Finance          Automotive          Computers          Health          Shopping          Sports         News          Reference           Print Facts in English - BCUZ.COMlos hechos en Español

Watergate scandal



The issue of access to the tapes went to the Supreme Court. On July 24, 1974, in United States v. Nixon, the Court (which did not include the recused Justice Rehnquist) ruled unanimously that claims of executive privilege over the tapes were void, and they further ordered him to surrender them to Jaworski. On July 30, 1974, he complied with the order and released the subpoenaed tapes. Their contents were revealed, and Nixon resigned 10 days later.

[

Articles of impeachment, resignation, and convictions

Nixon's resignation letter, August 9, 1974.
Nixon's resignation letter, August 9, 1974.

On January 28, 1974, Nixon campaign aide Herbert Porter pleaded guilty to the charge of lying to the FBI during the early stages of the Watergate investigation. On February 25, 1974, Nixon's personal lawyer Herbert Kalmbach pleaded guilty to two charges of illegal election-campaign activities. Other charges were dropped in return for Kalmbach's cooperation in the forthcoming Watergate trials.

On March 1, 1974, former aides of the President, known as the Watergate Seven — Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell, Charles Colson, Gordon C. Strachan, Robert Mardian and Kenneth Parkinson — were indicted for conspiring to hinder the Watergate investigation. The grand jury also secretly named Nixon as an unindicted co-conspirator. Dean, Magruder and other figures in the scandal had already pleaded guilty. Charles Colson stated in his book Born Again that he was given a report by a White House aide that clearly implicated the CIA in the whole Watergate scandal and showed an attempt to implicate him as the one responsible.[citation needed]

On April 7, 1974, the Watergate grand jury indicted Ed Reinecke, Republican lieutenant governor of California, on three charges of perjury before the Senate committee. On April 5, 1974, former Nixon appointments secretary Dwight Chapin was convicted of lying to the grand jury.

Nixon's position was becoming increasingly precarious, and the House of Representatives began formal investigations into the possible impeachment of the President. The committee's opening speeches included one by Texas Representative Barbara Jordan that catapulted her to instant nationwide fame. The House Judiciary Committee voted 27 to 11 on July 27, 1974 to recommend the first article of impeachment against the President: obstruction of justice. The second (abuse of power) and third (contempt of Congress) articles were passed on July 29, 1974 and July 30, 1974, respectively.

Nixon leaving the White House shortly before his resignation became effective, August 9, 1974. The helicopter took him from the White House to Andrews Air Force base in Maryland. Nixon later wrote that he remembered thinking "As the helicopter moved on to Andrews, I found myself thinking not of the past, but of the future. What could I do now?...". At Andrews base, he boarded Air Force One to El Toro Marine Corps Air Station in California and then to his new home in San Clemente.
Nixon leaving the White House shortly before his resignation became effective, August 9, 1974. The helicopter took him from the White House to Andrews Air Force base in Maryland. Nixon later wrote that he remembered thinking "As the helicopter moved on to Andrews, I found myself thinking not of the past, but of the future. What could I do now?...". At Andrews base, he boarded Air Force One to El Toro Marine Corps Air Station in California and then to his new home in San Clemente.[17]

In August, the previously unknown tape from June 23, 1972, was released. Recorded only a few days after the break-in, it documented Nixon and Haldeman formulating a plan to block investigations by having the CIA falsely claim to the FBI that national security was involved. The tape was referred to as a "smoking gun." With few exceptions, Nixon's remaining supporters deserted him. The ten congressmen who had voted against all three articles of impeachment in the committee announced that they would all support impeachment when the vote was taken in the full House. It was almost certain that Nixon would be impeached by the House and removed from office by the Senate.

Throughout this time, Nixon still denied any involvement in the ordeal. After being told by key Republican Senators that enough votes existed to convict and remove him, Nixon decided to resign. In a nationally televised address on the evening of August 8, 1974, he announced he would resign, effective at noon Eastern Time on Friday, August 9, 1974. Though Nixon's resignation prompted Congress to drop the impeachment proceedings, criminal prosecution was still a possibility. He was immediately succeeded by Gerald Ford, who on September 8, 1974, issued a pardon for Nixon, immunizing him from prosecution for any crimes he may have committed as President. Nixon proclaimed his innocence until his death, although his acceptance of the pardon was construed by many as an admission of guilt. He did state in his official response to the pardon that he "was wrong in not acting more decisively and more forthrightly in dealing with Watergate, particularly when it reached the stage of judicial proceedings and grew from a political scandal into a national tragedy."

Charles Colson pleaded guilty to charges concerning the Ellsberg case; in exchange, the indictment against him for covering up the activities of CRP was dropped, as it was against Strachan. The remaining five members of the Watergate Seven indicted in March went on trial in October 1974, and on January 1, 1975, all but Parkinson were found guilty. In 1976, the U.S. Court of Appeals ordered a new trial for Mardian; subsequently, all charges against him were dropped. Haldeman, Ehrlichman, and Mitchell exhausted their appeals in 1977. Ehrlichman entered prison in 1976, followed by the other two in 1977.

[

Pardon and controversy

Further information: Gerald Ford's Pardon of Richard Nixon
Wikisource has original text related to this article:

On September 8, 1974, President Gerald Ford granted Nixon a full and unconditional pardon for any crimes he may have committed while President. Highly controversial, this pardon has been argued to be a factor in Ford's loss of the presidential election of 1976.[18] In an editorial at the time, The New York Times stated that the Nixon pardon was "a profoundly unwise, divisive and unjust act" that in a stroke had destroyed the new president's "credibility as a man of judgment, candor and competence."[19] Accusations of a secret "deal" made with Ford, promising a pardon in return for Nixon's resignation, led Ford to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on October 17, 1974.[20][21]

In his autobiography A Time to Heal, Ford wrote about a meeting he had with Nixon's Chief of Staff, Alexander Haig. Haig was explaining what he and Nixon's staff thought were Nixon's only options. He could try to ride out the impeachment and fight against conviction in the Senate all the way, or he could resign. His options for resigning were to delay his resignation until further along in the impeachment process to try and settle for a censure vote in Congress, or pardon himself then resign. Haig then told Ford that some of Nixon's staff suggested that Nixon could agree to resign in return for an agreement that Ford would pardon him.

Haig emphasized that these weren't his suggestions. He didn't identify the staff members and he made it very clear that he wasn't recommending any one option over another. What he wanted to know was whether or not my overall assessment of the situation agreed with his.[emphasis in original]. . . Next he asked if I had any suggestions as to courses of actions for the President. I didn't think it would be proper for me to make any recommendations at all, and I told him so.[22]

In a televised broadcast to the nation, Ford explained that he felt the pardon was in the best interests of the country and that the Nixon family's situation "is an American tragedy in which we all have played a part. It could go on and on and on, or someone must write the end to it. I have concluded that only I can do that, and if I can, I must."[23]

[

Aftermath

Main article: Watergate babies

The effects of the Watergate scandal did not end with the resignation of President Nixon and the imprisonment of some of his aides. The effect on the upcoming Senate election and House race only three months later, was enormous. Voters, disgusted by Nixon's actions, became thoroughly disillusioned with the Republican Party. In that election, the Democrats gained five seats in the Senate and a remarkable forty-nine in the House.

The Watergate Scandal also indirectly caused many changes in campaign financing. The scandal became a driving factor in amending the Freedom of Information Act in 1976, as well as laws requiring new financial disclosures by key government officials.

While not legally required, other types of personal disclosure, such as releasing recent income tax forms, became expected. Presidents since Franklin D. Roosevelt had recorded many of their conversations, but after Watergate this practice purportedly ended.

Since Nixon and many senior officials involved in Watergate were lawyers, the scandal severely tarnished the public image of the legal profession.[24] In order to defuse public demand for direct federal regulation of lawyers (as opposed to leaving it in the hands of state bar associations or courts), the American Bar Association (ABA) launched two major reforms. First, the ABA decided that its existing Model Code of Professional Responsibility (promulgated 1969) was a failure and replaced it with the Model Rules of Professional Conduct in 1983. The MRPC has been adopted in part or in whole by 44 states. Its preamble contains an emphatic reminder to young lawyers that the legal profession can remain self-governing only if lawyers behave properly. Second, the ABA promulgated a requirement that law students at ABA-approved law schools take a course in professional responsibility (which means they must study the MRPC). The requirement remains in effect.

The Watergate scandal left such an impression on the national and international consciousness that many scandals since then have been labeled with the suffix "-gate".

According to Thomas J. Johnson, professor of journalism at Southern Illinois University, "During Nixon's final days, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger boldly predicted that history would remember him as a great president and that Watergate would be relegated to a minor footnote." [25]

[

Alternate theories

Further information: Kennedy assassination theories

Numerous theories have persisted in claiming deeper significance to the Watergate scandal than that commonly acknowledged by media and historians. On the "Smoking Gun" tape, Nixon mentions E. Howard Hunt's ties to "the whole Bay of Pigs thing" as the reason the CIA should put a stop to the Watergate investigations. In the book The Ends of Power, President Richard Nixon's chief of staff H.R. Haldeman claimed that the term "Bay of Pigs," as used in a tape-recorded White House conversation,[4] was used by Nixon as a coded reference to the Kennedy assassination.[26] This same theory was later referred to in the biopic, Nixon, directed by Oliver Stone.

An alternate theory to the mainstream media account of the Watergate scandal can be found in Silent Coup, a 1991 book by Len Colodny and Robert Gettlin. The two authors believe that it was Nixon's silent war with the Pentagon that ultimately led to his removal from office.[27] The book was criticized for apparent leaps of logic and the citation of weak evidence and its theories are not widely supported by either professional historians or the general public.[28][29]

Stone and Freed's theory in Secret Honor implies that Nixon purposively took a dive to save democracy from a plan to implement martial law. The theory uses the construct of the Yankees vs. Cowboys to suggest that since the postwar era, the US has been dominated by Yankees competing with Cowboys. Nixon, who hailed from the Southwest, was initially backed by the military industrial defense contractor power-brokers (the Cowboys); however, he later wanted to jump ship and return government to the east-coast establishment of Yankees. His resignation accomplished this because Nelson Rockefeller, the epitome of the eastern economic elite, assumed the vice presidency after Nixon's resignation. Peter Beter's Conspiracy Against the Dollar further explains how Nixon was possibly a rogue liberal with a conservative mask. Andreas Killen's 1973 Nervous Breakdown mentions this obscure theory behind Watergate.[citation needed]

[

See also

[

Notes

  1. ^ a b Dickinson, William B.; Mercer Cross, Barry Polsky (1973). Watergate: chronology of a crisis 1. Washington D. C.: Congressional Quarterly Inc., 8 133 140 180 188. ISBN 0871870592. OCLC 20974031.  This book is volume 1 of a two volume set. Both volumes share the same ISBN and Library of Congress call number, E859 .C62 1973
  2. ^ Dean, John Aurie (1976). Blind ambition: the White House years. New York: Simon and Schuster, 203-210. ISBN 0-671-22438-7. 
  3. ^ (1973) The Watergate hearings: break-in and cover-up; proceedings. New York: Viking Press, 279. ISBN 0670751529. 
  4. ^ a b c The Smoking Gun Tape (Transcript of the recording of a meeting between President Nixon and H. R. Haldeman). Watergate.info website (June 23, 1972). Retrieved on 2007-01-17.
  5. ^ (1973) The Watergate hearings: break-in and cover-up; proceedings. New York: Viking Press. ISBN 0670751529. 
  6. ^ Nixon, Richard (1974). The White House Transcripts. New York: Viking Press. ISBN 0670763241. OCLC 1095702. 
  7. ^ The evidence was quite simple: there was the voice of the President on June 23, 1972, directing the CIA to halt an FBI investigation which would be politically embarrassing to his re-election, which was an obstruction of justice. White, Theodore Harold (1975). Breach of faith: the fall of Richard Nixon. New York: Atheneum Publishers, 7. ISBN 0689106580. 
  8. ^ "And the most punishing blow of all was yet to come in late afternoon when the President received, in his Oval Office, the Congressional leaders of his party — Barry Goldwater, Hugh Scott, John Rhodes. The accounts of all three coincide... Goldwater averred that there were not more than fifteen votes left in his support in the Senate...." White, Theodore Harold (1975). Breach of faith: the fall of Richard Nixon. New York: Atheneum Publishers, 28. ISBN 0689106580. 
  9. ^ "Soon Alexander Haig and James St. Clair learned of the existence of this tape and they were convinced that it would guarantee Nixon's impeachment in the House of Representatives and conviction in the Senate." Dash, Samuel (1976). Chief counsel: inside the Ervin Committee — the untold story of Watergate. New York: Random House, 259-260. ISBN 0-394-40853-5. 
  10. ^ Sirica, John J. (1979). To set the record straight: the break-in, the tapes, the conspirators, the pardon. New York: Norton, 44. ISBN 0-393-01234-4. 
  11. ^ DuBois, Larry, and Laurence Gonzales (September 1976). Hughes Nixon and the C.I.A.: The Watergate Conspiracy Woodward and Bernstein Missed. Playboy.
  12. ^ "There were still simply too many unanswered questions in the case. By that time, thinking about the break-in and reading about it, I'd have had to be some kind of moron to believe that no other people were involved. No political campaign committee would turn over so much money to a man like Gordon Liddy without someone higher up in the organization approving the transaction. How could I not see that? These questions about the case were on my mind during a pretrial session in my courtroom December 4." Sirica, John J. (1979). To set the record straight: the break-in, the tapes, the conspirators, the pardon. New York: Norton, 56. ISBN 0-393-01234-4. 
  13. ^ "When Judge Sirica finished reading the letter, the courtroom exploded with excitement and reporters ran to the rear entrance to phone their newspapers. The bailiff kept banging for silence. It was a stunning development, exactly what I had been waiting for. Perjury at the trial. The involvement of others. It looked as if Watergate was about to break wide open." Dash, Samuel (1976). Chief counsel: inside the Ervin Committee--the untold story of Watergate. New York: Random House, 30. ISBN 0-394-40853-5. 
  14. ^ Garay, Ronald. Watergate. The Museum of Broadcast Communication. Retrieved on 2007-01-17.
  15. ^ Richard Nixon: Question-and-Answer Session at the Annual Convention of the Associated Press Managing Editors Association, Orlando, Florida. The American Presidency Project.
  16. ^ Clymer, Adam. "National Archives Has Given Up on Filling the Nixon Tape Gap", The New York Times, May 9, 2003. Retrieved on 2007-01-17. 
  17. ^ Lucas, Dean. Famous Pictures Magazine - Nixon's V sign. Retrieved on 2007-06-01.
  18. ^ Shane, Scott. "For Ford, Pardon Decision Was Always Clear-Cut", The New York Times, p. A1. Retrieved on 2006-12-29. 
  19. ^ Gerald R. Ford. Editorial. The New York Times (2006-12-28). Retrieved on 2006-12-29.
  20. ^ Gettlin, Robert; Colodny, Len (1991). Silent coup: the removal of a president. New York: St. Martin's Press, 420. ISBN 0312051565. OCLC 22493143. 
  21. ^ Ford, Gerald R. (1979). A time to heal: the autobiography of Gerald R. Ford. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 196-199. ISBN 0060112972. 
  22. ^ Ford (1979), 4.
  23. ^ Ford, Gerald (1974-09-08). Gerald R. Ford Pardoning Richard Nixon. Great Speeches Collection. The History Place. Retrieved on 2006-12-30.
  24. ^ Jerold Auerbach, Unequal Justice: Lawyers and Social Change in Modern America, New York: Oxford University Press, 1976, p. 301.
  25. ^ Thomas J. Johnson, Watergate and the Resignation of Richard Nixon: Impact of a Constitutional Crisis, "The Rehabilitation of Richard Nixon", eds. P. Jeffrey and Thomas Maxwell-Long: Washington, D.C., CQ Press, 2004, pp. 148-149.
  26. ^ DiMona, Joseph; Haldeman, H. R. (1978). The ends of power. New York: Times Books. ISBN 0812907248. Retrieved on 2007-07-23. 
  27. ^ Gettlin, Robert; Colodny, Len (1991). Silent coup: the removal of a president. New York: St. Martin's Press, 420. ISBN 0312051565. OCLC 22493143. 
  28. ^ Who is Deep Throat? Does It Matter?. Retrieved on 2007-11-01.
  29. ^ Was Nixon duped? Did Woodward lie?. Retrieved on 2007-11-01.

[

Further reading

[

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:




BCUZ.com FACTS Encyclopedia content is licensed under the GFDL as approved by Wikipedia.
For more information review our copyright contact and privacy policy.
© 1996 - BCUZ.COM - We have all the FACTS you need about Small Business Financing, Behavior Disorder, Having Too Many Bills, Needing Cash Fast, Structured Settlements, Frequent Flier Programs, Top Steak Houses, The Mayan Indians, Norfolk and Suffolk England, Growing Longer Hair and a full reference English Encyclopedia and Spanish Encyclopedia.Privacy Policy