Watergate 2 Essay, Research Paper

In the 1970s there was an ordeal much like what we the public of the 1990s are going through. It was called Watergate and it divided the American public. In my opinion President Nixon had no prior knowledge of the scandal and tried to cover up any wrongdoings. Mistakes were made, words were said, and we lost a potentially great President.

On June 17, 1972, Bernard L. Barker, James W. McCord, Grand Fiorini, Eugenio Martinez, and Raul Godoy were seized at gunpoint. They were carrying cameras and surveillance equipment, which they had been using when they broke into the Democratic National Committee office in the Watergate Complex. An office was found burglarized, with files opened and ceiling tiles removed. They were reportedly linked to the CIA at one time or another. Officials started to see a link to Nixon also. His campaign manager denied any involvement in the burglary. (Watergate 11)

On July 1, a former White House consultant by the name of E. Howard Hunt Jr. was linked to two of the men arrested. Hunt s name and home telephone number were found in the address books of the men. The FBI began a sweeping manhunt to find him. As it turns out Hunt and the two men had previously been business partners. (Evans 57)

A federal grand jury in the District of Columbia indicted G. Gordon Liddy and Howard Hunt Jr. on September 15. These men and the five who broke into the Democratic headquarters were brought in for conspiring to break into the in the capital. Nixon responded to the charges of corruption in his administration at a surprise news conference in his office October 5. It was his first news conference since August 29. (Watergate 13)

Many of the reasons Nixon’s administration gave for being at Watergate began turning up false. The president was asked why his administration did not awnser truthfully about what they were doing at Watergate. Nixon said, that decision had been made at a lower level. He criticized the FBI investigation and did not because the grand jury was handing down indictments. (Watergate 14)

A report in the October 23 issue of Time Magazine linked a Republican political sabotage effort against the Democrats directly to the White House. It said that Los Angeles attorney Donald H. Segretti, previously on spy operations against Democratic campaigns, had earlier been hired in September by Dwight Chapin, a deputy assistant to President Nixon, and Gordon Strachan, a White House staff assistant. Time Magazine declared that the information came from the Justice Department files. (Evans 61)

The New York Times on May 2 reported statements from government investigators. The claims stated they had evidence that high White House officials and the committee to re-elect the President conspired after the June 1972 Watergate raid, so that they could cover up the federal investigation. I believe this was the final blow to Nixon s administration. When the public sees someone trying to cover something up, it usually means that has done something horribly wrong. This was probably when he lost public support. The report, by reporter Seymour M. Harsh, said the investigators claimed evidence that the cover-up effort was co-ordinated by Haldeman, Chrilichman. The expectation of indictments against all six was credited to sources close to the case. (Watergate 39)

The grand jury s investigation of possible involvement in the cover-up was reportedly focused on four other people: White House aides Dwight L. Chapin, Gordon Strachan, Herbert L. Porter, and attorney Kenneth W. Parkinson. Nixon s campaign committee hired Parkinson after the Watergate break-in. The New York Times reported on May 7 that Nixon sought, on two occasions, to block the release of details about the burglary of the office of Daniel Ellsberg s former psychiatrist. The first attempt came on April 16 when Nixon tried to bar the release of a Justice Department memorandum revealing that the break-in had taken place. The second came April 30, when former White House aid, Egil Kregh Jr. was told the President doesn t want anymore of this to surface for national security reasons by presidential assistant John D. Ehrilichman. (Evans 39)

Work Cited

Evans, Les and Allen Myers. Watergate and the Myth of American Democracy. Pathfinder

Press, New York. 1974.

Schudson, Michael. Watergate in American Memory. W.W. Nortonand Company. New York.

1980

Watergate and The White House. Facts on File, Inc.. New York, New York. 1973

More and more harmful evidence and testimony came to surface over the course of the trials. Cover-ups were revealed and people talked when they shouldn t have. Nixon lost his credibility and any chance of deceiving the public of his innocence. He had painted himself into a corner.

Nixon admitted to approving a plan for expanded intelligence gathering operations with the knowledge that certain aspects of it were clearly illegal. In his May 22 statement on the Watergate affair, President Nixon had acknowledged establishment of an interagency committee for better intelligence operations. However, he said, the committee was scrapped after Federal Bureau of Investigation Director J. Edgar Hoover voiced opposition. White House Press Secretary Ronald L. Ziegler said on July 2, that President Nixon would speak out on charges made against him in the Watergate case. He was scheduled to do so after the select Senate committees completed the first phase of hearings, focusing on the Watergate break-in and subsequent cover-up. It wasn t expected to be over with until the fall. (Schudson 135)

Ziegler said until then Nixon intended to neither make new public statements on the matter nor give testimony in person or in writing or in any other manner. During a recess in the committee s hearings, when former Presidential counsel John W. Dean was giving testimony, Senator Joseph M. Montaya observed that Dean was a very credible witness and it would take some very affirmative action on the part of the President to repel the testimony. Senator Lowell P. Weicker Jr. expressed hope that Nixon would testify voluntarily before the committee. (Evans 71)

After enough evidence piled up against Nixon he resigned rather than face impeachment. After looking at the evidence, I believe Nixon just tried to cover-up his own people s mistakes. He took a chance, hoping the press would not find out. He knew that whether or not he tried to cover-up the Watergate affair the press would make him out to be crooked. Yes the President was involved in a little organized or should I say unorganized crime. If I think of myself in the same public situation, I would have done the same thing. I think the American public just wants to have something they can shake their head at. They don t try to picture themselves in the same situation.

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