THE DIVIDED UNION

THE DIVIDED UNION? – THE USA 1945-80

Topic : WATERGATE

You need to know:

(a) What caused the scandal?

(b) Why was president Nixon involved?

(d) Why did Nixon resign?

(e) What effects did the scandal have on the USA?

(f) Did Nixon have any other more positive achievements?

Where can I find the information?

(1) These sheets

(2) Textbook, pages 133-141

(3) Revision website -- http://www.learnhistory.org.uk/usa/watergate.htm

BACKGROUND

In 1972 Richard Nixon stood for re-election as President of the United States and won a landslide majority, yet two years later he was forced to resign – the first time a President had resigned – in order to escape impeachment and possible imprisonment. This event is known as Watergate. The questions are why was Nixon forced to resign, why did he come close to being prosecuted and what was the impact of the Watergate Scandal on the USA?

1. Who was Richard Nixon?

Richard Nixon was a clever lawyer who made his way through the political system. In 1950 he was elected to the Senate and made a name for himself during the McCarthy witch hunts. By 1953 he had secured the post of vice-president under President Eisenhower, and he kept this post until 1961.

In 1960 he became the Republican candidate for President, standing against the Democrat John F Kennedy. Kennedy narrowly defeated Nixon, but after the unpopularity of the Democrats, due to the Vietnam War, Nixon won the 1968 election and became President.

2. Nixon’s re-election campaign

Under the American constitution, a President has to stand for re-election after 4 years. In addition no president may serve more than two terms in office. In 1972 Nixon had to fight a new election to remain president. He was very worried that he might lose the election and so set up a special committee to help him win. This committee was the Committee to Re-elect the President (which became known as CREEP).

The Committee was headed by a close adviser of Nixon’s, John Mitchell. He was urged to use any methods necessary to win the election.

In order to fight the campaign Mitchell needed lots of money and so CREEP illegally raised $60 million. They were determined to show Nixon in a positive light whilst using every method to discredit the democrats by waging a dirty tricks campaign.

One idea that was proposed was to bug the offices of the Democrats in the Watergate building so that they would know what their plans were and could outmanoeuvre them.

3. The Election campaign

On 17 June 1972 during the election campaign 5 burglars were caught in the Watergate building trying to bug the Democrats’ offices. At first nobody knew why.

Unfortunately for Nixon, two reporters from the Washington Post, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, decided to investigate the matter and discovered that all 5 of the men worked for CREEP. They decided to dig further and soon discovered evidence that CREEP was involved in illegal activities. They then discovered that the funds for CREEP were controlled from the White House.

The FBI decided to investigate the matter and uncovered evidence of a massive campaign by CREEP to spy on the Democrats. The Democrat candidate, George McGovern, accused Nixon of being behind the whole scheme, but Nixon flatly refuted this and said that nobody at the White House had been involved. Despite this the story would not go away and soon rumours began circulating that staff at the White House had been paid bribes to keep he matter quiet.

Despite the rumours, Nixon was not damaged by the scandal and easily won the 1972 election with a landslide. The American people still had faith in him.

4. How Nixon became implicated

In January 1973 the burglars were finally put on trial and one of them, James McCord, sensationally claimed that the White House had tried to cover up the scandal and that some of the witnesses in the trial had deliberately lied. The attack began to centre around Nixon’s involvement and so he went on television and told the American people that he was innocent and that there would be “no whitewash at the White House”.

Nixon clearly hoped that that would end the matter, but the scandal continued to build up and in April 1973 Nixon was forced to admit that two of his top advisers, Bob Haldeman and John Erlichman, had been involved in the break-in at the Watergate building but had now resigned. Again Nixon hoped that that would end the matter, but the pressure continued and so he agreed to set up an investigation headed by Archibald Cox as the special Watergate prosecutor.

By now many Americans were beginning to lose faith in Nixon and there were calls for an independent investigation. The Senate decided to act and set up its own investigation, under Senator Sam Ervin. The Senate televised its hearings during 1973 and it soon became clear, from the evidence of witnesses, that senior people at the White House had been involved. One of these officials, John Dean, then testified that Nixon had directed the cover-up. Even now Nixon went on television to tell the public that he was innocent.

5. The Watergate tapes

During the Senate’s investigation, a witness stunned everyone by telling them that Nixon had secretly recorded all his meetings at the White House.

Both the Senate and Archibald Cox asked Nixon to hand over these tapes, but Nixon said there was secret information on them that would threaten National Security if released and so refused. He then sacked Cox.

By now people were being to question just how much Nixon knew and Cox’s replacement, Leon Jaworski, continued to demand the tapes. Under enormous pressure, Nixon handed over some tapes, but it was soon discovered that he had handed over 7 of the 9 tapes made and that the ones that had been handed over had important sections cut out.

Jaworski demanded all the tapes and persuaded the Supreme Court to order Nixon to hand them over.

Nixon had no choice. The tapes were very damaging to Nixon as they proved he had been involved in the dirty campaign against the Democrats, that he had repeatedly lied, that he constantly used foul language and made racist comments. The American people were shocked at the behaviour of their president and were outraged that he had lied to them. It was also discovered that the White House had paid money to the 5 burglars in the hope of keeping them quiet.

6. The fall of Nixon

In July 1974, Congress decided to impeach Nixon – put him on trial before the Senate. Several charges were made against him:

(a) He had tried to obstruct justice by covering up the role of the White House in the burglary;

(b) He had ordered the FBI and CIA to harass his critics and he had tried to stop the FBI investigation into the scandal;

HOWEVER there was never any evidence produced that showed he had known about the original break-in. If Nixon had not tried to cover-up the scandal, there would not have been any evidence against him.

It soon became clear that Nixon had lost the support of the American people. Two years before they had overwhelmingly re-elected him as their president, but now 66% wanted him impeached.

The evidence all suggested that he would be found guilty and possibly sent to prison.

Nixon had no choice but to resign as president on 8 August 1974. No president had ever resigned before.

The new President, Gerald Ford, had been Nixon’s vice-president, and immediately pardoned Nixon for any criminal acts that he may have committed. Nixon was discredited but free.

7. What were the effects of the scandal?

Congress decided that it had to prevent future presidents from abusing their powers by placing limits and controls on them. It introduced a series of measures:

(a) The War Powers Act, 1973 : no president could send US troops into a prolonged war without first consulting Congress;

(b) The Election Campaign Act, 1974 : limits were placed on the amounts parties could receive in campaign contributions in order to prevent corruption;

(d) The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act, 1974 : no president could use government money for his own, or his party’s, personal interests.

8. So did the scandal seriously weaken the USA?

People are divided. Some say that it had serious effects; others say that this was not the case.

The arguments are listed below:

YES		NO
Watergate led to the term gate being applied to any scandal as it became considered as the major scandal of the century, eg Irangate	The fact that Nixon was forced to resign and his advisers were imprisoned showed that the US system worked to prevent corruption.
Nixon was totally discredited by the scandal and people forgot all the good things that he had done – like make friends with China, pull USA troops out of Vietnam – and only thought of him as the discredited president.	The Supreme Court had proved that it could keep a check on the activities of the president.
31 of Nixon’s advisers were imprisoned for offences connected with Watergate. People came to see their government as corrupt.	New laws were introduced which meant that this could not happen again. These cleaned up the political process.
People lost confidence in the political process and politicians. In 1976 they elected an unknown outsider, Jimmy Carter, as their president after he promised to never lie to the American public.	People soon became confident in their politicians again and by the end of the 1970s were voting for a professional politician again, Ronald Reagan.
All around the world people laughed at the USA and its corrupt system. At the same time the USA had to withdraw from Vietnam. This made the feeling of despair higher in the USA.2

9. Did Nixon achieve anything positive?

AT HOME:

n Blacks made advances in Civil rights. By 1971, there were 13 black Congressmen and 81 black mayors, but this was done with little support from Nixon who showed no real interest

n His economic policies failed. He tried to control prices, but under him, prices rose, unemployment rose and so did inflation. He did, however, manage to cut taxes.

n He rejected the idea of creating childcare centres so mothers could return to work

ABROAD

· He ended the draft system for Vietnam and made the Vietnamese take more responsibility for their own security as he began the withdrawal of US troops.

· He established friendlier relations with Communist China and visited Mao. New trade and sporting links were established and Nixon had managed to drive a further wedge between the two main communist powers : China and the USSR.

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