Watergate stirs debate in Nixon hometown, 40 years on

But not everyone is entirely happy in Yorba Linda, the California town where "Tricky Dick" was born and is laid to rest next to his beloved wife Pat in the sun-dappled grounds of the Nixon library and museum.

"Whenever you change the narrative, a narrative that a group of people are accustomed to, you have to do it with some sensitivity," said its director Timothy Naftali, looking out at the center\'s manicured lawns and tranquil courtyard pool.

Nixon resigned in disgrace in August 1974, the first US president ever to do so, for his administration\'s role in a June 1972 burglary of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex in the US capital.

The 37th US president, who died in 1994, oversaw the creation of a private presidential library in his name in Yorba Linda, some 35 miles (55 kilometers) southeast of Los Angeles, including a section on Watergate.

But in 2007, responsibility for the center was transferred from the Nixon Foundation to the US National Archives, which manages presidential libraries across the United States.

The original exhibit notably referred to the Watergate scandal as a "coup" against Nixon by his rivals. The Nixon Foundation, grouping his family and supporters, said it unashamedly gave the former president\'s perspective on the scandal.

"When the US government and the Nixon Foundation were negotiating the handover to the federal government, both sides understood that that gallery had to go," said Naftali, a professional historian and government employee.

But the chairman of the foundation\'s board, Ron Walker, stressed this week that Watergate was only one part of the late US president\'s career.

"The new Watergate exhibit at the Nixon Library represents one interpretation of the events that led to President Nixon\'s resignation in 1974," he said.

The new gallery -- near the end of a museum that takes the viewer from Nixon\'s early political life through to his time in the White House, and ultimate death -- is a multimedia interactive dissection of the scandal.

Under headings such as "Dirty Tricks" and "The Cover Up", it includes the scratchy audio recordings that sealed Nixon\'s fate.

"These presidential orders led to illegal actions and abuses of government power," the presentation explains straightforwardly at the start of the gallery.

Visitors are shown round the museum -- which includes Nixon\'s childhood home, a clapboard house next to his grave -- by docents, elderly volunteers who have for years proudly explained the US president\'s life.

Introducing the new Watergate exhibit on its first full day open to the public, one said that he would not share his opinion of it with his guests, but left little doubt that it was not entirely positive.

Naftali said he understood the concerns of those to whom "Richard Nixon is a hero".

"One could argue that many of the facts that we\'re presenting are not new, but they\'re new here," he said.

"So it\'s with sensitivity that we\'ve been working with our volunteers, showing respect for them but also indicating to them the need to start absorbing this information, and coming to terms with it."

Visitors appeared impressed by the exhibit. "This is a wonderful change. The entire exhibit is beautiful and a well accepted change," wrote Jamie Gray from San Diego on the digitized visitors\' book.

Richard Shoop, 67, decided to stop in while on holiday from his home near San Francisco, having visited the Ronald Reagan presidential library just north of Los Angeles on the way down.

"I think it\'s fascinating, the amount of information," he said, emerging from the new Watergate gallery.

"I get concerned if I come and find a place like this (that) it\'s going to be a little bit whitewashed and biased. ... I found this a pretty even-keeled and open."

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