In June 1986, after a year-long investigation, then-President Ronald Reagan’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Defense Management — later known as the Packard Commission — filed a final report. It was established to investigate Pentagon procurement after an enormous increase in defense spending and the discovery of the infamous $435 hammer and $600 toilet seat. The panel was chaired by David Packard, co-founder of Hewlett-Packard Co., and deputy defense secretary in the Nixon administration. Read full article > >

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Defense procurement problems won’t go away

Early in Thomas Mallon’s new novel about the Watergate scandal , President Nixon’s secretary wonders when her boss will get his own marble temple on the Mall. It’s the sort of arresting moment of naivete that frequently punctuates this witty, surprisingly humane dramatization of that vaudevillian chapter in American politics. Read full article > >

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Book World: Thomas Mallon’s ‘Watergate’ is imaginative political farce

To lowest levels since Nixon.

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Border Crossings Drop Sharply

There are continuing signs this week that the Obama campaign is getting its sea legs. There are few things more tense and miserable in politics than working to reelect an incumbent president. The first race was the one where you felt young, invincible and full of hope that you really could change Washington and remake the country. Then it all comes crashing down. Hope stalls, recrimination sets in, once-proud aides and confidants are shoved aside or exiled, best friendships are ruined. Geniuses become idiots overnight. With the possible exception of Ronald Reagan’s 1984 campaign, every president’s reelection process since Richard Nixon has followed this script. The phase of glorious victory and disillusionment is followed by a grim determination to prevail in the reelection contest. This time the motivation may be less lofty: Instead of the joy of winning, it may be more about the fear of losing. There are no more happy warriors. Read full article > >

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Obama’s reelection campaign gains steam

The testimony of former President Richard Nixon for the Watergate grand jury has been made public after it was kept secret for 36 years.

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Nixon’s secret testimony released

Aging Nixon-haters, mark your calendars! More texts and tapes chronicling the adventures of the old Trickster will be released in about a month. Nixon tapes are a bit like Tupac albums: They come out regularly, even though the subject is long dead. Or, in the words of our colleague Bob Woodward , they’re “the gift that keeps on giving.” Read full article > >

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Richard Nixon texts and tapes will be released soon

Some weeks ago, as I was conducting research for a book on anti-communism, I happened upon a political ad for the 1952 presidential election. The ad was notable for two reasons: It appeared in an African American newspaper, and it said in bold letters, “Let’s face it — a vote for the Democrats is a vote for Jim Crow.” This was followed by an explanation of why blacks should support the Eisenhower-Nixon ticket. Read full article > >

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The GOP’s cynical embrace of Herman Cain

Bay Theatre Company Artistic Director Janet Luby says of “Wit,” Margaret Edson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, which opens at the theater Friday: “It holds your hand and it takes you somewhere that you don’t want to go, but you’re glad that you went.” “Wit” is also set to open on Broadway early next year, starring Cynthia Nixon. The BTC production stars Helen Hayes Award-winner Rena Cherry Brown as Vivian Bearing, a 50-year-old English professor who realizes, as she is dying, that she led an incomplete life. Just before heading out to cut off her hair to take on the appearance of Bearing, a chemotherapy patient, Brown spoke about baring her soul and her body in her most trying theatrical endeavor. Read full article > >

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Rena Cherry Brown on Bay Theatre Company’s ‘Wit’

The Watergate office building, home of the infamous break-in that led to President Richard M. Nixon’s resignation, is under contract to be sold to District-based private equity real estate investor Penzance Cos., according to two sources familiar with the deal. The deal is expected to close later this fall according to the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the sale has not been completed. Read full article > >

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Watergate office building to be sold

Mr. Percy was a moderate Republican who clashed with President Richard M. Nixon over Watergate and whose own presidential ambitions were stymied by Nixon’s resignation.

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Charles Percy, Former Illinois Senator, Is Dead at 91

The Nixon and Reagan libraries are near one another in California, but far apart in philosophy.

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What’s a Presidential Library to Do?

Lawrence S. Eagleburger, a onetime ambassador who held high-level positions under five presidents and who was the first career Foreign Service officer to become secretary of state, died June 4 of pneumonia at the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville. He was 80 and had lived outside Charlottesville since 1990. Much of Mr. Eagleburger’s work took place behind closed doors as a participant in the international strategies of every president from Richard M. Nixon through George H.W. Bush. A plain-spoken, likable diplomat, Mr. Eagleburger rose to prominence as a protege of Henry Kissinger’s. Read full article > >

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Lawrence S. Eagleburger, diplomat and onetime secretary of state, dies at 80

Former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger died Saturday in Charlottesville, Virginia, after a short illness. Eagleburger rose through the ranks of the foreign service, working as Henry Kissinger’s assistant in the Nixon administration, ambassador…

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Ex-Secretary of State Eagleburger Dies

Danny MoloshokReutersSusan Lucci (L) and creator Agnes Nixon from “All My Children.”Two more daytime soaps bite the dust: ABC announced Thursday it’s finally driving a stake into both “All My Children” and “One Life to Live,” in order to launch two new “The View”-esque shows. One is about all things food, stars a bunch of foodies, and is called “The Chew.” The other is about weight loss, stars the inimitable Tim Gunn, among others, and is called “The Revolution.”

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ABC cancels ‘All My Children’ and ‘One Life to Live’

Before Charles Colson became one of the country’s top evangelical leaders, he was best known as Nixon’s “hatchet man.” Now Colson, 79, is creating an army of Christian disciples.

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Evangelist Charles Colson’s final mission: Spiritually cloning himself