THE WATERGATE AFFAIR
As a result of his foreign policy successes, Nixon’s ratings in public opinion polls were extremely high as the presidential election of 1972 approached, Nixon’s opponent was Democrat George McGovern, who campaigned for a faster pullout from Vietnam. Nixon’s victory in 1972 was truly staggering; in the Electoral College he won 521 to 17.
The one-sided nature of the 1972 election makes the desires of Richard Nixon and his campaign associates for the events leading up to the Watergate Affair difficult to understand. Nixon’s paranoid view of the American political system colored the decisions that he and his aids made in the months leading up to the 1972 campaign. In 1971 Nixon created an “enemies list” and suggested various forms of harassment that could be used on everyone on the list (wiretaps, investigating income tax records, etc.). On this list were politicians (Senator Edward Kennedy), newsmen (Daniel Schorr of CBS News), and even sports personalities (New York Jets quarterback Joe Namath).
After the Pentagon Papers were released in the spring of 1971 by Daniel Ellsburg, a former employee of the State Department, a special unit to “plug” leaks was formed by the White House. This unit was known as the Plumbers, and included Howard Hunt, a former member of the CIA, and Gordon Liddy, a former agent of the FBI. One of the first actions of the Plumbers was to break into Daniel Ellsburg’s psychiatrist’s office to try to find incriminating information about Ellsburg. Other aides working for CREEP (the Committee to Reelect the President) performed various “dirty tricks” on political opponents. In the 1972 Democratic primaries, CREEP operatives on two occasions ordered 200 pizzas delivered to a opposing campaign office unannounced, “canceled” political rallies for opponents without the opponents knowing it, and with no basis whatsoever, charged that Democratic Senator Edmund Muskie had made negative remarks about French Canadians living in New Hampshire.
On the night of June 16, 1972, James McCord, an assistant in the office of security of CREEP, led four other men into Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, DC. The goal of this group was to photocopy important files and to install electronic surveillance devices in the Democratic offices. The five were caught and arrested; money they had on their person could be traced back to CREEP. This is the beginning of the chain of events that came to he called Watergate or the Watergate scandal.
Five days later Nixon became part of the illegal cover-up of the Watergate break-in. On that day he publicly announced that the White House had absolutely nothing to do with the break-in. More importantly, on the same day Nixon contacted friendly CIA officials and tried to convince them to call the FBI and tell the FBI to cease its investigation of Watergate. This was the first illegal action taken by Nixon in the Watergate Affair.
In the months before the 1972 presidential election, “hush money” was paid to the Watergate burglars and several officials of CREEP committed perjury by denying under oath that Nixon had any knowledge of the break-in.
The Watergate story most assuredly would have died if not for the efforts of reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward of the Washington Post. Despite threats from the White I louse and other political operatives, the two reporters continued to follow the story. They were aided by a secret source named “Deep Throat,” who provided them valuable background information about the case.
James McCord and the other Watergate burglars were found guilty in their January 1973 trial; no mention of White House involvement was made by any of the defendants. It later became known that Nixon personally approved the payment of hush money to one of the defendants during the trial. In February the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities began to investigate the Watergate Affair. During these bearing White House attorney John Dean testified that Nixon was involved in the cover-up and another aide revealed the existence of a taping system in the Oval Office that recorded all conversations held by the President. H. R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, and Attorney General Richard Kleindienst all resigned in an attempt to save the presidency of Richard Nixon. Nixon’s public approval ratings began to fall.
In an effort to quell the firestorm building around him, Nixon appointed a special prosecutor to investigate the Watergate Affair. Almost immediately after being appointed, Archibald Cox demanded that the White House hand over the tapes of all taped conversations.
After losing a court argument that the tapes should be exclusive property of the president, Nixon ordered the new Attorney General to fire Cox. Richardson refused, as did his assistant, William Ruckelhaus, and both resigned. Solicitor General Robert Bork (who would later be an unsuccessful Supreme Court nominee) finally fired Cox. All of these events took place on October 20, 1973, and are referred to as the “Saturday Night Massacre.”
After these events the president’s approval rating dipped dramatically. The Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives began to discuss the formal procedures for impeaching a president. Nixon turned over heavily edited transcripts of most of the tapes to Leon Jaworski, Cox’s replacement; many of the vulgar comments made by Nixon on the tapes shocked both opponents and supporters. Also during this period it was revealed that Spiro Agnew, Nixon’s vice president, had taken bribes as an elected official in Maryland before he was vice president, Agnew resigned in October of 1973, and it was two months before his appointed successor, Congressman Gerald Ford of Michigan, was approved as the new vice president.
During the following months the calls for Nixon’s resignation increased. In April 1974, Nixon released more, but not all, of the tapes requested by the special prosecutor. In July the House Judiciary Committee formally approved three articles of impeachment, stating that the president had ignored their subpoenas, had misused presidential power, and had obstructed justice. Debate was to begin in the full House on impeachment; Nixon’s supporters admitted that Nixon would have been impeached.
Before House hearings could begin, the White House finally complied with a Supreme Court order to release all remaining tapes. One had an 18 1/2-minute gap on in; another was the “smoking gun” that Nixon’s opponents had been looking for. Nixon had always denied that he had known about the cover-up, yet a tape made one week after the break-in demonstrated that Nixon was actually participating in the cover-up at that point.
With no support left, Nixon finally resigned on August 9, 1974. Gerald Ford took over as president and announced that “our long national nightmare is over.” In retrospect, the Watergate Affair was one of the low points of American political history in the twentieth century, rivaled only by the scandals of the presidency of Warren G. Harding.