Saturday, March 11, 2017

Watergate Scandal

The Watergate Scandal is arguably the most infamous political scandal in US history. Even the term "Watergate" has been synonymous with political scandals. The Committee for Re-Election of the President crafted a plan to obtain intelligence for the Nixon campaign. This plan included the burglary of the Democratic National Committee's (DNC) headquarters at Watergate. The objective was to photograph campaign documents and bug the telephones with listening devices.

The burglary was carried out on May 28th, where 2 phones were wiretapped, one being the DNC secretary's phone. A second burglary was executed when the Committee wanted to make sure the wiretapping was truly working. This time, however, a security guard, Frank Wills, saw tape covering the latches of doors, which prevents them from locking. He called the police after it was clear there was a burglary in effect in the building, and 5 men were arrested inside the DNC office.

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                                                              The five burglars of Watergate

The Committee, upon hearing this, scrambled to cover up the burglary's connection to the president. However, one of the committee members was in two of the address books of the burglars. More evidence popped up: money from the Nixon re-election campaign and the Committee was found in the burglars' bank accounts. Judge Sirica had a suspicion that there was a conspiracy much larger than the burglary, but Nixon was re-elected without a hitch.

Nixon created a conspiracy on top of this conspiracy in order to save his presidency, but this was also uncovered in court. The "Watergate Seven" were indicted for hindering the Watergate investigation soon after. Tapes of his cover up were found and the Nixon administration was forced to release them to the public by order of the Supreme Court. With this, even avid supporters of Nixon, including The Chicago Tribune, believed that Nixon must resign or be impeached. As a final blow to Nixon's presidency, a tape that detailed how the administration should stop the FBI from investigating Watergate further, the "Smoking Gun" tape, was released to the public. Faced with the probability of impeachment, Nixon resigned on August 8, 1974.

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                                                        Nixon's resignation address

Evidence shows that Nixon was not behind the Watergate break-ins, but subsequent actions to cover up his committee members' affiliations with it were the cause of his presidency's downfall.

Sources:
https://www.emaze.com/@ACQZZRTO/The-Watergate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate_scandal#Initial_cover-up
http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=nixon_and_watergate_tmln&nixon_and_watergate_tmln_nixon_resignation_and_pardon=nixon_and_watergate_tmln_nixon_resignation

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2 comments:

  1. AnonymousMarch 12, 2017 at 3:55 PM

    Great post! I wonder how the police knew that it was those five men that were a part of the burglary in the first place? It is interesting to learn of the corruptness that happened even back then. It is also terrible how Nixon had to resign although he was not involved in the buglers.

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  2. AnonymousMarch 12, 2017 at 4:52 PM

    Very interesting! Well done post.It is very interesting how this burglary became related to Nixon. I liked how you explained how there wasn't only one but two burgleries taken place at the same location. How do you think Nixon's speech soon after the 5 men arrested at Watergate came out to people? Did it help his cause or did it make people believe more that he an influence of the robbery?

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