Why?

Today is the 37th anniversary of the Watergate burglary.

When "Deep Throat" died last year, I wrote about the dwindling list of surviving major figures in the scandal. In the meantime, The New York Times published this obituary of Bernard Barker, one of the burglars.

The scandal has been thoroughly dissected, in books, films and TV documentaries. The broad outlines of the story are very clear.

The biggest remaining mystery is: what could possibly go on, in the national committee headquarters of the opposition party, that would be so important to a presidential campaign, that they would take the risk of burglarizing that committee's office?

The story in the Barker obituary about checking for ties to the Castro regime doesn't ring true for me. I suspect that either 1) there's more to the story that has not come to light, or 2) there was no reason that was sufficient to justify the risk, and Nixon's people made an unwise decision to go in anyway.