In 1972, Republican President Richard Nixon was running for reelection and United Stated remained divided internally regarding the involvement of the Vietnam War. The political climate was under the gun with the public, therefore the presidential campaign and some of the key advisers used aggressive tactic, turned out to be illegal espionage, to help re-elect the president. This was known has the Watergate scandal ("Watergate Scandal"). On June 17, 1972, five members of Nixon’s Committee (known as CREEP) broke into the Democratic National Committee’s Watergate headquarters. Inside the headquarters, the men stole copies of top-secret documents and bugged the office’s phones. However, Watergate scandal was just one of the ‘dirty tricks’ that the Nixon administration did.
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On July, 24 1974 the Supreme Court subpoenaed tape conversations between the president and his chief aide. One of the tapes was called the smoking gun tape which had the president giving orders regarding the Watergate scandal and the CIA. The public and the republican leaders in Congress stated that the shamefaced and unpredictable Nixon was loose cannon. On August 8, 1974 President Nixon resigned and stated in his speech that ‘I’m not a crook’ and made some judgments that were wrong. Nevertheless, the Americans were not impressed with his speech and stated “Jail to the Chief” (Kennedy, p. 912). The Watergate scandal did have an overall cleansing effect on the nation’s political process. The Senate and House both passed separate versions of election-reform plans. The outline set rules on raising and spending political money along with a ceiling on what presidential candidates, once nominated, can spend in the election campaign itself ("Effects of Watergate: The Good and the Bad"). The impact of the Watergate scandal and other dirty tricks on the United States politics hit deep and will be enduring. One lesson that can be learned is being an open and honest with politics, which is
On July, 24 1974 the Supreme Court subpoenaed tape conversations between the president and his chief aide. One of the tapes was called the smoking gun tape which had the president giving orders regarding the Watergate scandal and the CIA. The public and the republican leaders in Congress stated that the shamefaced and unpredictable Nixon was loose cannon. On August 8, 1974 President Nixon resigned and stated in his speech that ‘I’m not a crook’ and made some judgments that were wrong. Nevertheless, the Americans were not impressed with his speech and stated “Jail to the Chief” (Kennedy, p. 912). The Watergate scandal did have an overall cleansing effect on the nation’s political process. The Senate and House both passed separate versions of election-reform plans. The outline set rules on raising and spending political money along with a ceiling on what presidential candidates, once nominated, can spend in the election campaign itself ("Effects of Watergate: The Good and the Bad"). The impact of the Watergate scandal and other dirty tricks on the United States politics hit deep and will be enduring. One lesson that can be learned is being an open and honest with politics, which is