“From Watergate we learned what generations before us have known; our Constitution works. And during Watergate years it was interpreted again so as to reaffirm that no one - absolutely no one - is above the law.” -Leon Jaworski, special prosecutor during the Watergate scandal. Throughout the 1960s and 70s, the United States was experiencing disorder and hysteria as domestic and foreign issues; created stress and tension within the nation. In the late 1960s, when Richard Nixon was running for president, the nation saw the death of two influential people, Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, brother of John F. Kennedy. Following the death of King, race riots broke out across the country. To add to the anger and tension, many students and young Americans began to protest the war in Vietnam. Nixon promised to restore order to the country if he were to be elected. Unfortunately for Nixon, the Democrats, who had control of both sides of Congress, were prepared to block many of Nixon’s initiatives. Thus, CREEP (the committee to re-elect the president) began its corrupt path towards getting Nixon into office, even going as far as to break into the Democratic Party's National Committee headquarters located in the Watergate office in the nation’s capital ("Watergate: The Scandal That Brought Down Richard Nixon"). The Watergate scandal, which led to the first resignation of a United States President, changed the political landscape of the nation through its impact on Americans' trust in the government and its employees, its effect on government ethics, and its influence on journalism and the rise in investigative reporting. June 17, 1972, was the date of the infamous Watergate break-in ("Watergate: The Scandal That Brou... ... middle of paper ... ...es. N.p., 5 June 2005. Web. 26 Feb. 2014. . Lewis, Alfred E. “5 Held in Plot to Bug Democrats’ Office Here.” WashingtonPost. N.p., 1972. Web. 24 Feb. 2014. . Majerol, Veronica. “Watergate.” The New York Times 12 Mar. 2012: n. pag. Print. Schneider, Bill. “Watergate.” All Politics. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Feb. 2014. . Super, John C., ed. “Nixon’s Resignation and Pardon.” Salem Press. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Feb. 2014. . “Watergate: The Scandal That Brought Down Richard Nixon.” Watergate.info. N.p., 1995. Web. 24 Feb. 2014. .
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
It is clear that while political scandal, primarily the 1974 Watergate scandal, played a large role in the rapidly declining confidence in government between 1968 and 1980, it is not the sole or even the dominant factor. The Watergate scandal only impacted on the Nixon era, and subsequently lead to measures that should have prevented further distrust in the government. Instead, the role played by the four presidents who held office in those years was the main reason behind the decline in confidence. The role of the presidents and their White House administrations encompassed political scandals, and also clearly influenced other factors such as the role
A scandal now known as Watergate occurred on June 17, 1972. This scandal occurred when five men were caught trying to wiretap the Democratic Headquarters at the Watergate Hotel in Washington D.C. At 1:55 A.M., Frank Wills, a security guard at the Watergate hotel, discovered evidence of a break-in and called the police. The five men, who broke into the hotel, tried to wiretap the sixth floor where the headquarters was but failed. Though it now makes sense, it was a surprise to many people when Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein reported that the men involved in this break-in were directly or indirectly involved with Richard Nixon’s reelection committee known as CREEP. The five men involved in the break-in, as well as two others, faced jail time for their roles in the Watergate scandal in January of 1973. In March of 1973, James McCord, one of the burglars, wrote a letter to a judge where he admitted that there was an attempted cover-up of the burglary.
The Watergate Scandal and crisis that rocked the United States began on the early morning of June 17, 1972 with a small-scale burglary and it ended August 9, 1974 with the resignation of Republican President Richard Milhous Nixon. At approximately 2:30 in the morning of June 17, 1972, five burglars were discovered inside the Democratic National Headquarters in the Watergate office building in Washington DC. The burglars, who had been attempting to tap the headquarters’ phone were linked to Nixon’s Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP). Over the next few months, what had began as a minor break-in quickly escalated into a full-blown political scandal. It was the cover-up, not the actual break-in that led to Nixon’s downfall and the start of a period of distrust of the government by the American people.
In order to understand how Richard Nixon was involved in Watergate, Americans must know who he was. Nixon stared his career in politics in the year 1947. His first political job was working in the House of Representatives. After that, Nixon became a Vice President for two terms (“Watergate: The Scandal That”). Later, in 1962, he said that he was retiring (Ehrlichman 33). However, he ended up running for president in 1968 and became president in 1969 (Ehrlichman 37; “Watergate: The Scandal That”). He was reelected for the next term (“Watergate: The Scandal That”).
On June 17, 1972, five burglars broke into the offices of the Democratic National Committee located inside the Watergate Hotel in Washington. Frank Wills, a night security guard, discovered that the break-in was occurring. “Several office doorknob cylinders were covered with masking tape to hold the doors open”(McConnell 11). As soon as Wills made this discovery, he telephoned the police. The five burglars, carrying electronic gear and photographic equipment, were arrested on site at 2:30 A.M. They were suspected of illegal wire tapping. This series of arrests sparked the beginning of what came to be known as the Watergate Scandal. The Watergate Scandal caused several events to occur such as a huge investigation, Nixon winning the reelection, and the first and only U.S. president to resign.
In The Watergate Crisis, Michael A. Genovese analyzes the factors leading up to the Watergate crisis, what the whole scandal meant to Americans at this time, what the Watergate scandal has come to mean currently, and how it has molded American politics permanently. Genovese offers a detailed psychoanalysis of Richard Nixon, the 37th president of the United States, and the possible motivations behind his actions before, during, and after the Watergate crisis. Genovese provides a thorough and superb record of the events of Watergate in which he includes the ways many members of Nixon’s Administration got their hands dirty and their futile efforts at washing them clean.
Richard Nixon served as the 37th president of the United States. He is well known for the infamous Watergate scandal and was remembered by the American people as the first president to resign from office. However, he is also undoubtedly one of the most influential political figures when it comes to guiding the nation through one of its toughest time periods in history, as well as breaking the ice on foreign diplomacy with socialist countries such as China and the Soviet Union. Despite his downfall involving the Watergate Hotel, he had dedicated a tremendous amount of effort in domestic and world politics; and made numerous contributions during his life as a politician, which would give enough reason for future historians to believe that the second half of the twentieth century is truly “the age of Nixon”.
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 ...
The Watergate Scandal was one of the biggest and first scandals in United States History. Nixon’s political rivals were recorded and harassed. Nixon was a very paranoid man, and the Democratic National Committee was bugged at the Watergate Hotel, there were also bugs at the White House. Five burglars were caught doing so and it was later realized that Nixon was connected to the scandal. It was proved that Nixon had a very big role behind all of the issues around Watergate and he felt guilty enough to resign. One can say that the resignation of Richard Nixon can be credited to the pressures imposed on him by the congress, the press, and the courts.
Watergate was an integral part of a bigger scheme that gathered information from multiple parties, and the operation began long before the burglars were caught. After the arrests, Nixon was not a suspect until the Federal Bureau of Investigation linked the “hush-money” (money given to keep a criminal quiet about a certain action) the burglars received to his campaign fund (64). The burglars were caught breaking into the Watergate Complex to fix the “bugs” they planted in a previous break in (Holland 43). Immediately after the break in, Nixon began to cover up Watergate and his involvement. He gave a speech stating that himself, along with his committee, was not involved in the break in (4...
The whitewash days of the Kennedy period were over. The press was willing to examine and cross-examine. This was a significant departure from the mentality of the press the day Kennedy was assassinated and his alleged assassin incredibly unprotected and gunned down two days later. The country had changed significantly by the early seventies. The passive public was not quite so willing to be blindly led anymore. The press was now activist in nature. Archilbald Cox stated "the Watergate experience is the convincing evidence… of the ability of the American people to come together in times when abuses of political power appear and threaten our political system." The people were not willing to accept without question the proclamations of presidential press secretaries. In the process, the peoples' self-image had to change. They matured and of course were willing to challenge authority. This is something that was unheard of in the 1950's. The effect on our political institutions was dramatic...
The Watergate Scandal was political problem that occurred in the United States during the 1970s. On June 17, 1972 a break in occurred at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Office Complex in Washington, D.C. Nixon's administration attempted cover up of its involvement. In the morning of June 17 1972, a couple of burglars were caught and arrested inside the of the Democratic National Committee, located at the Watergate building in Washington D.C. this was no ordinary robbery. The robbers were connected to the United States president Richard Nixon re election campaign, and they were caught trying to wiretap the phones. The robbers who tried to wiretap the phones were not successful. more robbers broke into the Watergate building with a new microphone, but a guard noticed that they broke the locks on the doors. The guard called the police as soon as possible, they showed up and caught the crooks red handed and took the to jail. it was not completely clear that the crooks were connected to the president Richard Nixon. There were suspicions that they were connected to nixon because detectives found the white house phone number in the spies junk. In later came that the president was not telling the truth. a few days after the break in president nixon provided hundreds of thousands of dollars in “hush money” to the spies/burglars. Then president Nixon and his aides established a plan to instruct the Central Intelligence Agency to impede the fbi's investigation of the crime. this was a bigger crime the the break in at Watergate this was abuse of presidential power and deliberate obstruction of justice. The watergate scandal was about president nixon and a few secret agents trying to steal secret government i...
The actual Watergate Scandal began on June 17, 1972, with the arrest of five men for breaking into the Democratic Party’s National Headquarters located in the Watergate Complex in Washington D.C. The five men were part of the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP). They were attempting to fix a broken phone tap that they had installed about a month before. The five men were charged with burglary and wiretapping. Throughout the next few months this minor break-in turned into a full blown political scandal.
Liddy, G. Gordon. Will: The Autobiography of G. Gordon Liddy. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1980.