Watergate Scandal Analysis

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

After the break-in, Nixon needed to protect his image so that American’s could still trust him. To accomplish this, he let a number of employees take the blame for him. The Watergate Seven were a group of men involved in the scandal, who were also advisors and aides to President Nixon. On January 8, 1973, these men were put to trial. With urges from Nixon, five of the seven pleaded guilty. Then on January 30, 1973, six of Nixon’s aides and the lawyer for his re-election committee were charged with perjury, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy to cover-up the break in. This included John Mitchell, Harry Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, Charles W. Colson, Gordon Strachan, and Kenneth Wells Parkinson. However, after the trial, CIA operative, James W. McCord, wrote a letter to Judge John Sirica. In which he claimed that the defendants had pleaded guilty under duress. He also said that they committed perjury and that others were involved in the Watergate break-in. Leading to further pressure being put on Nixon and his alleged involvement in the break-in. Eventually, Nixon’s deceitful involvement would be revealed to the American public.

In late June 17, 1972 two robbers were caught inside the office of the Democratic National Committee. These two were caught red handed wiretapping phones and stealing secret documents. These two burglars where somehow connected to Nixon and his reelection campaign. Thus, a long line of bad decisions led to Nixon’s downfall. He tried to raise “hush money” for the burglars to keep the FBI from investigating the crime. Nixon went as far as to destroy evidence and fire unwilling employees who were against the cover up. When all this was made to public light in 1974, Nixon resigned from

In their conversation, which is written in Dennis Lythgoe’s article “Tapes Show Nixon Weighed Pros and Cons of Hush Money”, Dean said “it would take one million dollars” to pay off the five men, “an amount that would be hard to raise.” Nixon replied, “you could get a million dollars. You could get it in cash. I know where it could be gotten. It is not easy, but it could be done.” The president’s own words proved that he was involved with the break-in and that he used “hush money” to keep witnesses silent. Another tape recording, called the “smoking gun”, uncovered Nixon’s exploitation of the CSI. In the tape, Nixon plans to have Richard Helms, the Director of the CIA, and Vernon A. Walters, the Deputy Director of the CIA, call the Director of the CIA, Patrick Gray, and demand that he stop the Watergate investigation. This crime was more severe than the “hush money” crime, and it was the prime reason Nixon was charged with obstruction of justice.

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

On April 29 1974 Richard Nixon announced in a national broadcast he will hand over 1,200 pages of White House Transcripts that will ‘‘prove his innocence’’. This all began on June 17, 1972, when several burglars in the DNC (Democratic National Committee). It seems that the burglars were connected to Nixon’s reelection, they were caught wiretapping phones and stealing documents. Apparently, Nixon tried to vigorously cover up the crime.

Richard Milhous Nixon was the thirty-seventh President of the United States of America from 1969 until 1974. Nixon completed his first term as President in 1973 and was re-elected to the position for the next four years. However, Nixon would have his time in the White House cut short by the series of events that occurred in the twenty-six months that followed the Watergate burglary. On June 17, 1972 five men, one White House employee and four Cubans, broke into the Watergate Office Building in Washington, DC in an attempt to bug the Democratic National Committee (DNC) office. The break in and the events that took place afterwards led to the resignation of Richard Milhous Nixon on August 8, 1974.

Nixon, at the time, was running for re-election, and it turned out that all of the campaigning was revolved around illegal wrongdoings. The greatest of these wrongdoings being the scandal, in which 5 members of his reelection campaign,James w. Mccord Jr.,John Dean,G. Gordon Liddy, Alaxander Butterfield, and Jeb Magruder initially broke into the Watergate Complex stealing many classified documents, as well as photographing them, along with tapping all of the phones within the building. In doing this, these men hoped to gain an unfair advantage for the campaignee in the election, Richard Nixon. The inital setup with the wire taps in the phones, however, did not work as planned which led to the need to re-enter the complex in order to fix the problem. They initially got away with their wrongdoing, but were not as lucky in their second

On August 9, 1974, Richard Nixon resigned from his post as President of the United States of America in ignominy. His resignation was prompted by mounting accusations of his involvement in the Watergate scandal, perhaps the biggest scandal the country has ever seen.  The Watergate scandal was a series of events started by the break-in to the Democratic Party headquarters by members connected to the Nixon campaign with the orders to steal confidential plans. President Gerald Ford later issued a presidential pardon, but many Americans could not forgive Nixon for his involvement. The Watergate Scandal distracted the history books from one of the most productive presidencies in history.

Though the Watergate scandal is becoming a prominent news story everyone is clinging to, it did not sway the public from reelecting Nixon in November of 1972 with votes in excess of sixty percent making it a total victory. President Nixon’s celebration would be short-lived as members of his staff are being indicted and convicted of conspiracy, burglary and wiretapping in the Watergate incident. The first being convicted in January 1973 was aide G. Gordon Liddy and James W. McCord Jr. with five others pleading guilty. Add to that the resignation of top White House staffers, H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, in addition to Attorney General Richard Kleindienst, the dominoes were beginning to fall.

Republican President Richard M. Nixon was up for reelection, in a time that the country was extremely divided when the United States was involved in the Vietnam War. The Watergate scandal uncovered an intricate trail of wrongdoing on June 17, 1972, when members of Nixon’s Committee to Re-Elect the President were arrested for burglary. The burglars had broken into the Democratic National Committee’s Watergate headquarters and stole copies of top-secret documents and wiretapped the telephones. The burglars at first were not clear that they were associated with the president, but it became disbelieving when detectives found copies of the reelection committee’s White House phone number in the burglars’ possessions. Richard M. Nixon later gave a

The break though came when they found out that the President had secretly taped every conversation that took place in the Oval Office. If the investigating committee could get those tapes, they would have proof of the president’s guilt. Nixon worked very hard to keep those tapes away from anyone his legal staff advised him that he did not have to hand them over that he had executive privilege to protect them and to not give them to anyone. However, Senate committee and the independent special prosecutor Archibald Cox

The Presidential election of 1972 gave birth to an event known as watergate. Watergate is a hotel the Democrats established as their headquarters for the election. Five guys were busted breaking into the democratic headquarters. An investigation was brought forth and it comes out that one burglar was a former FBI agent. Another burglar had a black book and it was ceased. They found the initials WH with a number to the White House. It was speculated that the president sent these mean to steal information to help with his campaign. Congress got involved and opened their own investigation. In the investigation it became known that Nixon had a separate recording device that records people unknowingly. President Nixon declared executive privilege

Hillary Clinton may very well go on to become president and she potentially deleted thousands of emails to cover up a scandal. Although there is no way Watergate will ever be forgotten I believe it falls under the rest of the presidential scandals. Showing that there is always scandals and will continue to be scandals, it just depends how they impact the media and has an effect on the presidency and the