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Essay Subject: Examines abuses of power of Watergate Crisis (1972-74). Their origins, evolution, cover-up, resolution & consequences. Disregard of Nixon administration for constitutional norms.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Examines abuses of power of Watergate Crisis (1972-74). Their origins, evolution, cover-up, resolution & consequences. Disregard of Nixon administration for constitutional norms. Paper Introduction: NIXON AND WATERGATE This research paper examines the origins, evolution, resolution and consequences of the Watergate crisis of 1972-1974. The series of abuses of power, which surfaced during the Watergate crisis, tested the viability of the American system of constitutional and representative government. They arose out of, and were facilitated by, significant changes in the American body politic, which began in the mid-1960s. And continued into the 1970’s coalescing around President Richard Nixon's attempt to use the powers of the presidency, illegally and unethically, to achieve his domestic political and foreign policy objectives, especially with regard to the Vietnam War. Nixon's mindset and style of presidential leadership played a key role in setting Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. Westport: Greenwood P, 1997.Haldeman, H. The checks andbalances of the American system of government proved strong and resilientenough to prevail, but many other factors, including luck and Nixon's ownineptness, were involved in his downfall. They arose out of, and were facilitated by,significant changes in the American body politic, which began in the mid-196 s. Nixon putpressure on the Internal Revenue Service to audit a number of his liberalopponents. Reasons for the Coverup. New York: Basic Books, 1994.Kutner, Stanley I. The five burglars were four Cubans withCIA connections plus ex-CIA man and security specialist James McCord whowere recruited and directed by Liddy and Hunt. Genovese said "the Nixon administration made government into aninstrument of revenge and retaliation" (25). Nixon received conflicting legal advice as to whether he coulddestroy the tapes without being culpable of obstruction of justice if heacted before Cox or the Ervin Committee issued subpoenas for them. Krogh called it the 'seminal event' of theNixon administration (18). . . . Nixon and his National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger wanted to endthe war in Vietnam, but believed they had to do so in a manner, whichpreserved American world power and prestige in the world. . Genovese said "Nixon wasa man haunted by the memories of past failures, of fears of enemies" andthat "he harbored grudges and remembered every hurt" (64). Nixon was among the mostcomplex men ever to have occupied the Oval Office. police after a nightwatchman noted a tell-tale strip ofwhite tape on one of the doors they had forced open. It was not only that such illegal activities had occurred onNixon's watch, but that most of them were authorized and indeed championedby him as President which made the coverup inevitable. should foreclose savage action when it was necessary" (427).Believing that the illegal actions he had ordered were justified bynational security considerations or to preserve his stature as President,Nixon covered up the Watergate break-in. Huntforged State Department cables to fake John Kennedy's complicity in themurder of Ngo Diem in 1963. Public opinion began to turn decisively against Nixon after he hadCox fired during the Saturday Night Massacre of October 21, 1999. New York: Simon & Schuster, 199 .Small, Melvin. . Most observers at the time and since believe that if in 1972 Nixonhad taken full responsibility for the Watergate break-in, fired everyoneremotely connected with it and let the criminal justice process follow itsnormal course, he probably would have served out his term. Another possible motif for the June 17 break-in was that Colson andHunt might have highjacked Gemstone to "find or plant evidence [at the DNC]linking democrats to left-wing radicals and to plant phone taps" (Hoff3 6). CREEP eventually raised $6 million, $56 million of whichwas spent on the 1972 presidential campaign, "more than in any previouscampaign" (Kutler The Wars 22). Colson used a former New Yorkpoliceman John Caulfield and private investigator Tony Ulasewicz to dig updirt on Ted Kennedy relating to the July 1969 Chappaquiddick incident. forced Haldeman and Nixon into joining aconspiracy to obstruct justice" (11). In effect, Nixon was arguing that he should be allowed to be thejudge in his own cause, that the President was above the law. Known for his gutterfighting tactics as a politician, Nixon viewedthe presidency as a place where he could achieve noble and great purposes,especially in foreign policy. Systemic Response and Crisis Resolution The coverup succeeded in dampening public interest in the break-inlong enough for Nixon to be re-elected in a landslide. The Plumbers illegally broke intoand burglarized in September 1971 the office of Ellsberg's psychiatrist,Dr. According to Kutler, the expandedtranscripts of the Nixon tape recordings of conversations in the OvalOffice which were released in 1996 "reveal President Nixon's insatiabledesire for more information, more intelligence about his political foes"(Abuse xx). Due to the rise of the media, especially television, and of theprimary process, by the early 197 s political parties no longer had as muchcontrol over presidential politics. AsWhite put it, "Presidents had broken free into a world of their own, guided by their own instincts and character . Small said "Nixon stepped up his intelligence campaigns againstpossible Democratic rivals for 1972" (25 ). Watergate complex was a part of the overall domestic politicalintelligence gathering campaign. Direct corporate contributions and someindividual contributions were illegal, and, therefore, had to be launderedabroad. The break-in of June 17, 1972 atthe Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters in the Washington,D.C. . Nixon wanted topreserve the tapes to ensure his place in history and take a substantialtax deduction for them. New York: Free P, 1997.Kutner, Stanley I. However, as Ambrose pointed out, his view of executive privilege wasinsupportable. Frustrated by objectionsraised by FBI Director J. An even more far-fetchedexplanation was that Dean ordered the break-in to remove files at the DNC,which would reveal the call girl connections of his fiance and future wife,Maureen Biner (3 7). Wicker suggested that "a sense of emotionaldeprivation deep in Nixon's innermost personality might go far to explainhis fear . What is even more alarming isthe threat posed to representative government by the growing inequality ofincome and wealth and the proliferation of money and its perniciousinfluence at all levels of politics and government, which makes Nixon'sfundraising abuses appear miniscule by comparison. The Presidency of Richard Nixon. New York: St. Nixon'scredibility sunk to an all-time nadir after experts appointed by Siricaconcluded that someone had deliberately erased the missing 18 and half inchsegment of the subpoenaed tape of June 2 , 1973 in which Nixon and Haldemandiscussed Watergate. Overthe course of his rollercoaster political career, he had difficultyexpressing his feelings. furnish the Democrats as little political ammunition as possible out of the idiotic incident" (23). New York: Times Books, 1978.Hoff, Joan. Within a few daysof the break-in, Dean, acting on behalf of Haldeman and Erlichman, 'cleanedout' White House files of incriminating material and arranged for theirdestruction and helped the Watergate seven find and pay for criminaldefense attorneys with White House/CREEP funds. According to Garment, "Watergate had its origins in the preelectionseason of 1972" (192). Nixon Ruin and Recovery 1973-199 . Yet no one was really held accountable forthe illegal acts involved in the Iran Contra scandal in the late 198 s.More than twenty high Nixon administration officials served prison termsfor their involvement in Watergate and yet President Gerald Ford pardonedNixon. . The purpose of the June 17 break-in is still not clear. Nevertheless, Nixon pushed the envelope of presidential powerfarther than any of his predecessors. The reasons why Nixon engaged in these abuses of power, subsequentcoverups and obstruction of justice were deeply rooted in his torturedpsyche and his view of presidential leadership. Theirrevelations induced Nixon to cause Haldeman, Erlichman and Kleindienst toresign in late April 1973. Works CitedAmbrose, Stephen E. Previous presidents fromFranklin Roosevelt onward had authorized warrantless wiretaps and otherillegal activities to protect national security. . It formed a secret White House SpecialInvestigations Unit (the Plumbers) headed by David Young and Egil Krogh,which also employed former CIA operative Howard Hunt and ex-FBI agentGordon Liddy, and reported to Erlichman. . New York: Knopf, 199 .Lukas, J. that people did not like him" (31). Some keyadvisers such as John Connally urged him to burn them. Wicker said he "saw no reason why [their]pursuit . Hoff said, "Watergate has proved more of a palliative or placebothan a genuine cure for festering weaknesses within the democraticpolitical system" (335). Nixon, however, remained in office for anotherfifteen months until he finally resigned. The first such decision was proven beyond a shadow of doubt by theJune 23, 1972 'smoking gun' tape, which Nixon ultimately released to theSpecial Prosecutor after the Supreme Court on July 24, 1974 ruled againsthim under its decision in United States v. Breach of Faith The Fall of Richard Nixon. Lewis Fielding, in an unsuccessful attempt to obtain Ellsberg's file.According to Genovese, "even if the president had not ordered, or evenknown the specifics of, the break-in . Step by step, the Nixon administration intensified and broadened itsillegal surveillance of American citizens. [It] did not apply to criminal conspiracies" (226). . Martin's P, 1991.Garment, Leonard. Nixon set a tone or a mood, andput great pressure on those around him to 'get Ellsberg.'" (17) Colsonlater testified that after the release of the Pentagon Papers, "the groundrules began to change" (17). White explained the ideasand beliefs of Nixon's closest political advisers, men like White HouseChief of Staff Robert Haldeman, John Erlichman, John Mitchell, AttorneyGeneral Richard Kleindienst and Charles Colson. In The Arena A Memoir of Victory, Defeat and Renewal. In parallel, Colson and White House CounselJohn Dean came up with a list of Nixon's political enemies. The nation had passedthrough the turbulent decade of the 196 s which was marked by politicalassassinations, the civil rights struggle, racial violence, rising urbancrime, and the divisive domestic effects of the Vietnam War, which haddriven his predecessor, Lyndon Johnson, from office. However, Nixon made a number of decisions to curtail andstonewall the criminal investigation, pay hush money to the Watergate sevenand to coverup the involvement of his key aides and ultimately his own rolein that coverup which together amounted to a massive obstruction ofjustice. Colodny and Gettlin took this conspiracy theory evenfurther by alleging that after Dean master-minded the break-in for personalreasons, his "deceptions . The full truth may never beknown, but it seems reasonable to assume that the break-in was primarily abungled attempt ordered by one or more of Nixon's top henchmen to obtainpolitical intelligence on the Democrats. Lawrence: U of Kansas P, 1999.White, Theodore H. . because the agencyfeared that, if re-elected, Nixon intended to weaken the agency's powerand/or use it for political purposes" (3 6). Nixon later claimed thathistory would vindicate his view that the most prominent feature of theWatergate investigation and prosecutionwas "the partisan and political dimension" (35). Anthony. . . . Liddy's first plan involved various illegaltactics for disrupting the forthcoming Democratic Convention in Miami. Ambassadorships were sold for higher prices than usual. . Money and ID found ator near the burglary scene soon revealed the burglars' CIA connections,Liddy's CREEP connection and Hunt's White House connection. Even then, however, adequate proof of Nixon'scomplicity, what Senator Howard Baker called 'what did the President knowand when did he know it?' would probably have been lacking had Nixon notreleased the tapes. Rising antiwar protestsfollowing the invasion of communist sanctuaries in Cambodia in April 197 and the shooting of students at Kent State and Jackson State Universitiesled to increased surveillance and infiltration of domestic radical groupswhich had begun on a smaller scale under LBJ. Nixon'sexaggerated view of the scope of presidential prerogatives was revealed inhis 1977 interview with David Frost when he blurted out, "when thePresident does it, that means that it is not illegal" (Kutner The Wars614). Hoover succeeded in vetoing the Huston Plan; but WhiteHouse efforts to circumvent the bureaucracy continued. Many others were highly questionable, such as funds collected fromthe dairy producers, ITT and other companies "with problems in Washington"(Lukas 127). Furthermore,they believe that he would not have been forced to resign as he did onAugust 9, 1974. Its apotheosis was to be reached in 1972 by Richard Nixon" (53). His mean-spiritedness always came to the fore when he was under political attack.According to Kutner, Nixon "had both an instinctive, visceral hatred of thenews media, and a compulsive desire to manipulate and tame them" (The Wars161). Nixon's attempt to take the high ground, to argue that he could not release the tapes because it would violate the principle of confidentiality . Another group of theories suggested that "Hunt and McCord [acting onbehalf of the CIA] botched the second break-in . Presidential nominees and candidatescould now campaign on their own with their own sources of financing. My Journey from Brooklyn, Jazz, and Wall Street to Nixon's White House, Watergate, and Beyond. Abuse of Power The New Nixon Tapes. However, key Republicanson the Ervin and House Judiciary Committee eventually concluded that Nixonhad lied about the cover-up. Richard Nixon was notyrant. The Watergate crises grew out of theirobsessive concern over preserving secrecy and Nixon's reelection strategyfor 1972. Chapin engaged the services ofDonald Segretti who among other things "forged documents, leaked falsestatements, and canceled Democratic candidates' appearances" (254). . Haldeman said Nixon "never dreamed it was possiblethat the tapes would ever be heard by anyone other than himself. he alone had the evidence" and no one else could see it in rawform (Ambrose 31 ). Aletter sent by White House press officer and CREEP operative Ken Clawsonled to the withdrawal from the race of Senator Edmund Muskie (D-Me) whobroke down while defending his wife against Clawson's false innuendoes.According to Small, "although Nixon did not know of each specific object,he approved of the general thrust of the program" (254). The most obvious legacies ofWatergate were a decline in public trust in government and a weakening ofthe presidency. And,meanwhile, he could use them in his Watergate battle" (2 5). However, a combination of enterprisingmedia reporting by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of the Washington Postand the steady cracking under pressure applied by the federal prosecutors,Judge John Sirica and/or Ervin Committee of first McCord, then FBI DirectorL. Smallsaid "the firing of Cox produced a firestorm of outrage" (29 ). During this period,the senior levels of the Department of Justice, Kleindienst and HenryPetersen, head of the Criminal Division, allowed the criminal investigationto be compromised by Dean and Nixon. The Watergate crisis raises thequestion as to whether tyranny might not triumph under more capable anddetermined hands. In the end, he avoided a constitutional crisis by complying withthe Supreme Court's order to release the tapes and, finally cornered, heresigned. Nixon's efforts began withwarrantless wiretaps in May 1969 by the FBI of national security aides andreporters to discover the sources of leaks. inherited a vastly weakened andincreasingly vulnerable presidency" (The Wars 1 ). The political activities of the White House staff and CREEP werefinanced from special funds raised for that purpose. Edgar Hoover, friction between FBI and CIA andthe inability of those agencies to find links between domestic radicals andforeign enemies, Nixon sought to increase the control of the White Houseover such activities. New York: Atheneum, 1975.Wicker, Tom. Mitchell headed CREEP aided by Jeb Magruder andone of Haldeman's aides, Dwight Chapin. In that tape, Nixon isheard telling Haldeman that "they should call the FBI in and say that wewish for the country, don't go any further in the case, period!" This incontext meant that he was ordering Haldeman and Dean to get the CIA toinvoke spurious national security considerations to cause the FBI not tofollow the money trail left by the burglars (Kutler Abuse 69). Today, the lasting legacy of Watergate is public distrust ofgovernment that is reflected in voter apathy and cynicism. Reasons for the Coverup Purpose of the Watergate break-in. . with Joseph DiMona. The presidencywas weakened, but arguably not permanently. . Its abuseswere eventually disclosed and corrected, but many of the systemicweaknesses it revealed remain. According to Small, "CREEP engaged in a well-orchestrated campaign of'dirty tricks' the likes of which had never been seen before in any modernAmerican election" (253). The Ervin Committee, SpecialProsecutors Archibald Cox and Leon Jaworski, the courts, the HouseJudiciary Committee which finally voted to impeach the President in earlyAugust 1974 and the media played an important check and balance role incausing the truth to surface. Conclusion The Watergate crisis reflected the inordinate lust for power of theNixon administration and its disregard for constitutional norms. Genovese said that Nixonbelieved "what was important was to keep a lid on all the other illegal andunethical activities that might be revealed if [that] 'can of worms' wasopened" (32). At the same time,according to Kutler, "Nixon had . And continued into the 197 's coalescing around President RichardNixon's attempt to use the powers of the presidency, illegally andunethically, to achieve his domestic political and foreign policyobjectives, especially with regard to the Vietnam War. the technique for running a campaign divorced from a political party would probably have been invented by someone in the past forty years. Origins of the Watergate Crisis After Nixon was narrowly elected President in 1968, he stepped into apresidency the powers of which had been enormously expanded as a result ofeconomic dislocations, two world wars and the Cold War. One of Us Richard Nixon And The American Dream. The Watergate seven werearrested by D.C. Nightmare The Underside of the Nixon Years. He forgot that "legitimate power in ademocracy is bound by tradition" (Ambrose 582). . NIXON AND WATERGATE This research paper examines the origins, evolution, resolution andconsequences of the Watergate crisis of 1972-1974. Patrick Gray, other lower level participants in the conspiracy such asMagruder and later Dean led to a partial unraveling of the coverup. Nixon placed Haldemanin charge of a slush fund consisting of moneys left over from the 1968campaign and secret contributions fromwealthy supporters, including Elmer Bobst, Ross Perot, Greek promoterThomas Pappas and others, which were funneled at first through Nixon'sfriend Bebe Rebozo and were later solicited by CREEP Finance ChairmanMaurice Stans. The secondmost important decision was his refusal to destroy the tapes of privateconversations in the Oval Office pertaining to Watergate which White Houseaide Alexander Butterfield revealed to the Ervin Committee in July 1973. The discovery of the WhiteHouse taping system was fortuitous. It grew outof an operation code-named Gemstone, originally an elaborate, lurid andexpensive ($1 million) scheme which Liddy had proposed to Mitchell andwhich Mitchell had rejected. Nixon Reconsidered. R. No evidence has ever been presented to provethat Nixon authorized or knew in advance of the break-in. New York: Random House, 1991.----------------------- 17 Lessons of Watergate The founding fathers hoped that they had established a constitutionalsystem of separation of powers and other checks and balances which wouldguard the Republic against the exercise of tyranny. White stated that they"believed the new culture was not only undermining the authority of theirPresident to make war and peace, but striking into their homes, families,and schools [and] undermining the values with which they had grown up andstill held dear" (331). Some observers such as Hoff, argue that "it appears just as likelythat if those advising Nixon had not prepared such an inept defense forhim, Congress might never have acted" (333). After the New York Times published the Pentagon Papers (a classifiedhistory of America's pre-1969 involvement in the Vietnam War which wasprovided to it by former Defense Department consultant Daniel Ellsberg) onJune 13, 1971, Genovese said "the Nixon administration decided to takematters into its own hands" (15-16). Nixon's mindset andstyle of presidential leadership played a key role in setting the crisis inmotion, covering up the excesses of his administration, and ultimately inresolving it short of a constitutional confrontation. The 197 Congressional and gubernatorial electionswere a setback for the Republicans. The Wars of Watergate The Last Crisis of Richard Nixon. Many reforms have been enacted, most by Congress and someadministratively, to curb the abuses of power revealed by Watergate, suchas limits on campaign spending, the War Powers Act, increased Congressionalsurveillance over the CIA and the FBI, the Ethics in Government Act, theFreedom of Information Act, etc. As Haldeman put it, theinitial White House strategy was to "contain it to CRP where it belonged; don't let it slop over into the White House . Nixon'sdefense essentially was that even though he knew "he was guilty of coveringup . Watergate inspired many governmental reforms, most ofwhich have had only limited effects on ameliorating some fundamentalimbalances in the American political system which remain. Most speculation as to the specific aim of the June 17 break-incentered around the knowledge DNC Chairman Lawrence O'Brien had concerningthe past relationships of Nixon and his brother Donald with, and fundsprovided by, Howard Hughes who had also paid O'Brien retainer fees.Haldeman so testified before the Senate's Select Committee chaired bySenator Sam Ervin (D-N.C.) which was set up on February 7, 1973 toinvestigate irregularities in the 1972 presidential campaign (Haldeman 19). The series of abuses of power, which surfaced during the Watergatecrisis, tested the viability of the American system of constitutional andrepresentative government. These beliefs ledthem to engage in a secret escalation of the war and yet their beliefs alsoled them to pursue peace negotiations with the North Vietnamese and othercommunist powers at the same time. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991.Colodny, Len, and Robert Gettlin. Much of Nixon'selectoral support came from what he called the 'great silent majority' inhis speech of November 3, 1969, who, according to Small, felt "threatenedby these social and cultural revolutions" (33). Theaims of the scaled down Gemstone, which Mitchell approved, were to gatherintelligence by purloining Democratic files on the Republicans and/orplanting electronic bugs at the DNC. Silent Coup The Removal of a President. The Ends of Power. could not work. This led to the Huston Plan of July 14, 197 , whichcalled for a greatly expanded and centrally directed program of domesticcounter-intelligence gathering and surveillance of radicals by clandestineand illegal means. The burglarshad previously illegally entered the same area on May 28, 1972. It was Mr. Republican, Senator BarryGoldwater, who told Nixon that he would be convicted on impeachment chargesif he did not resign. The Watergate Crisis. According to Ambrose, he"was a man who could not trust others, and had no real friends" (587). Nixon. New York: Random House, 1997.Genovese, Michael A. In March 1971 the Committee to Reelectthe President (CRP or CREEP) was set up as a campaign organization separatefrom the Republican National Committee. . They also suggested that AlexanderHaig, Kissinger's aide and White House Chief of Staff after October 1973later manipulated the coverup in such a way as to embarrass Nixon.Furthermore, they suggested that Alexander Haig acted to prevent the JointChiefs of Staff's role in bugging Nixon and Kissinger from becoming knownpublicly during the Watergate investigation. Athens: Ohio UP, 1999.Nixon, Richard M. These and other examples of Nixon's suspiciousbehavior eroded his credibility beyond repair. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.