Watergate+Scandal

Overview
The Watergate scandal was a scandal that led Richard Nixon to resign from office on August 9, 1974. The Scandal also led many high officials who were involved in the scandal to lose their jobs; causing citizens to lose trust in the judicial branch and the government.

Table of Contents
Prelude to Watergate The break-in Hush money and the White House Investigation Nixon Resigns Analysis: A win-win situation
 * Taking advantage of trust
 * Reporters in the 60 to present
 * Acts

Prelude to Watergate
Daniel Ellsberg, who used to be part of the U.S. Marine, released top secret documents to the New York Times newspaper about U.S. military’s behaviors when the Vietnam Warwas still taking place. The documents were later referred as the “Pentagon Papers”. Due to the leak of top secret documents, the White house created a group called “Plumbers” whose goal is to stop anyone from leaking information from the White House. For their first task, the plumbers tried to break into the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist in favor of finding information to discredit Ellsberg; the burglary was not successful. For their next task, the plumbers were ordered to go to Watergate Hotel and break into the Democratic National Committee headquarters not knowing that this burglary was going to change history and causing Nixon to resign from office. == ==

The break-in
<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">On June 17, 1972, a group of five men were caught sneaking around the Watergate Hotel around one in the morning. Security guard Frank Wills was at the hotel that night and noticed that someone had placed tapes on the door between the garage and the stair well. Due to this discovery, Frank notified the police right away; he knew something was wrong. When the police arrived at the hotel, five men were found in the Democratic National headquarters on the sixth floor. The five men were taken in custody. After the break-in, the five men were identified as Eugenio Martínez, Virgilio González, Bernard Barker, James W. McCord, Jr., and Frank Sturgis. All the burglars were pleaded guilty but McCord was found not guilty.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Hush money and the White House
<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">August 1972, a 25,000 dollar check was deposit in a bank account belonging to one of the burglars, the money was later found to be from Nixon’s campaign funds. Due to this action, Watergate investigators concluded that Nixon and his administration paid the burglars “Hush money” to keep their mouth shut about the burglary. With this information, Nixon, his administration and the White House were now being investigated. In January 1973, Nixon’s aides, James W. McCord Jr and G. Gordon Liddy, were convicted of wiretapping in the Watergate incident. Five other men were also found to be involved in the burglary and were pleaded guilty; their names are still unknown to this day. Around April 1973, Nixon’s staffs H.R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, Attorney General Richard Kleindienst, and John Dean resigned from the White House due to the scandal.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Investigation
<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Due to the White House having connections to the Watergate burglary, the Senate decided to open its own investigation in May 1973. By July, the senate Watergate committee found out that Nixon had been secretly recording his conversations in the White House but when the Watergate Committee asked for them the president’s office refused to hand them over. Therefore the Supreme Court told Nixon to hand over the tapes to Archibald Cox special prosecutor; the tapes shows that Nixon was part of the cover-up. When asked for the tapes, Nixon refused and fired Cox causing this event to be the “Saturday Night Massacre”. After the massacre, on June 3, 1973, John Dean a former staff fired from the White House confessed to Watergate investigators that President Nixon and he had discussed about the cover-up in the Watergate scandal more than 30 times. With shocking testimonies, the tapes were finally handed over on December 8. In one of the recorded tapes, Nixon talks with administration officials and agrees that they should approach the director of CIA and the Deputy Director to request L. Patrick Gray to stop the investigation on the Watergate break-in. The tape was called “smoking gun” and it was recorded six days after the break-in at Watergate. The tape showed that Nixon knew everything from the start.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">With all the evidence collected, the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives passed three articles of impeachment against President Nixon on July 30. In the morning of August 9, 1974 before the impeachment proceeding could be heard in congress; Nixon resigned from office. Shortly after he resigned, Nixon and his family said farewell to staffs in the White House and walked out to a helicopter waiting for them in front of the White House. This was the end of Nixon’s presidency; 1968-1974.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Analysis:
<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Although the Watergate scandal became a nightmare when more and more information were revealed, this was a wake up sign for Americans. It allowed Americans to open their eyes and see the truth about trust that has been hiding for years.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Taking Advantage of Trust
<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Americans assumed that politicians knew what they were doing and had a good reason why they were doing it. This thought is what leads Americans to never get involve or question politicians’ ideas. This was also something that influenced the scandal to occur. Everyone that was involved in the scandal were basically high officials; since Americans had strong trust in them the officials probably thought they could do anything and get away with it. Why? Because Americans believed in the government too deeply and only thought of how the government was doing the right thing. More specific, in 1921 theTeapot Domescandal occurred when President Warren G. Harding helped his Secretary of the Interior, Albert B. Fail, leased the Navy’s oil. The oil was leased atTeapot Dome,Wyomingand inElk Hills,Californiato two businessmen, Harry Sinclair and Edward L. Doheny. In favoring of getting the oil, the two businessmen paid Fall “loans” that were about $300,000. No one questioned why Fall was getting $300,000+ nor did the places them two borrowed the money from.Americanever questioned the congress why they were doing the things they were doing, yetAmericaallowed things to happen with no reason being told. In other words, the government had all ofAmerica’s trust but this all changed after the scandal.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Due to the Watergate scandal, Americans were able to realize how selfish the government can be therefore the public insists in being more involved with the government. The public were able to know what politicians are doing even when the doors are closed and had the right to know where and what the president is doing. As time goes by, the public is getting more and more involved with government issues.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">**Reporters in the 60 to present**
<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Back in the 60’s, there were only few reporters that knew stuff about the government but none of the information they knew were spoken or shared with the public. People just kept things to themselves. After the scandal, when the public was demanding to know what politicians are doing, tons of reporters would just rush in and tell their information to Newspaper Company and before you know it, information about high officials were being talked about from left to right. Even to this day, reporters will release information on politicians to either discredit them or to tell the public what that politician is up to. Since the scandal, reporters don’t keep information to themselves anymore but they go and tell the public what they know. Knowing what politicians are doing was a big thing after the scandal because the congress and the citizens didn’t want anyone to abuse their power. With reporters getting information and releasing information on politicians, this was a way where the public and congress are able to get information.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">**Acts**
<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">The Congress also passed Acts that would make the government and the president stay on track. This prevented them from going over their boundaries. Here are two of the Acts that was created after the Watergate scandal:

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">**//__ Freedom of Information Act Amendments (1974) __//****//://** This act was passed to allow the public to be able to obtain or have access to government papers.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">-With this act, it will be much easier for the public to get papers from the government if they are accused of something. Now the public won’t have to go through the long phase of going to court if the government refuses. The public will be able to get the papers and read what the government is up to. This Act has come in handy in the past few years when other scandals had occurred after Watergate. For example, the United Kingdom Parliamentary expenses scandal in 2005; the scandal was revealed to the public of UK. Two public members requested to see certain documents the UK government had. This request was approved and the two public members got the documents with no arguments due to the act. = = <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">**//__ Intelligence Authorization Act (1980) __//****// : //**** //“// **// required the Executive Branch to keep the House and Senate Intelligence Committees "fully and currently informed" of all U.S. intelligence activities.” //

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">-Now the Executive Branch won’t be able to abuse their power because of this Act. The Executive Branch will have to inform the House and Senate Intelligence Committees about all of the intelligence activities. Therefore, the Committees will be able to keep track of what’s going on and making sure the Executive Branch doesn’t d o something they’re not suppose to.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">**A win-win situation** <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">After everything that happened during the Watergate scandal,Americawas able to take advantage of the scandal and turn it into a lifelong lesson. Now that Americans know the truth behind the government, they were able to obtain more power than before. They now have the power to be able to obtain files unlike before they probably couldn’t. This scandal also helped Americans participate in some of the congress or government meetings; Americans are now able to speak what they want to say. It was more of a win-win situation because Americans now have a voice and our government is a better government than before.