Free Essays on Watergate

A major issue at the beginning of Nixon’s second term became known as the Watergate scandal. Agents hired by the Committee for the Re-Election of the President broke into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate apartment-office complex in Washington, D.C. on June 17, 1972. They had penetrated the files and installed listening devices. Early in 1973 the agents were convicted of burglary and political espionage. The Senate held hearings to investigate allegations of attempts by high White House officials to cover up administration involvement in the case. President Nixon repeatedly denied that anyone in his administration was involved in the break-in. However, several of Nixon’s closest advisers did resign. When it was revealed that White House conversations and telephone calls had been recorded, Congress subpoenaed the tapes, but Nixon refused to release any of the White House recordings claiming â€Å"executive privilege.† Meanwhil e, the House Judiciary Committee began an inquiry into whether he had committed impeachable offenses. On April 30, 1974, Nixon released some edited transcripts of White House conversations that he felt would reassure the public of his innocence regarding the Watergate break-in and cover-up. Instead he lost many of his supporters. The Supreme Court ruled that Nixon must surrender the additional White House tapes sought by the special Watergate prosecutor as evidence in criminal proceedings. Three of these recordings documented Nixon’s personal order to cover up the Watergate break-in. With their release, Nixon admitted the evidence was â€Å"at variance† with earlier statements. The House Judiciary Committee had already voted in late July to recommend Nixon’s impeachment. With Congressional support destroyed, Nixon chose resignation over impeachment. On Aug. 8, 1974, Nixon appeared on television to resign the presidency, and the next day Vice-President Ford became p... Free Essays on Watergate Free Essays on Watergate Watergate was a designation of a major U.S. scandal that began with the burglary and wiretapping of the Democratic party's headquarters, later engulfed President Richard M. Nixon and many of his supporters in a variety of illegal acts and culminated in the first resignation of a U.S. president. The burglary was committed on June 17, 1972, by five men who were caught in the offices of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate apartment and office complex in Washington D.C. Their arrest eventually uncovered a White House-sponsered plan of espionage against political opponents and a trail of complicity that led to many of the highest officials in the land, including former U.S. Attorney General John Mitchell, White House Counsel John Dean, White House Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman, White House Special Assistant on Domestic Affairs John Ehrlichman, and President Nixon himself. On April 30, 1973, nearly a year after the burglary and arrest and following a grand jury investigation of the burglary, Nixon accepted the resignation of Haldeman and Ehrlichman and announced the dismissal of Dean U.S. Attorney General Richard Kleindienst resigned as well. The new attorney general, Elliot Richardson, appointed a special prosecutor, Harvard Law School profesor Archibald Cox, to conduct a full-scale investigation of the Watergate break-in. In May of 1973, the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Activities opened hearings, with Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina as chairman. A series of startling revelations followed. Dean testified that Mitchell had ordered the break-in and that a major attempt was under way to hide White House involvement. He claimed that the president had authorized payments to the burglars to keep them quiet. The Nixon administration immediately denied this assertion. The testimony of White House aide Alexander Butterfield unlocked the entire investigation pertaining to White House tapes. On July 16, 1973, Butterfield t... Free Essays on WaterGate A major issue at the beginning of Nixon’s second term became known as the Watergate scandal. Agents hired by the Committee for the Re-Election of the President broke into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate apartment-office complex in Washington, D.C. on June 17, 1972. They had penetrated the files and installed listening devices. Early in 1973 the agents were convicted of burglary and political espionage. The Senate held hearings to investigate allegations of attempts by high White House officials to cover up administration involvement in the case. President Nixon repeatedly denied that anyone in his administration was involved in the break-in. However, several of Nixon’s closest advisers did resign. When it was revealed that White House conversations and telephone calls had been recorded, Congress subpoenaed the tapes, but Nixon refused to release any of the White House recordings claiming â€Å"executive privilege.† Meanwhil e, the House Judiciary Committee began an inquiry into whether he had committed impeachable offenses. On April 30, 1974, Nixon released some edited transcripts of White House conversations that he felt would reassure the public of his innocence regarding the Watergate break-in and cover-up. Instead he lost many of his supporters. The Supreme Court ruled that Nixon must surrender the additional White House tapes sought by the special Watergate prosecutor as evidence in criminal proceedings. Three of these recordings documented Nixon’s personal order to cover up the Watergate break-in. With their release, Nixon admitted the evidence was â€Å"at variance† with earlier statements. The House Judiciary Committee had already voted in late July to recommend Nixon’s impeachment. With Congressional support destroyed, Nixon chose resignation over impeachment. On Aug. 8, 1974, Nixon appeared on television to resign the presidency, and the next day Vice-President Ford became p... Free Essays on Watergate Kutler’s Watergate Watergate was a site of major scandal in the U.S. It involved burglary, wiretapping of the Democratic Party’s headquarters. The President and many of his trusted men were targets of investigation. Water gate led to the first ever resignation of a President. The burglary was committed on June 17, 1972, by five men who were caught in the offices of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate apartment and office complex in Washington D.C. Their arrest eventually uncovered a White House sponsored plan of espionage against political opponents. This conspiracy involved many of the highest officials in the land, including former U.S. Attorney General John Mitchell, White House Counsel John Dean, and White House Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman, White House Special Assistant on Domestic Affairs John Ehrlichman, and President Nixon. On April 30, 1973, a year after the burglary and arrest and following a grand jury investigation of the burglary, Nixon accepted the resignation of Haldeman and Ehrlichman and U.S. Attorney General Richard Kleindienst and announced the dismissal of Dean, The new attorney general, Elliot Richardson, appointed a special prosecutor, Law School professor Archibald Cox from Harvard Law, to conduct a full investigat ion of the Watergate breakin. In May of 1973, the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Activities opened hearings, headed by Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina as chairman. A series of startling revelations followed. John Dean said is his opening statement, that he had discussed the cover-up with President Nixon in several meetings. At the first meeting, in September 1972, he told the president how he and other members of the White House had handled the cover-up so far. Dean claimed that in another important meeting with Nixon, on March 21, 1973, the president agreed $1million should be raised to silence the burglars. However Dean said that he dealt with the presid... Free Essays on Watergate watergate scandal George McGovern, the Democratic presidential nominee the year of 1973, called it ''the mother of all White House scandals.'' Watergate was in fact the name of the biggest political scandal in United States history. It involved illegal activities such as burglary, wire-tapping and espionage. All designed to help Richard Milhous Nixon to win re-election in 1972 But, instead it resulted in the resignation of president Nixon. On June 17, 1972 five men were caught breaking into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee. The headquarters were in a large apartment building complex called Watergate. The men had intended to photograph documents and to place wire taps on the telephones. The group’s leader was James McCord who was on the committee to reelect the President and was also handling Nixon’s campaign. Papers found in the pocket of one of the burglars led to White House staff members. Which meant that there were more people involved then just the original seven. The cover-up started to begin. The Nixon administration hid and shredded any and all documents, which could lead to any, connected between the white house and the burglars. Weeks later the seven Watergate defendants were indicted and were paid money for their silence. Throughout 1972 little was said about the Watergate scandal. A poll showed that most Americans had not even heard of it. In November, Nixon was overwhelming reelected and in 1973 the trial of Watergate seven was held. All defendants pleaded guilty or were convicted and it seemed as if the whole mess was over. Then on March 23, 1973 Judge John Si... Free Essays on Watergate The term Watergate became known as a scandalous series of events that ended Richard Nixon’s presidency and threatened the foundations of American government. In preparation for the 1972 election, Nixon was determined to win an overwhelming mandate for a second term. To protect Nixon at all costs from anything that might weaken his position, he made what is called the â€Å"enemies list. â€Å" This was a list developed by a special council that listed names of prominent people unsympathetic to the administration. It included politicians such as Senator Edward Kennedy, members of the media such as reporter Daniel Schorr, and a number of outspoken performers including comedian Dick Gregory and actors Jane Fonda and Steve McQueen. Aides then considered how to harass these White House â€Å"enemies.† One idea was to arrange income tax investigations of people on the list. Despite his dedication to a domestic policy of law and order, Nixon was sometimes willing to take illegal actions more serious than the activities the were meant to control. Then the White House organized its own unit - nicknamed the Plumbers - to stop government security leaks. The group included E. Howard Hunt, a spy novelist and former CIA agent, and G. Gordon Liddy, once an FBI agent. This intelligent branch mastered outstanding plans such as an elaborate scheme of wiretapping. They planned to tap top Democrats to try to compromise them at their convention. They decided it would be to expensive and risky but they finally approved of the tapping of the phones at Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate apartment complex in Washington, D.C. The first break-in to install illegal listening devices failed. A second attempt, on the night of June 16... Free Essays on Watergate The Watergate Scandal By: Sandy Bratchet The Watergate Scandal Richard 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 charged with second-degree burglary by the Washington police. 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, â€Å"he was so furious.......he threw an ashtray across the room and was outraged that anybody even remotely connected with the campaign would have anything to do with a thing like Watergate.† Nixon did not understand why anyone would try to bug the DNC, because no useful information could be rendered from anything recorded there. What started out as a prank in the eyes of President Nixon had now become a possible issue in the re-electi... Free Essays on Watergate The Watergate Scandal involved a number of illegal activities that were designed to help President Richard Nixon win re-election. The scandal involved burglary, wiretapping, campaign financing violations, and the use of government agencies to harm political opponents. A major part of the scandal was also the cover-up of all these illegal actions. â€Å"Watergate, however, differed from most previous political scandals because personal greed apparently did not play an important role. Instead Watergate attacked one of the chief features of Democracy – free and open elections† (Worldbook 1). The Watergate Scandal got its name from the Watergate Complex in Washington D.C. This large office building was the home of the Democratic National Headquarters, and the site of the break-in that began the largest scandal in American Politics. However, even before the break-in, President Nixon had begun illegal operations. President Nixon had created a special investigation unit to prevent the leaking of confidential documents to the public. He did this after a number of Defense Department papers were released to the public concerning President Nixon’s paranoia over the public’s criticism of his Vietnam War policies (Owens 1). The â€Å"Plumbers†, as they were nicknamed, were headed by two of Nixon’s top aides, G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt. In order to prevent all information leaks, the â€Å"Plumbers† investigated the private lives of Nixon’s political enemies and critics. The White House rationalized the actions of the plumbers by saying that they were protecting National Security. The actual Watergate Scandal began on June 17, 1972, with the arrest of five men for breaking into the Democratic Party’s National Headquarters located in the Watergate Complex in Washington D.C. The five men were part of the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP). They were attempting to fix a broken phone tap that they had installed ab... Free Essays on Watergate "The Watergate Complex is a series of modern buildings with balconies that looks like filed down Shark's Teeth" (Gold, 1). Located on the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. it contains many hotel rooms and offices. What happened in the complex on June 17, 1972 early in the morning became a very historical event for our nation that no one will ever forget. The "Watergate Scandal and constitutional crisis that began on June 17, 1972 with the arrest of five burglars who broke into the Democratic National Committee (DMC) headquarters at the Watergate office building in Washington D.C. It ended with the registration of President Richard M. Nixon on August 9, 1974. (Watergate) At approximately 2:30 in the morning of June 17, 1972 five men were arrested at the Watergate Complex. The police seized a walkie talkie, 40 rolls of unexposed film, two 35 millimeter cameras, lock picks, pensized teargas guns, and bugging devices. (Gold, 75) These five men and two co-plotters were indicated in Septem ber 1972 on charges of burglary, conspiracy and wire tapping. Four months later they were convicted and sentenced to prison terms by District Court Judge John J. Sercia was convinced that relevant details had not been unveiled during the trial and offered leniency in exchanged for further information. As it became increasingly evident that the Watergate burglars were tied closely to the Central Intelligence Agency and the Committee to re-elect the president. (Watergate) Four of these men, that were arrested on the morning of June 17, 1972, came from Miami, Florida. They were Bernard L. Barker, Frank A. Sturgis, Virgillio R. Gonzalez, and Eugenio R. Martinez. The other man was from Rockville, Maryland named James W. McCord, Jr. The two co-plotters were G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt. (Watergate) The senate established and investigative committee headed by Senate Sam Ervin, Jr., to look into the growing scandal. As they were investigating, they related tha...