Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 11:52, 22 January 2009

Template:Otheruses2

The Watergate scandals were a series of American political scandals during the presidency of Richard Nixon that resulted in the indictment of several of Nixon's closest advisors, and ultimately his resignation on August 9, 1974. The scandals began with the arrest of five men for breaking and entering into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Office complex in Washington, D.C. on June 17, 1972. Investigations conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and later by the Senate Watergate Committee, House Judiciary Committee and the press revealed that this burglary was one of many illegal activities authorized and carried out by Nixon's staff. They also revealed the immense scope of crimes and abuses, which included campaign fraud, political espionage and sabotage, illegal break-ins, improper tax audits, illegal wiretapping on a massive scale, and a secret slush fund laundered in Mexico to pay those who conducted these operations. This secret fund was also used as hush money to buy the silence of the seven men who were indicted for the June 17 break-in.

Nixon and his staff conspired to cover up the break-in as early as six days after it occurred. After two years of mounting evidence against the President and his staff, which included former staff members testifying against them in a Senate investigation, it was revealed that Nixon had a tape recording system in his offices and that he had recorded many conversations. Recordings from these tapes revealed that he had obstructed justice and attempted to cover up the break-in. This recorded conversation later became known as the Smoking Gun. After a series of court battles, the United States Supreme Court unanimously ruled in United States v. Nixon that the President had to hand over the tapes; he ultimately complied.

With certainty of an impeachment in the House of Representatives and of a conviction in the Senate, Nixon resigned ten days later, becoming the only US President to have resigned from office. His successor, Gerald Ford, would issue a controversial pardon for any federal crimes Nixon may have committed while in office.

Watergate scandal
The Watergate complex in 2006
Events
List Presidency of Richard Nixon Timeline Nixon White House tapes Operation Sandwedge Operation Gemstone 1972 presidential election "Saturday Night Massacre" Impeachment process against Richard Nixon United States v. Nixon Resignation speech Inauguration of Gerald Ford
People
Watergate burglars Bernard Barker Virgilio Gonzalez Eugenio Martínez James W. McCord Jr. Frank Sturgis
Groups Master list of Nixon's political opponents Nixon's Enemies List Watergate Babies Watergate Seven White House Plumbers
CRP Committee for the Re-Election of the President (CRP) Fred LaRue Jeb Stuart Magruder Robert Mardian John N. Mitchell Kenneth Parkinson Hugh W. Sloan Jr. Maurice Stans
White House Richard Nixon Alexander Butterfield Charles Colson John Dean John Ehrlichman Gerald Ford H. R. Haldeman E. Howard Hunt Egil Krogh G. Gordon Liddy Gordon C. Strachan Rose Mary Woods
Judiciary Archibald Cox Leon Jaworski John Sirica
Journalists Carl Bernstein Bob Woodward Barry Sussman Harry M. Rosenfeld Howard Simons Ben Bradlee Katharine Graham Lesley Stahl The Washington Post
Intelligence community Mark Felt ("Deep Throat") L. Patrick Gray Richard Helms James R. Schlesinger
Congress Howard Baker Sam Ervin Peter W. Rodino U.S. Senate Watergate Committee Impeachment process
Related Frank Wills (security guard) James F. Neal (prosecutor) All the President's Men (book, film) The Final Days (book, film) Blind Ambition (miniseries) Dick (1999 film) Mark Felt: The Man who Brought Down the White House (2017 film) Watergate (2019 board game) Slow Burn (2020 series) Gaslit (2022 series) White House Plumbers (2023 miniseries)
v t e

Break-in

Significance

The scandal revealed the existence of a White House dirty tricks squad, which was behind an orchestrated campaign of political sabotage, an enemies list, a "plumbers" unit to plug political leaks and a secret campaign slush fund associated with CRP, all with high-level administration involvement. It brought into the open the involvement of Attorney General John N. Mitchell in the dirty tricks, funds and cover-up, as well as key White House advisers, all of whom went to prison for these crimes, for sentences of one to four years. The jail terms had been shortened on the basis of the high level of the convicted, and their cooperation in the hearings.

Investigation

Articles of impeachment, resignation, and convictions

On January 28, 1974, Nixon campaign aide Herbert Porter pleaded guilty to the charge of lying to the FBI during the early stages of the Watergate investigation. On February 25, 1974, Nixon's personal lawyer Herbert Kalmbach pleaded guilty to two charges of illegal election-campaign activities. Other charges were dropped in return for Kalmbach's cooperation in the forthcoming Watergate trials.

On March 1, 1974, former aides of the President, known as the Watergate Seven — Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell, Charles Colson, Gordon C. Strachan, Robert Mardian and Kenneth Parkinson — were indicted for conspiring to hinder the Watergate investigation. The grand jury also secretly named Nixon as an unindicted co-conspirator. Dean, Magruder and other figures in the scandal had already pleaded guilty. Charles Colson stated in his book Born Again that he was given a report by a White House aide that clearly implicated the CIA in the whole Watergate scandal and showed an attempt to implicate him as the one responsible.

On April 7, 1974, the Watergate grand jury indicted Ed Reinecke, Republican lieutenant governor of California, on three charges of perjury before the Senate committee. On April 5, 1974, former Nixon appointments secretary Dwight Chapin was convicted of lying to the grand jury.

Nixon's position was becoming increasingly precarious, and the House of Representatives began formal investigations into the possible impeachment of the President. The committee's opening speeches included one by Texas Representative Barbara Jordan . The House Judiciary Committee voted 27 to 11 on July 27, 1974 to recommend the first article of impeachment against the President: obstruction of justice. The second (abuse of power) and third (contempt of Congress) articles were passed on July 29, 1974 and July 30, 1974, respectively.

In August, the previously unknown tape from June 23, 1972, was released. Recorded only a few days after the break-in, it documented Nixon and Haldeman formulating a plan to block investigations by having the CIA falsely claim to the FBI that national security was involved. The tape, which was referred to as a "smoking gun," destroyed Nixon politically. With few exceptions, Nixon's remaining supporters deserted him. The ten congressmen who had voted against all three articles of impeachment in the committee announced that they would all support impeachment when the vote was taken in the full House. Impeachment by the House and subsequent removal from office by the Senate now appeared certain.

Throughout this time, Nixon still denied any involvement in the ordeal. However, after being told by key Republican Senators that enough votes existed to convict and remove him, Nixon decided to resign. In a nationally televised address on the evening of August 8, 1974, he announced he would resign, effective at noon Eastern Time on Friday, August 9, 1974. Shortly after his resignation took effect, a helicopter took him from the White House to Andrews Air Force base in Maryland. Nixon later wrote that he remembered thinking "As the helicopter moved on to Andrews, I found myself thinking not of the past, but of the future. What could I do now?...". At Andrews base, he boarded Air Force One to El Toro Marine Corps Air Station in California and then to his new home in San Clemente.

Though Nixon's resignation prompted Congress to drop the impeachment proceedings, criminal prosecution was still a possibility. He was immediately succeeded by Gerald Ford, who on September 8, 1974, issued a pardon for Nixon, immunizing him from prosecution for any crimes he may have committed as President.

Nixon proclaimed his innocence until his death, although his acceptance of the pardon was construed by many as an admission of guilt. He did state in his official response to the pardon that he "was wrong in not acting more decisively and more forthrightly in dealing with Watergate, particularly when it reached the stage of judicial proceedings and grew from a political scandal into a national tragedy."

Charles Colson pleaded guilty to charges concerning the Daniel Ellsberg case; in exchange, the indictment against him for covering up the activities of CRP was dropped, as it was against Strachan. The remaining five members of the Watergate Seven indicted in March went on trial in October 1974, and on January 1, 1975, all but Parkinson were found guilty. In 1976, the U.S. Court of Appeals ordered a new trial for Mardian; subsequently, all charges against him were dropped. Haldeman, Ehrlichman, and Mitchell exhausted their appeals in 1977. Ehrlichman entered prison in 1976, followed by the other two in 1977.

Corporate campaign contributions

As part of the continuing investigation in 1974-75, Watergate prosecutors offered companies that had given illegal campaign contributions to Nixon's re-election campaign lenient sentences if they came forward. Many companies complied, including Northrop (which would later become part of Northrup Grumman), 3M, American Airlines and Braniff Airlines. By 1976, prosecutors had convicted 18 American corporations of contributing illegally to Nixon's campaign.

Pardon and controversy

On September 8, 1974, President Gerald Ford granted Nixon a full and unconditional pardon for any crimes he may have committed while President. Highly controversial, this pardon has been argued to be a factor in Ford's loss of the presidential election of 1976. In an editorial at the time, The New York Times stated that the Nixon pardon was "a profoundly unwise, divisive and unjust act" that in a stroke had destroyed the new president's "credibility as a man of judgment, candor and competence." Accusations of a secret "deal" made with Ford, promising a pardon in return for Nixon's resignation, led Ford to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on October 17, 1974.

In his autobiography A Time to Heal, Ford wrote about a meeting he had with Nixon's Chief of Staff, Alexander Haig. Haig was explaining what he and Nixon's staff thought were Nixon's only options. He could try to ride out the impeachment and fight against conviction in the Senate all the way, or he could resign. His options for resigning were to delay his resignation until further along in the impeachment process to try and settle for a censure vote in Congress, or pardon himself then resign. Haig then told Ford that some of Nixon's staff suggested that Nixon could agree to resign in return for an agreement that Ford would pardon him.

Haig emphasized that these weren't his suggestions. He didn't identify the staff members and he made it very clear that he wasn't recommending any one option over another. What he wanted to know was whether or not my overall assessment of the situation agreed with his.. . . Next he asked if I had any suggestions as to courses of actions for the President. I didn't think it would be proper for me to make any recommendations at all, and I told him so.

In a televised broadcast to the nation, Ford explained that he felt the pardon was in the best interests of the country and that the Nixon family's 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."

Aftermath

The effects of the Watergate scandal did not end with the resignation of President Nixon and the imprisonment of some of his aides. The effect on the upcoming Senate election and House race only three months later, was enormous. Voters, disgusted by Nixon's actions, became thoroughly disillusioned with the Republican Party. In that election, the Democrats gained five seats in the Senate and a remarkable 49 in the House.

The Watergate Scandal also indirectly caused many changes in campaign financing. The scandal became a driving factor in amending the Freedom of Information Act in 1976, as well as laws requiring new financial disclosures by key government officials.

While not legally required, other types of personal disclosure, such as releasing recent income tax forms, became expected. Presidents since Franklin D. Roosevelt had recorded many of their conversations, but after Watergate this practice purportedly ended.

Since Nixon and many senior officials involved in Watergate were lawyers, the scandal severely tarnished the public image of the legal profession. In order to defuse public demand for direct federal regulation of lawyers (as opposed to leaving it in the hands of state bar associations or courts), the American Bar Association (ABA) launched two major reforms. First, the ABA decided that its existing Model Code of Professional Responsibility (promulgated 1969) was a failure and replaced it with the Model Rules of Professional Conduct in 1983. The MRPC has been adopted in part or in whole by 48 states. Its preamble contains an emphatic reminder to young lawyers that the legal profession can remain self-governing only if lawyers behave properly. Second, the ABA promulgated a requirement that law students at ABA-approved law schools take a course in professional responsibility (which means they must study the MRPC). The requirement remains in effect.

The Watergate scandal left such an impression on the national and international consciousness that many scandals since then have been labeled with the suffix "-gate".

According to Thomas J. Johnson, professor of journalism at Southern Illinois University, "During Nixon's final days, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger boldly predicted that history would remember him as a great president and that Watergate would be relegated to a minor footnote."

Alternative theories

Although the purpose of the break-in of the DNC offices has never been established, some theories suggest that the burglars were after specific information. The likeliest of these theories suggests that the target of the break-in was the offices of Larry O'Brien, the Chairman of the DNC . In 1968, O'Brien was appointed by Vice President Hubert Humphrey to serve nationally as the director of his presidential campaign and by Howard Hughes to serve in Washington as his public-policy lobbyist. O'Brien was elected in 1968 and 1970 by the DNC to serve nationally as its chairman. With the upcoming Presidential election, former Howard Hughes business associate John H. Meier, working with Hubert Humphrey and others, wanted to feed misinformation to Richard Nixon. In late 1971, the President’s brother, Donald Nixon, was collecting intelligence for his brother at the time and was asking Meier about Larry O'Brien.

Meier told Donald that he was sure the Democrats would win the election because they had considerable information on Richard Nixon’s illicit dealings with Howard Hughes that had never been released, and that Larry O’Brien had the information, (O’Brien didn’t actually have any documents but Meier claims to have wanted Richard Nixon to think he did). Donald then called his brother and told him that Meier gave the Democrats all the Hughes information that could destroy him (Richard Nixon) and that O’Brien had it. This theory has been proposed as a motivation for the break-in.

Numerous theories have persisted in claiming deeper significance to the Watergate scandal than that commonly acknowledged by media and historians. On the "Smoking Gun" tape, Nixon mentions E. Howard Hunt's ties to "the whole Bay of Pigs thing" as the reason the CIA should put a stop to the Watergate investigations. In the book The Ends of Power, President Richard Nixon's chief of staff H. R. Haldeman claimed that the term "Bay of Pigs," as used in a tape-recorded White House conversation, was used by Nixon as a coded reference to a CIA plot to assassinate Fidel Castro during the John F. Kennedy administration. The CIA had not disclosed this plot to the Warren Commission, the commission investigating the Kennedy assassination, despite the fact that it would attribute a motive to Castro in the assassination. Any such revelation would also expose CIA/Mafia connections that could lead to unwanted scrutiny of suspected CIA/Mafia participants in the assassination of the president. Furthermore, Nixon's awareness as vice-president of the Bay of Pigs plan and his own ties to the underworld and unsavory intelligence operations might come to light. A theoretical connection between the Kennedy assassination and the Watergate Tapes was later referred to in the biopic, Nixon, directed by Oliver Stone.

An alternative theory to the mainstream media account of the Watergate scandal was advanced in Silent Coup, a 1991 book by Len Colodny and Robert Gettlin. The two authors believe that it was Nixon's silent war with the Pentagon that ultimately led to his removal from office. The book was criticized for apparent leaps of logic and the citation of weak evidence and its theories are not widely supported by either professional historians or the general public.

Stone and Freed's theory in Secret Honor implies that Nixon deliberately sacrificed his presidency to save democracy from a plan to implement martial law. The theory uses the construct of "Yankees versus Cowboys" to suggest that, since the postwar era, the US has been dominated by Yankees competing with Cowboys. Nixon, who hailed from the Southwest, was initially backed by the military industrial defense contractor power-brokers (the Cowboys); however, he later wanted to jump ship and return government to the east-coast establishment of Yankees. His resignation accomplished this because Nelson Rockefeller, the epitome of the eastern economic elite, assumed the vice presidency after Nixon's resignation. Peter Beter's Conspiracy Against the Dollar further explains how Nixon was possibly a rogue liberal with a conservative mask. Andreas Killen's 1973 Nervous Breakdown mentions this obscure theory behind Watergate.

Gordon Novel, a man known for several controversial investigations, has claimed Watergate served as a discourse to stop the Nixon administration to hold Senate hearings about a postmortem on the Vietnam war.

See also

• List of scandals with "-gate" suffix
• Watergate Babies

References

1. Dickinson, William B. (1973). Watergate: chronology of a crisis. Vol. 1. Washington D. C.: Congressional Quarterly Inc. pp. 8 133 140 180 188. ISBN 0871870592. OCLC 20974031. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help) This book is volume 1 of a two volume set. Both volumes share the same ISBN and Library of Congress call number, E859 .C62 1973
2. Dean, John Aurie (1976). Blind ambition: the White House years. New York: Simon and Schuster. pp. 203–210. ISBN 0-671-22438-7.
3. The Watergate hearings: break-in and cover-up; proceedings. New York: Viking Press. 1973. p. 279. ISBN 0670751529.
4. ^ "The Smoking Gun Tape" (Transcript of the recording of a meeting between President Nixon and H. R. Haldeman). Watergate.info website. June 23, 1972. Retrieved 2007-01-17. {{cite web}}: External link in |publisher= (help)
5. The Watergate hearings: break-in and cover-up; proceedings. New York: Viking Press. 1973. ISBN 0670751529.
6. Nixon, Richard (1974). The White House Transcripts. New York: Viking Press. ISBN 0670763241. OCLC 1095702.
7. The evidence was quite simple: there was the voice of the President on June 23, 1972, directing the CIA to halt an FBI investigation which would be politically embarrassing to his re-election, which was an obstruction of justice. White, Theodore Harold (1975). Breach of faith: the fall of Richard Nixon. New York: Atheneum Publishers. p. 7. ISBN 0689106580.
8. "And the most punishing blow of all was yet to come in late afternoon when the President received, in his Oval Office, the Congressional leaders of his party — Barry Goldwater, Hugh Scott, John Rhodes. The accounts of all three coincide... Goldwater averred that there were not more than fifteen votes left in his support in the Senate...." White, Theodore Harold (1975). Breach of faith: the fall of Richard Nixon. New York: Atheneum Publishers. p. 28. ISBN 0689106580.
9. "Soon Alexander Haig and James St. Clair learned of the existence of this tape and they were convinced that it would guarantee Nixon's impeachment in the House of Representatives and conviction in the Senate." Dash, Samuel (1976). Chief counsel: inside the Ervin Committee — the untold story of Watergate. New York: Random House. pp. 259–260. ISBN 0-394-40853-5.
10. Lucas, Dean. "Famous Pictures Magazine - Nixon's V sign". Retrieved 2007-06-01.
11. ^ Frum, David (2000). How We Got Here: The '70s. New York, New York: Basic Books. p. 31. ISBN 0465041957. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
12. Shane, Scott. "For Ford, Pardon Decision Was Always Clear-Cut". The New York Times. p. A1. {{cite news}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
13. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/28/opinion/28thur1.html
14. Gettlin, Robert; Colodny, Len (1991). Silent coup: the removal of a president. New York: St. Martin's Press. p. 420. ISBN 0312051565. OCLC 22493143.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
15. Ford, Gerald R. (1979). A time to heal: the autobiography of Gerald R. Ford. San Francisco: Harper & Row. pp. 196–199. ISBN 0060112972.
16. Ford (1979), 4.
17. Ford, Gerald (1974-09-08). "Gerald R. Ford Pardoning Richard Nixon". Great Speeches Collection. The History Place. Retrieved 2006-12-30. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
18. Jerold Auerbach, Unequal Justice: Lawyers and Social Change in Modern America, New York: Oxford University Press, 1976, p. 301.
19. Thomas J. Johnson, Watergate and the Resignation of Richard Nixon: Impact of a Constitutional Crisis, "The Rehabilitation of Richard Nixon", eds. P. Jeffrey and Thomas Maxwell-Long: Washington, D.C., CQ Press, 2004, pp. 148-149.
20. Greenberg, David (2005-06-05), "The Unsolved Mysteries of Watergate", The New York Times{{citation}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
21. DuBois, Larry, and Laurence Gonzales (September 1976). Hughes Nixon and the C.I.A.: The Watergate Conspiracy Woodward and Bernstein Missed. Playboy.
22. DiMona, Joseph; Haldeman, H. R. (1978). The ends of power. New York: Times Books. ISBN 0812907248. Retrieved 2007-07-23.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
23. Gettlin, Robert; Colodny, Len (1991). Silent coup: the removal of a president. New York: St. Martin's Press. p. 420. ISBN 0312051565. OCLC 22493143.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
24. "Who is Deep Throat? Does It Matter?". Retrieved 2007-11-01.
25. "Was Nixon duped? Did Woodward lie?". Retrieved 2007-11-01.
26. Bill Ryan, Kerry Cassidy (December 2006). "Project Camelot - Renegade: Gordon Novel on Camera" (Video and Transcript). Los Angeles. Retrieved 20 November 2008. {{cite web}}: More than one of |author= and |last= specified (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link)

Further reading

• Doyle, James (1977). Not Above the Law: the battles of Watergate prosecutors Cox and Jaworski. New York: William Morrow and Company. ISBN 0-688-03192-7.
• Schudson, Michael (1992). Watergate in American memory: how we remember, forget, and reconstruct the past. New York: BasicBooks. ISBN 0465090842.
• White, Theodore Harold (1975). Breach of faith: the fall of Richard Nixon. New York: Atheneum Publishers. ISBN 0689106580. A comprehensive history of the Watergate Scandal by Teddy White, a respected journalist and author of the The Making of the President series.
• Woodward, Bob and Bernstein, Carl wrote a best-selling book based on their experiences covering the Watergate Scandal for the Washington Post titled All the President's Men, published in 1974. A film adaptation, starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman as Woodward and Bernstein, respectively, was released in 1976.
• Woodward, Bob; Bernstein, Carl. The Final Days. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-7432-7406-7.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - contains further details from March 1973 through September 1974.

External links

• White House tape transcripts
• The White House tapes themselves
• Washington Post Watergate Archive
• Washington Post Watergate Tape Listening Guide
• BBC News reports on Watergate
• Watergate Timeline
• Watergate Key Players
• Extensive set of online Watergate
• Biography of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein

Template:Link FA

• Watergate
• Conspiracy
• Watergate figures
• Surveillance scandals
• Political scandals in the United States
• Nixon administration