The Watergate Of American Politics

A defining moment in American history, the Watergate scandal, dramatically transformed the way Americans view politicians and government. In the eyes of most Americans, trust, honor and integrity, vanished from the political landscape.

1972 – 1974: Watergate Scandal: In June, 1972, Police arrested five men who broke into the the Democratic National Committee Office in the Watergate District of Washington, D.C. When further investigated, two more men were arrested. Following a background check, it was revealed that the men belonged to a committee to re-elect the president. It was also revealed that men were paid by the committee and the committee was controlled by the people who work in the White House. This information was gathered by the Washington Post, which had an FBI informant, nicknamed “Deep Throat.” The investigation revealed that some of Nixon’s closest advisors may be involved in the scandal. Nixon was also thought to be involved as the investigation proceeded. During Senate hearings, Nixon denied an affiliation with the scandal, but it was revealed that Nixon recorded every conversation in this office. After refusing to hand-over the tapes, the Supreme Court ordered Nixon to do so. He did turnover the tapes, however there were minutes missing from the recordings. Congress drew up the Articles of Impeachment to impeach Nixon, but he decided to resign before he was

This was no ordinary robbery that happened on the morning of June 17, 1972. The burglars were connected to President Richard Nixon’s reelection campaign, and the prowlers had been caught while attempting to wiretap phones and steal secret documents. The historians of this decade are not sure whether or not President Richard Nixon knew about the Watergate espionage operation before it happened. However, History.com states, President Nixon, okayed

It’s 1969, Richard Nixon is the United States President. Winning presidency with not only the popular but also the Electoral vote. It's a very brutal time for Presidency, with the nation torn from the involvement in Vietnam. Richard Nixon seeming a promising Chief of Foreign Affairs has focused most of his campaigning with these issues. But all this faith is soon blinded by a terrible presidential scandal. Early morning of June 17. 1972 a on duty Security guard realizes the locks to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) have been tampered with. The security Guard in distraught calls the Police, finding several burglars wire tapping phone lines and stealing secret Government documents. Thousands dollars were on the burglars along with Phone

Amid increasing disclosures of White House involved in the Watergate break-in and its aftermath, Nixon announced the resignations of John Ehrlichman and H. R. Haldman, two of his closest advisers, in the dismissal of his counsel John W. Dean III. Growing suspicion of presidential involvement in the scandel resulted in an intensification of the investigation. Leaders in this inquiry included Judge Sirica, reporters for the Washington Post, the Ervin committee, and Archibald Cox, who was sworn in as special prosecutor in May 1973. Dean told the Ervin committee in June that Nixon had cover-up. A month later, former White House staff Alexander Butterfield revealed that Nixon had secretly tape-recorded conversations in his offices. Both Cox and the Ervin committee began efforts to obtain selected tapes. Nixon, citing EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE, refused to relinquish them and

* Since the competition was so fierce, Nixon arranged his reelection committee, CREEP (Committee to ReElEct the President) to break into the Democratic National Building's headquarters in The Watergate Hotel

June 17, 1972 a group of criminals started tapping into the white house at the nearby watergate apartment complex where the scandal got it’s name. The secret service quickly caught on and soon the criminals were caught and convicted. There was no problem with this until a few weeks later Nixon ordered the FBI to stop investigation on this because they were already caught and convicted President Nixon ended up with the tapes that the criminals had recorded and he ended up giving over a few tapes but not all the tapes he had. President Nixon resigned soon after because the media was making it too much for him to handle and everyone hated him making him the first president to resign from office. His successor Eisenhower soon pardoned him of all his crimes and was never convicted for the watergate

The Watergate Scandal was truly the biggest political scandal in United States History. Over forty people where charged with crimes relating to the scandal. Bernstein and Woodward were given a fantastic oppourtunity to uncover something truly significant in history. The twenty-one months of investigative reporting done by these two men would ruin Nixon’s name and make these two common everyday reporters lives change forever. Woodward first got his life changing call on June 17th 1972 with his editor telling him about a small invasion of the Democratic Party Headquarters. With being related to the scandal, two members of President Nixon’s cabinet, H.R. Hadlemen and John Ehrlichman, quickly resigned. When first thought of the president even having something to do with the Watergate Scandal, he made every effort to possibly hide this career ruining event. The break in was first found by a security guard by the name of, Frank Wills. Wills saw a piece of tape covering a broken lock. Wills was

Early in the morrow of June 17, 1972, several burglars were apprehend within the duty of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), placed in the Watergate construction in Washington, D.C. This was no mealy pillage: The prowlers were united to President Richard Nixon’s reelection electioneer, and they had been caught while exertion to wiretap telephone and slang concealed precept. While historians are not infallible whether Nixon knew around the Watergate spying transformation before it occur, he took footprint to protect it up afterwards, raising “allay chink” for the burglars, severe to delay the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from investigation the rape, dismantle token and fuel uncooperative stanza members. In August 1974, after his party in the Watergate combination had lastly appear to skylight, the heady philosophical. His successor, Gerald Ford, presently remit Nixon for all the crimes he “attached or may have attached” while in discharge. Although Nixon was never continue, the Watergate slander shift American government constantly, controlling many Americans to investigation their leap and guess more accurately throughout the superintendence.

In 1968 Richard M. Nixon a 55 year old former vice president who lost the presidency for the Republicans in 1960 reclaimed himself by defeating Hubert Humphrey in one of the closest elections in United States history. On July 23, 1970 Nixon approves for a plan for greatly expanding domestic intelligence gathering by the FBI, CIA, and other agencies. He later has second thoughts though. A few days later he resends his approval. On September 9th 1971 the Whitehouse plumber unit named for the orders to plug leeks in the administration steals files on Daniel Ellsberg, the former defense analyst who leaked the pentagon papers from a local physiology office. On the evening of August 8th 1974 President Richard Nixon gave his last speech ever as the face of the United States. His resignation changed the ideas of political trust in the country. The Watergate scandal destroyed the reputations and revised the rule of law and politics.

Ehrlichman was ordered to destroy incriminating documents and tapes. Then L. Patrick Gray resigned as acting director of the FBI, later admitting he had destroyed documents given to him by Ehrlichman and Dean. On June 23, 1972, Nixon learned about Mitchell's possible link with the operation, and Nixon instructed the FBI to stop the inquiry into the source of money used by the men who tapped the building. He said that "the investigation would endanger the CIA operations." Dean and the others subsequently sought to induce CIA officials to cooperate with this plan. On July 1, Mitchell left the CRP, citing personal reasons. On August 29, Nixon declared that no one in the administration, then employed, was involved in the Watergate. Although money found in the possession of the wire tappers was traced to the CRP, such evidence was insufficient to implicate high officials. On September 15, only the five men first arrested, plus Liddy and E. Howard Hunt , one of the plumbers, were indicted (Carson 2).

The Watergate scandal is a great political scandal that happened in the 1970s that was caused by a break-in with the arrest of five men for breaking and entering in the DNC in the Watergate building in Washington D.C. Around this time, President Richard Nixon was running for a re-election, Nixon had a dynamic presidential campaign and advisers, and they were a part of a big political scandal. In May 1972, member of the Nixon’s movement CREEP (Committee to Re-Elect the President) had gone into the DNC Watergate head office and stole disclosed records and tapped the telephones. The monitors did not puzzle out correctly and in June the resumed another break-in. The five humans were caught breaking into the DNC at the Watergate hotel and a government agency. Their names were Bernard L. Barker, Virgilio R. Gonzales, James W. McCord, Eugenio R. Martinez, and Frank A. Sturgis, and also the people who were in conspiracy with the burglary were G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt Jr. “The burglary itself was part of a larger web of corruption that threatened the basic principles of democracy and the republic” (Faulkner, R. R., & Cheney, E. R., 2012). While it was not known if Nixon knew about this set-up, he proved to hide data, raised bribery for the robbers and he also tries to stop the FBI inspecting the case. Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward were the foremost young men to handle this news report. In August 1974, Nixon resigned as being president as President Ford held his place.

On June 17, 1972, security guard Frank Wills became a national hero. At twenty four years old, he was working the midnight shift at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C. He discovered tape over a basement door lock and thinking none of it, he removed the tape. On another inspection round, he found the lock taped over again and called the police. They locked the doors, turned off the elevators, and started checking darkened offices. At 2:30 a.m. on the 6th floor of the Watergate complex, the police discovered five men who were identified as the Plumbers Unit on orders by The Committee to Re-elect the President (CREEP) to burglarize the DNC. The men, one who was an ex-CIA agent, were convicted of conspiracy, burglary, and illegal wiretapping. However, what started as a third-rate burglary unravelled into a broad network of political corruption and espionage within the Nixon administration that became known as Watergate. Before the summer of 1972, the term “Watergate” meant nothing more than a luxurious complex in Washington, D.C., but because five highly cunning men were somehow caught by an average, $80-per-week security guard, it became associated with the greatest political scandal of the century and many more after that. The Watergate scandal proliferated public skepticism of and mistrust in the federal government, and an angry American public called for immediate response. The widespread public mistrust and

Watergate is a word that will forever be connected to the 37th President, Richard Nixon. What started out as a botched robbery at the Democratic Reelection headquarters would later become know for bringing down the Presidency.

When asked to turn over the tapes, initially the President refused, his reasoning was that the Constitutional principle of executive privilege extends to the tapes. He also stated that it could compromise National Security [ (Miller Center University of Virginia, 2003) ]. Eventually Nixon relented but after reviewing the tapes there was an 18 ½ minute gap in the recordings. President’s Nixon’s secretary, Rose Mary Woods claimed that while transcribing the tapes she had accidently hit record and recorded over five minutes of the tapes. Nevertheless, she insisted she was not responsible for the additional 12 minutes of lost information. The Notes taken during the time of the lost information showed one of the topics discussed was the arrest at the Watergate Hotel [ (Miller Center University of Virginia, 2003) ]. Nixon was the first to launch an investigation on how the tapes were erased though nothing came of it. To this day, exactly what was on the tapes is unknown and as of now cannot be recovered [ (Collins, 2003) ].