The Secret Plot to Make Ted Kennedy President: Inside the Real Watergate Conspiracy

The controversial book that will change how people think about Watergate

Drawing on his insider knowledge and previously unpublished documents, Geoff Shepard shows that it didn’t take long for Ted Kennedy and his allies to smell blood after the Watergate break-in. They set out to exaggerate and prolong the scandal, not merely to destroy Richard Nixon, but to undermine the entire Republican Party and pave the way for another Kennedy presidency in 1976. 

In the process, working closely with a willing media, they pioneered the politics of personal destruction, which has tarnished our country ever since. 

Shepard reveals how this Kennedy conspiracy included members and staffs of the Senate, the House, the Justice Department, and the Special Prosecutor’s office. They used delay tactics and obfuscation to postpone the indictments and avoid trials of the handful of real Watergate criminals. 

Shepard argues that the abuses of power by Kennedy’s cronies dwarf those of the administration they savaged. Among those he singles out for reevaluation are Republican turncoat John Dean, Mark “Deep Throat” Felt, reporter Bob Woodward, and a young lawyer for the House Judiciary Committee named Hillary Rodham.

Geoff Shepard worked in the Nixon White House for more than five years, first as a White House Fellow, then as a senior member of the Domestic Council staff. After leaving the Ford administration in 1975, he spent the next thirty years as a corporate lawyer, primarily in the insurance industry.