Читать реферат по английскому: "Watergate Scandal In The White House Essay" Страница 2

(Назад) (Cкачать работу)

the delegates. McGovern’s campaign ran into trouble early. The press revealed

that his running mate Thomas Eagleton had once received psychiatric treatment.

First McGovern stood by Eagleton, and then he abandoned him choosing a different

running mate. In addition, many Democratic voters were attached to Nixon because

of his conservative positions on the Vietnam War. Meanwhile, Nixon’s campaign

sailed smoothly along, aided by millions of dollars in funds, Nixon’s campaign

officials collected much of the money illegally. Major corporations were told to

“contribute” at least 100,000 dollars each. The collectors made it clear that

the donations could easily buy the parties favor with the White House. Many

large corporations went along. As shipbuilding tycoon George Steinbrenner said;

it was a shakedown, a plain old-fashioned shakedown(Watergate, the secret

story).

The final blow to McGovern’s chances for presidency came just days before the

election, when Kissinger announced that peace was at hand in Vietnam. McGovern

had made his political reputation as a critic of the Vietnam War, and the

announcement took the wind out of his sails. Nixon tallied an enormous victory.

He received over 60 percent of the popular vote and won every state except

Massachusetts (Kutler, 43). Congress however remained under Democratic control.

In January of 1973, two months after Nixon had won the presidential election,

the misdeeds of Watergate began to surface. The Watergate burglars went on trial

in a Washington D.C. courtroom. James McCord, one of the burglars, gave shocking

evidence. McCord testified that people in higher office had paid hush money to

the burglars who were involved in Watergate (Emery, 276). McCord a former CIA

agent who had led the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961, McCord worked for

the Nixon re-election campaign. With the hush money they were supposed to

conceal the White Houses involvement in Watergate. After the prosecuting

attorney investigated he quickly found out that the attorney General, John

Mitchell, approved the break-in. Even thought John Mitchell was one of the most

trusted advisors, Nixon denied knowledge about the break-in and cover-up of

Watergate. The public soon found out that Nixon was not telling the truth. The

public also found out that Nixon had ordered his aids to block any information

to the investigators. The White House also tried to stop flow of the

investigations, because they were afraid that it would uncover very important

secrets about the White Houses involvement. Nixon would not appear at the

congressional committee, complaining that if he were to testify it would violate

the separation of powers, which is stated in the constitution. Although the

constitution does define that their must be a separation of powers, it does not

state that the president is not able to testify in front of a congressional

committee. Nixon’s unwillingness to testify made people feel that Nixon was

abusing his executive privileges just to cover-up his crimes. When Nixon had no

possible way of protecting the White House staff, he fired them. Such as when he

fired two of his aids, H.R Haldeman and John Ehrlichwan, because they were on

the line of being charged for their crimes, but they were still convicted of

conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and perjury (Muzzio, 9). In may of 1973, the

press broadcasted the hearings on television to millions of people, the public

felt that it was their civic duty to watch over Nixon’s trial. An official told

the court that Nixon had tape-recorded all the conversations he had made to his

“Plumbers”(Watergate, Impeachment). Nixon had hoped that these tapes would one

day be used by historians to document the triumph of his term; instead they

would play a key element in his downfall and proved to be very prudent in

showing that Nixon was guilty. Nixon refused to release the tapes, claiming the

executive privilege gave him the right to keep his record private. Nixon’s

unwillingness to forfeit the tapes caused him to go to court, before it was

decided, Vice President Agnew was charged with income tax evasion. He was also

charged for accepting bribes in exchanging for political favors. Agnew resigned

because of the charges in October of 1973. He made a deal with the prosecuting

attorney and pleaded guilty for tax evasion and all of the other charges were

dropped (Emery, 382-83). This scandal was not connected to Watergate, but it put

a lot of stress on Nixon.

Nixon nominated Gerald Ford in place of Agnew (Kutler, 577). A couple of days

after Agnew resignation, the federal court ordered Nixon hand over the tapes.

Nixon refused once again so judge Cox tried to make him. Nixon tried to persuade

his lawyer to find a loophole, which would disqualify Cox as an impartial

interpreter. Cox was an idle to Richardson, because he was his professor in law

school. Richardson refused Nixon’s order and resigned. President Nixon then

ordered the deputy Attorney General to fire Cox. This massive event was known as

the Saturday Night Massacre (Watergate, Massacre). Many people of the nation

felt that Nixon’s blocking of the judicial process was proof of his guiltiness.

People mailed Congress thousands of telegrams asking for them to begin the

impeachment process against president

Похожие работы