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Aug 9, 2014 · Did Richard Nixon, who resigned 40 years ago today, order the burglary of the Democratic National Committee’s offices in June 1972? Amid the tapestry of scandal surrounding Watergate, we still...
- Timothy Noah
Feb 17, 2022 · The central planner of the burglary, G. Gordon Liddy—the highest-ranking Nixon White House official actually charged with the break-in—later settled on a different raison d’etre.
- The Watergate Break-In
- Nixon's Obstruction of Justice
- Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein Investigate
- The Saturday Night Massacre
- Nixon Resigns
The origins of the Watergate break-in lay in the hostile political climate of the time. By 1972, when Republican President Richard M. Nixon was running for reelection, the United States was embroiled in the Vietnam War, and the country was deeply divided. A forceful presidential campaign therefore seemed essential to the president and some of his k...
It later came to light that Nixon was not being truthful. A few days after the break-in, for instance, he arranged to provide hundreds of thousands of dollars in “hush money” to the burglars. Then, Nixon and his aides hatched a plan to instruct the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to impede the FBI’s investigation of the crime. This was a more ser...
By that time, a growing handful of people—including Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, trial judge John J. Sirica and members of a Senate investigating committee—had begun to suspect that there was a larger scheme afoot. At the same time, some of the conspirators began to crack under the pressure of the cover-up. Anonymous w...
When Cox refused to stop demanding the tapes, Nixon ordered that he be fired, leading several Justice Department officials to resign in protest. (These events, which took place on October 20, 1973, are known as the Saturday Night Massacre.) Eventually, Nixon agreed to surrender some—but not all—of the tapes. Early in 1974, the cover-up and efforts ...
Finally, on August 5, Nixon released the tapes, which provided undeniable evidence of his complicity in the Watergate crimes. In the face of almost certain impeachment by Congress, Nixon resignedin disgrace on August 8, and left office the following day. Six weeks later, after Vice President Gerald Fordwas sworn in as president, he pardoned Nixon f...
Rather than ending with the conviction and sentencing to prison of the five Watergate burglars on January 30, 1973, the investigation into the break-in and the Nixon Administration's involvement grew broader.
- January 1969. Richard Nixon is inaugurated as the 37th president of the United States.
- February 1971. Richard Nixon orders the installation of a secret taping system that records all conversations in the Oval Office, his Executive Office Building office, and his Camp David office and on selected telephones in these locations.
- June 13, 1971. The New York Times begins publishing the Pentagon Papers, the Defense Department's secret history of the Vietnam War. The Washington Post will begin publishing the papers later in the week.
- 1971. Nixon and his staff recruit a team of ex-FBI and CIA operatives, later referred to as “the Plumbers” to investigate the leaked publication of the Pentagon Papers.
Jun 5, 2005 · Did Nixon order the Watergate break-in? No one disputes that Richard Nixon covered up the June 1972 burglary at the Democratic National Committee's headquarters at the Watergate complex.
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Of the 35 witnesses who appeared before the committee, none accused President Nixon of knowing about the Watergate break-ins in advance, and only one, John Dean, implied that the President participated in the Watergate cover-up.
