The Watergate Scandal - Research Paper Example

? Watergate Scandal During the night of June 17, 1972, a group of seven men forcefully entered USA Democratic National Committee’s headquarters at the Watergate Complex at Washington D.C. Being informed in time, the police arrived at the site and arrested the group of intruders. After investigation, it was revealed that the thieves were actually information officials who had been hired by the US President Richard Nixon’s administration to gather secretive political information for the ruling government. Subsequently, the police found that many members of the Government including the President himself was involved in trying to cover up the incidents of that night. The group of intruders along with the other accused administrative members was put on trial while President Nixon was forced to resign from his office in 1974. This entire series of events is called the “Watergate Scandal”. The Watergate Scandal “The Watergate Scandal” was a political scandal which occurred in America in the 1970s decade. It consisted of a series of unlawful events which was later attributed to certain important officials serving under the administration of the then US President Richard Nixon. They had wanted to secure some confidential information which would help them to secure the victory of Nixon in the US Presidential Elections of 1972. After the incident, members of the Nixon government tried to cover up the event and shield the men involved in the crime. Eventually, the US Police arrested the seven officials who had committed the burglary and implicated them on the basis of available evidence. Even, President Nixon was found guilty of attempting to shield the incident from being leaked out to the general people. Ultimately, Nixon had to resign from US Presidentship in the year 1974. The Watergate Scandal represented a series of unprecedented political events, which witnessed a US President resigning from his office for the first time in history. On June 16, 1972, seven American citizens planned a burglary in the office headquarters of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) of the USA. The office was situated in the Watergate complex of Washington D.C, in one of the six buildings located over there. On the night of the robbery, the seven men gathered in the Watergate Hotel, situated in the same complex, which gave them easy access to the nearby DNC office. The actual attempt to secure the confidential information was carried out by five men, while two of them stayed back at the hotel to warn the others of any imminent danger. The burglars had also stationed an eighth man in a building, just in front of the DNC office, who would also be able to detect any dangerous signals. He was supposed to inform the two men in the hotel who in turn would convey this to the group of five intruders. As the five men made their up to the DNC office on the sixth floor of the concerned building, they placed recording tapes across the doors opening to the stairway on every floor. This would prevent the door from locking, thus leaving a route for the burglars to escape in case of any trouble. However, one of the security guards of the building found out this anomaly and informed the police. The Police arrived immediately and arrested the five men from the DNC office. The policemen were in plain clothes, and so the burglars’ watchmen were not alerted in time to inform the intruders of the lurking danger. The actual identities of the seven men were revealed after their arrest and none of them were common thieves. The group was led by G. Gordin Liddy and E. Howard Hunt, both of whom were former agents of reputed intelligence agencies of the US. Liddy was a retired agent of the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation, while Hunt had the experience of working with the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency). They were assisted by five other men in this burglary: James McCord bore the telephone bugs, Bernard Barker carried cameras to secure photographs of the confidential documents, Virgilio Gonzales was responsible for breaking the locks of the closed rooms, while Eugenio Martinez and Frank Sturgis functioned as guards of the rest of the group (Anderson, 2006, pp.8-14; Bernstien, Woodward, 1974, p.9). The Historical and Contemporary Causes During his political career, spanning more than two decades Richard Nixon had gathered a reputation of being a tough and a rather unfair political candidate. In 946, he contested his first elections for a membership in the US House of Representatives. He participated as a Republican candidate from the state of California and tarnished the image of his Democrat rival by declaring that he had links with the communists. He potential voters considered this a political crime and voted for Nixon instead which secured his victory in the contest. As a member of the US House of Representatives, Nixon became famous for his efforts in trying to identify a member of the Soviet Union espionage among the members of the House. He rigorously questioned Alger Hiss, who had been a member of the US State Department and accused him of being a Russian spy. In 1950, Nixon contested the elections for the UN Senate. He once again branded his opponent as a communist, which produced a similar result. Nixon won the contest and a seat in the US Senate. All these incidents, point to the fact that Richard Nixon had an inclination of securing the confidence of his voters by belittling his political opponent. This was actually a negative way of trying to win an election. (Anderson, 2006, p.20) In 1968, Nixon had gained considerable political experience and decided to contest the US Presidential elections. Nixon defeated Hubert H. Humphrey, the then Vice President of the USA, in an extremely close contest and became the President of the United States. Nixon’s term as President was marked by mixed results. He obtained some successes in his foreign policy, although he sound not make much headway in case of Vietnam. The USA was also experiencing internal turmoil at that time due to a host of factors. Meanwhile, Nixon started his preparation for the upcoming Presidential elections in 1972. He remembered that he had won by a very narrow margin in the last elections of 1968 and wanted to ensure a resounding majority of votes in the future contest. Nixon was keen on having information about the activities of his contemporary political enemies as this would help him to devise a plan of defeating his rivals in the upcoming elections. Probably, for this reason his government hired some efficient officials who would secure this invaluable information for the President. The group of the seven infamous intruders unlawfully broke into the DNC office headquarters on June 17, 1972 to gather confidential political information for President Nixon’s government. This incident and the series of events that followed is infamously known as the “Watergate Scandal” in American political history. The Different Historical Interpretations There is no doubt that the “Watergate Scandal” represented an unprecedented order of events, which were later accorded different interpretations by various authors, historians, politicians and the media. Stanley Kutler, a historian belonging to that era, subsequently carried out a meticulous evaluation of the events related to the Scandal. In his account he stated explicitly that Watergate “consumed and convulsed the nation and tested the constitutional and political system as it had not been tested since the Civil War.” (Feldstein, 2004). When the US Police arrested the seven intruders from the DNC office on June 17, 1972 and later revealed their true identity and their motives behind the crime to the general people, the entire nation was shocked. It was evident that the burglars were information officials who had been hired by President Richard Nixon’s administration to secure confidential political information for Nixon’s Government. When the Nixon administration found that their hired officials had been caught and their plan had been leaked in public, they made an elaborate effort to cover up the entire incident. Even President Nixon was later accused of trying to shield the events of the raid. Such a thing had never happened in the history of American politics where the Head of the State was found guilty of manipulating important facts relating to a political theft. Eventually, all the seven intruders including many members of the Nixon administration were put on trial and subsequently handed punitive measures. The media carried daily reports of the investigation process of the case and made the American citizens aware of the true nature of Nixon’s government. Ultimately, Nixon resigned as US President in 1974. Thus, historian Kutler has correctly termed the incidents of the Watergate Scandal as being a test of strength of the US political and constitutional system (Feldstein, 2004). The Watergate Scandal was also considered to be a landmark in the history of American journalism. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were the two reporters of the Washington Post newspaper who were given the responsibility of providing regular reports of the case. According to Marvin Kalb, a senior researcher at Harvard’s Joan Shorenstein Center on media, political life and public policy, the newspaper’s reports played a significant role during that time. These reports created a public consensus in Washington D.C as well as among the member of the ruling Government, about the fact that Nixon’s administration was trying to cover up certain vital facts about the Scandal and the President himself was in serious trouble. Kalb has lauded Woodward and Bernstein on their reporting and declared that their efforts signified a milestone in US journalism history (Feldstein, 2004). Later Consequences Even after the resignation of President Nixon, the “Watergate Scandal” as a whole had serious impacts on various aspects of the future course of USA. The series of incidents related to the Scandal permanently left a black mark the office of US Presidentship. The US Legislature monitored and supervised the actions of the Executive department of the US Government. As a mark of its regulatory efforts, the Senate ordered a complete investigation of the domestic as well as international activities of the US Central Intelligence Agency. The Scandal also encouraged the Congress and the US media to keep a close watch on the Presidents and administrative agencies from 1974 onwards. This was done to prevent a repetition of the unlawful incidents which had proved to be a matter of national shame. As a result of this increased scrutiny, the Us Congress was able to unearth the Iran-Contra scandal which occurred during the second terms of President Ronald Reagan’s Presidentship. The Congress also disclosed startling facts during the tenure of President Bill Clinton. The President was found to be guilty of being involved in illegal financial and personal relationships which ultimately led to his impeachment. The Water gate Scandal had showed that even US Presidents could be involved in unlawful activities and compelled the Congress to maintain a close watch over the executive branch. The events of the Scandal were effectively conveyed to the American citizens by the media, and they left a lasting impact on their attitude towards US politics. The people were now forced to view the politicians with a cynical and doubtful attitude. The mid-term elections held in November 1974, witnessed an abysmally low voter turnout of only 38 per cent. It was clear that the Americans had become disillusioned about their nation’s political life. (Spiller, 2004 p.289) Conclusion From the above discussion, it is clear that the “Watergate Scandal” represented a series of incidents that had never been witnessed in the history of American politics. The Scandal revealed that even the US President and the members of his administration can be found to be engaged in illegal actions, which was a shocking revelation for the entire nation. The Scandal occurred during the tenure of President Richard Nixon and left a permanent scar on the coveted office of US Presidentship. The administrative officials found guilty of in the series of events were put on a trail by the US Courts while President Nixon resigned from his office in 1974. Though he was pardoned by the succeeding President, this incident during his tenure changed the face of American politics forever. References 1. Anderson, D. (2006) Watergate; Scandal in the White House, Minneapolis, White-Thomson Publishing Ltd. 2. Bernstein, C., Woodward, B. (1974) All the President’s Men, New York, Simon and Schuster Paperbacks 3. Casino, D, Bessen-Casino, Y. (2009) Consuming Politics: Jon Stewart branding and the youth vote in America, Cranbury, Associated University Presses 4. Feldstein, Mark. (2004), Watergate Revisited, American Journal Review, retrieved on December 14, 2011 from http://www.ajr.org/article.asp?id=3735 5. The Watergate Story (2011), PostPolitics, The Washington Post, retrieved on December 14, 2011 from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/watergate/ 6. Spiller, J. (2004) The United States 1763-2001,USA, Canada, Routledge 7. Trachtman, M.G (2009), The Supreme’s Greatest Hits Revised and Updated Edition, USA, Sterling Publishing 8. The Woodward and Bernstein Watergate Papers (n.d), Harry Ransom Center, retrieved on December 14, 2011from http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/web/woodstein/ 9. Waggoner, J. (1994), Crime and Ambition: Richard Nixon and Watergate, Ashbrook, retrieved on December 14, 2011 from http://www.ashbrook.org/publicat/respub/v5n1/waggoner.html 10. What was Watergate (2011), Watergate.info retrieved on December 14, 2011 from http://watergate.info/background/ Read More