg trials.

In 1937 Guildford County, N.C.-born journalist Edward R. Murrow (Egbert Roscoe Murrow) (1908-65) becomes head of the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) European Bureau, going on to gain fame for his London broadcasts during WWII and setting high journalistic standards that later generations throw in the dust bin?

In 1945 the ultrarightist Propaganda Due (P2) covert (black) Masonic Freemason lodge in Italy is founded (until 1976), becoming known for being involved in numerous crimes and govt. bribery scandals incl. the collapse of the Vatican-affiliated Banco Ambrosiano, the Tangentopoli bribe scandal, and the murders of journalist Mino Pecorelli and banker Roberto Calvi, acting as a shadow govt. or state within a state, with plans to rewrite the Italian constitution, suppress trade unions, and clamp down on the media; members incl. prominent journalists, MPs, military men, and industrialists incl. Silvio Berlusconi, Italian pretender Vittorio Emanuele, Prince of Naples (1937-), banker Michele Sindona et al.; in 1982 police discover their "Plan for Democratic Action"; it spreads to Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay, with members incl. Argentine pres. (1973) Raul Alberto Lastiri.

In Mar. 1971 after 90K are relocated and 1K workers are killed, the $1.6B 350-ft.-high Aswan High Dam in Egypt (begun 1960) opens 6 mo. after the death of pres. Abdel Gamal Nasser, supplying half of Egypt's energy needs incl. the first electricity to millions of poor farmers with its 12 hydroelectric turbines; too bad, mosquitoes breed, causing an outbreak of Rift Valley viral fever that infects 200K and kills 600. A legitimate concern for the leaking of U.S. defense secrets causes Tricky Nixon to go too far and authorize crimes, leading to his downfall when the same press he has pissed-off goes in for the kill? In Mar. U.S. Defense Dept. employee Daniel Ellsberg (1931-) obtains a copy of the Pentagon Papers (United States - Vietnam Relations, 1946-1967: A Study Prepared by the Department of Defense) AKA "History of the United States Decision-Making Process on Vietnam Policy", a secret 3K-page 47-vol. official history of the Vietnam War commissioned in 1967 by U.S. defense secy. Robert McNamara from his former Pentagon colleagues, and gives it to New York Times reporter Cornelius Mahoney "Neil" Sheehan (1936-), who writes a series on the secret history of the Vietnam War from it, incl. how U.S. officials have been lying to the public, telling them thaty were trying to help South Vietnam but actually working to contain Red China, winning him a Pulitzer Prize; meanwhile the NYT begins pub. excerpts on June 13 giving a history of U.S. involvement Vietnam from the end of WWII to 1968, pissing-off U.S. atty.-gen. John Mitchell, who asks them to stop, saying that the info. in it will cause "irreparable injury to the defense interests of the United States"; after they tell him to buzz off, a federal judge issues the first-ever prior restraint order on the press, causing a legal battle to the U.S. Supreme Court; meanwhile on June 16 the Washington Post gets a copy, and begins pub. excerpts on June 18, causing the Nixon admin. to come down on them too; on June 26 the U.S. Justice Dept. issues a warrant for Daniel Ellsberg, and he surrenders in Boston, Mass., admitting his heroic deeds, getting indicted on Dec. 29 along with co-worker Anthony J. "Tony" Russo Jr. (1936-2008) for espionage and conspiracy; meanwhile on June 30 the U.S. Supreme Court rules 6-3 against the govt., allowing the pub. of the Pentagon Papers to proceed, pissing-off Pres. Nixon, who the same day tells his chief of staff H.R. Haldeman and his White House Plumbers to break into the Brookings Inst. and bring out files collected on the Vietnam War; after prosecutors discover the hanky-panky, they get the charges dismissed; on June 13, 2011 the entire document is declassified and published - no funnies in the back?

The Watergate break-in becomes the Democrats' Big Silver Bird? On June 17, 1972 (Sat.) (2:00 a.m.) the Watergate Scandal begins when five men are arrested by D.C. police for breaking into the Dem. Nat. Committee HQ in the Watergate Complex in Foggy Bottom, Washington, D.C. (built in 1967), on the Georgetown Channel not far from the White House at the intersection of Virginia Ave., New Hampshire Ave., and Rock Creek & Potomac Pkwy. after black night watchman Frank Wills (1948-2000) finds and removes some duct tape from a door lock, returns and finds it put back, the calls police; the arrested Watergate Burglars incl. Bernard Leon Barker (1917-2009) (ex-member of the Batista Cuban secret police) (the fake Secret Service agent on the Grassy Knoll in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963?), electronics expert James Walter McCord Jr. (1924-), Eugenio R. "Musculito" Martinez (1924-) (Cuban), Frank Anthony Sturgis (Fiorini) (1924-93) (Am. who worked in Cuba), and Virgilio R. Gonzalez (1926-) (Cuban), who are carrying cameras and electronic surveillance equipment (their 2nd break-in, with the mission of removing bugs they had placed the 1st time); on June 17 after being put up to it by Jeb Stuart Magruder (1934-), deputy dir. of the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP), who was put up to it by former U.S. atty.-gen. #67 (1969-72) John Newton Mitchell (1913-88) (chmn. of CREEP, Nixon's campaign mgr., and WWII cmdr. of JFK's PT boat unit), former FBI agent and atty. George Gordon Battle Liddy (1930-) (mastermind of the burglary, who supervised it from a hotel across the street) approaches U.S. atty.-gen. #68 (1972-3) Richard Gordon Kleindienst (1923-2000) (born in Winslow, Ariz.) at a private golf club in Bethesda, Md. and asks him to get the burglars released and to help coverup that it traces to CREEP, and although he doesn't get them released, he also fails to rat on them, which would have broken the case open for the public, causing him to hang on until Nixon fires him as a patsy; on June 19 Mitchell says that they were not "operating either on our behalf or with our consent"; on June 19 White House press secy. Ronald Louis Ziegler calls the break-in a "third-rate burglary"; the scandal begins after CREEP and White House consultant Everette Howard Hunt (1918-2007), consultant to pres. special counsel (1969-73) Charles Wendell "Chuck" Colson (1931-2012) until Mar. 29, and known for directing CIA activities against Fidel Castro are linked to the burglars, starting with Hunt's number being found in the burglars' address books, with the White House admitting that Hunt met Barker earlier in June; on June 20 Nixon tells Colson that he has a "dangerous job"; Hunt, Liddy, and Seattle, Wash. atty. Egil "Bud" Krogh Jr. (1939-) later reveal that they were created in June-July 1971, and named the White House Plumbers by Henry Kissinger's former aide David Young (1936-) for their work in plugging leaks, and claim that Hunt recruited four of the five burglars (except McCord) from a team who worked on the Bay of Pigs invasion in order to see if Castro was making contributions to the McGovern campaign; meanwhile Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward (1943-) and Carl Bernstein (1944-), working for "Woodstein!"-shouting ed.-in-chief (1965-91) Benjamin Crowninshield "Ben" Bradlee (1921-2014) and publisher Katharine Graham (1917-2001) are assigned to the arraignment of the Watergate burglars, after which they meet with mysterious govt. figure "Deep Throat", deputy FBI dir. William Mark Felt Sr. (1913-2008) (who keeps his identity secret until 2005), who tells them to "follow the money", and makes Woodward stick a red flag in his balcony flower pot to request meetings, and they soon lock-on to the trail leading straight to the Oval Office, causing every political scandal in the U.S. to be tokenized into some kind of "-gate"; on Aug. 30, 2016 the CIA document Working Draft - CIA Watergate History is declassified, revealing that Eugenio Martinez was "actively being paid by the CIA at the time of the arrests on June 17, 1972" to do the break-in.