Watergate: Nixon’s Downfall · The Watergate scandal centered on the Nixon administration’s attempt to cover up a burglary of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters

One American's Story

On July 25, 1974, Representative Barbara Jordan of Texas, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, along with the other committee members, considered whether to recommend that President Nixon be impeached for “highcrimes and misdemeanors.” Addressing the room, Jordancited the Constitution in urging her fellow committee mem-bers to investigate whether impeachment was appropriate.

A PERSONAL VOICE BARBARA JORDAN

“ ‘We the people’—it is a very eloquent beginning. But whenthe Constitution of the United States was completed . . . I was not included in that ‘We the people’. . . . But throughthe process of amendment, interpretation, and court decision,I have finally been included in ‘We the people’. . . . Today . . . [my] faith in theConstitution is whole. It is complete. It is total. I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator in the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of theConstitution. . . . Has the President committed offenses . . . which theConstitution will not tolerate?”

—quoted in Notable Black American Women

The committee eventually voted to recommend the impeachment ofRichard Nixon for his role in the Watergate scandal. However, before Congresscould take further action against him, the president resigned. Nixon’s resignation,the first by a U.S. president, was the climax of a scandal that led to the imprison-ment of 25 government officials and caused the most serious constitutional crisisin the United States since the impeachment of Andrew Johnson in 1868.

President Nixon and His White HouseThe Watergate scandal centered on the Nixon administration’s attempt to coverup a burglary of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters at theWatergate office and apartment complex in Washington, D.C. However, the

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Watergate: Nixon’s Downfall

Terms & NamesTerms & NamesMAIN IDEAMAIN IDEA WHY IT MATTERS NOWWHY IT MATTERS NOW

•impeachment•Watergate•H. R. Haldeman•John Ehrlichman•John Mitchell

•Committee toReelect thePresident

•John Sirica•Saturday NightMassacre

President Richard Nixon’sinvolvement in theWatergate scandal forcedhim to resign from office.

The Watergate scandal raisedquestions of public trust that stillaffect how the public and mediaskeptically view politicians.

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U.S. RepresentativeBarbara Jordan,1974.

A

B

Watergate story began long before the actual burglary. Many historians believethat Watergate truly began with the personalities of Richard Nixon and those ofhis advisers, as well as with the changing role of the presidency.

AN IMPERIAL PRESIDENCY When Richard Nixon took office, the executivebranch—as a result of the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War—had become the most powerful branch of government. In his book The ImperialPresidency, the historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., argued that by the time RichardNixon became president, the executive branch had taken on an air of imperial, orsupreme, authority.

President Nixon settled into this imperial role with ease. Nixon believed, as hetold a reporter in 1980, that “a president must not be one of the crowd. . . . People. . . don’t want him to be down there saying, ‘Look, I’m the same as you.’” Nixonexpanded the power of the presidency with little thought to constitutional checks,as when he impounded funds for federal programs that he opposed, or when heordered troops to invade Cambodia without congressional approval.

THE PRESIDENT’S MEN As he dis-tanced himself from Congress, Nixonconfided in a small and fiercely loyalgroup of advisers. They includedH. R. Haldeman, White House chiefof staff; John Ehrlichman, chiefdomestic adviser; and JohnMitchell, Nixon’s former attorneygeneral. These men had played keyroles in Nixon’s 1968 election victoryand now helped the president directWhite House policy.

These men also shared PresidentNixon’s desire for secrecy and the con-solidation of power. Critics chargedthat these men, through their person-alities and their attitude toward thepresidency, developed a sense thatthey were somehow above the law.This sense would, in turn, promptPresident Nixon and his advisers tocover up their role in Watergate, andfuel the coming scandal.

The Drive Toward ReelectionThroughout his political career, Richard Nixon lived with the overwhelming fearof losing elections. By the end of the 1972 reelection campaign, Nixon’s cam-paign team sought advantages by any means possible, including an attempt tosteal information from the DNC headquarters.

A BUNGLED BURGLARY At 2:30 A.M., June 17, 1972, a guard at the Watergatecomplex in Washington, D.C., caught five men breaking into the campaign head-quarters of the DNC. The burglars planned to photograph documents outliningDemocratic Party strategy and to place wiretaps, or “bugs,” on the office telephones.The press soon discovered that the group’s leader, James McCord, was a former CIAagent. He was also a security coordinator for a group known as the Committee toReelect the President (CRP). John Mitchell, who had resigned as attorney gen-eral to run Nixon’s reelection campaign, was the CRP’s director.

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MAIN IDEAMAIN IDEA

ASummarizing

What ismeant by “imperialpresidency”?

MAIN IDEAMAIN IDEA

B

AnalyzingMotives

Why would theNixon campaignteam take such arisky action asbreaking into theopposition’sheadquarters?

The Inner Circle

John EhrlichmanChief Domestic Advisor

John W. Dean IIIPresidential Counsel

H.R. HaldemanChief of Staff

John N. MitchellAttorney General

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MAIN IDEAMAIN IDEA

C

ChronologicalOrder

What steps didthe White Housetake to cover upits involvement inthe Watergatebreak-in?

Just three days after the burglary, H. R. Haldeman noted in his diary Nixon’snear obsession with how to respond to the break-in.

A PERSONAL VOICE H. R. HALDEMAN

“ The P[resident] was concerned about what our counterattack is. . . . He raisedit again several times during the day, and it obviously is bothering him. . . . Hecalled at home tonight, saying that he wanted to change the plan for his pressconference and have it on Thursday instead of tomorrow, so that it won’t look likehe’s reacting to the Democratic break-in thing.”

—The Haldeman Diaries

The cover-up quickly began. Workers shredded allincriminating documents in Haldeman’s office. The WhiteHouse, with President Nixon’s consent, asked the CIA tourge the FBI to stop its investigations into the burglary onthe grounds of national security. In addition, the CRPpassed out nearly $450,000 to the Watergate burglars to buytheir silence after they were indicted in Septemberof 1972.

Throughout the 1972 campaign, the Watergate bur-glary generated little interest among the American publicand media. Only the Washington Post and two of itsreporters, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, kept on thestory. In a series of articles, the reporters uncovered infor-mation that linked numerous members of the administra-tion to the burglary. The White House denied each new Postallegation. Upon learning of an upcoming story that tiedhim to the burglars, John Mitchell told Bernstein, “That’sthe most sickening thing I ever heard.”

The firm White House response to the charges, and itspromises of imminent peace in Vietnam, proved effective inthe short term. In November, Nixon was reelected by alandslide over liberal Democrat George S. McGovern. ButNixon’s popular support was soon to unravel.

The Cover-Up UnravelsIn January 1973, the trial of the Watergate burglars began.The trial’s presiding judge, John Sirica, made clear hisbelief that the men had not acted alone. On March 20, afew days before the burglars were scheduled to be sen-tenced, James McCord sent a letter to Sirica, in which heindicated that he had lied under oath. He also hinted thatpowerful members of the Nixon administration had beeninvolved in the break-in.

THE SENATE INVESTIGATES WATERGATE McCord’s rev-elation of possible White House involvement in the burglaryaroused public interest in Watergate. President Nixonmoved quickly to stem the growing concern. On April 30,1973, Nixon dismissed White House counsel John Dean andannounced the resignations of Haldeman, Ehrlichman, andAttorney General Richard Kleindienst, who had recently

replaced John Mitchell following Mitchell’s resignation. The president then wenton television and denied any attempt at a cover-up. He announced that he was

C

WOODWARDAND BERNSTEIN

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernsteinof the Washington Post seemedan unlikely team. Woodward, 29(at right in the photo above), hadgraduated from Yale, while the28-year-old Bernstein was a col-lege dropout.

As the two men dug deeper intothe Watergate break-in, a mysteri-ous inside source helped them touncover the scandal. For more than30 years the reporters refused toidentify their source. Then in June2005, W. Mark Felt, the No. 2 manat the FBI at the time of Watergate,stepped forward and identified him-self as the inside source of thereporters’ information.

While people lauded the tworeporters for their dogged determi-nation, some Nixon officials remainbitter toward them.

Woodward defended thereporters’ work, saying, “We tried todo our job and, in fact, if you lookat it, our coverage was pretty con-servative.”

SPOTLIGHTSPOTLIGHTHISTORICALHISTORICAL

E

appointing a new attorney general, Elliot Richardson, and was authoriz-ing him to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Watergate. “Therecan be no whitewash at the White House,” Nixon said.

The president’s reassurances, however, came too late. In May 1973,the Senate began its own investigation of Watergate. A special committee,chaired by Senator Samuel James Ervin of North Carolina, began tocall administration officials to give testimony. Throughout the summermillions of Americans sat by their televisions as the “president’s men”testified one after another.

STARTLING TESTIMONY John Deandelivered the first bomb. In late June,during more than 30 hours of testimony,Dean provided a startling answer toSenator Howard Baker’s repeated ques-tion, “What did the president know andwhen did he know it?” The former WhiteHouse counsel declared that PresidentNixon had been deeply involved in thecover-up. Dean referred to one meetingin which he and the president, alongwith several advisers, discussed strategiesfor continuing the deceit.

The White House strongly deniedDean’s charges. The hearings had sud-denly reached an impasse as the com-mittee attempted to sort out who wastelling the truth. The answer came inJuly from an unlikely source: presiden-tial aide Alexander Butterfield.Butterfield stunned the committeewhen he revealed that Nixon had tapedvirtually all of his presidential conversa-tions. Butterfield later claimed that thetaping system was installed “to helpNixon write his memoirs.” However, forthe Senate committee, the tapes werethe key to revealing what Nixon knewand when he knew it.

THE SATURDAY NIGHT MASSACREA year-long battle for the “Nixon tapes” followed. Archibald Cox, the specialprosecutor whom Elliot Richardson had appointed to investigate the case, tookthe president to court in October 1973 to obtain the tapes. Nixon refused andordered Attorney General Richardson to fire Cox. In what became known as theSaturday Night Massacre, Richardson refused the order and resigned. Thedeputy attorney general also refused the order, and he was fired. Solicitor GeneralRobert Bork finally fired Cox. However, Cox’s replacement, Leon Jaworski, provedequally determined to get the tapes. Several months after the “massacre,” theHouse Judiciary Committee began examining the possibility of an impeachmenthearing.

The entire White House appeared to be under siege. Just days before the SaturdayNight Massacre, Vice President Spiro Agnew had resigned after it was revealed that hehad accepted bribes from engineering firms while governor of Maryland. Agnewpleaded nolo contendere (no contest) to the charge. Acting under the Twenty-fifth

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“ Divine rightwent out withthe AmericanRevolution anddoesn’t belongto White Houseaides.”SENATOR SAM ERVIN

D

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The Watergatehearings werechaired bySenator SamErvin, shown(top left) withSam Dash, chiefcounsel to theSenateWatergateCommittee. JohnDean’s testimony(above) stunnedthe nation.

MAIN IDEAMAIN IDEA

D

DrawingConclusions

What wassignificant aboutthe revelation thatNixon taped hisconversations?

MAIN IDEAMAIN IDEA

ESummarizing

What eventsled to theSaturday NightMassacre?

AnalyzingAnalyzing

Amendment, Nixon nominated the House minority leader, Gerald R. Ford, as hisnew vice-president. Congress quickly confirmed the nomination.

The Fall of a PresidentIn March 1974, a grand jury indicted seven presidential aides on charges of con-spiracy, obstruction of justice, and perjury. The investigation was closing in onthe president of the United States.

NIXON RELEASES THE TAPES In the springof 1974, President Nixon told a television audi-ence that he was releasing 1,254 pages of edit-ed transcripts of White House conversationsabout Watergate. Nixon’s offering failed to sat-isfy investigators, who demanded the uneditedtapes. Nixon refused, and the case went beforethe Supreme Court. On July 24, 1974, the highcourt ruled unanimously that the presidentmust surrender the tapes. The Court rejectedNixon’s argument that doing so would violatenational security. Evidence involving possible

criminal activity could not be withheld, even by a president. President Nixonmaintained that he had done nothing wrong. At a press conference in November1973, he proclaimed defiantly, “I am not a crook.”

THE PRESIDENT RESIGNS Even without holding the original tapes, the HouseJudiciary Committee determined that there was enough evidence to impeachRichard Nixon. On July 27, the committee approved three articles of impeachment,charging the president with obstruction of justice, abuse of power, and contemptof Congress for refusing to obey a congressional subpoena to release the tapes.

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THE WHITE HOUSE TAPESDuring the Watergate hearings a bombshellexploded when it was revealed that PresidentNixon secretly tape-recorded all conversationsin the Oval Office. Although Nixon hoped thetapes would one day help historians documentthe triumphs of his presidency, they were usedto confirm his guilt.

SKILLBUILDERAnalyzing Political Cartoons

1. What does this cartoon imply about privacyduring President Nixon’s term in office?

2. What building has been transformed into agiant tape recorder?

SEE SKILLBUILDER HANDBOOK, PAGE R24.

BackgroundAlthough historianssued for accessto thousands ofhours of tapes, itwas not untilsome 21 yearslater, in 1996,that an agreementwas made forover 3,700 hoursof tape to bemade public.

AUTH copyright © Philadelphia Inquirer. Reprinted with permission of UniversalPress Syndicate. All rights reserved.

The originalNixon WhiteHouse taperecorder andtape from the1970s.

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•impeachment•Watergate•H. R. Haldeman

•John Ehrlichman•John Mitchell

•Committee to Reelect thePresident

•John Sirica•Saturday Night Massacre

1. TERMS & NAMES For each term or name, write a sentence explaining its significance.

MAIN IDEA2. TAKING NOTES

Use a time line like the one belowto trace the events of the Watergatescandal.

Which event made Nixon's downfallcertain?

CRITICAL THINKING3. HYPOTHESIZING

If Nixon had admitted to andapologized for the Watergate break-in, how might subsequent eventshave been different? Explain. Think About:

• the extent of the cover-up• the impact of the cover-up• Nixon’s public image

4. ANALYZING EVENTSHow did the Watergate scandalcreate a constitutional crisis?

5. EVALUATINGDo you think that Nixon would havebeen forced to resign if the tapeshad not existed? Explain youranswer.

event

event event

eventJune1972

August1974

On August 5, Nixon released the tapes. Theycontained many gaps, and one tape revealed adisturbing 181/2-minute gap. According to theWhite House, Rose Mary Woods, PresidentNixon’s secretary, accidentally erased part of a conversation between H. R. Haldeman andNixon. More importantly, a tape dated June 23,1972—six days after the Watergate break-in—that contained a conversation between Nixonand Haldeman, disclosed the evidence investi-gators needed. Not only had the presidentknown about the role of members of his admin-istration in the burglary, he had agreed to theplan to obstruct the FBI’s investigation.

The evidence now seemed overwhelming.On August 8, 1974, before the full House vote onthe articles of impeachment began, PresidentNixon announced his resignation from office. Defiant asalways, Nixon admitted no guilt. He merely said that someof his judgments “were wrong.” The next day, Nixon andhis wife, Pat, returned home to California. A short timelater, Gerald Ford was sworn in as the 38th president of theUnited States.

THE EFFECTS OF WATERGATE The effects of Watergatehave endured long after Nixon’s resignation. Eventually,25 members of the Nixon Administration were convictedand served prison terms for crimes connected toWatergate. Along with the divisive war in Vietnam,Watergate produced a deep disillusionment with the“imperial” presidency. In the years following Vietnamand Watergate, the American public and the media devel-oped a general cynicism about public officials that still existstoday. Watergate remains the scandal and investigative storyagainst which all others are measured.

With wife Pat looking on, Richard Nixonbids farewell to his staff on his final day aspresident. Nixon’s resignation letter isshown above.

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Television ReflectsAmerican Life

From May until November 1973, the Senate Watergate hearings were the biggestdaytime TV viewing event of the year. Meanwhile, television programming began tomore closely reflect the realities of American life. Shows more often addressed rele-vant issues, more African-American characters appeared, and working women aswell as homemakers were portrayed. In addition, the newly established PublicBroadcasting System began showing many issue-oriented programs and expandededucational programming for children.

1968–19801968–1980DAI LY LIFEDAI LY LIFE

DIVERSITYChico and the Man was thefirst series set in a Mexican-American barrio, East LosAngeles. The program cen-tered on the relationshipbetween Ed Brown, a crankygarage owner, and ChicoRodriguez, an optimisticyoung mechanic Brown reluctantly hired.

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SOCIAL VALUESAll in the Family was themost popular series ofthe 1970s. It told thestory of a working-classfamily, headed by the bigoted Archie Bunkerand his long-sufferingwife, Edith. Through thebarbs Bunker traded withhis son-in-law and hisAfrican-American neigh-bor, George Jefferson, theshow dealt openly withthe divisions in Americansociety.

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INDEPENDENTWOMENThe Mary Tyler MooreShow depicted MaryRichards, a singlewoman living inMinneapolis and work-ing as an assistantmanager in a local TVnews department.Mary symbolized theyoung career womanof the 1970s.

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CULTURAL IDENTITYThe miniseries Roots, based on a book by Alex Haley,told the saga of several generations of an African-American family. The eight-part story began with KuntaKinte, who was captured outside his West African villageand taken to America as a slave. It ended with his great-grandson’s setting off for a new life as a free man. Thegroundbreaking series, broadcast in January 1977, wasone of the most-watched television events in history.

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F I L E

D A T AD A T A

TV EVENTS OF THE 1970s• A congressional ban on TV cigarette commercials

took effect in 1971.

• ABC negotiated an $8-million-a-year contract totelevise Monday Night Football, first broadcast inSeptember 1970.

• In 1972, President Nixon, accompanied by TVcameras and reporters from the major networks,made a groundbreaking visit to China.

• Saturday Night Live—a show that would launch the careers of Dan Aykroyd, Jane Curtin, EddieMurphy, and many other comic actors—premiered inOctober 1975.

• WTCG-TV (later WTBS) in Atlanta, owned by TedTurner, became the basis of the first true satellite-delivered “superstation” in 1976.

• In November 1979, ABC began broadcasting late-night updates on the hostage crisis in Iran. Thesereports evolved into the program Nightline withTed Koppel.

Average Weekly Hours of TV ViewingH

ours

Per

Wee

kH

ours

Per

Wee

k

35

30

25

20

15

10

5

0

Source: Nielson Media Research

Children 2–11 years oldTeens 12–17 years oldAdults 18 and over

1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 1998

THINKING CRITICALLYTHINKING CRITICALLY

CONNECT TO HISTORY1. Analyzing Causes In what ways did television change

to reflect American society in the 1970s? What factorsmight have influenced these changes?

SEE SKILLBUILDER HANDBOOK, PAGE R7.

CONNECT TO TODAY2. Creating a Graph Use the Internet or an almanac to

find data on the number of televisions owned in theUnited States and the number of hours of TV watchedevery day. Make a graph that displays the data.

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IRESEARCH LINKS CLASSZONE.COMCLASSZONE.COM