Watergate Essays (2054 words) - Watergate Scandal, L. Patrick Gray

Watergate WATERGATE Sex, drugs, money, power, you name it and there is a scandal for it, but look back and you will see that from all the scandals there have been, Watergate was among the worst. The Watergate scandal had everything. From Nixon disgracing the presidency by lying to the country and abusing his power, to his committees being involved in illegal acts and a big cover up. All leading to little side roads of corruption and lies. Watergate is by far one of the worst presidential scandals in the history of the United States. In the story of Watergate, five burglars were found breaking into democratic offices at the Watergate complex in Washington DC. The break-in was passed off as just another burglary, but when the burglars were found to have connections with the CIA, questions were starting to be asked. Then when the phone number of Howard Hunt was found in one of the burglars phone books, it made people think, Why would one of the burglars have the phone number of one of the presidents men? Then there is Richard Nixon, the man of the hour, plays the role of the president of the United States of America. The man that was voted into office by the people, and the man that swore to serve the people. When Watergate was uncovered, it revealed that the president was a liar and a cheat. The president lied to our country, lied about his involvement, concealed self incriminating evidence, abused his power, and planed to have the CIA stop the FBI investigations. He was also deeply involved with the cover up and still lied about his involvement. During the times of the unraveling of Watergate, questions were asked about connections with the White House and the president, but when the president was asked about it at a press conference he assured Americans that The White House has no involvement whatever in this particular incident. He was lying to the country like it was part of his job (Dorman 158). The lying did not end there, it went on and on for months, and as the scandal kept unraveling, President Nixon and White House, and creep officials were deliberately misleading the public about the significance of the Watergate affair (158). As Watergate was becoming a front-page article in the newspapers, new evidence was being uncovered. One piece of evidence that changed the peoples ideas of our president was the tapping of every conversation in the oval office since about the 18th month of president Nixon's term (Kutler 368). Those tapes would soon prove that the president was deeply involved in the scandal. During the trials, the Nixon administration claimed that the March 21st, 1973 meeting was the first Nixon had heard of the cover-ups, but after the tapes were heard it was discovered that Nixon was involved from the beginning (Heritage 36). The Nixon tapes brought out much controversy. The tapes alone could prove the president innocent or guilty, whichever one it was, Nixon refused to hand over the tapes. the courts then demanded the tapes, and Nixon still would not give them up. After much struggle Nixon agreed to give a transcript of the tapes. The transcripts brought to light a significant amount of evidence against Nixon. The transcripts revealed payoffs, affiliation with the burglaries, and the OK's to the cover-up, But most important the transcripts showed that Nixon had lied repeatedly after he had denied knowing anything about the conspiracy (27). After much struggle, the courts finally got the tapes from Nixon, It was Archibald Cox that issued the subpoena for the tapes, and that started the bloodbath we now know as the Saturday night massacre. The night of October 20,1973, possibly the most tumultuous in American political history, when the special Watergate prosecutor and the nations two top law officers lost their jobs within the space of an hour and a half. (Heritage 38). Soon the country would find a new problem with the tapes. When the presidents lawyers were going over the tapes, they came along an 18 minute gap during a conversation with Nixon and Haldman (34). Three weeks later, the gap was discovered, Rosemary Woods (Nixon's secretary) testified that while transcribing the tape, she had accidentally erased perhaps five minutes when interrupted by a phone call, she said she had pressed the 'Record' button instead of the 'Stop' button and then kept her foot on the machines control pedal while speaking into the phone. (34) Not everyone accepted this explanation; The maneuver would have been difficult