The Key Features of the Watergate Scandal
On the 17th of June 1972 five men were arrested for trying to break
into and bug the Democratic Party headquarters in the Watergate
building in Washington. When investigating this break in, the police
discovered that the five men were all employed by CREEP.
CREEP was a committee established by the Republican Party to campaign
for the re-election of President Nixon. They were prepared to go to
any lengths to achieve their objectives, even if it meant breaking the
law.
There were two journalists, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, who
worked for the Washington Post newspaper, who got hold of the story.
They decided to do a full investigative report into the story.
They discovered that the break in was not the only illegal activity
that CREEP had been involved in. CREEP had $350,000 allocated for
dirty tricks against the democrats. Moreover, it was being controlled
from the White House.
The election took place in November and Nixon won the biggest
landslide in American history. However, Bernstein and Woodward
continued their investigations. By May 1973 they had collected enough
information to publish their findings. The Senate set up a special
committee to find out what had been going on and many of Nixon's
advisers were forced to resign.
Nixon claimed he was innocent and did not know anything had gone on
and if it had he did not have anything to do with it. To prove his
innocence Nixon hired a private investigator called Archibald Fox,
hoping that this would produce a whitewash.
Between May and November 9173, the investigations went on, and all the
Presidents chief advisers were involved.
In America, all the hearings were held in public, creating a huge
scandal. Like in a court of law, all the President's advisers were
under oath, but were lying.
It was discovered that the President had made and kept recordings of
every conversation he had ever had in the Whitehouse, while he was in
office, since 1971.
...ustified their misconduct and abuse of power, by arguing that they did it because of the National Security State, but what they really did was to undermine the importance of telling the truth, in a world built on mutual trust and respect.
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?
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.
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 story begins on "June 17, 1972. Nine o'clock Saturday morning. Early for the telephone (13)." The telephone rings to awaken Bob Woodward. His editor wakes Woodward to inform him about a break-in at the Democratic headquarters that occurred late the previous night. The authorities arrested five men, one White House employee and four Cuban-American Miami citizens. They were found to be in the possession of high-tech surveillance and communication devices, along with hundreds of dollars, mostly in $100 bills in sequential order. In addition, the authorities also discovered two address books, a telephone number for Howard E. Hunt, consultant to the White House. The listing had small notations “W. House” and “W.H. (22).” This was the first indication that the President and his cabinet might be involved in this burglary. Woodward and Bernstein investigated this White House connection. As they delve deeper into this lead, they continuously discover larger crimes where more of the prominent White House staff was involved.
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
Everyday citizens often live unaware of their government’s inner workings. The knowing of political espionage is often too heavy of a subject to be inducted in conversation. True, prima facie, modest twists and turns of information may not be considered substantial, but this inconsideration leaves much to be uncontrolled. It is easy for political leaders to become power crazed, to not realize the massive implications that come of their actions. Only after all is said and done do the people actually realize their government is an opaque mask of deception. The Watergate Scandal substantially impacted Americans’ trust in their government.
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...
It all began on Sunday, June 18, 1972 when Frank Wills, security guard at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C., found a piece of tape that was preventing a door from locking. After removing the piece of tape from the door, he later found that it had been re-taped. This seemed suspicious, so ...
“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”).
As television exposed the truth of government, so did Journalists. Daniel leaking of the Pentagon Papers that explained in detail the Vietnam War, and the leaking of the information to the New York Times in 1971. Scandals like this played an active role throughout the late 1960’s and into the early 1970’s. This eventually led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon in 1974. The critical stand point of the journalists led to the marked contradictory of American politics that grew into turbulent during the 1960s.
of the suspects had an address book with the name and phone number of a
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.