Watergate

Ben Decker Liam Thompson Wes Crawfordt

During President Nixon’s first term, after he was elected in 1968, he accomplished quite a few things. He straightened out America’s involvement in Vietnam, ending the draft and making a treaty with North Vietnam in 1973. Under his presidency men, Americans in fact, first set foot on the moon. He made a treaty with Leonid I. Brezhnev, leader of Russia, to limit nuclear weapons in the two countries. However, it was in his second term, beginning in 1972, that he is best known for. For it was in 1972 that the Watergate Scandal first blew up. This scandal was a break-in at the Democratic National Committee’s offices to get information about the democrats. It was later revealed that the people that had conducted the break-in had been payed by Nixon using money for his election campaign. Nixon attempted to disrupt the investigation, and tapes were soon released proving this. On November 18, 1973 Nixon addressed the scandal with his “I’m Not a Crook” speech. Nixon resigned the next year on August 9, 1974 to avoid impeachment, this made him the first president to resign from office.
 * A Brief History of Nixon's Presidency and His Involvement in the Scandal:**

The name of Watergate first became infamous while president **Richard M. Nixon** was in office. Nixon had sent workers to spy on the Democratic Party headquarters which were in Watergate apartments in Washington. Nixon's workers would go into the apartments and steal things, so Nixon could find out what the Democratic party was up to. Then one day two reporters found out about what Nixon was doing. Their names were **Bob Woodward** and **Carl Bernstein**. They both were working with two different newspapers at the time, and then they both accused the president and his aides. Later Nixon left office, fined $10,000 dollars, and three years on probation. 56 men in Nixon’s administration were convicted of Watergate-related crimes. Some went to jail and others did not. This event made Nixon the first president to resign from office mid-term.
 * Brief Overview of Watergate:**

On June 18, 1972, criminals from Miami broke into the Democratic National Headquarters at the Watergate hotel. After close investigation by reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, it was discovered that James McCord, one of the burglars, was on the payroll of President Nixon’s Re-election committee. In private, Nixon attempted to stop the FBI from pursuing the break-in, but failed. He knew in his stomach, that he was in for it. A few weeks later, a jury indicted two member’s of Nixon’s government for communicating with the burglars via walkie-talkie. The two immediately lost their jobs, as the president insisted that he was innocent of any wrongdoing. Days later, though, it was found that a check for $25,000 had been deposited in the bank account of one of the burglars. The money had been raised during Nixon’s re-election campaign, and had been deposited by Maurice Stans, the president’s chief fund raiser. Despite the astounding evidence pointing towards our president, very few heads began turning. It didn’t seem possible that he could be involved in this. As President Nixon approached almost certain re-election Bernstein and Woodward came out with their biggest article yet. It exposed Attorney General John Mitchell for sending campaign money towards an effort to gather information about the democrats. The report also pointed fingers at Nixon’s aides, saying that they had sabotaged the Democrats in their re-election campaign. Soon after Richard Nixon was successfully re-elected, a number of his top aides went on trial. Many refused to plead guilty to Watergate-related charges, and were later convicted of perjury, and received even harsher punishment. That same month, it was discovered that the burglars had not only acted at Watergate, but had also broken into the office of Daniel Ellsburg. Ellsburg had access to secret pentagon papers, and had once given them to the New York Times. The burglars looked for something to possibly harm Ellsburg’s career, and when they didn’t, they escaped unnoticed. Only months later, in July 1973, Alexander Butterfield, a White House aide, told the newly founded Watergate committee that president Nixon had a taping system that had recorded all of his conversations with the oval office. Nixon was ordered to hand over these tapes, and when he refused, he was summoned to court. The White House insisted that Nixon would do no such thing, and there was really no way that people could respond, they certainly couldn’t force him there. Shortly after this, Nixon agreed to give written summaries of the tapes. And on what became known as “The Saturday Night Massacre” Nixon began firing one aide after another, for many were caught referring to Watergate plans in the tapes. On November 20, 1973, lawyers let slip that 18 minutes worth of tape had not yet been released, for the White House would have difficulty explaining their contents. Nixon refused to hand these over even as 12 more of his aides pleaded guilty to charges involving the burglary. It was soon announced that impeachment would be considered if the President did not hand over the remaining tapes. The tapes were released in July of 1974, and through them, it could be told that Nixon had indeed played a leading role in the Watergate burglary, as well as its cover-up. On August 8, 1974, a teary-eyed Nixon resigned as an alternative to facing impeachment.
 * The Watergate Story:**


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