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President Nixon and Watergate
Unethical watergate scandal
Nixon and the Watergate
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The Watergate Scandal also known as the Watergate Affair was the scandal that brought down President Richard Nixon. Members of Nixon’s administration broke into DNC headquarters in the Watergate building to steal top secret documents and bug the office phones. The Watergate Scandal that occurred from 1972-1974 led to members of the Nixon administration fired and the resignation of President Richard Nixon. After Nixon resigned from his presidency, Gerald Ford took office in 1974. When he became president he issued a pardon on Nixon. Some people think Nixon should not have been pardon, and some people believe that it was right for Ford to pardon Nixon. Richard Nixon shouldn’t have been pardoned because he is deceptive,showed no integrity, his actions were despicable and he committed or ordered a felony.
In Nixon’s first Watergate speech he addresses the issue of what is known as the Watergate scandal, and explains why members of his administrationresignedor weresacked.In this speech Nixon is speaking as if he didn’t know about the incident and he is innocent. For an example Nixon says” I was appalled at this senseless, illegal action, and I was shocked to learn that employees of the re-election committee were apparently among those guilty.” Later on people found out that he did indeed order them to break into the DNC Headquarters. Nixon deceives hisviewers when he says, “I was determined that we get to the bottom of the matter.” Nixon wanted the viewers to believe that he was not a part of the affair, and he wason the same side with the FBI.As the issue got more intense that is when Nixon delivers his second Watergate speech.
Four months after the first one, President Nixon delivers his second Watergate speech. Inthis speech Nixon i...
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...e (the discretionary right claimed by certain U.S. presidents to withhold information from Congress or the judiciary).When Nixon began hearing rumors of impeachment, he decided turn over the subpoenaed White House tapes. It was obvious that some conversations were deleted. On one of the tapes there was a 18-minute gap.
M. Carlson explains information about the Watergate tapes in his article “Notes from Underground.” According to Carlson “The so-called smoking-gun tapes prompted Nixon's resignation in 1974.” The smoking-gun tapes held the conversations on delaying the investigation and paying hush money to the hired hands who participated in the Watergate break-in. Carlson states that the tapes “also detail many of the charges of obstruction of justice, perjury, tax evasion, wiretapping and destruction of evidence that landed some of Nixon's closest aides in jail.”
The documentary entitled, Watergate Plus 30: Shadow of History, documents the political decisions and environment within the Nixon Administration from 1969-1974. The documentary specifically details and describes the environment and culture in which the Watergate scandal could occur and the events and abuses of power that lead to its occurrence. Setting the tone and the political climate of the Nixon Administration was the Vietnam War; making him a wartime President, a war that he inherited from his predecessor. The Vietnam War faced a lot of opposition from the general public, with massive protests and political demonstrations by the younger generations and overall general public. Nixon’s presidency was surrounded by this climate amidst the
When Nixon was inaugurated, he took a sworn oath to protect the people and the country. He lied to his people. He states, “The major problem on the Watergate is simply to clean the thing up by having whoever was responsible admit what happened. Certainly I am satisfied that nobody in the White House had any knowledge or approved any such activity.” (Memoirs 646).
‘Confidence in the government declined between 1968 and 1980 largely due to political scandal’. To what extent do you agree?
1. On March 1, 1974 a grand jury returned an indictment charging seven of President Nixon's close aides with various offenses, including conspiracy to defraud the United States and to obstruct justice having to do with the Watergate Affair.
“Watergate: The Scandal That Brought Down Richard Nixon.” Watergate.info. N.p., 1995. Web. 24 Feb. 2014. .
During the 1970’s, the United States experienced "Watergate," the most famous political scandal in American History. It was a scandal that began with a break in and ended in resignation. On June 17, 1972 five intruders were caught and arrested for illegally entering the rooms of the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington’s Watergate Complex. "The investigation of the break-in lead directly to the reelection campaign of President Richard M. Nixon and unraveled a web of political spying and sabotage, bribery and the illegal use of campaign funds" (Washingtonpost.com). Two-and-a-half-years later along with a number of court hearings led to the 1974 resignation of Richard M. Nixon. Nixon became the first President in U.S. History to resign. During all the political drama the United States brought an end to an unpopular war and made great strides in space exploration.
Woodward find out that one of the men recently left the Central Intelligence Agency and the other four have ties with the CIA. Woodward linked the men to E. Howard Hunt, who is a former employee of the CIA. The conspiracy widens when he linked the man who works as President Richard Nixon’s Special Counsel Charles Colson. Each of the men had money found on them; this money was in $100 dollar bills. The reporters found that the money came from a fund that came from diverted campaign contributions to Nixon’s Committee to Re-elect the President (CRP). “The Committee for the Re-election of the President was the White House, wholly its creation, staffed by the White House, reporting only to the White House” (85). The fact that the money was linked to the CRP showed that this wasn’t just an ordinary break in. This was the start of a conspiracy that would soon expand to the White House. As the reporters interview staff of the CRP, they found that a large amount of money was used for the Watergate’s tapping. This money was distributed by the highest level staff in the CRP. At the same time, a investigation was being held by the federal court. The final charges did not go as expected by the reporters. The biggest piece of evidence wasn’t even mentioned. Now it would seem that someone is trying to hide some
The Watergate Scandal is known as the robbery at the Watergate building in Washington DC. After investigation, it was learned that the robbery was ordered by President Nixon to help ensure his reelection. Two crooks were caught attempting to steal secret documents and wiretap the phones. Now that the criminals were caught, in order to save Nixon’s reelection from the discomfort of the American people, he instated a cover-up and reassigned himself. This forever affected
Despite the national attention the Watergate scandal had gained President Nixon, he won the second term presidency. The major problem for Nixon would come later. The investigations of the Watergate scandal lead to the discovery of other criminal acts by officials including Nixon. During the investigation many things begin to surface. It was discovered that documents had been destroyed that may have made a link between Nixon and the Watergate scandal. These documents may have shown that he had some acknowledgement in what had happened. There was evidence that people involved in the Nixon campaign had been wire tapping phones illegally for a long time according to “dummies.com”. The greatest issue would come to light during the 1973 Watergate hearings. During testimonies it came to light that every conversation was recorded in the Oval office according to “study.com”. It was demanded that these tapes be reviewed to learn how much involvement President Nixon had in the Watergate burglary. The President felt that he had the right to withhold these tapes through what he referred to as executive privilege. This means that if it is the best interest of the public the president has the right to keep information from the
Despite his loss to JFK in the 1960 presidential election, in 1968, Richard M. Nixon was elected as the thirty-seventh president of the United States. He was praised by many for his comeback after previously losing an election and seemed to be an admirable man. While in office, Nixon made many achievements and followed through with all of his promises made during his campaign. For the first time in what seemed like forever, the American people had finally elected a leader who seemed unquestionably trustworthy – or so they thought. Unfortunately, shortly after Nixon was elected to his second term of presidency in 1972, the Watergate Scandal changed America forever by creating a sense of mistrust toward the government for the American people because of The Nixon Administration’s actions.
When Nixon was threatened with impeachment for “stonewalling” the investigation, he had his secretary, Rosemary Woods, transcribe the tapes. When the administration had read the transcripts, an issue popped up. 18.5 minutes of the transcribe tapes were missing. The White House claimed that the secretary accidentally deleted the missing parts. The “method” she used was called the “Rosemary
After Nixon's tapes were released Nixon's hope in winning the trial decreased dramatically along with his support from the congressional committee because they didn't want to be caught helping a guilty president escape a crime as it would give them a bad reputation. Around this time Nixon has a small amount of support as the evidence in adding up against him and the knowing the the truth will soon come out. This was a main leading point to nixon's resignation in August of 1974.
After a series of heightening events, Richard Nixon forced himself to resign as President of the U.S to evade impeachment and further complications. These events all occurred after burglars connected with Nixon were found at Watergate, the Democrat National Committee headquarters. Nixon devised a speech to cleverly evade and divert the public from his indignities, in which his speech’s syntax, diction, and use of logos helped portray him as a diligent president.
Four of these men, that were arrested on the morning of June 17, 1972, came
Nixon was long associated with American politics before his fall from grace. He was along time senator before finally being elected president in 1968. During his first term, his United States went through the Vietnam War and a period of economic inflation. In 1972 he was easily re-elected over Democrat nominee George McGovern. Almost unnoticed during his campaign was the arrest of five men connected with Nixon’s re-election committee. They had broken into the Democrats national head quarters in the Watergate apartment complex, in Washington D.C. They attempted to steal documents and place wire taps on the telephones. By March of 1973, through a federal inquiry, it had been brought to light that the burglars had connections with high government officials and Nixon’s closest aids. Despite Nixon and his lawyers best efforts, it was shown that the president had participated in the Watergate cover-up. On August 8, 1974 Nixon announced, without admitting guilt, that he would resign. He left the Oval Office the next day: an obvious fall from grace.