The Watergate scandal and its political consequences

Watergate Affair began early in the morning of June 17, 1972, when five men were caught in the middle of burglarizing the Democratic National Committee Headquarters, which was located in the Watergate Office Building in Washington, D.C. The men were making adjustments to bugs they had previously installed (Staff writers, p. 467). Investigation revealed that one of the men arrested, Jams McCord, was the security coordinator for the Committee to Re-Elect the President, who was Richard M. Nixon. McCord's involvement laid suspicion on the Presidency, and a local newspaper, the Washington Post, began intensive investigations about whether the President was involved in "dirty tricks" against the Democratic Party.

However, Watergate didn't just appear out of nowhere. Politicians have used all sorts of dirty tricks as long as elections have been held, and Nixon had particular concerns about information leaks. In 1969 and 1970, Nixon approved illegal wiretaps (without court permission) on government officials and journalists in an attempt to find out who had leaked information regarding Viet Nam bombing campaigns in Cambodia (Staff writers, p. 467). Even these attempts went too far when Senator Edmund Muskie, a contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, was wiretapped. Nixon stopped these practices only after the head of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, complained about them (Staff writers, p. 467). Another leak that distressed President Nixon was the publishing of the "Pentagon Papers," a study by the Secretary of Defense on the Viet Nam conflict (Emery, p. 39). Some of the information included real security breaches, such as information obtained from the United States Embassy in Saigon (Emery, p. 40), giving some credibility to Nixon's concerns over leaks. However, his response violated federal law, and the violations continued as both Nixon and many of his most trusted advisors continued to stonewall, lie, and distort facts in an effort to prevent the Watergate incident from being traced back to him.

However, it was not the burglary itself that brought Nixon's presidency to an end, but rather his extended attempts to cover up any connection to himself. The new acting director of the FBI, L. Patrick Gray, resigned after acknowledging that he had destroyed evidence as well as giving false testimony (Staff writers, p. 467). Nixon learned as early as six days after the break-in that the Attorney General, John N. Mitchell, had approved the break-in. By the end of the scandal more than 70 individuals had been convicted of crimes, including cabinet members. Nixon would have been the first President in history charged with committing felonies while serving as President except that Gerald Ford, who became President after Nixon resigned, gave him a presidential pardon (Feldstein,-PAGE).

Washington Post reporters, led by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein and followed by reporters from other newspapers and television stations (Feldstein,-PAGE) embarked on extended investigative journalism that finally discovered a trail of money leading from campaign contributions to the burglars (Staff writers, p. 467). While Woodward and Bernstein got the credit for first bringing the story to light, as media reports increased, later research showed that much of what newspapers, radio and television reported to the public had already been discovered by investigative agencies such as the FBI (Feldstein,-PAGE), which suggests that perhaps the famous informer who met periodically with Woodward might have been someone from inside the FBI.

Eventually, money paid to two of the burglars, James McCord and G. Gordon LIddy, were traced to the Committee to Re-Elect the President ((Staff writers, p. 467). However, that did not implicate President Nixon. Jeb Magruder, Deputy Director for the Committee to Re-Elect the President (Emery, p. xvii), had begun the initial cover-up activities. Eventually, however, White House Counsel John Dean took over the task of coordinating the cover-up. When called before a Congressional committee, Dean spoke the truth and reported extensive White House involvement in both the break-in and the cover-up (Rosen,-PAGE).

However, not everyone believed Dean, and except for one mistake by Nixon, he might never have been tied to the break-in and following events. What may have brought Richard Milhaus Nixon's presidency to an end, forcing him to resign or face impeachment, may have been hubris. His landslide victory in the 1972 presidential election, in which he won all the electoral votes for 49 of the 50 states, may have led him to believe that the American people had given him permission to do whatever was necessary for him to achieve his goals (Washington Post Staff, p. 23). Nixon had an elaborate system in his Oval Office for taping conversations. That recording system activated when Watergate was being discussed (Feldstein,-PAGE). If Nixon had destroyed those tapes, Dean's claims might never have been believed, and conceivably Nixon might have been able to stay in office. However, other events implicated the President as well, and the cumulative weight of them was damning. After McCord was found guilty, he asserted that witnesses had lied at his trial and that he had been pressured to plead guilty to prevent more information from coming out in such a trial (Staff writers, p. 468).