The Watergate scandal

Watergate is a term generally used to describe the political scandals which occurred between 1972 and 1974. In fact it refers to the Watergate Hotel in Washington DC where the Democratic Party had its headquarters.

I) Political and historical context

In the early 70’s, America was still recovering from its turbulent time in the 60’s. One of the issues , the Vietnam War had carried itself over into the new decade; however, the opinions and thoughts concerning the war had started to change: people now viewed it in a very negative way. In 1971, Daniel Ellsberg, a former defence department analyst, turned over a secret Pentagon report concerning the history of the war to the New York Times, which infuriated President Nixon. Therefore, feeling in a weak position after the publication of the Pentagon papers, he turned his efforts to trying to weaken the Democratic Party in order to facilitate his re-election.

The Plumbers were a secret unit created by the White House whose main duty was to fix leaks in the administration.

II) The burglary

On June 17, 1972, a group of men broke into the Democratic Party’s National Committee offices in the Watergate Hotel to try to find what they could and to bug the offices. Thanks to a security officer, the burglars were quickly caught and indicted.

Two reporters from the Washington Post ( Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein) along with their mysterious informant Deep Throat heard of this story and started investigating.

It was soon discovered that the burglars had direct links with President Nixon’s re-election campaign.

Soon after Nixon was re-elected in November 1972, the scandal broke out.

III) The Investigations

Phase 1

Political investigations began in February 1973 when the Senate established a committee to investigate the Watergate scandal. The public hearings were sensational, including the evidence of John Dean, Nixon’s former White House Counsel. Indeed, he admitted he had had discussions with the President concerning Watergate and how to cover it up. He had to resign along with other White House staffers.

Phase 2

The Committee also uncovered the existence of the secret White House tape recordings, which triggered a major political and legal battle between the Congress and the President. It immediately requested that Nixon hand those tapes over, which the latter refused on grounds of National security or Executive privilege.

Phase 3

Pressure on Nixon to hand over the tapes kept increasing towards the end of 1973. He tried to send written – and heavily edited- transcripts of many of the taped conversations instead of the actual tapes.

Final phase

In July 1974, the matter was taken up by the Supreme Court who ordered Nixon to hand the tapes over. One of these tapes became known as the “smoking gun” tape when it revealed that Nixon had participated in the Watergate cover-up as far back as June 23,1972. Three days later the House of Representatives,voted to impeach the President.

Nixon had no other choice but to resign, which he did on August 8, 1974.

IV)The aftermath of Watergate

Gerald Ford became the 38^th President of the United States after Nixon’s resignation. He had become Vice-President upon the resignation of Nixon’s original Vice-President Spiro Agnew. So he ascended to both positions without being elected.

A few days later he pardoned Nixon and he will be remembered for this controversial pardon, whose consequence was that Nixon was the only Watergate conspirator who spent no time in jail.

Watergate had profound consequences in the USA:

- there were changes in campaign finance reform.

- the press became more aggressive.

- the investigations into Watergate that led to the resignation of Richard Nixon are a case study in the operation of the American Constitution and political values.

- Watergate’s influence was felt in the Clinton Impeachment of 1998-99.

Nixon died in 1994 and was eulogized by the political establishment, although he was still a figure of controversy.

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