In a 2017 interview with Newsarama about the legacy of his Captain America series.Englehart talked about how Secret Empire was his response to the Watergate scandal. (If you don't know: During the 1972 election, Nixon's Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. was robbed and bugged. The discovery and cover-up eventually led to his resignation from the presidency on August 9. 1974 .)

Englehart described watching the Watergate scandal as "a real-life political thriller, this kind of day-to-day unfolding of the inner workings of this conspiracy." With the news dominating America, he decided that "there's no way Captain America can continue to fight Yellow Claw with what's going on." So he took the basic idea of ​​a president leading a conspiracy and Marvel made it. ("A story about people breaking into a campaign - which would make a pretty boring comic")

There are allusions to Watergate in "Secret Empire" before the end. The arm of the Secret Empire trying to discredit Capp is called the Committee to Restore American Principles (CRAP), just as Nixon's Committee to Re-elect the President (CREEP) financed the Watergate scandal. CRAP is led by an ad man named Harderman, a Roman key to Nixon's chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman.

As for that ending, Englehart wanted a shocking ending that would really make Captain America question himself, and one that would do justice to the pressure cooker of the real scandal. "Nixon didn't blow his brains out, he destroyed his own career, and that's political suicide," Englehart told Newsarama.

People of my generation, who have always lived under a government that does nothing but inspire pessimism and mistrust, don't realize what a shock Watergate was. But in Englehart's time, "there were statesmen on both sides of the aisle who were more concerned about the republic than any political party" and a media ecosystem that still valued journalistic objectivity.

Many artistic liberals of Englehart's generation channeled their frustrations with Nixon into their art. (George Lucas based the Star Wars Empire on Nixon's America.) The Watergate debacle also left the country in prime position for Ronald Reagan to suck it up with his "Morning in America" ​​schtick six years later.

Nowadays, lampooning Nixon as a national disgrace is an American pastime, including in other comics like Watchmen and comedy like 1999's Dick. "Secret Empire" itself reads like that today, but there is one important detail.

Captain America #175 has been out for months before Nixon resigned and actually pleaded guilty to being pardoned by then-President Gerald Ford—the same way Captain America first made his fist-pumping debut against Hitler a year before the United States entered World War II. From the beginning, Captain America represented the desire for the US to do the right thing, not the reality that it rarely does. Englehart realized that's how you make Captain America a lasting and resonant character.