...The Watergate Scandal 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 for 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. The morning of June 18, Nixon was at his home in Key Biscayne, FL. when he read a headline about the Watergate break in. The idea was out of this world and Nixon did not believe what he was reading. Nixon dismissed the story as a political prank (Nixon 625-626). James McCord, Bernard Barker, Virgilo Gonzalez, Eugenio Martinez, and Frank Sturgis had been arrested and charged with second-degree burglary by the Washington police (WHT 820). McCord, a former CIA officer, was employed by the Committee to Re-elect the President (CRP) as a security consultant. Ironically McCord was supposed to prevent the very things he was doing to the DNC. Nixon telephoned Charles Colson, a special counsel to President Nixon, that evening to discuss the Watergate break in. Colson said...
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...It was suggested that the President had tried to repair the damages that were caused the Watergate scandal in the first article. From a speech President Nixon had given, it showed that there were a lot things that still needed to be done regarding the scandal. The article stated that the officials under the Watergate scandal were cheating, lying and engaging in illegal activities while in high positions of the government. The people believed that the president did not stand up to the crisis and that he had only done the bare requirements for the situation at hand. The people stongly believed that President Nixon should have done something more to eliminate the Watergate scandal as soon as it was leaked. The article had also showed that the people were not happy with President Nixon’s actions by only accepting the resignations of H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, (Genovese, 1999). He had also accepted the resignation of Attorney General Kleindienst and appointed Elliot Richardson and instructed him to handle the crisis. Finally, the President had made the correct decision by dismissing his White House Counsel John Dean. The second article portrays President Nixon as a good, moral leader. It tried to defend the President from being impeached by acknowledging his achievements. The article also showed that he was human and not perfect. The actions of the President by trying to resolve the crisis, led to speculations by the Chicago Tribune's editorial to leave office...
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...Out of the events in American History that have occurred throughout the period, one of the ones that interests me the most is the Watergate Scandal. With that in mind, the book I chose to read is called Watergate: The Corruption of American Politics and the Fall of Richard Nixon by Fred Emery. Although I had a basic knowledge of the scandal, I learned much by reading this book including those behind it and the coverup itself, in greater detail than I had known before. The book starts off by giving some background information including events that were transpiring during the Nixon administration. Many of these consist with Nixon’s handling of Vietnam and other events such as the Kent State Shootings and then the Pentagon Papers. Through this...
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...(DNC) at the Watergate Hotel and Complex on June 17, 1972, the burglary was reported briefly and soon forgotten amidst other headlining news. Months later, the Watergate Burglary exploded when ties were found between the break-in and Richard Nixon’s Committee to Reelect the President (CREEP) (Bernstein). Thus began the Watergate Scandal: the bugging and burglary at the Watergate Complex, the cover-up ordered by President Nixon himself, and the Watergate trials which revealed patterns of ethical misconduct within the Nixon administration. The scandal’s traditional timeline ranges from the break-in at the Watergate Complex, Washington D.C. in June of 1972...
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...Richard Nixon the 37th U.S. President was involved in one of the most controversial issues that the United States has ever seen. Nixon's role in the Watergate Scandal definitely warranted his impeachment. The Watergate Scandal remains well known throughout history today. This problem led toward Nixon resigning only two years in his 2nd term. Did President Nixon make the right choices? Can anybody truly trust the government after a situation like this?. Many Historians believe this altered the course of history and so we can't never truly trust the Government again. Although others believe that Nixon did not make the best decision; but, this should not alter the way the people view our Government. On June 18, 1972, a story about a robbery...
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...Watergate Scandal (The Alienation of the Youth from Government) We have had forty-three different presidents. Almost all of the presidents had done something to blemish their presidency, by accident or not. Richard Nixon’s presidency was blemished from the beginning, but this blemish may have saved the Republican party for the future to come. This incident was known as the Watergate Scandal. The scandal revolves around a place known as the Watergate Hotel. This was where the Democratic party’s campaign meetings were taking place for the 1974 election. This was the same election to provide many “dirty tricks” on both sides. To switch gears for a moment, during this election, the Republican party had formed a group known as the Committee for...
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...The Watergate scandal rocked the American public to its core. During Nixon’s re-election, operatives involved with his campaign trespassed into the Democratic National Committee Headquarters at the Watergate Hotel because of his involvement in the attempted coverup Nixon was brought up on charges. Then Vice President Agnew resigned in October 1973 over charges of tax evasion and the acceptance of bribes, which resulted in Gerald Ford being appointed as the vice president. Less than a year into Ford’s Vice Presidency, Nixon resigned, leaving Ford to become the first unelected president of the United States ("Gerald Ford"). Gerald Ford accepted the presidency during a time of great mistrust towards the federal government. He recognized his...
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...The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal that occurred in the United States during the early 1970s, following a break-in by five men at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C. on June 17, 1972, and President Richard Nixon's administration's subsequent attempt to cover up its involvement. After the five burglars were caught and the conspiracy was discovered, Watergate was investigated by the United States Congress. Meanwhile, Nixon's administration resisted its probes, which led to a constitutional crisis. The scandal led to the discovery of multiple abuses of power by members of the Nixon administration, an impeachment process against the president that led to articles of impeachment,indictment of 69 people, with trials or pleas resulting in 48 being found guilty, many of whom were top Nixon officials. Nixon and his close aides also ordered investigations of activist groups and political figures, using the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as political weapons....
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...In the 1976 film, All the President’s Men directed by Alan J. Pakula, it includes the Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. These two men are known to have uncovered the facts about the Watergate Scandal that led to President Richard Nixon’s resignation. It looked like it might have cost these two their jobs, reputation, and most importantly, their lives due to the extent they went through to obtain information. The film begins with a security guard, Frank Wills, who plays himself at the Watergate complex working the night shift. He soon finds a door that is unlocked with tape and notices it to be suspicious so he calls police who then find and arrest five burglars in the Democratic National Committee headquarters. Following this, everyone is searching for news and who these burglars were and why they did it so the Washington Post assigns Bob Woodward who is one of the new reporters to cover the story. Woodward becomes knowledgeable that out of the five men, four were Cuban Americans from Miami and the last was named as James McCord. McCord reveals that he had recently left the CIA as other have CIA ties. Woodward then connects the burglars to Howard Hunt who was a former...
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...Richard Nixon was the first President to be impeached in America but the legal system was also on trial. The political fiasco put the legal profession in a bad light. Some of the lawyers pleaded guilty. It seemed like it was hard to keep a secret if there were lots of people that were involved in this secret plan. The Watergate scandal rocked the whole nation of America, and to a great extent it also shocked the world. The center of this controversy Richard Nixon was the most powerful man in the world. The president of the most powerful nation on earth was under trial here. Nixon’s aides were charged with different crimes in connection with the break- in at the Watergate building. President Nixon had resigned from his office while insisting on his innocence of the crime being attributed to him. Investigators couldn’t find the “smoking gun” that would point to the president as the mastermind or as a part of a grand conspiracy in the break-in. It is also an important to note that the public’s access to this information and their following reaction that really helped to understand the real issue. The question as to how did the Watergate scandal changed America? There are...
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...Political leaders of the United States were, at one time, thought of as essential members to our society. Naturally political leaders are those who represent, satisfy, and help the needs of the people. However our trust in our the government has drastically declined. People lost faith and trust in the government as a result of national secrets hidden and scandals that occurred right under our noses. One of the biggest scandals that further caused the mistrust of the government by the people was the Watergate scandal. The Watergate scandal had a great impact on public opinion. It changed the way people looked at the presidency, politics, and Congress. It also changed the media's view. Media gained a huge influence on American politics and the U.S would forever remember the first President that resigned. The Watergate scandal became one of the world's biggest controversy. Understanding the crime goes into the dynamics and results of the scandal....
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...This vision of Malcolm X, being assassinated, On the afternoon of Feb. 21, 1965, I went to the Audubon Ballroom to hear Malcolm X speak. When I got to the ballroom, things were very unusual, there were no cops. Normally, Malcolm’s meetings were crawling with cops. I took a seat, left of the stage. When Malcolm approached the podium, he gave the normal Muslim greeting for peace. At that point a disturbance occurred in the room. Two men were standing about halfway back in the room and to the right of Malcolm on stage. One was shouting, Get your hand out of my pocket. Malcolm was trying to calm things down, when the men started running down the aisle shouting and firing a pistol at Malcolm and ran out the exit doors by the stage, to the right of Malcolm X. Suddenly I heard gunshots fired from all over the place, and I hit the floor. When I looked up, I saw Malcolm X standing up and glaring down at one of his assassins. At that point, from the corner of my eye, nearby to my left, I saw a flash from a gun as I watched Malcolm X fall down and back about 10 feet. In that instant, as Malcolm died before my eyes, I suddenly realized how big he was and I realized that he was gone. The loud screams of his wife will forever haunt me. The fatal blast came from a shotgun, came from the area where I had seen the large Black man with a navy blue-gray trench coat! When I left the hall, Malcolm’s bodyguards told me that they had caught two of the assassins. I can’t prove it but I know that the...
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...Very few American’s over the age of 20 do not know about Watergate. They have seen the plots in movies, history books, TV shows, and Made for TV movies. Some of the media plots are real and some not so much. Contrary to popular belief “Forest Gump” was not the person to crack open Watergate [ (Groom, 1994) ]. That honor goes to a simple security guard at the Watergate Complex, Frank Wills [ (AHC, 2012) ]. Mr. Willis was making his rounds when he became aware of tape covering the locks on the doors to several different stairways. This allowed the doors to close but not lock. Mr. Wills removed the take and went on his way. Later on when Mr. Wills was once again on his rounds, he found that the tape was back. This time Wills called the police and two plainclothes cops, in an unmarked car sat outside the complex looking out for anything strange [ (AHC, 2012) ]. Despite the lookout trying to warn his coconspirators, they were caught and booked. Discovered on the 5 perpetrators, “wire-tapping equipment, two cameras, several dozen rolls of film, and a few thousand dollars” in traceable $100 bills [ (AHC, 2012) ]. G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt were back at the Watergate hotel acting as lookouts. However they quickly evacuated their hotel room, when they saw their co-defendants were in trouble. G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt, both worked for the White House, making the Nixon Connection much more compelling [ (AHC, 2012) ]. Between February 16, 1971 and July 12, 1973...
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...Watergate Student’s Name Professor Course Institution Date The Watergate Scandal was considered one of the most of disturbing political scandals in the history of America. This Scandal brought down a President and his administration, also made the American public distrust the government which still goes on today. In 1972 there were two break-ins at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee, located in the Watergate office and apartment complex located in Washington D.C. The first was 27, 1972 and was performed by G. Gordon Liddy the leader of the group called “ The Plumbers”, E. Howard Hunt, and James W. McCord along with six members of a group known as “the Plumbers”. The break- in was used to place wiretaps and make copies of documents. Although the first break-in was successful some of the wiretaps were not working correctly or placed in the wrong place. So on the night of 17 June, 1972 another break-in was conducted to fix the problems encountered from the first Break-in. While on patrol on the night Frank Wills a security guard for the Watergate complex discovered several doors in the office complex noticed several door were taped open and removed them. When he made another round he found that were re-taped, upon discovery he called the Washington police and the burglars were arrested. While being booked the police discovered E. Howard Hunt’s White House telephone number on 2 of the burglars. This was the first step in discovering...
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...Watergate is widely believed to be the largest political scandal that the United States has seen. This scandal turned heads with the extensive association with the then United States President Richard Nixon, and many of his administration that aided in the execution and cover up of the events. The Watergate scandal of the 1970’s proved to be one of the most significant political scandal in history which included lies, breaking and entering, cover-ups and the first ever resignation of a United States President from office. The Watergate scandal events originated in 1969, with the composition of President Nixon’s enemies list. The list had a collection of names of opponents and potential opponents that have the possibility of causing trouble...
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