Watergate Political scandals are not strangers to the United
States. They date back as far as 1830, with the presidential
sex scandal and Thomas Jefferson, and in 1875 with the
Whiskey Ring and President Ulysses S. Grant (Time and
Again 1). Today we have the Iran-Contra affair with Ronald
Reagan and Whitewater with Bill and Hillary Clinton. Even
with these, it can be argued that Watergate could possibly be
the worst scandal in the history of the United States. Richard
Milihous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States,
and the only President to ever resign his office. He was born
the second of five sons, in Yorba Linda, California. His
parents were Francis Anthony and Hannah Milhous Nixon.
His career started in 1945 when he accepted the candidacy
for a seat in the 12th congressional district which he won. He
was elected to United States Congress in 1946, he then
entered into the Senate as the youngest member ever in
1951. Only a short two years later he became the second
youngest vice-president in history at the age of thirty nine. He
served two terms as vice President under President Dwight D.
Eisenhower. In 1969 he won his bid for the
Presidency(Kinsella 3). The Iran-contra affair was more of a
U.S. foreign policy affair. This scandal came about in
November of 1986 when President Ronald Reagan admitted
to the selling of arms to Iran. The overall goal was to improve
relations with Iran, but it soon came to light that it was more of
a trade of arms for hostages deal. Later it was found that
some of the profits from the sale of the arms to Iran went to
the Nicaraguan "contra" rebels. On Dec.24, 1992, President
George Bush pardoned all the people involved with the
scandal and no charges were filed against Ronald Reagan
(Iran-contra 1). The latest of all scandals is the Whitewater
affair. The Whitewater affair is an ongoing investigation into a
bad Arkansas real-estate adventure in the late 1970, and its
connection with the now defunct Arkansas savings and loan
company, and with President Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary.
The Whitewater development company started in 1979 and
had the investors Bill Clinton, the Governor of Arkansas, his
wife Hillary Rodham Clinton, a attorney for the Rose law firm,
James B. McDougal the owner of the Madison Guaranty
Savings and Loan. The group purchased some land which
later turn...
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...dless of population, is the only
part that can remove the president (Farnsworth 8). Although
the tapes played a major part in obtaining President Nixon's
resignation, legal actions taken by the President managed to
keep all but the forty hours of tapes from being released
before his death twenty years later (Secret 1974 1). It is now
some twenty five years after the beginning of Watergate, and
the Nixon tapes are still making the news. In a recent court
battle, the Nixon family lost their fight to keep the remaining
tapes sealed. The National Archives have just released some
two hundred hours of tapes, one which has President Nixon
telling his chief of staff H.R. Haldeman to break into the
Brookings Institution to remove documents concerning the
Vietnam War. The publisher of the Pentagon Papers, Daniel
Ellsberg and former Pentagon analyst, had several
colleagues that worked at the Brooking Institution. Although
there was never any record of a break-in at the Brookings
institution, all of this is just one more piece of evidence of the
many illegal acts that accompanied the Watergate scandal,
and was thought of or performed by the Nixon
Administration(Mercury I).
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
President Richard Nixon is most commonly known for his involvement with the Watergate Scandal. President Nixon is a very competitive politition who has been finding who his enemys are and what their weak spots are through all of his career. His purpose for doing this is that he wants to win the election so much and he feels that “the only way he can [win] is if he knows something about his opponent that can give himself some secret weapon” (Sussman 201). President Nixon got himself into many problems during his Presidency and used groups such as “The Plumbers” and the Committee to Re-Elect the President, more commonly known as CREEP. While President Nixon was in office, he seemed to feel that he was “above the law” and that he could create undercover groups to spy or even blackmail his opponents. Although Nixon did commit several crimes while in office, which include lying under oath…….., the main crime was in the forming of these groups like the Plumbers, because these groups were formed with a main purpose of breaking laws.
The Watergate scandal was a memorable moment in American politics, which later led to the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon and the indictment of a few of his advisers. The scandal got its name because it occurred at the Watergate hotel at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C, where the 1972 break-ins at the Democratic National Committee Headquarters were. Without the help of Deep Throat, who was later revealed as W. Mark Felt, there might
What kind of person commits three major violations of the national law and gets away with it? Well that person is Nixon. President Richard Nixon was one of the most famous presidents in the United States. He was mainly renowned for his huge role in the Watergate scandal. The Watergate scandal was important because Nixon and his cabinet arranged to get people to spy on the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate building. After it became clear Nixon was responsible, he manages to resign before he was going to be impeached. President Nixon was involved with the Watergate scandal and should be sentenced to jail because he organized it, which then got leaked out and finally led to his resignation.
“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.
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.
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.
“President Nixon exhibited no interest, much less zeal, in ensuring full public disclosure of all the facts behind this shabby interference with the rights of his political opposition” (“The Watergate Tragedy” 4). The increase of media reports on the Watergate scandal caused the Nixon administration to try and use different methods to slow down the reporters like resist meeting with journalists and not giving comments to reporters. The news reporters were relentless in their search for answers in the scandal and kept on pressing different sources for any information they could get their hands on. News reports eventually showed that the president used the CIA to hinder the FBI’s investigations into where the funding for the break-ins 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.
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.
The Watergate scandal had everything. Nixon disgraced the presidency by lying to the country and abusing his power and his committees were involved in illegal acts and a big cover up, all leading to little side roads of corruption and lies. Watergate is by far one of the worst presidential scandals in the history of the United States. In the story of Watergate, five burglars were found breaking into democratic offices at the Watergate complex in Washington DC. The break-in was passed off as just another burglary, but when the burglars were found to have connections with the CIA, questions were starting to be asked. Then when the phone number of Howard Hunt was found in one of the burglar’s phone books, it made people think, why would one of the burglars have the phone number of one of the presidents men? When Watergate was uncovered, it revealed that the president was a liar and a cheat. The president lied to our country, lied about his involvement, concealed self incriminating evidence, abused his power, and planed to have the CIA stop the FBI investigations. During the times of the unraveling of Watergate, questions were asked about connections with the White House and the president, but when the president was asked about it at a press conference he assured Americans that The White House has no involvement whatever in this particular incident.
For many people, the first word that comes to mind when they think about the Nixon administration is Watergate, the political scandal the scarred the sacredness of the White House during the 1970’s. Was Watergate necessary, and did he need to be so paranoid about others? Did Nixon have a choice in resigning? Watergate was an unnecessary event that led to Richard Nixon’s downfall.
Political leaders of the United States were, at one time, thought of as crucial members of our society. Ideally, their main goal was to represent and satisfy the needs of the American people. Unfortunately, over the last fifty years, our trust in our administrative representatives has drastically declined. Beginning with the great conspiracy theory that President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963 was actually planned by political leaders, America had, for the first time in history, begun to question its faith in its very own government. Consequently, the American people became extremely hesitant when it came to electing officials into office. 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.
White collar crime is a term created by Edwin Sutherland in 1939 that refers to crimes committed by people of higher social status, companies, and the government according to the book “White-Collar Crime in a Nutshell” by Ellen Podgor and Jerold Israel. White collar crimes are usually non-violent crimes committed in order to have a financial-gain (Podgor and Israel 3). A very well known white collar crime that has even been taught in many history classes is the Watergate scandal. This is a white collar crime that was committed by government authorities. Watergate was a crime that shocked the nation.