Politics

Watergate and the Miami connection

On the night of June 17, five men wearing rubber gloves, their pockets packed with $100 bills collected by President Nixon’s reelection committee, were caught rifling Democratic Party headquarters in the Watergate office complex. Four of the five men were from Miami.  For the next 783 days, until Nixon resigned on Aug. 9, 1974, one […]

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M-P C.W. Griffin

Nelson Mandela visits Miami, 1990

Anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela was expected to visit Miami in June 1990, four months after being released from a South African prison. Miami made plans for a proclamation and a key to the city, but after Mandela acknowledged support for Fidel Castro, Moammar Gadhafi and Yasser Arafat during a TV interview, commissioners rescinded the official […]

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Republican National Convention in Miami Beach, 1972

In 1972, it was Miami Beach’s turn to host, not only the Democratic but also the Republican convention, which had also been held here in 1968 — thanks to Key Biscayne part-time resident Richard M. Nixon. Nixon was running for reelection, along with his vice president, Spiro Agnew.  By then the protesters’ numbers had nearly […]

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Demo. Natl. Convention Miami Beach - 1972 AP Wirephoto

Democratic National Convention in Miami Beach, 1972

In the summer of 1972, Miami Beach hosted the Democratic and Republican national conventions, the last time one city hosted both conventions. During the four-day Democratic Convention in July, only two people were arrested and two others injured. Four years earlier in Chicago, 680 people were arrested and 1,381 were injured. Rocky Pomerance, the Miami […]

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Gary Hart: The sex scandal that changed American politics

May 3, 1987 Miami woman is linked to Hart By JIM McGEE and TOM FIEDLER Gary Hart, the Democratic presidential candidate who has dismissed allegations of womanizing, spent Friday night and most of Saturday in his Capitol Hill townhouse with a young woman who flew from Miami and met him. Hart denied any impropriety. Hart, 50, […]

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JFK in Miami, 1963

Days before his assassination, President John F. Kennedy visited Miami for a key foreign policy speech and to meet with local politicians.

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