Did Richard Nixon’s die hard fans dismiss the possibility that Nixon had something to do with watergate or that he or his administration did something corrupt? Were there people defending him and his administration?
Right up until the end there were diehards who blamed the press for Nixon's scandals, notably Rabbi Baruch Korff who headed the Citizens Committee for Fairness to the Presidency.
The GOP messaging/propaganda machine was far less robust than it is today. Roger Ailes, whose TV ad campaign for Nixon was chronicled in The Selling of the President: 1968 by Joe McGinniss, had not yet founded Fox News.
(For that matter, cable TV had not yet been deployed; most U.S. television viewers received only 3 or 4 broadcast TV channels.)
Thanks a lot for the information! Really goes to show how some people will never accept reality until they held at gunpoint.