President Richard Nixon And The Watergate Scandal

This testimony led to the fight for the tape recordings from the House Judiciary Committee, the House believed that these could help uncover his role in the Watergate Scandal. The public was having an increase in suspicion of Nixon because of his vigorous effort to defend the tapes. After the Supreme Court’s rejection of Nixon's executive privilege, there were over 700 white house files, 19 presidential conversations, and over 42 additional tapes taken, but the biggest suspicion was the eighteen and a half minute silent gap in a conversation with Mr.Haldeman in 1972. Nixon later in court lies about the $25,000 check given to Bernard Barker, saying that he is probably a “bum” and definitely did not receive the money from CREEP, even though the check was directly traceable to the committee. On May 10, 1989 the House of Representatives adopted 3 Articles of impeachment for high crimes and misdemeanors, with the first two articles charging Nixon with giving false testimony before the grand jury and the third article with bringing disrepute on the Federal judiciary. These charges placed on the highest position in American society is disastrous and leads to a distrust in government within the American people.The fact that Nixon was granted a full pardon and was acquitted of all of the charges makes Americans lose hope in the American Judicial System and makes people question the “role of the

When Nixon won his second term burglars broke into the Democratic Campaign Headquarters in Washington’s Watergate Complex. Tracks were found leading to government officials. The Nixon administration denied having the opponent building be broken into, but it was soon found that he did. Nixon was recording conversations in the Oval Office. Nixon was told to give up the tapes but he did not. He thought that he was the president and he was above the constitution. American democracy was made to not have a king, but Nixon thought he was the king, he thought he was above the law. The decision was taken to court and it was ruled 8-0 against Nixon and he had to give up the tapes.

In this article the debate of whether Richard Nixon should be forgiven was discussed. While Nixon was known to have reorganized the executive branch in a helping sense, his one track mind that extended the Vietnam War and the truth about who he really was through the Haldeman Diaries only goes to show that Nixon's poor leadership should indefinately not be forgiven.

This erosion of public trust was exemplified by the Watergate scandal, which unfolded in the early 1970s and sent shockwaves throughout the country. The scandal revealed the extent of political corruption and malfeasance within the highest levels of government, including the Nixon administration. Document 4 by Jimmy Carter, “Crisis of Confidence” 1979 claims “Our people are losing faith,. We were sure our was a nation of the ballot, not the bullet, until the murders of John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr”, “We respected the presidency as a place of honor until the shock of Watergate.” This clearly shows that the citizens no longer had trust and respect toward the government.

This inequality between the president and his administration proved that the president is above the law, which should not be the case. Similarly, the negative impact on the American people demonstrated that a president’s actions can have lasting effects long after the president is out of office. To conclude, the pardoning of Nixon after his resignation is a very controversial event that has made a powerful impact on the way Nixon views government

To further maintain his innocence, President Nixon started creating distance between himself and those of senior authority within his administration who could be directly linked to the Watergate scandal. At this time, many of President Nixon’s aides were either being prosecuted for obstruction of justice, burglary, wiretapping, etc, or they were resigning their positions within the administration due to the overwhelming evidence that was appearing against them in relation to their criminal activities. Many of President Nixon’s aides were either cutting a deal in court or preparing to testify against the him in relation to their personal knowledge about the details of the scandal and their personal knowledge about President Nixon’s involvement. The characters that will be examined were both senior politicians within the Nixon Administration as well as law enforcement agents and high ranking attorneys. They will be investigated to determine their connection to the Nixon Administration and their role in the Watergate scandal.

In Edward D. Berkowitz’s early books about what occurred in the seventies, both cultural and political, he discusses the topic of the Watergate scandal, viewing it more as a criminal act and misuse in power that develops from a spoiled and corrupted mind. I truly believe that Nixon’s purpose for the misuse in power came from his corrupted mind that desired more power and recognition from the American people. We do not see Edward jump right into the Watergate scandal, but work his way up to it following events that may or may not have changed Nixon’s desire for power. When Edward begins to discuss the scandal, he opens with “in his zeal to win,” which comes to mind as Nixon stopping at nothing to pursue victory, even at great risks. Later being involved in the Watergate scandal, we learn that Nixon was entangled with the scandal (Berkowitz 19). Part of Nixon’s staff had broken into the Watergate hotel in attempt to bug the Democratic National Headquarters. As explained by Berkowitz, Nixon’s men were no ordinary burglars, but

Scandal! I am not a crook, Watergate, impeachment, resignation, one final “two handed V”; which president comes to mind? President Richard M. Nixon was a visionary leader; but an unethical leader. This paper will examine two visionary leadership traits of President Nixon, two unethical leadership skills of Nixon and then look to my own career for two personal examples of visionary and two unethical leadership skills I portrayed. Nixon’s visionary leadership was on display when it came to dealing with Communist countries and recession on the home front. By using the full range leadership (FRL) process of contingent reward, Nixon focused relations with China to establish common political grounds. Using cognitive adaptability, Nixon was able to reign in the 1970’s recession. He applied FRL tactics to push his agenda towards politics and economic policy. But, Nixon’s unethical leadership trait, drive for success, led to the Watergate Scandal. Also, he failed to use the reasoning element of implication when he discharged the Special Prosecutor of the Watergate investigation. After discussing President Nixon’s visionary but unethical leadership, I’ll apply these same principles to myself by showing examples of how I used contingent reward and cognitive adaptability techniques in my Air Force career. Finally, I’ll discuss how drive for success

“I am not a crook” is one of the most famous quotes from President Richard M. Nixon.  Citizens of the United States of America would hope that their president would never have to defend himself as a crook, but that is just what happened in the presidency of Richard M. Nixon. President Nixon had to defend himself for not being a crook because of the events famously known as the ‘Watergate Scandal’. In 1972, members of Nixon’s re-election committee broke into the Democratic National Committee’s Watergate offices and stole top-secret documents as well as trying to get into their phone system. They eventually were caught and so was President Nixon which led him to his resignation. Even though it was an unfortunate event, there have been positive outcomes because of it. The lasting implications of the Watergate Scandal have been generally positive on society because of the passing of Ethics in Government Act, amending the Freedom of Information Act and 42 states passing election reform laws.

Because of Watergate, contention and distrust sprung from people and still exist today. Prior to Watergate, the general public expressed content with the government and its policies, with the exception of the Vietnam War. During the Great Depression, people cherished and depended on the expansion of government because of the deplorable economic times, “the central idea was that government should protect people from the worst vagaries of a market economy” (The New American Consensus; Government of, by and For the Comfortable, 1998). Also Johnson’s “Great Society” gained a lot of political clout was well. The steady decline in support for the government can undoubtedly be traced back to Nixon. After Gerald Ford assumed office struggled to move away from the Watergate incident and he felt the best way was by pardoning Nixon for all his transgressions. This had the opposite effect. The American people felt that he cheated the system or even more inexcusable, bargained to pardon Nixon if he became president. In this dark time, sprung an era where morality and ethics were important which explains the election of Jimmy carter who claimed “that he would clean up the ‘cesspool’ Washington had become and restore a sense of morality in the white House….” (2006, p.24). Even though he spouted his famous phrase, “I will never tell a lie” his inability to restore the economy and ineffectiveness as a president furthered the dissent that the Americans had with the government (Economy Is Not Only Problem Facing Cater, 1997). In fact since Nixon’s Resignation there has been a broad downward trend from fifty-three percent in 1972 to twenty-four percent in 2013 (Public Trust in Government: 1958-2014, 2014). Some would argue that while Watergate played a huge role in American

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 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.

Many people, myself included look up to individuals in an authoritative role such as; senators, governors, and presidents. We view them as being honest and sincere. They have to be right? They do want to run the country after all. Often our thoughts are “they would never lie to us or hide things from us”, but unfortunately that’s not always the case. One of the biggest political scandals to hit the United States of America was the Watergate scandal involving our very own President Richard Nixon. This scandal caused a lot of American’s to lose trust and hope in the presidency. The scandal received its name from the Watergate apartment and office complex that was located in Washington D.C., where a burglary took place on June 17, 1972 and five men were arrested. It then came to surface that the men’s intentions were to sabotage the opposite political party, when president Nixon was notified of this he order the Central Intelligence Agency to call the FBI to stop with any further investigation, that national security was at stake. President Nixon knew that it would come back to the White House and didn’t want to risk anything, even though he was never involved with the

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.

President Richard M. Nixon’s administration had to face many international and domestic challenges in the United States between 1968 and 1974, some positive and some negative. His achievements in expanding peaceful relationships with both China and the Soviet Union are contrastingly different with his continuation of the Vietnam War. In the end, Nixon’s scandals and abuse of presidential power caught up to him, and his administration did much to corrode America’s faith in the government.