The Watergate Scandal :: President Richard Nixon

Watergate ScandalWatergate was a designation of a study U.S. scandal that began with theburglary and wiretapping of the Democratic partys headquarters, later engulfedPresident Richard M. Nixon and many of his supporters in a variety of illegalacts and culminated in the first resignation of a U.S. president.The burglary was pull on June 17, 1972, by five men who were caughtin the offices of the Democratic field Committee at the Watergate apartmentand office complex in cap D.C. Their arrest eventually uncovered a egg whiteHouse-sponsered plan of espionage against political opponents and a trail ofcomplicity that led to many of the highest officials in the land, includingformer U.S. lawyer General John Mitchell, dust coat House Counsel John doyen, WhiteHouse Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman, White House Special suspensor on DomesticAffairs John Ehrlichman, and President Nixon himself. On April 30, 1973, wella year after the burglary and arrest and following a tremendous jury inve stigating ofthe burglary, Nixon accepted the resignation of Haldeman and Ehrlichman andannounced the dismissal of dean U.S. Attorney General Richard Kleindienstresigned as well. The new attorney widely distributed, Elliot Richardson, appointed aspecial prosecutor, Harvard Law School profesor Archibald Cox, to conduct afull-scale investigation of the Watergate break-in. In May of 1973, the SenateSelect Committee on Presidential Activities open(a) hearings, with Senator SamErvin of North Carolina as chairman. A series of startling revelations followed.Dean testified that Mitchell had tell the break-in and that a major attemptwas under means to hide White House involvement. He claimed that the president hadauthorized payments to the burglars to bread and butter them quiet. The Nixonadministration immediately denied this assertion.The testimony of White House aide horse parsley Butterfield unlocked theentire investigation pertaining to White House tapes. On July 16, 1973,Butterfie ld told the committee, on nationwide television, that Nixon had ordereda taping system installed in the White House to automatically record allconversations what the president said and when he said it could be verified.Cox immediately subpoened eight revelant tapes to confirm Deans testimony.Nixon refused to vacate the tapes, claiming they were vital to the nationalsecurity. U.S. District Court Judge Johm Sirica ruled that Nixon mustiness give thetapes to Cox, and an appeals court upheld the decision. Yet, Nixon held firm.He refused to turn over the tapes and, on Saturday, October 20, 1973, orderedRichardson to dismiss Cox. Richardson refused and resigned instead, as didDeputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus. Finally, the solicitor generaldischarged Cox.A storm of public protest resulted fron this Saturday night massacre.In response, Nixon appointed another special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, a Texas