The Watergate Scandal was a series of political scandals that were uncovered between 1972 and 1975 under the Presidency of Richard Nixon, and centred around a White House backed break in to the local Democratic Party Headquarters at the Watergate Hotel and Office Building.
timeline of events
May 1972 – members of the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP) broke in the the Watergate Hotel for the first time
17th of June 1972 – five burglars are caught breaking into the Watergate Hotel Democratic Party Headquarters
January 1973 – two of the conspirators who didn’t plead guilty initially were then found guilty at trial of crimes relating to the Watergate affair
May 1973 – Archibald Cox brought in to independently investigate the affair
20th of October 1973 – Saturday Night Massacre
July 1974 – the tapes are finally released
9th of August 1974 – Richard Nixon resigns the presidency
context of the time period
In the early 1970s, the political climate of America was very divided and there was ongoing hostility between the Republicans and the Democrats, especially as Nixon began to amp up his re-election campaign. When this atmosphere was combined with his already manic and straight-up weird personality, it was only a matter of time before some thing outside the realms of what was considered ‘acceptable politics’ would occur.
what was the actual event?
In May 1972, some members of the CREEP committee broke into the Watergate Building, which was the Democratic Party’s headquarters at the time, and stole copies of top secret documents and then attempted to bug the phones in the office. However, some of the bugs failed to work properly and so, some months later in June, a group of five burglars were sent back into the Watergate Building with new bugs. At the scene, a security guard noticed that something was wrong because some of the locks in the building had been taped over, and the guard called the police who arrived just in time to catch the burglars in the act.
how was it linked to the president?
In the immediate aftermath, it was not exactly clear whether or not the White House and Nixon were linked to this break in, but suspicions were raised when people realised that there was a copy of the phone number for the Re-election Committee with the burglars’ belongings.
In August, Nixon and the White House denied any involvement with the break-in (they were lying through their teeth of course) and people believed him. He then went on to win the November 1972 election with a landslide victory.
‘This kind of activity, as I have often indicated, has no place whatever in our political process. We want the air cleared. We want it cleared as soon as possible’
29th August 1972 – Nixon’s 27th press conference addressing the Watergate break-in
why was Nixon implicated?
Aside from being directly tied to the original break ins, theft, and wire tapping, Nixon also went on to make several more problems for himself in an effort to prevent the truth from coming out – this was mostly called an obstruction of justice. For example, a couple of days after the five burglars were caught, Nixon paid them a handsome sum of money to keep quiet.
He also worked with his aides to devise a scheme to involve the Central Intelligence Agency (the CIA) to interfere with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (the FBI’s) investigation into the break in, which was not just a crime but an intentional obstruction of justice and clear evidence of Nixon abusing his presidential powers.
who was blamed initially?
Before the truth came out about Nixon’s involvement, seven other people involved were charged with crimes related to Watergate – five of them plead guilty in order to avoid a public, scandal enticing trial, and the other two went to court and were found guilty in January 1973.
how did the whole conspiracy involving the white house come to light?
There were two main reporters involved in the Watergate expose – Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, two reporters at the Washington Post. They had an anonymous source who went by the code name ‘Deepthroat’. There were also some of Nixon’s aides who cracked under the pressure, including John Dean, who testified in front of jury about the President committing crimes – some of the aides also testified that Nixon had secretly taped all the conversations that happened inside the Oval Office, which was the ‘smoking gun’ for the prosecutors. If they could get their hands on those tapes then they would have solid proof of the conspiracy.
Nixon fought desperately to protect those tapes throughout the summer and autumn of 1973, with his lawyers arguing that the executive privilege of the President meant that Nixon did not have to share those tapes. However, on of the key judges involved in the investigation (called Judge Sirica) along with the Senate Committee and a prosecutor who was independent of the committee, Archibald Cox, were all determined to legally obtain the tapes.
Saturday Night Massacre
The Saturday Night Massacre took place on the 20th of October 1973 and was, arguably, one of the most controversial events in the Watergate Scandal. At this point, Archibald Cox, Judge Sirica, and the Senate Committee had been repeatedly asking for the tapes of the Oval Office conversations from Richard Nixon, who was refusing to hand them over, and on the 20th, Cox was fired by Nixon, along with the resignation of the Attorney General Elliot Richardson, and the Deputy Attorney General William Ruckleshaus. The firing of these men came about when Nixon, trying to use an unprecedented display of presidential power, order Richardson and Ruckleshaus to fire Cox, and both men refused and resigned in a display of protest. The man who took their places, named Robert Bork, did as Nixon wanted and fired Co – within an hour, the FBI had been sent to clear out all of their offices.
consequences of this – the Saturday Night Massacre appeared very bad to the public. It looked like Nixon was attacking his own justice department, because he basically was, and in response more than 50,000 citizens wrote telegrams to Washington and 21 members of congress called for Nixon’ s impeachment. Leon Jaworski took over as lead investigator in the Watergate Affair and eventually got the tapes released in July 1974 – the supreme court finally ruled that the tapes did not fall under Presidential Executive Privilege. This ‘smoking gun’ was what finally led to the resignation of Nixon.
Nixon finally resigns
After the release of the tapes on the 5th of August 1974, Richard Nixon announced his resignation on the 8th and left office on the 9th of August. His Vice President, Gerald Ford, was sworn in as the replacement president six weeks later.
Ford then offered a presidential pardon to Nixon for all of the crimes committed during his presidency, however, the other people involved were not so lucky:
Nixon’s Attorney General John Mitchell served 19 months in federal prison
G. Gordon Libby, a former FBI agent and viewed as a ‘mastermind’ of the the Watergate Scandal served 4 and a half years
Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman spent 19 months in prison
long term effects of the Watergate Scandal
Richard Nixon abused the powers of the President in ways that no one had ever done before. He lied repeatedly and practically gaslighted the whole American Public for the better part of two years. When this whole conspiracy came to light, it created a new type of distrust and critical viewing of American politics.
This dismay in politicians, combined with the long lasting Vietnam War, mass protests, assassinations, and other tragic socio-economic conditions meant that the American Dream was being deeply criticised. Watergate was the scandal that entirely blew up the idea of ‘we the people’.
