Since we arrived at an anniversary; forty years since the infamous Watergate Break-In on June 17, 1972, I thought I would run this episode of ABC's Issues & Answers featuring RNC Chairman Sen. Robert Dole and DNC Chairman and Chairman of the McGovern-Shriver Campaign, Lawrence F. O'Brien.

In what started out as an assessment of where the Presidential Campaign of 1972 stood, quickly evaporated into a thirty-minute discussion on the Watergate Break-in and its implications for the Nixon campaign.

Dole was quick to dismiss the allegations, and eager to change the subject. O'Brien and the ABC News reporters weren't, and it turned into a lively exchange that Dole repeatedly attempted to deflect the seriousness of the charge by saying "oh, the Democrats are guilty too".

In hindsight, hearing this exchange, the intense amount of misinformation, smokescreen and outright prevarication is palpable. At the time it seemed like there was more to it, but the amount of denial, with hopes of keeping the lid on until at least the election, kept everything in a state of confusion some three months after the initial break-in.

And perhaps in 1972 it was realized the Press were a far more dangerous commodity than previously realized. The fallout from that no doubt has made mainstream media what it is today.

Here is that complete episode of ABC News Issues & Answers, first broadcast on September 24, 1972.

This week's Talkshow is an Issues & Answers broadcast from September 1964. Hot on the heels of the upcoming General Election. This one features Democratic vice-Presidential nominee Sen. Hubert Humphrey, campaigning throughout the West, being interviewed while on a stop in New Mexico.

The issues in 1964 were bubbling under the radar for a while, most importantly our increasing involvement in Southeast Asia which, as of August and the Gulf of Tonkin incident, seemed to point in the direction of a drawn out and protracted war as well as the attempted coup that had just taken place before this broadcast.

But moreover was the issue of Barry Goldwater, the Republican Presidential nominee, and the dramatic shift to the right the party had taken since the mid-term elections in 1962. Goldwater represented the extreme wing of the party, which had been gaining ground in recent years, fueled by reaction to the Civil Rights movement and the staunch Anti-Communist base who still held the belief that the Red influence was still running amok in the government.

Sen. Hubert Humphrey: “It is my view that, when Sen. Goldwater speaks about the use of Atomic weapons as if they were little conventional weapons for example, and he says ‘let’s give those weapons, the use of those weapons and the control of them to the General in the field’, that he hasn’t thought it through. Or if he has thought it through then he has a very dangerous thought. There aren’t any conventional atomic weapons. The little weapons that he speaks about are presently in the possession of the United States Army in Europe, but are subject to the control of the President of the United States. These weapons are bigger than the weapon, the bomb that was used at Nagasaki. Now you don’t call that a little old conventional weapon. I feel that the Senator from Arizona has had some difficulty outlining a consistent position of Political philosophy and Political program. He votes against a tax bill and then a few months later he recommends a tax cut bill he voted against, the one that cut the taxes over $11 billion. A few months later he comes around and charges it as being a cynical and politically motivated gimmick and the he presents a tax reduction bill, a proposal of his at over 25%. One time he says we ought never to be in the United Nations. Another time he says he thinks the United Nations has some value. He’s one time condemned Social Security, a little bit later he will say ‘well, Social Security may be all right’. I don’t know how you would interpret this, but I would say that it is at least political instability, and in a President you need more firmness of purpose and more stability of position.”

Flip-flops appear to have some basis in history - we hear about them now, we heard about them then. 1964 no doubt signaled a change in the Republican party and in politics in general. Many people will contend it was this election that became Ground Zero for the ideological shift within our political system.

And they may have been right in that assumption.

Two days in September that can't escape notice. September 16 and 17 in 1948. Two rather busy days as far as the world and the future are concerned.

On the 16th there was the continuing story of the Berlin Airlift and how it was making its mark in the annals of Propaganda, with Western success gauged by the amount of defects apparent in the ranks of the Russian Army. But the Cold War had its other aspects. In Romania, alleged U.S. employees working outside of Bucharest were expelled by the Soviet Satellite on alleged grounds they were spying. And the Cold War dragged on.

Meanwhile, in the U.S. - the 1948 Presidential campaign officially kicked off with Republican vice-Presidential candidate Earl Warren speaking in Salt Lake City and asking for a civilized campaign (the eternal quest for the high-road, even in 1948). And Dr. Norbert Wiener of MIT introduces his theory of Cybernetics at an annual gathering of Scientists. It would have major implications in the coming decades.

On the 17th, news reached New York of the assassination of United Nations mediator Count Folke Bernadotte of Sweden, while shuttling back and forth between Damascus and Jerusalem in attempt to broker a peace settlement for the emerging nation of Israel. The radical Jewish group Stern Gang was implicated in the assassination and it was cause for an emergency session of the United Nations to deal with the tragedy.

And on the subject of emerging nations, a Civil War which briefly erupted in a province in southern India was quickly extinguished. The process of putting out domestic fires in the newly independent nation had begun.

On the home front - President Truman was readying to leave Washington to embark on the campaign trail in what promised to be a lively 1948 Presidential season. Hearings on Communist influence in the U.S. Government were resuming with questions of allegiances directed at some notable members of the American Communist Party (which hadn't been outlawed just yet). And The New York Central unveiled it's epitome of traveling in style with The 20th Century Limited, embarking on its maiden run to the West.

Two comparatively normal days in the scheme of things, but in 1948 the world had more questions than answers and an amazing amount of news reports got stuffed into a 15 minute program. All via NBC Radio's News Of The World for September 16 and 17, 1948.

Nervous yet momentous times.