TT #10 -- 13 Facts about the Watergate Scandal

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Watergate investigations dragged on for two years before President Nixon resigned. Numerous Executive Branch abuses of power (and crimes) were uncovered, causing enormous ripple effects. Congress and the public became more cautious about Executive Branch secrecy, and reporters became more focused on finding real dirt behind politicians' pristine images. Below is a simplified overview of the scandal.

1.  "Watergate" refers to a volcano of scandals that erupted after five men were arrested in June 1972 for breaking into the Democratic Party office (located at a Washington DC hotel/office complex called "The Watergate," see photo).

2. Investigations uncovered illegal acts involving high-level members of Nixon's Administration: e.g., break-ins, political espionage, wiretapping of journalists and citizens....

3.  President Nixon had a recording system that taped  many of his conversations. The "Watergate Tapes" contained damning evidence against the Administration.

4.  Archibald Cox, the first Watergate special prosecutor, tried to get the tapes. Nixon ordered two Justice Department officials to fire Cox; they resigned, instead. Eventually, Solicitor General Robert Bork fired Cox (aka, the "Saturday Night Massacre"). Later, President Reagan nominated Bork to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the Senate refused to confirm him.

5. A tape called the "Smoking Gun" evinced that Nixon, himself, had conspired to cover up the break-in.

6. Not wanting to give the Watergate Tapes to Congress, Nixon claimed Executive Privilege. The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ordered Nixon to hand over the tapes anyway. 

7. Nixon handed over the tapes and resigned 10 days later (August 1974), to avoid a formal impeachment. He was the only U.S. president to resign.

8. Vice President Gerald Ford became president.  In  September 1974, he pardoned Nixon.

9. Among those operatives who went to prison over Watergate were: 

John Mitchell: Nixon's Attorney General and campaign director, who helped plan the break-in. He died in 1988.

John Dean: White House Counsel, who masterminded the cover-up. He was convicted of crimes but cooperated with prosecutors to reduce his sentence. He is now a political commentator, who supports impeachment of President Bush.

Bob Haldeman: White House Chief of Staff,who was involved in the cover-ups. He died in 1993.

John Ehrlichman: White House staffer who created "The Plumbers," a group that tried to plug embarrassing info leaks and to destroy Nixon's political enemies. He died in 1999.

E. Howard Hunt: worked for CIA, later for the White House. As one of Ehrlichman's "plumbers," Hunt co-engineered the break-in. He died in 2007.

G. Gordon Liddy: a former FBI agent who worked for the White House before moving to Nixon's campaign committee. Among other things, Liddy co-engineered the break-in. Now, Liddy has a talk-radio show and does guest spots on Fox.

10.  The "Pentagon Papers"  were secret government reports about the Vietnam war, which showed that the Johnson Administration had misled the public about the war. In 1971, military analyst Daniel Ellsberg gave the papers to the New York Times. The newly publicized deceptions fueled public opposition to the war.

11. CREEP (Committee to Re-elect the President) was a fund-raising group for Nixon, which used slush funds and laundered money. CREEP operatives broke into a Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office to find discrediting information.

12. All the President's Men is a book (and movie) describing Watergate, written by Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, who were among the journalists that helped expose the scandal.

13. Deep Throat was the code name of Woodward and Bernstein's secret source. His real name was W. Mark Felt: he was Associate Director of the FBI until 1971. In 1980, Felt was convicted of a felony for ordering FBI agents to illegally break into to Vietnam-war protesters' offices.  President Reagan pardoned Felt.  After decades of denying being Deep Throat, Felt revealed his identity in 2005.

Sources:

Jurist Legal Intelligence              Washington Post's Watergate Story

WatergateInfo.com                   Wikipedia

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Comments

[plumbing pleasanton]

This is a very interesting piece of history.So we are more suspicious of executive secrecy? A lot of good that has done for us lately.