Watergate Scandal - Research Paper Example

?WaterGate Timeline 1968 November 5 - Richard Milhous Nixon, the 55-year-old former vice president who lost the presidency for the Republicans in 1960, reclaims it by defeating Hubert Humphrey in one of the closest elections in U.S. history. 1969 January 21 - Nixon is inaugurated as the 37th president of the United States. 1970 July 23 - Nixon approves a plan for greatly expanding domestic intelligence-gathering by the FBI, CIA and other agencies. He has second thoughts a few days later and rescinds his approval. 1971 June 13 - 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 that same week. September 3 - The White House "plumbers" unit - named for their orders to plug leaks in the administration - burglarizes a psychiatrist's office to find files on Daniel Ellsberg, the former defense analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers. 1972 June 17 - Five men, one of whom says he used to work for the CIA, are arrested at 2:30 a.m. trying to bug the offices of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate hotel and office complex. June 19 - A GOP security aide is among the Watergate burglars, The Washington Post reports. Former attorney general John Mitchell, head of the Nixon reelection campaign, denies any link to the operation. August 1 - A $25,000 cashier's check, apparently earmarked for the Nixon campaign, wound up in the bank account of a Watergate burglar, The Washington Post reports. September 29 - John Mitchell, while serving as attorney general, controlled a secret Republican fund used to finance widespread intelligence-gathering operations against the Democrats, The Post reports. October 10 - FBI agents establish that the Watergate break-in stems from a massive campaign of political spying and sabotage conducted on behalf of the Nixon reelection effort, The Post reports. November 7 - Nixon is reelected in one of the largest landslides in American political history, taking more than 60 percent of the vote and crushing the Democratic nominee, Sen. George McGovern of South Dakota. 1973 January 30 - Former Nixon aides G. Gordon Liddy and James W. McCord Jr. are convicted of conspiracy, burglary and wiretapping in the Watergate incident. Five other men plead guilty, but mysteries remain. April 30 - Nixon's top White House staffers, H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, and Attorney General Richard Kleindienst resign over the scandal. White House counsel John Dean is fired. May 18 - The Senate Watergate Committee begins its nationally televised hearings. Attorney General-designate Elliot Richardson taps former solicitor general Archibald Cox as the Justice Department's special prosecutor for Watergate. June 3 - John Dean has told Watergate investigators that he discussed the Watergate cover-up with President Nixon at least 35 times, The Post reports. June 13 - Watergate prosecutors find a memo addressed to John Ehrlichman describing in detail the plans to burglarize the office of Pentagon Papers defendant Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist, The Post reports. July 13 - Alexander Butterfield, former presidential appointments secretary, reveals in congressional testimony that since 1971 Nixon had recorded all conversations and telephone calls in his offices. July 18 - Nixon reportedly orders the White House taping system disconnected. July 23 - Nixon refuses to turn over the presidential tape recordings to the Senate Watergate Committee or the special prosecutor. October 20 - Saturday Night Massacre: Nixon fires Archibald Cox and abolishes the office of the special prosecutor. Attorney General Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William D. Ruckelshaus resign. Pressure for impeachment mounts in Congress. November 17 - Nixon declares, "I'm not a crook," maintaining his innocence in the Watergate case. December 7 - The White House can't explain an 18 ?-minute gap in one of the subpoenaed tapes. Chief of Staff Alexander Haig says one theory is that "some sinister force" erased the segment. 1974 April 30 - The White House releases more than 1,200 pages of edited transcripts of the Nixon tapes to the House Judiciary Committee, but the committee insists that the tapes themselves must be turned over. July 24 - The Supreme Court rules unanimously that Nixon must turn over the tape recordings of 64 White House conversations, rejecting the president's claims of executive privilege. July 27 - House Judiciary Committee passes the first of three articles of impeachment, charging obstruction of justice. August 8 - Richard Nixon becomes the first U.S. president to resign. Vice President Gerald R. Ford assumes the country's highest office. He will later pardon Nixon of all charges related to the Watergate case. Speech: My esteemed colleagues, I stand before you today to present the fact behind one of the most scandalous events to have ever been attached to the U.S presidency, the Water Gate Scandal. A scandal which forced the impeachment and subsequent and only resignation of a U.S. president in history. It has been forty three years since the high profile investigation took place and it is a piece of history that should never be forgotten. But in order to understand what Water Gate is all about and how it affects the present and future of U.S. presidents, we must first come to comprehend the players and events surrounding Water Gate. Richard Milhouse Nixon first ran for an lost his bid for the U.S. presidency in 1960. He successfully mounted and won his 1968 bid for the presidency by beating Hubert Humphrey in what can only be called a closely fought election. He was inaugurated into the presidency on January 21, 1969. In the cold war era of the United States and Russia, and the war raging on in Vietnam, Nixon felt a need to increase the funding for domestic intelligence gathering. On July 23, 1970, he approves the expanded plans pertaining to this action but decides to cancel the plans a few days later. This move on Nixon's part starts a snowballing of events that spin out for control the next year. The president seemed to have been developing a growing distrust of the the people around him so much so that he no longer trusted anyone within his own political party and the opposition party as well. There was never any given psychological explanation for his actions and to this very day, the reasons for his actions at Watergate remain somewhat muddled although most experts tend to believe that the event was closely tied into his re-election campaign and black mail gathering moves. These politically motivated actions have led to the term Watergate as having to refer to political burglary, bribery, extortion, phone tapping, conspiracy, obstruction of justice, destruction of evidence, tax fraud, illegal use of government agencies such as the CIA and FBI, illegal campaign contributions, or use of public money for private purposes. In other words, Watergate is anything that refers to a complex political scandal. Or, to be more precise, it refers to a complex political scandal that occurred between 1972 and 1974. Before becoming a scarlet letter for corrupt politicians, Watergate was actually just a simple hotel in Washington DC that at the time was serving as party headquarters for the Democratic National Committee. However, Watergate was more than just a hotel, it had an area within the complex that served as offices for certain businesses. Now that I have explained the word etymology surrounding Watergate, I sense that it is best that I start the historical look at the event from the very beginning. Please, allow me to take you back to the early days of the newly elected Nixon presidency so that we can get an insight into what might have been going on inside his head during this particular time in history. I will also introduce the other known and lesser known players in this political scandal that once shook the halls of Washington power to its very core. The New York Times gets its hands on a copy of the Pentagon Papers, another name for the Defense Department's top secret dossiere on the Vetnam War on June 13, 1971. They publish these papers early in the week and saw the Washington Post publishing the papers later the same week. By September 3, the White House “Plumber's Unit” a group of espionage experts tasked with plugging the holes left by White House information leaks. Their unofficial investigation leads to the office of the psychiatrist of Daniel Ellsberg, the former defense analyst whom evidence proved to be the newspapers source of the Pentagon Papers. These events leave the Nixon White House nervous and in need of damage control. The president meanwhile, becomes even more distrustful of the people around him and feels a definite need to know all about what is going around him both within the White House and its accompanying departments and within his own Republican party. This is a paranoia which comes to fore in the middle of 1972 when, on June 17, five men, one of whom claimed to have been working with the CIA, were arrested for breaking and entering into the office of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate hotel and office complex at 2:30 in the morning. These men are later identified to be Bernard L. Barker, Virgilio R. Gonzalez, Eugenio R. Martinez, James W. McCord Jr., Frank A. Sturgis, acting under orders from Nixon's reelection campaign staff. However, Former Attorney General John Mitchell, head of the reelection campaign vehemently denies any link to the aforementioned operation on June 19. This denial came upon the heels of news rumors that a GOP aide is among the Watergate burglars. A rumor that earned a high degree of credibility when, on August 1st of the same year, a $25000 check originally meant for the Nixon campaign ended up in the bank account of one of the burglars. Investigative reports dated September 29 by the Washington Post revealed that John Mitchell, in his capacity of Attorney General controlled and used a slush fund for intelligence gathering efforts on Democrats during this pivotal time in the reelection campaign. By October 19, FBI investigations point to the Watergate break-in as a politically motivated act that included political spying and sabotage of the Democratic party in behalf of the Nixon campaign. At this time, there was not enough evidence to begin impeachment proceedings of the president and thus, Nixon was reelected via landslide vote of 60 % versus his Democratic counterpart, Sen. George McGovern (South Dakota). His reelection however, did nothing to make the Watergate Robbery investigation disappear. January 30, 1973, the American public sees some closure on the issue as G. Gordon Liddy and James W. McCord Jr, together with the 5 robbers are convicted on conspiracy, burglary, and wiretapping charges. Their conviction however, opens up more questions relating to the crime. Heads begin to roll on April 30 as Nixon White House staffers H.R, Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, together with then Attorney General Richart Kleindienst are forced to resign due to the increasing public clamor over the mysteries of the Watergate break-in. At this point, President Nixon is also beginning to feel the pressure on his office and he fires John Dean, his White House legal counsel. The inevitable public investigation into the events leading up to the Watergate break-in began on May 18 via nationally televised hearings. Former Solicitor General Archibald Cox is designated by the Justice Department as the Special Prosecutor for Watergate. Cox is assigned to this position by Attorney General - Designate Elliot Richardson. On June 3, John Dean admits that he told Watergate investigators that the Watergate cover up was known to the president and was discussed at least 35 times. By June 13, a memo written by John Ehrlichman is found by Watergate prosecutors. The memo contains detailed descriptions of the burglary plans for the office of the Pentagon Papers defendant Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist. This revelation blows the lid off the information regarding what exactly Nixon was doing in the White House. During the July 13 testimony of Alexander Butterfile, former presidential appoinments secretary, he reveals under oath that Nixon had been recording White House conversations since 1971. This testimoney forces Nixon to, on July 18, dismantle all White House tapping systems. Even though he personally acknowledged the existence of the recordings, Pres. Nixon refuses to turn over the taes to the Senate Watergate Committee or special prosecutor on July 23. This act from the president leads to the Saturday Night Massacre on October 20 during which time he fired Archibald Cox and abolished the office of the special prosecutor. The day also sees the resignation of Attorney General Richardson and his deputy, Attorney General William D. Ruckehshaus. The irrational moves of the president on this day and his uncooperativeness in the Watergate investigation leads to a mounting call for his impeachment from Congress. Affected by the mounting distrust of his government, Nixon, on November 17 took the tv waves to announce that “I am not a crook” and maintained that he had nothing to do with the Watergate robbery. However, his pleas of innocence turned into a declaration of guilt as the White House failed to defend itself when questioned about the missing 18 and a half minutes in one of the subpoenaed tapes. White House Chief of Staff chose to defend the president's office by declaring that “ some sinister force erased the segment”. Of course that kind of white washing explanation never sat well with the presidents detractors and his party mates as well. Instead, people like Sen. Howard Baker of Tennessee, co-chair of the Senate Watergate Committee, found himself asking questions like “How much did the president actually know?” Needless to say, the days of the Nixon presidency were, by this time, numbered. In an effort to save his presidency under fire, President Nixon chose to turn over more than 1200 edited pages of transcripts taken from the Nixon tapes to the House Judiciary Committee on April 30, 1974. The transcripts though often had blacked out portions that read “expletive deleted” due to the coarse tone of the president. However accepting the committee was of the transcripts, they still demanded that the president turn over the actual tapes. The disagreement as to legality of the tape being turn over to the investigating committee saw the Supreme Court called into the discussion. Somewhere in the middle of all these complex and confusing political machinations, President Nixon was warned by his White House Counsel John Dean that there was a “cancer growing in the presidency”. He was fired President Nixon and is often pointed to by some revisionist groups (people who choose to rewrite history in order to clear a historical figures name) as the person who was to blame for the complex Watergate cover up that started with the dispatching of the “White House Plumbers” to the Watergate Hotel. The Supreme Court came to a uninamious decision on July 24, ordering the president to turn over the 64 recordings as these were not deemed to be covered by the president's claims of executive privilege. Due to what the House Judiciary committee deemed to be the president's constant blocking of their investigation, the committee decided to pass on July 27, the first 3 articles of impeachment which formally charged President Nixon of Obstruction of Justice. Six of the senators who voted to impeach him inlcuded his own Republican party mates. One of whom was William Cohen, who later became Secretary of Defense under Pres. Bill Clinton in 1997. Having lost the public confidence in his presidency and the growing clamor for his resignation from both sides of the political arena, President Nixon recognized that his time was up on August 8, 1974. He publicly resigns from the Office of the President in a televised speech and turned over the reigns of power to his Vice-President Gerald R. Ford. In the end, it was not only the president who lost face with an entire nation. Those who served as his accomplices in carrying out the Watergate Burglary also paid a price. After all, what kind of message would it send out to the public if high profile power brokers could break the law and get away with it right? The punishemets meted out to the participants are as follows: John N. Mitchell (R) Attorney General of the United States, convicted of perjury. Richard Kleindienst (R) Attorney General, found guilty of "refusing to answer questions" given one month in jail. Jeb Stuart Magruder (R) Head of Committee to Re-elect the President, pled guilty to 1 count of conspiracy, August 1973 Frederick C. LaRue (R) Advisor to John Mitchell, convicted of obstruction of justice H. R. Haldeman (R) Chief of Staff for Nixon, convicted of perjury John Ehrlichman (R) Counsel to Nixon, convicted of perjury. Egil Krogh Jr. (R) Aid to John Ehrlichman, sentenced to 6 months. John W. Dean III (R) Counsel to Nixon, convicted of obstruction of justice. Dwight L. Chapin (R) Deputy Assistant to Nixon, convicted of perjury. Herbert W. Kalmbach (R) personal attorney to Nixon, convicted of illegal campaigning. Charles W. Colson (R) Special Counsel to Nixon, convicted of obstruction of justice. Herbert L. Porter (R) Aid to the Committee to Re-elect the President. Convicted of perjury. G. Gordon Liddy (R) Special Investigations Group, convicted of burglary E. Howard Hunt (R) ‘security consultant,’ convicted of burglary. James W. McCord Jr. (R) guilty of six charges of burglary, conspiracy and wiretapping. Virgilio Gonzalez guilty of burglary. Bernard Barker guilty of burglary Eugenio Martinez guilty of burglary. Frank Sturgis guilty of burglary In a way, Watergate laid out the foundation for the modern way that our news sources cover politics in Washignton DC. People like Sam J. Irvin was the Chairman of the Watergate committee but he also spoke on television during televised hearings in order to explain the consitution in layman's terms to the viewing public. It was during this time of political turmoil that the American public was first allowed to catch a glimpse of what really goes on in the hallowed halls of the Senate thus allowing the viewers to decide regarding certain political situations presented for themselves. President Nixon had hoped that his resignation would finally put an end to the political scandal that was rocking his life. But in reality, he was not immune from suit and could still have been sued on federal and state levels for the various crimes he committed. But thanks to a full presidential pardon from President Gerald Ford on September 8, 1974, he was officially immunized from prosecution for the crimes he had committed while in the presidential office. President Ford explained in his speech to the American people that the pardon was necessary because the Nixon family situation “"is an American tragedy in which we all have played a part. It could go on and on and on, or someone must write the end to it. I have concluded that only I can do that, and if I can, I must." The full pardon did little to end the Watergate Scandal though. Even years later and with the death of the significant players in the robbery, there still lies many questions relating to what really happened and what caused it.Why was Richard Nixon proclaiming his innocence until his death in 1994 without presenting any evidence to prove it? Watergate still serves as an engaging and motivating study of American politics and its complexities. Looking back on the history of the Watergate Scandal, historians might say that this was the point in time when we as a nation, were forced to view our presidents as human, capable of making grevious mistakes which could hurt national interest. This was the era when the White House and its staffers were forced to grow up and acknowledge that they are not employed in the highest givernment office in the land to protect the president, but rather, to protect the interests of the people once the president believes himself to be above the law. Thanks to the lessons learned in the Watergate Scandal, Washington and the White House have become much more effective leaders of our nation. Read More