September 1972 ? Deep Throat suggested to Woodward that high officials in the Nixon re-election campaign financed the break-in.

October 1972 ? Deep Throat connected the break-in to a larger spying effort against Democrats and said Nixon?s chief of staff, H. R. Haldeman, controlled the funding.

November 1972 ? Nixon and Spiro Agnew were re-elected.

January 1973 ? The five burglars, plus the break-in planners, Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy, were convicted.

April 1973 ? Deep Throat tells Woodward that former Nixon campaign chairman John Mitchell and White House special counsel Charles Colson financed Hunt and Liddy?s operation.

April 30, 1973 ? Top White House aides Haldeman and John Ehrlichmann and Attorney General Richard Kleindienst resign over the scandal. Nixon fires counsel John Dean, who was cooperating with investigators.

May 1973 ? Senate Watergate hearings begin.

June 1973 ? Dean testifies that he discussed a cover-up of the burglary with Nixon.

July 1973 ? Nixon, who tape-recorded his Oval Office meetings, refuses to turn over White House tapes to the Senate Watergate Committee.

July 24, 1974 ? The Supreme Court rules that Nixon must turn over 64 recordings of White House conversations. Three days later, Congress passed the first of three articles of impeachment against Nixon, charging obstruction of justice.

August 9, 1974 ? Nixon resigns, the only U.S. President to do so.

On Wednesday we reached a very serious stage in the Senate Select Committee hearings on the Social Security Board. It took five hearings and several months, but finally the deal is becoming clear for all Belizeans to see.

The Watergate investigation which toppled the Richard Nixon presidency took much longer than this to unfold. The break-in at the Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate Hotel during the 1972 Presidential election campaign, was traced all the way back to President Richard Nixon, but the Republican Party was stonewalling every step of the way from the time five burglars with Republican Party connections were busted by a security guard at the Watergate.

The tiniest of cracks now appears in the armour of the ruling People?s United Party. On Tuesday night?s Kremandala Show, PUP official Bill Lindo referred to the existence and dynamism of ?the group?, and loyalty thereto. Mr. Lindo has been with the PUP since 1973 and has remained loyal through various crises. But it may now be that a few of those who have options, will begin to look at their options.

The case of (Senator) Dickie Bradley deserves a little attention. The Leader of Government Business in the Senate did not appear at last Tuesday?s sitting of the Senate, which considered the controversial Ashcroft BTL acquisitions. The Senate started an hour and a half late as a result, and the PUP had to truck in baker Gustavo Torres from San Ignacio to be sworn in as replacement Senator on an emergency basis. The PUP needed Torres because all the votes ended up going 6 to 5, PUP. It was reported on LOVE FM that Mr. Bradley had chosen to represent a client at a court hearing. There has been no evidence whatsoever that Mr. Bradley was ailing in any way.

At this week Wednesday?s fifth hearing of the Senate Select Committee on the SSB, Mr. Bradley was again conspicuous by his absence. This is the first of the hearings that he?s missed. He is the ruling PUP representative on the five-member Senate Committee, and again, there was no evidence whatsoever to indicate that Mr. Bradley was ailing in any way.

The case of the fifth member of the Committee, UDP Senator Arthur Roches, is also noteworthy, though less so. The UDP had boycotted the hearings from the beginning, even though, because of a communications snafu, Senator Roches had in the Senate originally accepted his appointment to the Committee. Soon afterwards Mr. Roches had been obliged on national radio to decline the appointment.

It appears that sometime between the third and fourth hearings, the UDP top brass had a change of mind, and wished for Senator Roches to attend the fourth hearing, the one where former Development Finance Corporation chairman, Glenn D. Godfrey, was questioned. But Senator Roches did not appear at the fourth hearing. Neither did he appear at this week Wednesday?s fifth hearing, and in neither instance was there evidence that the UDP Senator was ailing in any kind of way.

And so it was, perhaps appropriately so in light of the relevant agitation from non-partisan groups which had in fact forced GOB to hold the Senate Select Committee hearings on the SSB, that there was no Senator from the ruling PUP or the Opposition UDP present on Wednesday in the National Assembly when the fateful breakthrough was made.

It was a tiny crack to be sure, but it was the first one in ?the group? which had ruled since August of 1998. Because it was the first real crack, it was a fateful one. Nevertheless, one may, we think, argue that the first crack was at the third hearing, when Social Security Board general manager, Narda Garcia, said, ?Bring St. James.? ?St. James? was a euphemism which, for all intents and purposes, referred to Development Finance Corporation/Intelco/St. James/Alliance Bank chairman, Glenn D. Godfrey. When Godfrey appeared at the fourth hearing, he ?dissed? Narda and the SSB people. The ?crack? took place in Wednesday?s fifth hearing when Narda, who is the wife of PUP Corozal Southwest standard bearer, Dr. Gregorio Garcia, testified for the third time since the beginning of the hearings, and expressed her displeasure with Mr. Godfrey?s testimony. Even before his testimony at the fourth hearing, Mr. Godfrey had said in a national radio interview on LOVE FM, that, ?I will not be a scapegoat.? On Wednesday, Narda Garcia appeared to say the same thing, in different words.

The importance of this is that, because of the pressure from the trade unions and the social partners of Belize, the indications are that someone has to become the scapegoat for many millions of SSB money in order to cover the official Minister of Finance at the time, Prime Minister Said Musa, and the Minister of Budget Planning who was de facto Finance Minister at the time, Hon. Ralph Fonseca.

It now appears that, unless GOB padlocks the doors of the National Assembly, that these Intelcogate hearings must go on. To our mind, things have now just begun to get really interesting. While we peons were working, the evidence is now clear, people of position and public responsibility were taking our money and playing with it in manners cavalier. In the words of Steel Pulse ? ?Da who responsible?? We want to know. If we are not allowed to find out, then it means that we are third millennium slaves. Straight like that.