Similarities with Watergate start to develop

Sir, - Does anyone remember the October 1973 Saturday Night Massacre in Washington DC?

A beleaguered President Richard Nixon, distracted on the one hand by a war between Israel and Egypt, and on the other by the developing Watergate scandal, decided to sack a senior law official.

He was Archibald Cox, a special prosecutor who had decided that the president must release the tapes of the conversations he had in the Oval Office over the years.

Out too went the attorney general Elliot Richardson, prompting some to suggest that there was a whiff of the Gestapo in the air.

At stake at the time was the credibility and the honesty of the entire system of government in the United States.

The controversy was to lead to the resignation of the President some 10 months later.

Have we reached a similar situation with Donald Trump’s decision to sack FBI director James Comey and subsequent developments?

The parallels are almost eerie. We still don’t know enough, however, about what the relations between the President and Mr Comey were really like.

In 1973, Nixon had been elected a couple of years before with a landslide majority. He probably felt he could do almost exactly what he wanted, and didn’t want the business of government to be ruptured by a squalid argument about what was said on a tape.

He was wrong and eventually found to be corrupt. Donald Trump has his own, abrasive way of doing things.

While his actions over Mr Comey leave a very sour taste in the mouth, it is too strong to say that he is undermining democracy in the way Nixon did and whimsically abusing his power.

Bob Taylor. 24 Shiel Court, Glenrothes.