Lyndon B. Johnson And The Watergate Scandal

In the 1970’s, America not only witnessed the worst political scandal of the twentieth century, but also one of the most successful acts of investigative journalism to ever be done in America. The Watergate Scandal included a series of illegal activities initiated by members of President Nixon’s administration, the most significant crime being the break in and wiretapping of the Democratic National Committee headquarters in 1972. CREEP (Committee to Reelect the President) funded these illegal projects by hiring people like the White House Plumbers to carry on missions to stop the leaking of classified information. The Watergate Scandal’s origins lay in the Fielding and DNC Headquarter’s break in, then the illegal activities were uncovered

Richard Nixon’s involvement in the Watergate scandal left no doubt to his involvement of being impeached. During the Nixon Administration, he was able to prevent colleges from being gender biased and allowing both male and female to have equal opportunity and receiving financial aid as well as competing in sports. He was able to establish the Environmental Protection Agency. He also worked to create a relationship between the U.S and the Middle East. Unfortunately, even with all of the accomplishments, he was able to have, everyone will remember Richard Nixon as the president who was involved in the Watergate scandal. The Watergate scandal left an asterisk by his legacy while being in the office, the results left him with having to resign and with him facing criminal charges as well, the Scandal became well known to the public in the summer of 1974. Through my essay, I will discuss why I am intrigued by the Watergate scandal, and discuss what if Richard Nixon never got caught on the audio tape?

President Richard Nixon’s Watergate incident and resignation in August of 1974 left the nation feeling skeptic toward the national government. Gerald Ford, who was not elected by the public, took the oath of office and became the 38th president of the United States. President Ford, coined with a repugnant image in both the eyes of the public and the media, was defeated by 56 electoral votes in the election of 1976. Jimmy Carter managed to receive similar distasteful images by the end of his single term as well. Although there were similarities between Ford and Carter, the two presidents were different in terms of previous experience, domestic policies, and foreign affairs.

Economically the 1970s proved to be a turbulent time for the United States. The U.S had been involved in a long and unpopular war in Vietnam since 1965. In 1968, Richard Nixon defeated Democratic Vice-President Hubert Humphrey in one of the closest elections in U.S. history (REF). Nixon eventually achieved a peace agreement to end U.S. involvement in Vietnam, but domestically, his policies damaged the economy. In 1971, Nixon imposed wage and price controls in an attempt to curb inflation, ended the U.S.’s last ties to the gold standard, effectively devalued the dollar, and imposed a 10

During Nixon’s 1972 campaign for his second term, his administration was alleged to be a part of the infamous “Watergate scandal” (Richard M. Nixon, 2011). On the night of June 17, 1972, five men entered the Democratic National Committee offices inside the Watergate office complex in Washington D.C. A night guard found the men in the offices and had them arrested at 2:30 am. After investigators began their interrogations of the men, they saw these men belonged to the Committee to Re-Elect President Nixon (The History Place, 2000). When investigators found this information about these men, red flags went up and the investigation turned to President Nixon. The reason for why these men were sent to Watergate is because in 1970, The New York Times revealed a secret bombing campaign against Cambodia was being directed as part of the American war effort in Vietnam. When Nixon heard of this, he ordered wiretaps of reporters and government employees to discover source of the news leaks (Ibid.). This decision made by Nixon cost his presidency.

During the early 1970’s, a scandal took place at the hands of former president, Richard Nixon. Richard Nixon wanted to ensure that he got the chance to get reelected. He took extreme measures to do so, one of those extreme measures included espionage. On June 17, 1972, five burglars were taken down to the police station after breaking into the Watergate complex buildings in Washington, D.C. The five burglars; James McCord, Virgilio Gonzalez, Frank Sturgis, Eugenio Martinez, and Bernard Baker. “These five men broke into Headquarters for the Democratic National Committee, which was located in the Watergate hotel. This triggered the entire scandal and eventually led to Nixon’s demise.”

As a nation, America has seen its fair share of corrupt executive administrations. Whether it be the Whiskey Ring scandal under President Grant or the Teapot Dome scandal under President Harding, Americans are no strangers to scandal. However, Watergate is different. In June of 1972, five men (revealed to be working for CREEP) were arrested in the Watergate apartment complex after a bungled effort to plant “bugs” in the Democratic Party headquarters. While Nixon denied any accusations of his involvement, it was soon revealed in subpoenaed tapes from the Oval Office that not only did Nixon know about the break-in, he endorsed it.

Former President Richard Nixon is most well-known for his role in the Watergate crisis in the early 1970’s. The Watergate crisis started in June of 1972, when the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters was broke into by members of Nixon’s re-election committee. The press took this breaking news and began to dig deeper into what the Whitehouse (President Nixon) was hiding. Over the next two years heavy investigations into the Watergate incident revealed that President Nixon did, in fact, ordered a cover-up to keep the incident under control. Fearing impeachment, President Nixon resigned his presidency in August 1974,

Jimmy Carter served as the United States’ 39th president from 1977 to 1981. He came into presidency not long after the Vietnam War and the Watergate Scandal. In this time of US history, American citizens were mistrusting of the executive branch of government do to these events. Throughout his campaign, Carter warranted for an improvement in the honesty of our government, and repeatedly stated, “I will never tell a lie”. At the core of his presidency, Carter  worked extremely hard to better America by promoting a respect for human rights.

While most presidential terms are either universally liked or disliked, Richard Nixon’s one term stood out as an exception. Like most presidents, Nixon had both good and bad things he did. What makes him more controversial than other presidents is that he while he did do very good things, he was also involved in serious misconduct that resulted in an abrupt ending to his term (he resigned). Although this misconduct did cause permanent damage, Nixon could still be viewed to a great extent as a very effective and influential president because of his both his approach to communism and his positive overall contributions domestically.

Watergate, the greatest political scandal of the 20th century, remains shrouded in mystery, in part, due to an 18½-minute gap in the tape recording of a Watergate discussion between President Richard Nixon and his chief of staff Bob Haldeman.

Richard Nixon's presidency is one of the most examined, analyzed and discussed, yet least understood, of all the American administrations in history. While many factors still remain to be discovered, and many mysteries are left to be resolved, we need to do the best that we can to make sense of this secretive president of our past and his era. He is the one American figure about whom very few people don't have strong feelings for. Nixon is loved and hated, honored and mocked . The term 'Watergate', labeled by Congress in 1974, stands for not only the burglary, but also for the numerous instances of officially sanctioned criminal activity and abuses of power as well as the obstruction of justice that preceded the actual break-in.

Watergate is the popular name for the political scandal and constitutional crisis that began with the arrest of five burglars who broke into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office in Washington D.C. on the night of June 17, 1972. It ended with the resignation of president Richard M. Nixon. The burglars and two co-potters-G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt were indicated on charges of burglary, conspiracy, and wiretapping. Four monthes later, they were convicted and sentenced to prison terms by District Court Judge John J. Sirica, who was convicted that pertinent details had not been unveiled during the trial and proffered leniency in exchange for further information. As it

The transgressions uncovered during the Watergate break-in investigation discouraged Americans by shattering their belief in Presidential infallibility. As Richard Nixon’s chief-of-staff, H.R. Haldeman, said, “…comes a very clear thing: you can’t trust the government; you can’t believe what they say; and you can’t rely on their judgment; and the – the implicit infallibility of presidents, which has been an accepted thing in America, is badly hurt by this, because it shows that people do things the President wants to do even though it’s wrong, and the President can be wrong.” These words expressed the sentiment of most Americans following Watergate and the publicity surrounding the investigation and President Nixon’s subsequent resignation.

Once broken, the seal of Watergate could never be replaced. The five men brought arrested for breaking into the Watergate Complex had to be served fair justice. The official hearings began on January 8th, 1973 (Files 1). However, fair trials would not prevail. Edward B. Hunt ordered the payout of twenty thousand dollars to each member of the break-in team, fifty thousand for his lawyer, and seventy thousand dollars for himself (Files 6). The “hush money” proved successful. All four Cuban men pled