Watergate Scandal

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WatergateScandal
Presentation by Robert Martinez Primary Content
Source Americas History, Sixth Ed. Henretta,
Brody and Dumenil. Images as cited.
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• On June 17, 1972, five men carrying
  wiretapping equipment were arrested breaking into
  the Democratic National Committees headquarters
  located in the Watergate Complex in Washington
  D.C.

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Watergate Burglars
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• Questioned by the press, the White House
  dismissed the incident as a third-rate burglary
  attempt. Pressed further, President Nixon
  himself denied any White House involvement.

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• In fact, G. Gordon Liddy E. Howard Hunt,
  were former FBI and CIA agents currently working
  for Nixons Committee to Re-elect the President.
  Their job was to protect the Nixon
  administration, anyway necessary, legal or not.

Howard Hunt
G. Gordon Liddy
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• Hunt and Libby had arranged for the illegal
  wiretaps (listening devices) at the Democratic
  headquarters, part of their campaign of dirty
  tricks against the rival Democratic party.

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• The Watergate incident was not an isolated
  incident. It was part of a pattern of illegality
  and misuse of power by a paranoid and ruthless
  White House.

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• Nixon could have dissociated himself from the
  break-in by dismissing his guilty aides, but it
  was election time. Fearful of bad press, he
  arranged hush money for the burglars and
  instructed the CIA to stop the FBI investigation.

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• Ordering the CIA to stop the FBI from
  investigating the Watergate incident was an
  obstruction of justice, a criminal offense.

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• Nixon managed to keep the lid on the incident
  until after his re-election, but eventually the
  lid blew off due to congressional investigations.

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• In January 1973, the Watergate burglars were
  found guilty. One of them began to talk about his
  White House connections.

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• In the meantime, two reporters at the
  Washington Post, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward,
  uncovered the Committees to Re-elects illegal
  slush fund and its links to key White House
  aides.

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• The slush fund received its money illegally
  from the campaign contributions of the Republican
  party to finance mischief against anyone that
  posed a threat to the Nixon administration.

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• In May, a Senate committee began holding
  nationally televised hearings, at which it was
  discovered that the Watergate break-in was linked
  to the White House.

Attorney General John Mitchell, controlled secret
slush fund.
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• The guilty White House officials implicated
  President Nixon. During the testimony, it was
  discovered that Nixon had installed a secret
  taping system in the Oval office.

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• Claiming executive privilege, Nixon refused to
  surrender the White House tapes. Under enormous
  pressure, he eventually released some of the
  tapes. One of the tapes was suspiciously missing
  18-minutes of recording.

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• Finally on June 23, 1974, the Supreme Court
  ordered Nixon to release the unaltered tapes.
  Lawyers were shocked to find concrete evidence
  that the president had ordered the cover-up of
  the Watergate break-in.

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• By then, the House of Representatives had
  began to consider articles of impeachment, to
  remove the president from office.

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• Certain that he would be convicted by the
  Senate, on August 9, 1974, Nixon became the first
  U.S. president to resign from office.

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Gerald Ford swears in as President of the United
States.
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• The next day, Vice President Gerald Ford was
  sworn in as president. Congressman Ford had
  replaced Vice President Spiro Agnew, who had
  himself resigned in 1973 for accepting
  kickbacks while governor of Maryland.

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• A month later, Ford stunned the nation by
  granting Nixon a full, free, and absolute
  pardon for all offenses he had committed or
  might have committed during his presidency.

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• President Ford took that action, he said, to
  spare the country the agony of Nixons criminal
  prosecution. He felt the country needed to move
  on.

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• In Moscow, puzzled Soviets leaders could not
  understand, how a powerful president could be
  forced to resign, because of what they viewed as
  a minor offense.

President Nixon shaking hands with Soviet Premier
Brezhnev.
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• Soviet history knew no parallel. That was one
  lesson of Watergate that, in America, the rule
  of law prevailed. No one is above the law, not
  even the president.

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• A second lesson involved the constitutional
  separation of powers. As commander-in-chief,
  Nixon asserted unlimited authority, excusing his
  wiretapping. The president does not have absolute
  power due to checks balances.

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• Congress pushed back against the abuses of the
  Nixon administration, passing the War Powers Act
  (1973), limiting the presidents ability to
  deploy U.S. forces without congressional approval.

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• Congress passed the Freedom of Information Act
  (1974), protecting privacy and access to federal
  records, and the Fair Campaign Practices Act
  (1974), limiting and regulating contributions in
  presidential campaigns.

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• Lastly, Congress passed the Federal
  Intelligence Surveillance Act (1978), prohibiting
  domestic wiretapping without a warrant.

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