The Watergate Scandal :: President Richard Nixon

Watergate Scandal Watergate was a designation of a major U.S. scandal that began with the burglary and wiretapping of the Democratic party's headquarters, later engulfed President Richard M. Nixon and many of his supporters in a variety of illegal acts and culminated in the first resignation of a U.S. president.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The burglary was committed on June 17, 1972, by five men who were caught in the offices of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate apartment and office complex in Washington D.C. Their arrest eventually uncovered a White House-sponsered plan of espionage against political opponents and a trail of complicity that led to many of the highest officials in the land, including former U.S. Attorney General John Mitchell, White House Counsel John Dean, White House Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman, White House Special Assistant on Domestic Affairs John Ehrlichman, and President Nixon himself. On April 30, 1973, nearly a year after the burglary and arrest and following a grand jury investigation of the burglary, Nixon accepted the resignation of Haldeman and Ehrlichman and announced the dismissal of Dean U.S. Attorney General Richard Kleindienst resigned as well. The new attorney general, Elliot Richardson, appointed a special prosecutor, Harvard Law School profesor Archibald Cox, to conduct a full-scale investigation of the Watergate break-in. In May of 1973, the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Activities opened hearings, with Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina as chairman. A series of startling revelations followed. Dean testified that Mitchell had ordered the break-in and that a major attempt was under way to hide White House involvement. He claimed that the president had authorized payments to the burglars to keep them quiet. The Nixon administration immediately denied this assertion.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The testimony of White House aide Alexander Butterfield unlocked the entire investigation pertaining to White House tapes. On July 16, 1973, Butterfield told the committee, on nationwide television, that Nixon had ordered a taping system installed in the White House to automatically record all conversations; what the president said and when he said it could be verified. Cox immediately subpoened eight revelant tapes to confirm Dean's testimony. Nixon refused to release the tapes, claiming they were vital to the national security. U.S. District Court Judge Johm Sirica ruled that Nixon must give the tapes 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, ordered Richardson to dismiss Cox. Richardson refused and resigned instead, as did Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus. Finally, the solicitor general discharged Cox.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  A storm of public protest resulted fron this â€Å"Saturday night massacre.† In response, Nixon appointed another special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, a Texas