Letter from Rome, Paris, London, Athens

All about Watergate

Europeans are treating America’s agony over Watergate with benign neglect. Also with some amusement. As a seasoned Roman senator told me over drinks in his fashionable apartment: “It is inconceivable to an Italian that the American President can get into trouble over such a thing. Here we expect the government to take full advantage of any situation and we, in turn, all grumble about it. But so much publicity is ridiculous. After all Nixon didn’t do anything that other Presidents haven’t condoned and even encouraged in the past.”