Jamie Arnone
Prof. Sharib
History of Vietnam
April 29th, 2015
The Watergate Scandal
The Watergate scandal was arguably one of the worst scandals that occurred within the American Government that ultimately brought down the Nixon presidency. The scandal involved the break-in of the Democratic Party Headquarters, the cover-up of the break-in, and other scandals that the investigation ultimately revealed. It was the worst scandal in American history due to the fact that it was an attempt to undermine the American political process. However, it also prompted a wave of electoral and political reforms. On June 17th in 1972, five men were arrested for breaking into the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate complex in Washington, …show more content…
These journalists ultimately helped to bring down the Nixon administration. In 1974, Woodward and Bernstein published a book entitled All the President’s Men which was about the Watergate scandal. In this book they spoke about their secret informant, who was given the pseudonym “deep throat.” This source provided the journalists with ample information regarding the involvement of the Nixon administration in Watergate. In 2005, it was finally revealed that this source, although he denied allegations for years, was in fact former FBI associate director, Mark …show more content…
However, one tape had a huge eighteen minute gap in it. Although nobody truly knows what dialogue was missing from the tapes, it was known that the conversation was between Nixon and chief of staff, Haldeman. Nixon’s secretary, Rosemary Woods, claimed that the gap was due to her own fault when transcribing the tapes. She stated that he accidentally hit the record button instead of stop, which deleted the missing sections of the tape. At the hearings, Woods was unable to recreate her stated mistake. The tape known as the “smoking gun” tape, revealed that just six days after the Watergate break-in, Nixon and Haldeman discussed ways to obstruct the FBI’s investigation. As the contents of these tapes become available to the public, a host of abuses by Nixon became abundantly clear. This included the White House’s orchestration into psychiatrist Dan Ellsberg who leaked the Pentagon Papers, dirty political tricks against rivals, use of the IRS to harass political enemies, sale of ambassadorships, threats to broadcasters to revoke their licenses, and harassing the media to the solicitation of huge cash campaign
Prof. Sharib
History of Vietnam
April 29th, 2015
The Watergate Scandal
The Watergate scandal was arguably one of the worst scandals that occurred within the American Government that ultimately brought down the Nixon presidency. The scandal involved the break-in of the Democratic Party Headquarters, the cover-up of the break-in, and other scandals that the investigation ultimately revealed. It was the worst scandal in American history due to the fact that it was an attempt to undermine the American political process. However, it also prompted a wave of electoral and political reforms. On June 17th in 1972, five men were arrested for breaking into the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate complex in Washington, …show more content…
These journalists ultimately helped to bring down the Nixon administration. In 1974, Woodward and Bernstein published a book entitled All the President’s Men which was about the Watergate scandal. In this book they spoke about their secret informant, who was given the pseudonym “deep throat.” This source provided the journalists with ample information regarding the involvement of the Nixon administration in Watergate. In 2005, it was finally revealed that this source, although he denied allegations for years, was in fact former FBI associate director, Mark …show more content…
However, one tape had a huge eighteen minute gap in it. Although nobody truly knows what dialogue was missing from the tapes, it was known that the conversation was between Nixon and chief of staff, Haldeman. Nixon’s secretary, Rosemary Woods, claimed that the gap was due to her own fault when transcribing the tapes. She stated that he accidentally hit the record button instead of stop, which deleted the missing sections of the tape. At the hearings, Woods was unable to recreate her stated mistake. The tape known as the “smoking gun” tape, revealed that just six days after the Watergate break-in, Nixon and Haldeman discussed ways to obstruct the FBI’s investigation. As the contents of these tapes become available to the public, a host of abuses by Nixon became abundantly clear. This included the White House’s orchestration into psychiatrist Dan Ellsberg who leaked the Pentagon Papers, dirty political tricks against rivals, use of the IRS to harass political enemies, sale of ambassadorships, threats to broadcasters to revoke their licenses, and harassing the media to the solicitation of huge cash campaign