The Watergate Scandal :: President Richard Nixon

Watergate ScandalWatergate was a designation of a major U.S. scandal that began with theburglary and wiretapping of the parliamentary 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 committed on June 17, 1972, by five men who were caughtin the offices of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate apartmentand office complex in Washington D.C. Their arrest eventually uncovered a WhiteHouse-sponsered externalise of espionage against political opponents and a trail ofcomplicity that led to many of the highest officials in the land, including former(prenominal) U.S. Attorney General bottom Mitchell, White House Counsel John Dean, WhiteHouse Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman, White House picky Assistant on DomesticAffairs John Ehrlichman, and President Nixon himself. On April 30, 1973, nearlya year after the burglary and arrest and follo wing a grand jury investigation ofthe burglary, Nixon accepted the resignation of Haldeman and Ehrlichman andannounced the sacking of Dean U.S. Attorney General Richard Kleindienstresigned as well. The new attorney general, Elliot Richardson, official aspecial prosecutor, Harvard Law School profesor Archibald Cox, to conduct a complete investigation of the Watergate break-in. In May of 1973, the SenateSelect Committee on presidential Activities opened hearings, with Senator SamErvin of North Carolina as chairman. A series of floor revelations followed.Dean testified that Mitchell had ordered the break-in and that a major attemptwas on a lower floor way to hide White House involvement. He claimed that the president had important payments to the burglars to keep them quiet. The Nixonadministration immediately denied this assertion.The testimony of White House auxiliary Alexander Butterfield unlocked theentire investigation pertaining to White House tapes. On July 16, 1973,Butterf ield told the committee, on nationwide television, that Nixon had ordereda taping system installed in the White House to automatically record allconversations what the president say and when he said it could be verified.Cox immediately subpoened eight revelant tapes to verify Deans testimony.Nixon refused to release the tapes, claiming they were vital to the nationalsecurity. U.S. District Court Judge Johm Sirica control that Nixon must 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 poll taker generaldischarged Cox.A storm of public protest resulted fron this Saturday darkness massacre.In response, Nixon appointed another special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, a Texas