The Watergate Scandal

The Watergate Scandal had a profound impact on American history that ruptured much of the United States' original composition. The entire political and social map of the US was torn apart and taped back together, producing a brand-new image. Jimmy Carter, whose important reforms include support for the Chinese government in Beijing over Taipei, two new cabinet departments (education and energy), the transfer of the Panama Canal from America to Panama, and an end to redlining, is a Democrat who capitalized off the country's anger at Republican Richard Nixon over the scandal. Carter's status as a Democrat who presided over the worst of the 1970s stagflation crisis enabled the election of Ronald Reagan, who began dismantling the New Deal. Watergate arguably contributed to that loss. The Watergate Scandal breathed life into a carnivorous parasite that ate through the American people's trust in their government. It was such a shocking event that it's now custom to use "-gate" as a suffix essentially meaning scandal. Watergate fundamentally altered the course of America's destiny, but its seeds were planted not in some major political project, but rather in the psyche of one Richard Milhous Nixon.

Nixon was vice president under the extremely popular Dwight D. Eisenhower. Despite this, when he became the Republican nominee in 1960, he still could not defeat the Democrat nominee and Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy. In 1962, Nixon tried to become governor of California but lost yet again. Unable to recover from the embarrassment of losing races both in 1960 and 1962, Nixon effectively retired. However, in 1968, he decided to run for president again. This time, his opponent was the Democrat Hubert Humphrey. Humphrey was vice president under Lyndon B. Johnson, who was originally very popular for his civil rights policies and progressive economic reforms. However, after Johnson initiated the Vietnam War, his popular support rotted away. Humphrey carried all the appeals of the Great Society and civil rights legislation without the repulsive characteristics of the Vietnam War (which he opposed), making him a difficult opponent to go up against. Nixon was still associated with memories of the Eisenhower years, however, allowing him to narrowly defeat Humphrey.

On January 20, 1969, Nixon replaced Johnson as president. He was overjoyed, finally being restored to the power and influence of the executive branch. However, his losses in 1960 and 1962 and the fact that his victory in the 1968 election was secured through such a tiny margin rendered the new president deeply paranoid. He obviously wanted a second term, but his mind was bound to the unhinged fear that he would lose the 1972 election. So, at the end of 1970, he founded the Committee to Re-Elect the President, an organization tasked with promoting his odds of obtaining a second term in the next election. He also installed taping devices in the White House on February 16, 1971, that recorded all conversations exchanged in the Oval Office. The idea was to make sure that no one could slander Nixon and his activities in the White House. If they claimed he had made some absurd statement, aloof remark, or evil comment, then Nixon could simply release these tapes and demonstrate that such quotes never existed.

Soon after installing these devices, Nixon opened up the first CRP office, launching the sight in the capital city of Washington DC itself. Afterward, the CRP began engaging in a collection of corrupt, immoral, and illegal activities meant to preserve Nixon's ability to capture reelection. For instance, Nixon and the CRP accepted large donations from enormous corporations, something that was banned under federal law. Not only were these donations acquired, but CRP officials kept the identity and existence of these donors a secret until 2009! The CRP also broke into an office owned by a therapist for Daniel Ellsberg, a man famous for having leaked The Pentagon Papers where the federal government admitted to lying to the public about the state of the Vietnam War and who had by this point become a prominent Nixon critic. The goal of the break-in was to discover embarrassing information about Ellsberg to use to the GOP's advantage. The CRP even tried to kill Jack Anderson, a journalist who had exposed Nixon for illegally selling weapons to the Pakistani military.

Ultimately, however, it would be one of the CRP's mild infringements on democracy that made it and the president sponsoring it so infamous. On May 28, 1972, the CRP dispatched a group of burglars to the Watergate office complex in Washington DC, where they were instructed to break into a room owned by the DNC. Afterward, they had to bug the phones so that Nixon could spy on phone calls exchanged by DNC officials and gather incriminating information to use against the Democrats in the generals. The CRP also told these burglars to take photos of documents in the office, which would then be analyzed by Nixon Administration officials to find more harrowing dirt. While the photos of documents were successfully produced, the bugging failed due to a technical issue. When this became apparent, the burglars were returned to that same DNC office on June 17, 1972, where they had to fix whatever went wrong. While there, a security guard named Frank Wills spotted the burglars and reported them to the police, resulting in their arrest later that morning.

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, two Washington Post reporters, then learned that many of these burglars owned address books containing the contact information - phone number, address, fax account, etc. - of law enforcement and Nixon Administration officials. Concerned, they published a series of articles urging additional investigation into this detail. As all of this was taking place, Nixon, who was originally unaware of the break-in, was informed of what happened at a White House meeting on June 23, 1972. Desperate to conduct damage control, he ordered investigations into the Watergate Scandal to be stymied, frustrated and suppressed. At the same time, Deputy FBI Director Mark Felt started meeting with Woodward and Bernstein. Felt was outraged at Nixon for not making him full director of the FBI after long-time FBI chairman J. Edgar Hoover died, and so wanted to get back at him. Originally speaking to Woodward and Bernstein over phone call, Felt confirmed their worst suspicion: That, indeed, many officials in the Nixon White House were involved in the Watergate break-in, as well as efforts to cover it up. When Felt developed the ironic fear that his phone may be bugged, he moved the meetings to a dark parking garage in Rosslyn, Virginia. On October 10, 1972, Woodward and Bernstein published an article detailing the revelations provided by Felt, who they protected via the pseudonym "Deep Throat."

Nixon's actual role in the Watergate Scandal wasn't known or even really suspected yet, so he could still win the election. And win the election he did! The Democratic nominee was George McGovern, who lost every single state in the Union except Massachusetts. Aside from Washington DC (which also went to McGovern), Nixon won a majority of votes in the rest of the country. On January 20, 1973, he was inaugurated to begin his second term. But as he was celebrating one of his greatest victories, the game was set for his final loss, the greatest loss he would ever endure. Many of the officials indicted by Felt in the article Woodward and Bernstein published were then arrested. On May 19, 1973, Congress even selected a Harvard law professor named Archibald Cox to lead investigations into the Watergate Scandal. Just under two months later, on July 13, 1973, Alexander Butterfield (one of the officials mentioned by Felt/Deep Throat) gave testimony highlighting the existence of the Nixon tapes. He then appalled the nation by revealing that these tapes captured audio of Nixon urging the Watergate investigations to be stopped by any means necessary.

Throughout the rest of the summer of 1973, Cox repeatedly urged Nixon to simply release the tapes, but the president would not budge. October 1973 was an especially difficult month for Nixon. On October 10, 1973, Spiro Agnew - his vice president - resigned when it was revealed that he had engaged in tax evasion and bribery as governor of Maryland. Then, on October 20, 1973, an irate Nixon asked his attorney general Elliot Richardson to fire Cox. Richardson refused and resigned in protest. Nixon then met with his deputy attorney general - William Ruckelshaus - and asked him to fire Cox. Like Richardson, Ruckleshaus refused and, also like Richardson, resigned in protest. Now losing options, Nixon asked his solicitor general Robert Bork to fire Cox. Bork reluctantly complied and dismissed Cox, replacing him with Leon Jaworski. Nixon also had a collection of FBI agents surround Cox's office and prevent him from continuing his work in protest. These infamous events were immortalized as the Saturday Night Massacre. Many interpreted the Saturday Night Massacre as definitive proof of Nixon's guilt, with the House of Representatives drafting articles of impeachment against Nixon on October 30, 1973.

As Nixon's impeachment was in the works, Gerald Ford replaced Agnew as vice president on December 6, 1973. A few months later, in March 1974, John Sirica, the judge presiding over trials connected to the Watergate Scandal, asked the president to release the tapes. Nixon technically complied, but released a mere 9 tapes - heavily editing all of them beforehand - in an act of snark more than anything else. Sirica, furious with Nixon's behavior, commanded him to release the entirety of the tapes by May 31, 1974. Terrified, Nixon sued Sirica, registering the case of Nixon v. United States. Because both Nixon and Sirica were government officials, the case immediately went to the Supreme Court. Nixon argued that he had executive privilege, a concept in Constitutional law that essentially equates to the president's ability to withhold certain information from the public for the sake of national security. Nixon then said that neither Sirica nor the Supreme Court could dispute this, as Sirica and the Supreme Court were members of the judicial branch, while the boundaries of executive privilege was a question for the executive branch.

On July 24, 1974, the Supreme Court issued its opinion in the case of Nixon v. United States. Sirica won the case, with his order that the tapes be released being upheld by the highest court in the land. On August 5, 1974, a despondent Nixon fulfilled the demands of Sirica and the Supreme Court. On that day, all the audio spun by Nixon's tape recorders and hidden cameras ceased to be hidden. The dark veil of "executive privilege" was tossed away, and the truth was now plain for all Americans to see. Among the tapes now available to the public was the original clip from right after the Watergate break-in where Nixon urged the CRP to fight efforts to investigate the scandal. It was only a matter of time before the entire Nixon White House frayed apart. With obvious proof of Nixon's complacency in the Watergate Scandal, the House of Representatives was obviously going to approve the articles of impeachment. Nixon wouldn't be the first president to be impeached - that title goes to Andrew Johnson - but he would be the first to be removed. Nixon couldn't bear such humiliation.

George HW Bush, who was director of the RNC at the time, also requested that Nixon resign to protect the reputation of the Republican National Committee. Because of this (coupled with the realization that his presidency would be cut short anyway), Nixon gave a televised speech on August 8, 1974, explaining that effective noon the next day, he would become the first president in all of American history to resign. To this day, no other president aside from Nixon has ever resigned. Nixon claimed that his resignation was because of the major foreign policy crises facing all the world, and that he felt his presence had made the country too divided to confront these subjects effectively. This may have been a real concern of Nixon's, but his more selfish reasons were apparent to everyone. On August 9, 1974, Nixon's resignation took effect and Ford moved into the White House. A little under a month later, on September 8, 1974, Ford pardoned Nixon, which basically ended the Watergate Scandal.