"What if almost everything you think you know about Watergate is wrong?" This is the provocative question posed by the next Dezember Alumni House Speaker, Geoff Shepard ’66, in his new nonfiction book, Inside the Watergate Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Make Ted Kennedy President. On November 6, Shepard returns to Whittier College to offer a new look behind arguably the most notorious political scandal in American history. This event is co-sponsored by the Whittier Republican Women's Federated.
A former White House Fellow and Domestic Council staffer for the Nixon Administration, Geoff Shepard knows his way around the intricacies of D.C. conflicts, characters, and plots. In fact, following the 1973 triumvirate resignation of top Nixon advisors Haldeman, Ehrlichman, and Dean, Shepard assumed a key role in the Nixon defense team, transcribing White House tapes, running document rooms, and briefing senior spokesmen. In his book, Shepard draws on his own experiences to analyze the politics behind Watergate, and sheds surprising new light on how opposing partisan ambitions and the use of scandal as political weaponry contributed to the downfall of the 37th President.
