The Effects Of The Watergate Scandal

The Watergate scandal was a huge political scandal that altered many American citizens views of their country’s political system. This continues to be a controversial topic to this day due to the secrecy of so much of the information.
On June 17, 1972 at 2:30 AM, five burglars were caught breaking into the Democratic Party’s National Committee offices in the Watergate Hotel and Complex. These five men included a former CIA employee, a locksmith and three native-born Cubans, one who had served in the Cuban Military Army Intelligence. The men had high-tech recording devices, lock picks, door jimmies, 40 rolls of unused film, and two cameras among other things. The burglars also had $2,300 cash on them which consisted of mostly a hundred
They worked together at the Washington Post where they unveiled this scandal to the public. They gathered information from hundreds of administrative officials, campaign workers, White House Staffers, etc.. One of their main sources was FBI associate director, Mark Felt. He went by the name Deep Throat and his true identity wasn’t revealed until 30 years later. In 2005 his family convinced him to admit his true identity to the public. In the movie All the President’s Men, based on the book by Woodward and Bernstein, it goes in depth as to how difficult it was for the two reporters to uncover the story that led to the first presidential resignation. In the movie Bernstein says “by their very silence, there was a cover-up.” If they hadn’t done anything wrong then people would have been willing to talk about the break-in. People were afraid of allowing the interviews because they knew they would be faced with questions where they would be forced to lie. Woodward and Bernstein found links between the Watergate burglars and the CRP. They then found links connecting the White House to the break-in. From the beginning of their investigation of Watergate they knew that something wasn’t right. But they never expected to uncover one of the most talked about scandals in
Prior to Watergate, people trusted the government and believed they were honest and always had the best intentions for the country and its people. One of the things people were most upset about in the whole situation was the fact that the President had continuously lied to them. Not the fact that he wanted the FBI to stop the investigation or the fact that he was willing to pay a million dollars in hush money to the burglars to try and keep the story under wraps. It was a big deal to the people that their President had directly lied to them. After Watergate people wanted more transparency in the government. There was a lot of legislation passed to make the government more transparent and accessible to the people so that they could be more aware of what was going