Key Aspects of the Watergate Scandal - Coursework Example

THE WATERGATE SCANDAL 2007 THE WATERGATE SCANDAL INTRODUCTION The Watergate Complex includes several administrative and hotel building located on thePotomac River in Washington, D.C., but unlike hundreds other complexes of similar caliber the Watergate is known to almost any adult citizen in the US and abroad. In fact, the event was so important that the term ‘Watergate’ is more commonly associated with a series of political scandals that culminated in constitutional crisis than with the hotel. The Watergate Scandal occurred during the presidency of Richard Nixon and began with arrest of five burglars at the Watergate hotel complex in Washington, D.C. and ultimately resulted in dramatic resignation of President Nixon on the 9th of August, 1974. MAIN DISCUSSION In the months preceding the Watergate break-in, Nixon and his administration had been extremely preoccupied with their public image, and took every possible step to avoid negative publicity. The preoccupation was reasonable: Nixon’s policies regarding the Vietnam War generated much criticism, and the leaking of the documents concerning the US involvement in the Vietnam War submitted to the New York Times by Daniel Ellsberg in 1971 only fueled the criticism (Bernstein and Woodward 165). In order to prevent further leaks, Nixon established a special unit nicknamed the “Plumbers”. The unit led by G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt (both of them were close to Nixon) took advantage of the situation to get involved in investigation of the private lives Nixon’s critics justifying their actions with national security consideration. Evidently, the true motives underlying many actions of the Plumbers had more to do with protecting the President’s public image from criticism and preparing the base for the forthcoming elections (Bernstein and Woodward 207). The Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP) was established in 1972 and in December the same year G. Gordon Liddy, one of the Plumbers, was appointed as general counsel to the Committee. This appointment made CREEP a powerful weapon in the hands of Nixon with Liddy behind most of CREEP’s activities. In 1972, Liddy designed a serious intelligence operation against the Democrats. One of the steps within the framework of that operation was a small-scale burglary of the Democratic National Headquarters in the Watergate office complex (Westerfeld 35). On June 17, 1972, five burglars were arrested by police inside the Democratic National Headquarters in the Watergate office building in Washington DC. Four of the burglars were Cuban anti-Communists and one White House employee: they were caught during an attempt to bug the office. The Washington police convicted James McCord, Virgilo Gonzalez, Bernard Barker, Eugenio Martinez, and Frank Sturgis of 2nd degree burglary (WHT 820). The burglars had an impressive amount of tools and materials, namely a walkie-talkie, two 35-millimeter cameras, lock picks, pen-size teargas guns, advanced bugging devices, and 40 rolls of unexposed film. Besides, they also had $14,000 in hundred dollar bills that could be traced directly to CREEP (Bernstein and Woodward, 15-16). Therefore, it immediately became clear that those people had links to Nixon’s Committee to Re-Elect the President. Thus, McCord was a former CIA officer employed by the CREEP as a security director. However, despite charges filed against Liddy and Hunt for their role in organization of the burglary no serious damage was done to CREEP’s reputation. There were at least two reasons for that: firstly, the information disclosed at that moment was too incomplete which resulted in huge underestimation of CREEP’s role; secondly, Nixon’s leading positions during the pre-election period allowed him to successfully avoid any further investigations and accusations at that time (Westerfeld 45). Nixon read about the break-in on the 18 of June and the whole thing seemed so weird to him that he did not believe it and initially dismissed it as a political trick (Nixon 625-626). Charles Colson, a special counsel to President Nixon, had a phone conversation with Nixon to discuss the Watergate and as Colson admitted, the President was extremely 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” (White 161). Nixon’s frustration was apparently due to the fact that tapping the Watergate office was almost useless since no valuable information could be retrieved from there while the consequences of that foolish endeavor seemingly minor in the beginning clearly had the potential to get more serious and hamper the whole re-election campaign (Nixon 629). The next few months proved Nixon’s worries partially reasonable: although the break-in did not damage his campaign, the minor prank had rapidly escalated into a huge political scandal after the election. The situation changed dramatically after the election. Liddy and Hunt were charged with several counts of conspiracy burglary, illegal wiretapping, and illegal possession of eavesdropping equipment together with the five men arrested at the Watergate (Sirica 67). Hunt pleaded guilty and although Liddy and McCord refused to do so allegations appeared that the White House was aware of the break-in and took efforts to cover it up. On January 30, 1973 Liddy and McCord were pronounced guilty, but Judge Sirica was convinced that many essential details relevant to the case had not been revealed and offered leniency in exchange for further testimonies (Sirica 88). The Judge’s decision was absolutely reasonable: in March of 1973 Sirica received a written confession of McCord which unveiled the actual scale of the White House involvement. In particular, McCord mentioned the pressure to plead guilty and not disclose the relevant information and alleged John Dean, Counsel to the President, and John Mitchell, the former Attorney General, of instructing him and other convinced to commit perjury (Sirica 222). The letter immediately generated nation-wide response. On May 17, 1973, the Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities established by the Senate in February opened hearings to investigate the cover-up allegations. During the hearings the Counsel to the President, Dean testified that Nixon was aware of the Watergate break-in and responsible for organization of the cover-up (Westerfeld 43). Furthermore, in July 1973, Alexander Butterfield, a former White House official of high rank, disclosed at the court that Nixon had taped conversations in the Oval office. Butterfield’s testimony could be addressed as the turning point in the whole Watergate story (White 170). On the basis of that testimony, Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor demanded Nixon to submit the tapes to the court, but Nixon refused citing his Presidential immunity from judicial orders (Sirica 222). The prosecutor’s claim marked the beginning of a lengthy legal fight over the tapes. In his memoirs, Nixon admits that his intention not to disclose the White house tapes was imposed by personal safety motives: Nixon considered them to be the best insurance against any potential witnesses among the people he worked with (Kutler 46). However, the future developments in the Watergate case clearly demonstrated that Nixon’s decision to keep the tapes was a mistake. The President’s attempt to hide the tapes had little success: the FBI found some tapes during their early investigations, 42 tapes were revealed by the Judiciary Committee, and finally in April 1974, Nixon agreed to disclose edited transcripts of the taped conversations (Kutler 46-50). Besides, the legal battle over access to the tapes initiated by Cox finally went to the Supreme Court, and on July 24, 1974, the Court issued the unanimous statement that Nixon’s claims of executive privilege over the tapes were void. Consequently, the Court ordered Nixon to disclose the tapes which was done on July 30, 1974, when the President released them. In particular, the newly revealed information confirmed McCord’s statement that the defendants had been put under severe pressure to plead guilty and paid money for their silence with the President’s consent (Bernstein and Woodward 230). The public response to the Watergate scandal turned out to be extremely severe. Nixon’s popularity dropped to 25 percent by mid-1974; his political party lost 49 seats in the House and 4 seats in the Senate in 1974; and finally, 71.5 per cent of the public favored impeaching Nixon in 1974 (Uslaner 2004). As a result, 3 articles of impeachment passed approval in the House committee on July 30: obstruction of justice, abuse of presidential power, and trying to impede the impeachment process by defying committee subpoenas. Evidently, the most probable outcome for Nixon was impeachment and removal from office. Under such circumstances Nixon had no other choice but to resign his office which he did on August 8, 1974. In his address to the nation on that night he stated, “I have never been a quitter. To leave office before my term is completed is abhorrent to every instinct in my body. But as President, I must put the interest of America first. America needs a full-time President and a full-time Congress, particularly at this time with problems we face at home and abroad.”(Nixon 1). The next day Nixon’s resignation letter was handed over to Henry Kissinger, the secretary of the White House. CONCLUSION Although the cause and significance of the Watergate scandal remain subject for debate among US historians and public, one can hardly deny the fact that that event produced irreversible changes in the country’s political life (Brinkely 888). The effects of those changes are present in society up to this date with people being more aware of the actions and steps of the politicians and media being increasingly involved in political issues. Firstly, the Watergate scandal broke the traditional perception of the president. Prior to the scandal the US citizens treated the president with great respect expecting him to be a person with outstandingly high moral regards and unblemished reputation. The Watergate has fully eliminated that erroneous stereotype, and the public and media treat the president as a human being these days. Even after the Watergate scandal was finally over, the media continued their tour into the lives of famous politicians, including the president. The explanation was simple: the popularity of news about the Watergate was unprecedented. President Bill Clinton and President George Bush Jr. are the most recent victims of the acute media interest. Secondly, the Watergate demonstrated flawless operation of the US Constitution. Despite availability of decisive evidences which unambiguously proved his involvement in illegal activities Nixon continued to abuse his presidential power and refused to disclose the content of the tapes thus creating “…a climate in which he and those who served him could justify almost any tactics to stifle dissent and undermine opposition” (Brinkley 887). However, the Supreme Court forced Nixon to surrender the tapes, which subsequently resulted in the President’s resignation, and thus demonstrated viability of the existing balance of power. More than thirty year later, the Watergate still provides a valuable example for the politicians, the media and the public. The politicians are perfectly aware that regardless of their position or powers they are not above the law. Numerous changes in financing political campaigns undertaken in the aftermath of the scandal significantly limited the opportunities for unfair practices. Several important laws have been passed requiring new financial disclosures by government officials of high rank. Also the scandal became one of the key reasons for amendment of the Freedom of Information Act in 1976 (Brinkley 14). The media has become extremely alert to any flaws or mistakes committed by politicians: the interest in finding the dirt of most popular political figures remains the distinct feature of modern journalism. Some scholars argue that the Watergate Scandal has also had a very serious impact on the legal profession. Nixon and many other officials involved in the Watergate trials were professional lawyers (Auerbach 301). The public image of this profession was seriously damaged which eventually led to emergence of new regulations and codes to enhance professional responsibility of lawyers. And finally, the citizens have ceased to be the passive victims of unfair politicians and realized their actual influence on the political life. WORKS CITED Auerbach, Jerold. Unequal Justice: Lawyers and Social Change in Modern America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1976. Bernstein, Carl and Woodward, Bob. All the President’s Men. New York: Touchstone Books, 1976. Brinkley, Alan. American History: A survey. 11th ed. New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 2003. Kutler, Stanley I. The Wars of Watergate: The Last Crisis of Richard Nixon. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990. Nixon, Richard. RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon. New York: Touchstone Books, 1990. Sirica, John J. To Set the Record Straight. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1979. The White House Transcripts. New York: The Viking Press, 1974. Uslaner, Eric M. Sex, Lies, and Audiotapes: The Watergate and Monica Lewinsky Scandals in American Politics, In John Garrard and James A. Newell, eds., Scandals in Past and Contemporary Politics. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2004 Westerfeld, Scott. Watergate. Englewood Cliffs: Silber Burdett, 1991. White, Theodore H. Breach of Faith: The Fall of Richard Nixon. New York: Atheneum Publishers, 1975. Read More