...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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...Controversial Pardon of Richard Nixon HIST102 American History Since 1877 Instructor: 22 February 2014 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, leaving Vice President Gerald Ford as the new president. Although Ford’s first act as president, granting a full pardon to Nixon, caused heavy controversy in the political and legal sectors; his decision was within his constitutional rights as president and in the best interest of the Americans public. Immediately following Ford’s pardon of Nixon critics, such as Philip Kurland, Edwin Firmage, and R. Collin Mangrum began to protest that Ford did not have the constitutional right to “issue a pre-trail pardon.”1 Kurland was believed that a pardon was meant to lessen the harshness of punishment for the accused; however, that is only the case if the judicial system worked.2 Firmage and Mangrum believed that the framers of our constitution did not...
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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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...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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...Joe Elton Nixon was indicted in Leon County, Florida, for first-degree murder, kidnaping, robbery, and arson for the death of Jeanne Bickner. Nixon entered a plea of not guilty. During the opening statements of the trial, Nixon’s defense attorney, Michael Corin, stated that; “In this case, there won’t be any question, none whatsoever, that my client Joe Elton Nixon, caused Jeannie Bickner’s death…”. This statement, along with others made during the trial, were the basis for the appeal filed by Nixon with the Florida Supreme Court. Nixon claimed that his counsel was ineffective because of the comments made during opening statements and closing arguments that conceded his guilt without his approval, which he claimed was the same as entering a...
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...In Scandals in Past and Contemporary Politics, edited by political scientist James Newell and historian John Garrard, a political scandal is defined as “a departure or lapse from the normative standards that guide behavior in public office.” A distinction is also made between substantive and procedural scandals. A substantive scandal involves a single, initial scandal, while a procedural scandal involves a cover up which becomes more controversial than the original scandal (Newell and Garrard 78). The My Lai Massacre was most certainly a departure from normative standards, and involved elements of both substantive and procedural scandals. The massacre, which involved the ruthless slaughter of hundreds of Vietnamese civilians, lowered public trust in government and the military, but otherwise, had limited political effects. The My Lai Massacre took place on March 16, 1968 during the Vietnam War ("My Lai murders" 70). Prior to the scandal, Former President Lyndon B. Johnson’s escalation of involvement in the Vietnam War in 1963 was marked with limited success as shown during the Tet Offensive, an aggressive push by the Viet Cong, which began in early 1968. The Tet Offensive was technically a failure for the North Vietnamese forces, but showed their unwillingness to surrender (Wilberding 28). Concurrently, public opposition to the war was brewing, and the morale and confidence of American soldiers were at an all time low (Wilberding 30). The My Lai Massacre took place in My Lai,...
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...went from a well-respected and populist president to a disgraced president that was nearly impeached. If Watergate was omitted from Nixon’s history most people would think he was a good president with a good track record and that he accomplished many things. Nixon left office to avoid being impeached; there was too much evidence against him and the media was having a field day with the evidence that was made public. Because a president has been given an enormous amount of power that is not give him the right to abuse the power. Therefore, any president or anyone for that matter should be accountable for the wrongdoings that they have done. Nixon should have been impeached. And probably would have because the numbers and the senate’s showed there was enough votes to impeach him. When Richard Nixon was pardoned by president Ford it did not set a good precedent for our nation. It became clear that a president or a politician can break the law and a successor can clear him of all his or her wrongdoings without any input from the judicial system. Although Nixon’s pardon was controversial it is rumored that Nixon made a deal to have resign only if he was given a full pardon (Herbers, 2010). It was sold to the public as the better thing to do for the country, but letting a person go that has clearly broken the law is not a good thing for our country (Dennison, 2012). The Watergate disgrace taught our country not to trust presidents or politicians for that matter. If our country learned...
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...The Watergate Break-in took place on June 17 of 1972, during Nixon’s Presidency. This was also an election year during which Nixon was running for a second term. James McCord was part of Nixon’s campaign party as chief security officer. James McCord was a major player in the Watergate Break-in, which took place in June of 1972. McCord was a former CIA employee that had started his own security agency after leaving his government role. He was then recruited to Nixon’s Campaign as a security consultant. He participated in the Watergate Break-in along with other campaign party members. McCord was the one in charge of bugging the room to try and collect any evidence that would help Nixon with his re-election for president. He is considered the one that botched the break-in by taping the doors in the Watergate building after they had been removed once by a security guard. This raised suspicion and the security guard called police which showed up in plain clothes and arrested 5 burglars that night. (Watergate Scandal Timeline, 2012) McCord was one of the first to take the fall, and was convicted on 6 counts. He claims he was told that Nixon and the white house knew about and approved the Watergate attempt. He also wrote a letter to the judge after being convicted but before his sentencing that he had committed perjury during his trial, because of pressure from John Dean and John Mitchell, among others, by pleading guilty. This led to more investigations into the people behind the...
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...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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...Abstract Operation Just Cause was the invasion of Panama by US Forces in December of 1989. The mission of the US was to protect US lives and property, keep the canal open, conduct non-combatant evacuation operations in peaceful or hostile environments, and to develop and assist any government that would take over the current dictatorship that is in place. The operations were strategically formed to minimize casualties and damage to the local infrastructure by considering the operational environment. The accomplishment of the mission required US forces to contemplate on different tactics we were not accustomed to fighting. “Operation Just Cause represented a bold new era in American military force projection for speed, mass, and precision coupled with immediate public visibility, concern for collateral damage and early anticipation for post combat mandates”. This operation was a learning lesson for the US on how to conduct future operations by taking multiple events into planning considerations to ensure we cover all operational environments. Relations between Noriega's government and the United States had become increasingly tense through most of the 1980s. The last two years, however, had been especially difficult. One of Noriega's principal lieutenants charged the dictator with murder, drug trafficking, and election fraud. Riots broke out in Panama City, and the internal crisis grew inferior as the country's economy deteriorated. To deflect rising criticism...
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...The Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, which was investigated by independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr, began in 1995, when America was surprised by a political sex scandal involving President Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern in her early 20s (Schmidt, “Clinton Accused of Urging Aide to Lie). When news of his affair became public in 1998, Clinton denied the sexual relationship before later admitting to “inappropriate intimate physical contact” with Monica Lewinsky. This led to the House of Representatives impeaching the president for obstruction of justice and perjury, but was later acquitted by the Senate (Waxman, "Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky Scandal-Timeline of Key Moments”). The Monica Lewinsky scandal was the first massive political story of the emerging era of journalism via the internet, which created a polarization of the country and drew a line of difference between the political and the personal in media coverage. In the summer of 1995, receiving a Bachelor of Science in Psychology at Lewis and Clark in Portland, Oregon, Lewinsky began working in Washington on July 10, 1995 as an unpaid intern in the Old Executive Office Building. However, she was hired in Legislative Affairs before the furlough in November 1995, in which she had closer contact with the President and worked under Jocelyn Jolly to supervise the letters that came from the Hill ("Transcripts from Video Deposition of Monica Lewinsky”). In the months that followed, Lewinsky had several sexual...
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...The story of Edward Snowden is perhaps the biggest and most famous intelligence breach in United States history. The 29-year-old computer programmer who made headlines in 2013 was working for the National Security Agency through subcontractor Booz Allen in the NSA’s office in Oahu, Hawaii when he became disturbed and uncomfortable with some of the NSA’s data. He began collecting top-secret documents regarding NSA domestic surveillance practices. These documents confirmed unsettling spy activity against American citizens. The story of how Snowden fled the U.S. and leaked the documents to the press is shocking and exciting, like something only seen in movies. After watching a Frontline report on the story, a TED Talk with one of the reporters who worked with Snowden, and the documentary made about Snowden’s story, my eyes have been opened to a truth I did not fully grasp until now. In this response, I will summarize more of the Snowden story and discuss the role the press plays in our democracy. “I’m willing to sacrifice [my former life] because I can’t in good conscience allow the U.S. government to destroy privacy, Internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they’re secretly building,” (Biography, 2015) Snowden said in an interview in Hong Kong where he escaped to with the classified and damning government documents. Upon his escape he began contact with carefully selected journalists, including Glenn Greenwald from...
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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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...The Hobbesian theme of Greed and dishonesty is also seen in the Harding Administration during the Teapot Dome Scandal of 1923. In 1912, Taft decided that the oil reserves at Teapot Dome, Wyoming and Elk Hills, California would be set aside for the US Navy to use. When Albert Fall was appointed Secretary of Interior under Harding, asked the Secretary of Navy, Edwin Denby if he could lease some of the reserves to the Mammoth Oil Company. While legal at the time to do so, it was still pretty suspicious that Fall was gaining huge amounts of money from these leases. Finally, On 14th April, 1922, The Wall Street Journal announced that Fall had leased Teapot Dome to Harry F. Sinclair and as a result, senators such as Robert La Follette demanded...
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...Nixon v. United States 506 U.S. 224 (1993) Facts Walter Nixon Jr., a U.S. District Court judge in Mississippi, was investigated for his involvement for trading an oil and gas deal with an entrepreneur in exchange for his intervention in the entrepreneur son’s indictment for drug trafficking. Nixon was brought before a grand jury and testified that he did not intervene with the son’s case. He later stood trial in federal court for committing perjury during his grand jury testimony and accepting an illegal gratuity. He was acquitted of the illegal gratuity change but convicted of two counts of perjury. The Judicial Conference of the United States recommended Nixon’s impeachment. The House voted to impeach. The Senate invoked Impeachment rule...
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