Stream Your Favorite HISTORY Documentaries, All Commercial-Free. Start Streaming Today For Only $5.99/Month.
Search results
- It revolved around members of a fundraising organization associated with Nixon's 1972 re-election campaign breaking into the Democratic National Committee headquarters located in the Watergate Office Building in Washington, D.C., on June 17, 1972, and Nixon's subsequent attempts to conceal his administration's involvement.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate_scandal
People also ask
What was the Watergate scandal?
What happened at Watergate in 1972?
How did the Watergate scandal change American politics?
Was the Watergate break-in a campaign of political spying?
What happened at Watergate?
How did the Watergate scandal affect the legal profession?
Definition. The Watergate Scandal was a major political scandal in the United States during the early 1970s, stemming from a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters and the subsequent cover-up by members of the Nixon administration.
Jun 17, 2022 · WASHINGTON (AP) — A timeline of the Watergate scandal, from the crime to the fall of a president: June 17, 1972: Five men are arrested in a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate hotel and office complex in Washington.
The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Richard Nixon which ultimately led to Nixon's resignation.
- Overview
- Nixon
- The Watergate break-in
- Denial and "executive privilege"
- Revelations and resignation
- What do you think?
Read about the scandal that brought down Richard Nixon.
Richard Nixon had not clawed his way up to the presidency without scratching a few people along the way. From early in his career, Nixon had made an art of employing "dirty tricks" to win elections, and by the time he made it into the White House he had many enemies. After a military analyst leaked the Pentagon Papers—documents that revealed that the US government had lied to Congress and the American people about the scope of the Vietnam War—Nixon became obsessed with maintaining secrecy in his administration. He employed a group of aides that he called "plumbers" in order to plug any further leaks.1
The plumbers helped Nixon's fundraising organization, the Committee to Re-elect the President (CREEP), with a series of illegal activities aimed at maintaining the president's power and harassing individuals on an internally-circulated "enemy list." CREEP and the plumbers undertook a variety of dirty tricks during the election of 1972, including but not limited to forging documents that might incriminate or embarrass Democratic opponents, conducting illegal surveillance, breaking into a psychiatrist's office in order to steal information to discredit a political enemy, placing spies undercover in Democratic campaigns and press corps, and renting facilities and ordering campaign supplies in the name of Democratic challengers and sticking them with the bill.2
CREEP eventually made a fatal blunder. On June 17, 1972, a security guard caught a group of five "burglars" in Washington, DC's Watergate office complex, home of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters. The incident seemed fairly innocuous until the FBI discovered that the burglars had ties with the CIA. Over time, it became clear that the burglary was in fact a botched attempt at wiretapping the phones at the DNC headquarters in order to spy on the presidential campaign of George McGovern.3
During the election of 1972, McGovern accused Nixon and the Republicans of breaking in to his office, but at that time there was little solid information tying the men involved with the break-in to the president. Nixon won the election handily, with 520 electoral votes compared to McGovern's 17.
By early 1973, however, the truth was beginning to trickle out. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, reporters for the Washington Post, had reported on the Watergate story since the break-in. They received tips from a highly-placed anonymous source known only as Deep Throat (revealed in 2005 to have been FBI Deputy Director Mark Felt) and kept the story alive by publishing their research into the break-in and alleged cover-up.4
Although several of the Watergate burglars cracked and pointed fingers at Nixon in their testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, there was no hard evidence connecting the president to any wrongdoing on the part of his subordinates. Perhaps the investigation would have ground to a halt had the existence of a voice-recording device in the Oval Office not emerged: all of Nixon's conversations had been taped. The Senate Judiciary Committee subpoenaed the tapes.5
Nixon refused to hand over the tapes, citing "executive privilege," or the right of the president not to respond to certain subpoenas or reveal confidential White House information. After the revelations from the Pentagon Papers that the president secretly had carried the Vietnam War into the neighboring countries of Cambodia and Laos, it began to seem as though Nixon believed he was above the law. His administration was further compromised when Vice President Spiro Agnew was forced to resign after federal prosecutors charged him with taking bribes. Nixon appointed Gerald Ford as Agnew's successor.6
In July 1974, the House Judiciary Committee recommended that the House of Representatives impeach Nixon for obstruction of justice and abuse of power. Nixon finally handed over the tapes after a Supreme Court order in August 1974.
The tapes confirmed that Nixon had been involved in covering up the Watergate affair; in what has been called the "smoking gun" tape, Nixon ordered the FBI not to investigate the break-in any further, a clear obstruction of justice.
[What does 'smoking gun' mean?]
On August 8, 1974 Nixon resigned rather than face impeachment. His successor, Gerald Ford, immediately pardoned Nixon for all crimes, discovered and undiscovered. Ford became the first and only person to have served as both vice president and president of the United States without having been elected to either office. Ford's connection with the disgraced Nixon ensured that he would not be elected to a second term.7
The Pentagon Papers, the Watergate scandal and Nixon's subsequent fall from grace contributed to a growing sense in the United States that the government was unprincipled and untrustworthy.8
What role did the media play in the Watergate scandal?
Why do you think Nixon didn't destroy the Oval Office tapes that incriminated him?
Do you think Nixon's resignation was a sign that the American system of government was broken, or was it a sign that government was working?
[Notes and attributions]
Oct 14, 2024 · Watergate scandal, interlocking political scandals of the administration of U.S. Pres. Richard M. Nixon that were revealed following the arrest of five burglars at Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters in the Watergate office-apartment-hotel complex in Washington, D.C., on June 17, 1972. On August 9, 1974, facing likely impeachment ...
- The Watergate scandal was a series of interlocking political scandals of the U.S. President Richard M. Nixon's administration. The scandal included...
- Police apprehended five burglars at the office of the DNC in the Watergate complex. Four of the five burglars were formerly active in Central Intel...
- Deep Throat was the anonymous source who provided leaks to reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Only after some 30 years later, it was reveal...
- On September 8, 1974, U.S. President Gerald Ford chose to grant Richard Nixon a full and unconditional pardon for any crimes he may have committed...
- On August 9, 1974, facing likely impeachment for his role in covering up the scandal, Nixon became the only U.S. president to resign.
Oct 29, 2009 · The Watergate scandal began early in the morning of June 17, 1972, when several burglars were arrested in the office of the Democratic National Committee, located in the Watergate complex...
Watergate scandal, (1972–74) Political scandal involving illegal activities by Pres. Richard Nixon’s administration. In June 1972 five burglars were arrested after breaking into the Democratic Party’s national headquarters at the Watergate Hotel complex in Washington, D.C.
