Watergate Scandal The results of the 1972 Presidential Election were jaw-dropping. Richard Nixon had beat George McGovern by 520-17 electoral votes. Some call it the “greatest landslide in history.” Previously in the year, “the Plumbers”, a nickname given to the future burglars of the Watergate Scandal by President Nixon, raided Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office to find his file after he leaked the “Pentagon Papers” which was classified information about the Vietnam War. This was quite a big deal that he leaked classified information, not to mention Ellsberg was anti-war. This was also the “first spying” done by President Nixon, which led up to the Watergate Scandal. A couple months later, the 5 burglars went to the 6th floor of the Watergate Complex to break into the Democratic National Committee Headquarters. These 5 burglars were ex-Cuban and CIA trained agents who were ordered to get Democratic …show more content…
Dean confessed to the “Dirty Tricks Campaign”; this was the President’s nickname for the whole Watergate Scandal. It also proved that the President had something to do with Watergate. Another of Nixon’s top advisors confessed to their being wiretaps in the President’s office. A week later, Cox issued subpoenas for the tapes. However, the President did not want to hand them in and didn’t want Cox getting any closer to the truth, so Nixon had him fired. The country was very angered by this; hence, why it is known as the “Saturday Night Massacre”. When Nixon was threatened with impeachment for “stonewalling” the investigation, he had his secretary, Rosemary Woods, transcribe the tapes. When the administration had read the transcripts, an issue popped up. 18.5 minutes of the transcribe tapes were missing. The White House claimed that the secretary accidentally deleted the missing parts. The “method” she used was called the “Rosemary
When Nixon was inaugurated, he took a sworn oath to protect the people and the country. He lied to his people. He states, “The major problem on the Watergate is simply to clean the thing up by having whoever was responsible admit what happened. Certainly I am satisfied that nobody in the White House had any knowledge or approved any such activity.” (Memoirs 646).
There are many conspiracies about the scandal. What they do know is that the burglars were wire-tapping phones and tried to steal secret documents. In this scandal it involved bribery, extortion, destruction of evidence, conspiracy, phone tapping, political burglary, illegal campaign contributions, and many more. They also know that they were connected to president Nixon’s re-election campaign. The burglary happened at the Democra...
Out of all of the current presidents in our time the most interesting president to explore was President Richard Nixon and out of all of them he was the only one in term to resign. That Richard M. Nixon, President of the United States, is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, and that the following articles of impeachment to be executed to the fullest extent of their nature. His poor choices and decisions led to his resignation. Although he did have some good qualities in helping the U.S. the bad however override the good. In the CRS (Congressional Research Service) It states: “ Obstruction of justice is the impediment of governmental activities. There are a host of federal criminal laws that prohibit obstructions of justice. The six most general outlaw obstruction of judicial proceedings (18 U.S.C. 1503), witness tampering (18 U.S.C. 1512), witness retaliation (18 U.S.C. 1513), obstruction of Congressional or administrative proceedings (18 U.S.C. 1505), conspiracy to defraud The United States (18 U.S.C. 371), and contempt (a creature of statute, rule and common law). Simple perjury in a federal investigation or judicial proceedings carries an extensive fine and up to 5 years in prison.” This was the first article president Richard M. Nixon was charged with by the House of Judiciary Committee. The vote was 27 to 1 for Nixon to be charged with the first article of impeachment, which was Obstruction of Justice. In denial of his liability in part taking in the Watergate scandal by saying he wasn't involved in the scandal He pointed finger at others that were involved in the break-in. However, tapes were found of conversations that proved his involvement and he was going to be impeached. Before he was charged, he made a resignat...
...criminal case. On June 23, 1972 the “smoking gun” was recorded in the Oval Office. Many say that this tape almost single handedly caused the end of the Nixon era as President of the US. This tape is referred to as the “smoking gun” because it is direct evidence of criminal guilt. On this tape President Nixon told Bob Haldeman to obstruct justice by having the CIA impede the FBI’s investigation of the Watergate break in (Nixon 848-851). In July 1974, the House Judiciary Committee recommended that Richard Nixon be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors. The committee claimed that Nixon had obstructed justice, abused presidential powers, and withheld evidence in a criminal case. Nixon was forced to release the “smoking gun” on August 5, 1974. On August 8, Richard Nixon issued a statement that he would be resigning as the President of the United States effective at noon on August 9, 1974. Therefore on August 9, Gerald Rudolph Ford became the thirty-eighth President of the United States. Ford immediately pardoned Richard Nixon of any and all federal crimes he may have committed while in office. Richard Milhous Nixon died on April 22, 1994 leaving behind his wife and two daughters.
All throughout history from Greece to modern day, tragic heroes have existed, not only in literature, but in real life as well. President Richard Nixon meets the criteria of a tragic hero. During his presidency, Nixon exhibited goodness and had high standing before his fatal mistake that led to his downfall.
On June 31, 1971, President Nixon picked up a copy of his New York Times newspaper and found the 1st story on the Pentagon Papers. The Pentagon Papers was a hidden government document that had information on the Vietnam War. It was also a government study in Southeast Asia. Daniel Ellsberg knew that the government was hiding something. Daniel Ellsberg was a political activist. He was the one who leaked the information to the New York Times. Daniel Ellsberg was morally correct, but what he did was illegal.
Despite the national attention the Watergate scandal had gained President Nixon, he won the second term presidency. The major problem for Nixon would come later. The investigations of the Watergate scandal lead to the discovery of other criminal acts by officials including Nixon. During the investigation many things begin to surface. It was discovered that documents had been destroyed that may have made a link between Nixon and the Watergate scandal. These documents may have shown that he had some acknowledgement in what had happened. There was evidence that people involved in the Nixon campaign had been wire tapping phones illegally for a long time according to “dummies.com”. The greatest issue would come to light during the 1973 Watergate hearings. During testimonies it came to light that every conversation was recorded in the Oval office according to “study.com”. It was demanded that these tapes be reviewed to learn how much involvement President Nixon had in the Watergate burglary. The President felt that he had the right to withhold these tapes through what he referred to as executive privilege. This means that if it is the best interest of the public the president has the right to keep information from the
The election of 1972 was one of the largest landslide victories by a presidential candidate in United States history. President Nixon was reelected to the presidency by beating Senator George McGovern of South Dakota in an impressive victory. The Nixon landslide victory tied FDR’s 60.8 percent of the popular vote in 1936 for the second largest popular vote get in American history. Nixon’s 60.8 percent of the vote compared to McGovern’s 37.6 percent, a difference of 23.2 percent, was also the fourth largest margin of victory in a presidential election in United States History. Nixon not only won with an impressive popular vote margin, but he also won 49 of the 50 states’ electoral votes amounting to 520, while McGovern only received 17 electoral votes. He only won Massachusetts and the District of Columbia. The Nixon landslide victory cannot necceasarily be attributed to Nixon’s policy beliefs, but there are a number of factors which gave Nixon his impressive win. A possible realignment among the American electorate, McGovern being seen as having few leadership capabilities, along with McGovern’s possible failure to get his political message out to the American electorate, and a divide within the Democratic Party are all possible explanations for the Nixon landslide win.
Given these points, after the tapes had been heard, the House of Representatives had a majority vote to impeach Mr. Nixon out of this presidency! He decided he’d rather quit than being fired, that it would somehow save his dignity after all this ridiculousness associated with Nixon’s insane paranoia. He wrote a resignation speech and the congress, the press, and the courts were all proud of their achievement into getting their justice. They did a well enough job that the president had no choice but to pack his bags and leave the WHite House with his tail tucked in between his legs. There was a lot of fixing up to do afterwards, left to Ford and Congress, which took a lot of time and effort. No one is above the law, not even Mr. Nixon and his high presidential chair.
“President Nixon exhibited no interest, much less zeal, in ensuring full public disclosure of all the facts behind this shabby interference with the rights of his political opposition” (“The Watergate Tragedy” 4). The increase of media reports on the Watergate scandal caused the Nixon administration to try and use different methods to slow down the reporters like resist meeting with journalists and not giving comments to reporters. The news reporters were relentless in their search for answers in the scandal and kept on pressing different sources for any information they could get their hands on. News reports eventually showed that the president used the CIA to hinder the FBI’s investigations into where the funding for the break-ins came
As television exposed the truth of government, so did Journalists. Daniel leaking of the Pentagon Papers that explained in detail the Vietnam War, and the leaking of the information to the New York Times in 1971. Scandals like this played an active role throughout the late 1960’s and into the early 1970’s. This eventually led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon in 1974. The critical stand point of the journalists led to the marked contradictory of American politics that grew into turbulent during the 1960s.
Nixon’s hamartia, a fatal flaw that leads to the character’s downfall, was his hunger for power and insecurity. Many people have reported that he would lash out at his enemies. The cause of the Watergate Scandal, the incident when burglars broke into the Democratic National Committee’s office and tried to wiretap phones and steal documents, was Nixon’s insecurity. He didn’t think he was going to be reelected and resorted to unethical actions. This event forced Nixon to resign from office, thus displaying that his insecurity led to his downfall.
Zinn portrayed the Nixon presidency and Watergate affair as secretive and scandalous. Nixon was known for being involved in “dirty tricks” regarding government secrets, corruption, and burglary. Nixon’s corruption infiltrated government along with major companies. For example General John Mitchell created a secret fund against Democrats to help Nixon, large companies gave illegal donations to his campaign, some of his cabinet members stole money, and his Vice President Spiro Agnew received bribes. This corruption also infiltrated the CIA and affected the FBI. Nixon himself took charge of the Watergate scandal in order to steal secret documents and information to aid his re-election campaign. After some of the burglars were caught, Nixon rewarded them with money to keep them quiet. Nixon also used government money for his own private homes and engaged in a secret bombing of Cambodia.
They organized a group of thugs – “Plumbers” to sneak into the Watergate and plant listening devices. The plumbers, James W. McCord, Bernard Barker, Virgilio Gonzalez, Eugenio Martinez, and Frank Sturgis, however, were arrested by the police. Nixon didn’t want anyone to find out about the break-in. He said shortly after the plumbers were caught, "In all my years of public life, I have never obstructed justice. People have got to know whether or not their President is a crook.
Nixon was long associated with American politics before his fall from grace. He was along time senator before finally being elected president in 1968. During his first term, his United States went through the Vietnam War and a period of economic inflation. In 1972 he was easily re-elected over Democrat nominee George McGovern. Almost unnoticed during his campaign was the arrest of five men connected with Nixon’s re-election committee. They had broken into the Democrats national head quarters in the Watergate apartment complex, in Washington D.C. They attempted to steal documents and place wire taps on the telephones. By March of 1973, through a federal inquiry, it had been brought to light that the burglars had connections with high government officials and Nixon’s closest aids. Despite Nixon and his lawyers best efforts, it was shown that the president had participated in the Watergate cover-up. On August 8, 1974 Nixon announced, without admitting guilt, that he would resign. He left the Oval Office the next day: an obvious fall from grace.