In June of 1972, the biggest political scandal of Richard Nixon’s presidency took place at the Watergate office complex in Washington, DC. A security guard caught five men breaking into the Watergate, which was home to the Democratic National Committee office. At first glance, the break-in seemed harmless, but after a series of events unfolded, it came to light that these men had ties not only to the CIA, but to President Richard Nixon. The burglars were breaking in and trying to wiretap phones in order to hear conversations of George McGovern, who was running in the presidential campaign at the time. McGovern already had suspicions of Nixon and his team playing dirty when he accused them of breaking into his office previously. There was not …show more content…
After discovering that Americans were upset, he formed a list of questions for his assistant. The author of The Nixon Defense and other White House officials attended a meeting to discuss the subject matter. Dean expected the meeting to be lengthy and heavy, but it was actually just the opposite. “The White House faction did not trust the Justice Department faction, and, moreover, no one wanted to acknowledge how serious the problem might be,” explains Dean. With no one wanting to consider the weight of the problem, suspicions began to rise among the representatives. While he was silent during the meeting, later that evening the White House Chief of Staff wrote in his diary, “The conclusion was that we’ve got to hope the FBI doesn’t go beyond what’s necessary in developing evidence and that we can keep a lid on that, as well as keeping all the characters involved from getting carried away with any unnecessary testimony.” Haldeman, the White House Chief of Staff, leads us to believe that there may be more to it than we know. Comments like this from people in such high positions of power is what caused the Americans to begin distrusting the government. What was special about the day that Nixon discovered America was angry with him, was that it was also the day that 18 ½ minutes were missing from the subpoenaed …show more content…
Instead of being impeached, he resigned in order to get out of it. While the public was pleased to have him out of office, they were not pleased with his Vice President Gerald Ford, who forgave Nixon for all of his crimes without any questions. America did not agree with Ford’s actions, and decided immediately that he would not be reelected to serve a second term. By the end of Nixon’s presidency, the Pentagon Papers, along with the Watergate scandal, and his threatened impeachment two times caused Americans to question the government and its transparency. There was not very much rapport between the government and its citizens. They felt as though the government had lost all sense of morality and therefore could not be trusted
Morgan Ruth P. “Nixon, Watergate, and the study of the Presidency”. Presidential Studies Quarterly, Vol. 26, No. 1, The Nixon Presidency. 1996, pp. 217-238
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).
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.
The Biography Editors state that the Watergate burglary occurred June 17, 1972 where five men were apprehended for breaking into the Democratic National Committee Headquarters. The five men were Bernard Barker, Virgilio Gonzalez, Eugenio Martinez, Frank Sturgis, and James W. McCord Jr. The Watergate scandal revolved around multiple crimes that were committed. The crimes that have been stated in articles such as, the Washington Post, dealt with political espionage, obstructing the investigation, breaking and entering which led to wiretapping phones. Also, there was campaign fraud during President Nixon’s reelection. The five men who were arrested were all associated and working on behalf of the president’s reelection campaign. As stated by The
Richard Nixon's first term as president will always be connected with the Watergate scandal, the biggest political scandal in United States history. Various illegal activities were conducted including burglary, wire tapping, violations of campaign financing laws, sabotage, and attempted use of government agencies to harm political opponents to help Richard Nixon win reelection in the 1972 presidential elections. There were about 40 people charged with crimes related to the scandal. Most of them were convicted by juries or pleaded guilty. Watergate involved more high-level government officials than any previous scandal. It has been etched in the minds of millions and is still being recalled today when faced with the present day scandal of President Clinton. In All The President's Men, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, former Washington Post reporters, recount, illustrate, and analyze the Watergate scandal time and their work in reporting and revealing these events for the newspaper.
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
The years leading up to the 1972 election were filled with new political tactics. Going into the election year, President Nixon seemed like he could never lose the second term election after successfully negotiating with Vietnam, Beijing, and Russia to improve international relations (Emery 4). Raising international toughness made Nixon seem like the most worthy person to stay president. Fred Emery analyses in his novel Watergate: The Corruption of American Politics and the Fall of Richard Nixon, the president was also setting up the first summit meeting in history with Soviet Union Presidents (3). There seemed to be nothing capable of holding the seemingly responsible man back. However, this assurance came with massive consequences. The absolute certainty that Nixon would be reelected fueled the lies and abuse of power by the Nixon government (Emery 195). As the outlook of landslide winnings took over the White House, the moral reasoning, “the end justifies the means” became more prevalent. Nixon was obsessed with winning and being successful. Under his command his staff did whatever possible to ...
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.
On June 17, 1972, five men were arrested at 2:30 a.m. They were caught trying to "bug" the offices of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate hotel and office complex in Washington D.C. When the police caught the men, they were in the office of Larry O'Brien. He was chairman of the Democratic National Committee, whose job was to aid political candidates in the Democratic party get elected. In 1972, O'Brien's main priority was to help the Democratic candidate for president, Senator George McGovern. The five men, who were arrested, were identified the next morning by two lawyers as, James W. McCord, Jr., Bernard L. Barker, Frank A. Sturgis, Virgilro R. Gonzalez, and Eugenio R. Martinez. Reporters and politicians were interested in this case because they found out that McCord was a former member of the CIA. Its agents are not permitted to spy on Americans. Not only was he a former member of the CIA, but now he worked for the Committee for the Re-election of the president, or CRP. This Republican group was formed to help President Richard M. Nixon win a second term in office.
The lying and cover-ups did not end there, it went on and on for months, and as the scandal kept unraveling, President Nixon and White House, and CREEP officials were deliberately misleading the public about the significance of the Watergate affair. As Watergate was becoming a front-page article in the newspapers, new evidence was being uncovered. One piece of evidence that changed the peoples’ ideas of our president was the tapping of every conversation in the oval office since about the 18th month of President Nixon's term. Those tapes would soon prove that the president was deeply involved in the scandal. The Nixon tapes brought out much controversy. The tapes alone could prove the president innocent or guilty, but whichever one it was, Nixon refused to hand over the tapes. After much struggle Nixon agreed to give a transcript of the tapes. The transcripts brought to light a significant amount of evidence against Nixon. The transcripts revealed payoffs, affiliation with the burglaries and the OK's to the cover-up, but most important the transcripts showed that Nixon had lied repeatedly after he had denied knowing anything about the conspiracy.
“On June 17, 1972, five men, including CIA agent James McCord were arrested in the burglary of the Democratic party headquarters in the Watergate apartment complex in Washington, D.C.” “The Post Investigates.” Later that year, the Federal Grand Jury indicted these five men for their involvement in the Watergate burglary. Less than two months later, Richard Nixon was reelected President in an unprecedented landslide over George McGovern, the Democratic candidate. At the end of January the following year, James McCord and Gordon Liddy were convicted of illegally wiretapping the Democrats Watergate apartments, (“The Watergate Decade”).
Nixon’s run as an international crook finally caught up to him in 1972, when burglars were caught and arrested inside the Democratic national headquarters at the Watergate hotel complex in Washington. Nixon attempted to cover it up, but eventually he was found caught in his own web of lies, and was forced to resign in 1974 (Lecture 30, December 12). Nixon’s promises of a return to normalcy were shattered with these revelations. The confidence in the Presidency that he had hoped to restore was even lower than it was when he entered office. If the 1960’s were defined by political and social instability, then Richard Nixon did nothing but further the sixties into the 1970’s.
Nixon was the mastermind behind the mission and the main reason he organized it was to find out secret information of the Democrats. He organized a committee to help him ensure his victory in the elections. “The committee to reelect the President” (CRP) used unfair tactics to get what they wanted. They organized a group of thugs – “Plumbers” to sneak into the Watergate and plant listening devices. The plumbers, James W. McCord, Bernard Barker, Virgilio Gonzalez, Eugenio Martinez, and Frank Sturgis however, were caught by the police. Nixon didn’t want anyone to find out about the break in. He said shortly after the plumbers were caught "In all my years of public life, I have never obstructed justice. People have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook; I earned everything I've got." Nixon lied through his teeth just to get the public attention on something else. What he didn’t realize was that it was the beginning of his demise.
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.