Nixon Library Ends Watergate Whitewash

Richard Nixon's library may be backing off its insistence that its honoree was not a crook. The private museum is poised to become a federal institution, and its new director is working to add some nuance to the fiercely pro-Nixon exhibits—starting with the Watergate room. "I can't run a shrine," he told the LA Times.

The current display represents the resignation of the disgraced president as a "coup" and the investigation into his administration's regal secrecy as conspiratorial defamation. The California library is about to inherit Nixon's White House papers, which the government snatched to avoid their destruction; management says they'll play a central role in the new exhibit. (More Watergate stories.)