Cialdini raamat
sent a fearsomely powerful force. Embodied in the rejection-then-retreat sequence,
they are jointly capable of genuinely astonishing effects. It is my feeling that they
provide the only really plausible explanation of one of the most baffling political
actions of our time: the decision to break into the Watergate offices of the Demo-
cratic National Committee that led to the ruin of Richard Nixon's presidency. One
of the participants in that decision, Jeb Stuart Magruder, upon hearing that the Wa-
tergate burglars had been caught, responded with appropriate bewilderment, "How
could we have been so stupid?" Indeed, how?
To understand how enormously ill-conceived an idea it was for the Nixon ad-
ministration to undertake the break-in, let's review a few facts:
• The idea was that of G. Gordon Liddy, who was in charge of intelligence-
gathering operations for the Committee to Re-elect the President (CREEP).
annaabi.ee 
