- "Watergate"
- "The False Shadow of the President of the United States"
- Alexander LAZAREV "WATERGATE: THE LIBERAL CONSPIRACY AGAINST NIXON"
- "WATERGATE": The collapse of the president"
"Watergate"\Watergate
The Watergate case is perhaps the most famous political scandal in American history. In 1972, during the period of preparation for the next elections, it turned out that an attempt was made to install listening devices in the Watergate Hotel in Washington, rented offices by the US Democratic Party headquarters. As it turned out later, the "bugs" were installed at the urgent request of the press secretary of the then owner of the White House - President Richard Nixon, a member of the Republican Party.
A series of proceedings initiated by the influential Washington Post showed that, most likely, Nixon and several of his closest aides (including the US Attorney General) were aware of this story. The actions of the presidential team were not considered a crime, only a serious violation of ethical standards, but this did not help Nixon and his entourage.
In 1974, Nixon was impeached. In an attempt to save himself, Nixon tried to put some pressure on the Washington Post to prevent further revelations from being published. The newspaper did not succumb to pressure, and the public decided that Nixon's actions were an indirect admission of his guilt. The president's aides who went wrong were forced to leave the civil service, and Nixon's political career was a complete failure (before Watergate, his popularity with Americans was very high). Nixon resigned without waiting for further developments. Nixon's successor, President Gerald Ford, pardoned his predecessor, which, in turn, had a negative impact on his career - Ford lost the next election miserably.
"The Watergate case led to the adoption of new, tougher campaign finance rules in the United States and a number of additional measures that were supposed to help avoid such scandals in the future.
The most famous political scandals in US history
http://www.washprofile.org/SUBJECTS-2/politscand.html
The false shadow of the President of the United States
Nixon's assistants were in prison instead of the chief
The revelations of Jeb S. Magruder, a former aide to Richard Nixon, cast a new light on the famous Watergate scandal that ended with the resignation of the Republican president. V documentary"Watergate 30 Years Later: A Shadow of History" (PBS Tomorrow) Magruder claims to have heard Nixon angrily instructing Attorney General Mitchell over the phone on March 30, 1972, "John, you need to do this." .
Until now, it was believed that Nixon was not aware of the methods by which his fellow party members were waging a political struggle. Now, Jeb S. Magruder claims that the order to break into the Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate Hotel to install listening devices was given personally by Nixon. Magruder himself, then 37 years old, ran the presidential election campaign, and, together with Mitchell in the latter's Florida home, discussed the pros and cons of the plan to steal information about rivals.
Agreeing that the undertaking was fraught with dangerous consequences, they dialed the number of the president's trusted adviser, Robert Haldeman. During a discussion with him, Nixon himself picked up the phone. “I knew his voice too well to be mistaken as to who gave the last word,” says Magruder. Hanging up, Mitchell told him, "Jeb, tell Maury Stans to give Liddy $250,000 and we'll see what happens." (Maurice Stans was secretary of commerce and campaign treasurer, and Gordon Liddy was the hacker.) Nixon later shifted responsibility for the decision to illegally break into Democratic secrets to Mitchell.
Jeb S. Magruder (he spent seven months in prison for Watergate, after which he became a Presbyterian minister) explained the belated confession by saying that it was useless to say then, since all those involved would deny participation in the conspiracy. Now his life is coming to an end (last year Magruder almost died from internal bleeding), and he decided that not everything can be fixed, but the truth must be told.
How to relate to the revelations of the last of the Mohicans from the "Watergate" dock? Former White House lawyer John Dean "sees no reason to doubt that everything happened as Magruder describes it." But Stanley Cutler is skeptical. None of Nixon's remaining audiotapes studied by this author of The Watergate Wars suggest that Nixon was aware of the thieving preparations of the assistants. However, the main characters - Nixon, Mitchell, Haldeman, Stans - have already found refuge in another world and took away everything that was not said with them.
http://www.vremya.ru/2003/137/5/76343.html
WATERGATE: THE LIBERAL CONSPIRACY AGAINST NIXON
Alexander LAZAREVIn the history of our country, there are many legends that have nothing to do with reality. And we are talking not only about the deep (by American standards) history of the 18th-19th centuries, but also about the history of the 20th century. To illustrate, I will give two examples.
One legend says that economic policy President Hoover caused a catastrophic fall in the stock price on the New York Stock Exchange, after which the Great Depression began - one of the most difficult periods in the life of the country.
Hoover took office on March 4, 1929; the catastrophe on the stock exchange happened on Thursday, October 24 of the same year, that is, six and a half months later. During this period of time, no one, including the President of the United States, could do anything that led to Black Thursday.
President Roosevelt's "New Deal" helped end the Great Depression - that's another legend.
The facts - economic data - indicate that the US economy recovered only after the country's entry into World War II - 10 years after Roosevelt's accession to the presidency. Only when the country's economy switched to a war footing was the depression over. But Europe took much less time to recover. Without any "new course" the economy recovered by the mid-1930s. And again, the military industry played an important role in this.
To the legends, as far from the truth as the two named, belongs the Watergate one. According to this legend, five members of Nixon's Second Term Selection Committee secretly broke into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in order to learn Democratic party secrets and make it easier for their boss to win the 1972 election. The headquarters was located in the Watergate complex in Washington, where there are both residential apartments and all kinds of offices. Few had heard of Watergate outside of Washington before the hack. After the scandal began, the whole world learned about it.
"It all happened," we read, for example, in an editorial in USA Today, "because of [Nixon's] panicky fear of losing the election..."
Was Nixon afraid of defeat, however? He talked about a possible defeat, which we can read about in numerous memoirs written by people who were in one way or another connected with the president. Was he afraid of failure? Like every politician. But his fears and phobias had absolutely nothing to do with hacking. Contrary to the existing legend.
The hack happened on June 17, 1972 - four and a half months before the election. By this time, few Republicans doubted Nixon's victory. No one could, of course, assume that he would win in 49 states out of 50, but the victory was spoken of almost as a fact. And five members of the Nixon Re-Election Committee infiltrated Democratic headquarters for a purpose that had nothing to do with the election. They wanted the names and phone numbers of wealthy donors to the Democratic National Committee fund. And only men. Because one of the burglars was connected to a company that offered prostitutes over the phone, and this company wanted the phone numbers of wealthy people.
The goal, as we see, was selfish, low, prosaic and not connected with high politics. It all started, pardon the rudeness, with b....d, but it ended with a political scandal that the country has never known before - the forced resignation of the president, the first in history.
How, however, did it happen that the "third-rate hack" (as the White House characterized this fact) led to Nixon's resignation?
The answer should be sought, in my opinion, both in the character of the president himself and in the attitude of liberals towards him in Congress, in the mass media, and in public organizations. However, both are to a certain extent interconnected in a knot called Alger Hiss.
In 1948, little known outside of California, Richard Nixon was a lay congressman and lay member of the House Un-American Activities Committee. At one of the committee meetings, Whittaker Chambers, a former communist and member of the underground organization of the Communist Party, who at that time held a high position in the editorial hierarchy of Time magazine, testified. Chambers named several names of Communist underground workers in the 1930s, including a former State Department official, Hiss. Called to the Committee, Hiss categorically denied that he was a communist. He also stated that he had no idea about Chambers, never met him - contrary to the testimony of the latter. All members of the Committee believed Hiss. All but one, Nixon.
At the insistence of the California congressman, the investigation continued, and in the end - two years after the first hearings and after two litigation- Hiss was convicted of perjury. Until his death - and Hiss died last year a very old man - he did not admit that he was a communist. However, counterintelligence documents declassified shortly before his death confirmed Chambers' assertions: Hiss was after all a Soviet agent and handed over secret government documents to Moscow.
The Hiss case turned Nixon into a national politician and made him forever the mortal enemy of liberals. Nixon's war against Hiss was perceived by liberals as a war against Roosevelt's New Deal, since Hiss, one of Roosevelt's closest employees of the State Department (he accompanied the president to the Yalta Conference and stood at the origins of the UN), personified Roosevelt's policy. Liberals did not forgive Nixon for this, and he became a constant target of their attacks: both when he was a senator (1951-53), and when he was vice president (1953-61), and when he was a presidential candidate in 1960 and 1968, and when became president in 1969. They went to great lengths to ensure that Nixon lost the 1960 presidential election and the 1962 California gubernatorial election. They also contributed to the fact that the "third-rate hack" turned into the Watergate scandal and led to the resignation of Nixon. However, Nixon himself contributed to this.
The president experienced a paranoid hatred of the liberals and tried to protect himself from them by all means, including those bordering on violations of the law. Nixon's attitude towards liberals was passed on to his advisers and assistants. It cost them nothing to put out the fire that was starting - to roughly punish the burglars and give publicity to everything that happened in the Watergate complex.
But the Nixon White House took a different path. The burglars were offered money to tell lies. Those who were going to tell the truth were blackmailed. When this became known, the liberal press (primarily the Washington Post) began to fan the fire, and the Nixon White House itself threw wood on the fire, since even the most innocent questions were answered with half-truths. In the end, a committee was created in Congress to investigate the Watergate scandal. This was the beginning of the end. The House Judiciary Committee accused the president of exceeding the power given to him by the Constitution and recommended impeachment. To avoid disgrace, Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974.
Nixon viewed liberals as part of a conspiracy against him and was hardly far from the truth. Watergate is, of course, a conspiracy of liberals against Nixon, although this does not mean at all that the conspirators got together and coordinated their affairs and actions. A conspiracy in this case should be understood as the purposeful activities of Congress, newspapers and television, and public organizations aimed at removing Nixon from power. The liberals did not forgive Nixon for something that easily got away with all his predecessors, including those closest to him - Johnson and Kennedy.
If Nixon's policies had been pursued not by Nixon, but by someone else, Washington would have been rocked with applause. Judge for yourself: he helped end Kennedy and Johnson's Vietnam War, he improved relations with the Soviet Union and established relations with communist China, he expanded welfare programs and "affirmative action" programs flourished under him, he nominated the ultra-liberal lawyer Harry to the Supreme Court. Blackman... But the more liberal Nixon pursued, the more the liberals hated him. They also invented the legend that the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee was hacked in order to help Nixon win the election.
It is appropriate to note that the legends with which I began this note were also launched by the liberals. They didn't like President Hoover, who was a free enterprise. They admired President Roosevelt, who advocated government intervention in the affairs of the free entrepreneur. The history of our country is being written by liberal professors at liberal universities. They also, from time to time, rank presidents from the best to the worst. Franklin Delano Roosevelt is always in the top five. Herbert Hoover and Richard Nixon are always among the "losers". The legends are multiplying.
"WATERGATE": The collapse of the president
A vigilant security guard discovered that a door had been broken into the building of the Democratic Party headquarters in Washington. The criminals were arrested. And a political scandal broke out, the main character of which was US President Richard Nixon.
It happened shortly after two o'clock in the afternoon, on Saturday, June 17, 1972. Five men dressed in formal business suits and wearing rubber gloves slipped through the labyrinth of darkened offices and corridors of the Watergate Hotel. They carried sophisticated sound recording equipment with them. These people were undoubtedly well acquainted with the plan of the building. However, they could not foresee that the vigilant Negro guard at that very moment would begin to walk around the building. Realizing that outsiders had entered the building, the guard immediately called the Washington Police Department.
A police squad was sent to the scene. All five were detained in one of the empty offices. Suspected of attempted robbery, they were arrested and taken to the police to clarify the circumstances. Six hours later, the phone rang in the apartment of young reporter Bob Woodward. The former naval officer picked up the phone and heard the order from the editor-in-chief of the Washington Post newspaper to urgently appear at the courthouse. The matter seemed to Woodward insignificant. What is unusual about the arrest of five robbers? However, after learning that the incident happened at the headquarters of the National Committee of the Democratic Party, the journalist became alert. Thus began the scandal that led to the resignation of US President Richard Nixon. It was the most sensational event in the history of American politics. The very word "Watergate" has become a symbol of immorality, corruption and crime in government circles.
Rise to power
The Nixon scandals have happened before. "Watergate" was the culmination of political intrigue, skillfully hidden from the public eye. Surprisingly, the man who was going to hire a gang of thugs to crack down on active opponents of the Vietnam War was a Quaker in the past and preached the ideas of peace and the fight against violence. He was born on January 9, 1913 in the town of Yorba Linda, California, and was the second son in the family.
His parents were ordinary people. My father grew citrus fruits, worked at construction sites and did not shun any work, but he did not have a permanent job. Although naturally timid and withdrawn, Nixon nevertheless studied well and did well in all subjects. He especially liked history and music. Trying to overcome his timidity and shyness, he participated in open debates and became one of the main players in word tournaments with students from other colleges.
He first attended a Quaker college near his home. At the same time, he worked part-time to pay for his studies. After successfully graduating from college, he received a scholarship from the prestigious Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. In 1934 he entered the law faculty of this university. Three years later, Richard Nixon had already received a bachelor's degree, he was the third among graduates.
Then he began to work in a law office. In his free time, he played in amateur performances in the city drama circle, where he met his future wife, the red-haired school teacher Patricia Ryan. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Nixon decided to contribute to the cause of American victory and, despite his pacifist beliefs, enlisted in the army. He was assigned to the Navy, but, given his Quaker upbringing, he was sent to serve a thousand kilometers from the fighting - to the islands Pacific Ocean, He finished the war with the rank of assistant commander of the transport unit.
In 1945, Nixon's friend, banker Herman Perry, one of the pillars of the Republican Party, persuaded him to enter politics, and Nixon put forward his candidacy for the twelfth regional congress of the Republican Party in California. Thirty-three-year-old Nixon easily won a seat in the US Congress and soon earned a reputation as a serious politician. After some time, he was included in a special bipartisan committee of the House of Representatives, whose duties included investigating un-American activities. Here, because of his intransigence towards the communists, Nixon gained a reputation " watchdog", which constantly frightened the American people with the "red threat".
The position of an ardent anti-communist helped Nixon to win the election to the Senate in 1950. He was then thirty-seven years old, and he already had experience in behind-the-scenes machinations. Nixon was the youngest Republican senator, and two years later, in 1952, President Eisenhower nominated him for vice president. However, soon the stormy political activity Nixon declined sharply. This happened after one of the New York newspapers accused him of using campaign funds for personal needs. On September 23, the young senator made an explanation on national television. Journalists later called his excuses a "checker speech"; among other accusations was this: with the money intended for the election campaign, Nixon bought his children a dog named Checkere.
Nixon said that government funds were used strictly for their intended purpose and that he would never allow himself to commit an illegal or immoral act and thereby ruin his political career. That he never bought a Checkers Cocker Spaniel. The dog was presented to the children, and he does not intend to take away their four-legged friend to please the unbridled journalists. He ended his speech like this: "I'm not going to retire. I don't just give up." He uttered a similar phrase twenty years later during the Watergate scandal. Most Americans believed in his innocence, and Nixon returned to his favorite pastime - attacking opponents from the Democratic ranks. He said that Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson is a friend of Alger Heath, who used to serve in the US State Department and was a communist. The incessant attacks on opponents played their part, and Nixon won a resounding victory in the election.
With an eye on the White House
After the resignation of Eisenhower, Nixon began to seriously think about the presidency. He made his first attempt in 1960, when he lost to the then very popular John F. Kennedy. Once out of work, Nixon went to California, where he began working in a law office in Los Angeles. But his soul still yearned for power, and just eleven months after Kennedy's victory, Nixon announced his candidacy for governor of California, the largest US state. This time he lost completely and bitterly attacked the press for its "ambiguous hints" that led to his defeat. Nixon vowed to leave the political arena forever.
"You won't see Richard Nixon as a whipping boy again," he resented, and everyone thought they were hearing him for the last time. By 1968, however, America was in a difficult situation. The country was torn apart by contradictions, a political crisis was brewing. The protracted war in Vietnam has sucked the American military machine like a quagmire. Protest rallies and racial riots broke out across the country.
President Lyndon Johnson has announced that he is not going to run for a second term as a Democratic candidate. This opened up great opportunities for potential candidates. Johnson's statement also spurred Richard Nixon on. Having put forward his candidacy, Nixon beat former Maryland Governor Spiro Agnew by half a percent of the electoral vote and became the owner of the White House.
So the fifty-six-year-old Nixon finally reached the pinnacle of power. It must be admitted that it was he who sowed the seeds of what Watergate later grew out of. These seeds were planted in fertile ground thanks to Nixon's environment of secrecy and suspicion of his opponents. During Nixon's second term as president, after winning the 1972 election, scandalous details of two major events surfaced - the bombing of Cambodia by the US Air Force and the Watergate scandal. In 1970, during the Vietnam War, Nixon assured the American people that the US would respect Cambodia's neutrality. However, it turned out that in 1969-1970 the US Air Force carried out more than three and a half thousand bombing attacks on the territory of a small country. But even that lie faded after Watergate exposed the immoral nature of the president and his team.
"Watergate"
The truth about what the five burglars were doing at the headquarters of the Democratic Party was difficult to break through: a large-scale operation to cover up the traces of the crime began within the walls of the White House. The version about an attempted banal robbery was stubbornly planted. However, thanks to the hard work of journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the world has finally learned the truth. As early as 1969, US Attorney General John Mitchell stated that the telephone conversations of his political rivals were tapped in President Nixon's entourage without the sanction of the judiciary. Another signal sounded in July 1970.
It was then that Nixon approved a plan by the secret services to conduct unauthorized searches and screen the correspondence of Democratic congressmen. Overwhelmed by the lust for power, Nixon became involved in a variety of behind-the-scenes intrigues. From the recordings of telephone conversations in the White House, it turned out that thugs from the mafia clans were hired on his instructions to disperse anti-war demonstrations. "There are guys who will gladly smash the heads of these pacifists," said the president, himself an ardent pacifist in the recent past. Before the next round of elections, Nixon requested information about the payment of taxes by insufficiently loyal government officials.
When his aides began to figure out how to get this information from the tax department, Nixon replied: "Damn it! Sneak in there at night!" The first Watergate-related event occurred after the release of the secret Pentagon documents in 1971. Although these documents, somehow found in the New York Times, dealt with the previous administration's Vietnam policy, Nixon was convinced that they were a conspiracy against him. To eliminate further possible leakage of information, he created a special secret service. The unit known as the "Plumbers" included his closest advisers and assistants. They acted under the guise of plumbers and later became involved in the Watergate scandal.
One of the main tasks of John Ehrlichman, Nixon's aide, was to compile a list of the twenty most active political opponents of the president. The first on this list was Senator Edward Kennedy. The Secret Service even discussed options for killing people objectionable to the president, as well as operations to disrupt Democratic rallies. After it was found that the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee was stuffed with listening devices, newspapers published the ugly details of the scandal. It was clear to everyone that this was done on the direct instructions of the president. The word "Watergate" has become a symbol of corruption and the machinations of unscrupulous politicians. As the investigation neared its dramatic denouement in 1974, it involved many high-ranking White House officials and even Vice President Spiro Agnew, who abused their positions and secretly received bribes.
Impeachment
"I'm not a fraud," Nixon said in a televised speech. However, tape recordings of overheard conversations and interrogation protocols spoke of something completely different. The Senate and the House of Representatives took steps to remove the president from power. The House Legislative Committee approved the impeachment. Her conclusion sounded like a harsh accusation against the president who did not justify the hopes of the American people. It argued that Richard Nixon behaved in a way that was inappropriate for a president, undermined the foundations of the US constitutional order and should be removed from office and stand trial. Despite such formidable accusations, Nixon refused to resign. "I have no intention of resigning under any circumstances from the office to which I have been elected by the American people," he said. However, the Watergate scandal grew like an avalanche. Alexander Butterfield, one of the White House staff members, said that since 1970, Nixon had secretly kept records of all conversations and telephone conversations in the White House offices. Congress demanded that the tapes be handed over to it, but Nixon flatly refused to do so, citing the right of the "executive branch." However, realizing that he had no choice, the president offered excerpts from the tapes to Congress. The public prosecutor appointed to investigate the case, Archibald Cox, did not agree to make concessions. Furious, Nixon removed Cox and replaced him with a "tame" Attorney General, Robert Bork. It became obvious that the President could not win this fight. In the end, all the notes ended up in Congress. They testified that Nixon had abused the trust of his people. By the end of February 1973, the commission of inquiry into the "Watergate case" received all the necessary evidence of the president's guilt. On top of that, Nixon's tax irregularities were discovered, as well as the fact that a huge amount of public money was used to equip mansions in the states of Florida and California. Since June 1974, Nixon has effectively become a prisoner of the White House. John Erlichman and other "plumbers" were accused of conspiracy. The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Nixon must return the sixty-four tapes he stashed away.
collapse
August 9, 1974 marked the end of Nixon's rule. Knowing for sure that Congress would impeach him, he submitted a very emotional resignation. Hurt and broken, Nixon returned to his home state. However, over time, the bad is forgotten and passes. Today, many political scientists believe that Richard Nixon was an outstanding statesman. His revival as a politician began a month after leaving the White House, when his adherent and follower Gerald Ford forgave him for all his sins as president. In later years, Nixon tried to alleviate the Watergate nightmare. He continued to argue that he should have acted more decisively and he would have dealt with the situation. He stated: “Recalling the many complicated cases and insurmountable difficulties, the behavior of the people around me, I now clearly realize that I made a mistake and acted in those years hesitantly and recklessly ... I know that many honest people consider my actions during Watergate "illegal. Now I understand that it was my mistakes and misconceptions that contributed to the formation of such assessments." Nixon, who appeared before the whole world as a liar and a swindler, did not want to admit his guilt.
The Watergate case is a political scandal that occurred in America in 1972, which led to the resignation of the then head of state, Richard Nixon. This is the first and so far the only case in the history of America when a president left his post ahead of schedule during his lifetime. The word "Watergate" is still considered a symbol of corruption, immorality, and criminality on the part of the authorities. Today we will find out what prerequisites the Watergate case had in the USA, how the scandal developed and what it led to.
Early political career of Richard Nixon
In 1945, the 33-year-old Republican Nixon won a seat in Congress. At that time, he was already famous for his anti-communist convictions, which the politician did not hesitate to express in public. Nixon's political career developed very rapidly, and already in 1950 he became the youngest senator in the history of the United States of America.
The young politician was predicted excellent prospects. In 1952, President Eisenhower nominated Nixon for vice president. However, this was not destined to take place.
First conflict
One of the leading New York newspapers accused Nixon of illegal use of campaign funds. In addition to serious accusations, there were also very funny ones. For example, according to journalists, Nixon used part of the money to buy a Cocker Spaniel puppy for his children. In response to the allegations, the politician made a speech on television. Naturally, he denied everything, arguing that he had never in his life committed illegal and immoral acts that could tarnish his honest political career. And the dog, according to the accused, was simply presented to his children. Finally, Nixon said that he was not going to leave politics and just did not give up. By the way, he will say a similar phrase after the Watergate scandal, but more on that later.
Double fiasco
In 1960, he ran for the presidency of America for the first time. His opponent was who in that race simply had no equal. Kennedy was very popular and respected in society, so he won by a huge margin. Eleven months after Kennedy was appointed to the presidency, Nixon nominated himself for the presidency but lost here too. After a double defeat, he thought about leaving politics, but the craving for power still took its toll.
Presidency
In 1963, when Kennedy was assassinated, he was replaced. He did his job quite well. When the time for the next election approached, the situation in America deteriorated greatly - the Vietnam War, which dragged on too long, caused protests throughout the United States. Johnson made the decision that he would not run for a second term, which was very unexpected for the political and civil society. Nixon could not miss this chance and put forward his candidacy for the presidency. In 1968, ahead of his opponent by half a percentage point, he headed the White House.
Merits
Of course, Nixon is far from the great American rulers, but it cannot be said that he was the worst president in US history. He, along with his administration, was able to resolve the issue of America's withdrawal from the Vietnam confrontations and normalize relations with China.
In 1972, Nixon paid an official visit to Moscow. In the entire history of relations between the US and the USSR, such a meeting was the first. She brought a number of important agreements regarding bilateral relations and arms reduction.
But at one point, all of Nixon's merits to the United States literally depreciated. It only took a few days to do this. As you may have guessed, the reason for this is the Watergate affair.
Political wars
As you know, the confrontation between Democrats and Republicans in America is already a common thing. Representatives of the two camps, almost in turn, take control of the state, nominating their candidates for elections and providing them with massive support. Of course, each victory brings the greatest joy to the winning party and great disappointment to the opponents. To get the levers of power, candidates often go to a very sharp and unprincipled struggle. Propaganda, compromising evidence and other dirty methods come into play.
When this or that politician receives the reins of power, his life turns into a real duel. Each, even the slightest mistake, becomes a reason for competitors to go on the offensive. To protect himself from the influence of political opponents, the president has to take a huge number of measures. As the Watergate case showed, Nixon had no equal in this regard.
Secret service and other instruments of power
When the hero of our conversation at the age of 50 came to the presidency, one of his first tasks was the creation of a personal secret service. Its purpose was to control the opponents and potential opponents of the president. The limits of the law were neglected. It all started with the fact that Nixon began to listen to the telephone conversations of his competitors. In the summer of 1970, he went even further: he gave the go-ahead for secret services to conduct non-sectional searches of Democratic congressmen. The President did not disdain the "divide and rule" method.
To disperse anti-war demonstrations, he used the services of mafia militants. After all, they are not policemen, which means that no one will say that the government neglects human rights and the laws of a democratic society. Nixon did not shy away from blackmail and bribery. When the next round of elections was approaching, he decided to enlist the help of officials. And so that the latter would treat him more loyally, he asked for certificates of payment of taxes by people with the most low level income. It was impossible to provide such information, but the president insisted, demonstrating the triumph of his power.
In general, Nixon was a very cynical politician. But if you look at political world, in terms of dry facts, it is extremely difficult to find honest people there. And if there are any, then they, most likely, just know how to cover their tracks. Our hero was not like that, and many knew about it.
"Plumber Division"
In 1971, when the next presidential election was only a year away, the New York Times published in one of its issues secret CIA data regarding military operations in Vietnam. Despite the fact that Nixon's name was not mentioned in this article, it called into question the competence of the ruler and his apparatus as a whole. Nixon took this piece as a personal challenge.
A little later, he organized the so-called division of plumbers - secret Service, engaged in espionage and not only. An investigation later revealed that the service's employees were developing plans to eliminate people who interfere with the president, as well as disrupting rallies held by the Democrats. Naturally, during the campaign, Nixon had to resort to the services of "plumbers" much more often than usual. The president was ready to do anything to be elected for a second term. As a result, the over-activity of the spy organization led to the scandal that went down in history as the Watergate case. Impeachment is far from the only result of the conflict, but more on that below.
How it happened
The headquarters of the US Democratic Party Committee was at that time in the Watergate Hotel. One June evening in 1972, five men entered the hotel, with suitcases of plumbers, wearing rubber gloves. That is why the spy organization was later called plumbers. That evening they acted strictly according to the scheme. However, by chance, the sinister deeds of the spies were not destined to take place. They were thwarted by a guard who suddenly decided to make an unscheduled round. Faced with unexpected guests, he followed instructions and called the police.
The evidence was more than irrefutable. The main one is the broken door to the Democrats' headquarters. Initially, everything looked like a simple robbery, but a thorough search revealed grounds for more weighty charges. Law enforcement officers found sophisticated sound recording equipment from the criminals. A serious investigation began.
At first, Nixon tried to hush up the scandal, but almost every day new facts were discovered that reveal his true face: "bugs" installed at the headquarters of the Democrats, recordings of conversations that took place in the White House and other information. Congress demanded that the president provide the investigation with all the tapes, but Nixon presented only a part of them. Naturally, this did not suit the investigators. In this case, not even the slightest compromise was allowed. As a result, all that Nixon managed to hide was 18 minutes of audio recording, which he erased. They could not restore it, but it doesn’t matter anymore, because the surviving materials were more than enough to demonstrate the president’s dismissive attitude towards the society of his native country.
Former presidential aide Alexander Butterfield claimed that conversations in the White House were recorded simply for history. As an irrefutable argument, he mentioned that even in the days of Franklin Roosevelt, legal recordings of presidential conversations were made. But even if he agrees with this argument, the fact of listening to political opponents remains, which cannot be justified. Moreover, in 1967, unauthorized listening was banned at the legislative level.
The Watergate case in the United States caused a great resonance. As the investigation progressed, public outrage grew rapidly. In late February 1973, law enforcement officers proved that Nixon had repeatedly committed serious violations regarding the payment of taxes. It was also discovered that the president used huge amounts of public funds to meet personal needs.
Watergate case: verdict
Early in his career, Nixon managed to convince the public of his innocence, but this time it was impossible. If then the president was accused of buying a puppy, now it was about two luxurious houses in California and Florida. The plumbers were accused of conspiracy and arrested. And the head of state every day more and more felt himself not the owner of the White House, but his hostage.
He stubbornly, but unsuccessfully, tried to dispel his guilt and put the Watergate case on the brakes. Briefly describe the then state of the president can be, the phrase "struggle for survival." With remarkable enthusiasm, the President refused his resignation. According to him, under no circumstances did he intend to leave the post to which he was appointed by the people. The American people, in turn, did not even think of supporting Nixon. Everything led to impeachment. Congressmen were determined to remove the president from high office.
After a full investigation, the Senate and the House of Representatives issued their verdict. They acknowledged that Nixon behaved inappropriately for a president and undermined America's constitutional order. For this, he was removed from office and presented before the court. The Watergate case caused the president's resignation, but that's not all. Thanks to the audio recordings, investigators found that many political figures from the president's entourage regularly abused their positions, took bribes and openly threatened their opponents. Americans were most surprised not by the fact that the highest ranks went to unworthy people, but by the fact that corruption had reached such proportions. What until recently was an exception and could lead to irreversible consequences has become commonplace.
Resignation
On August 9, 1974, the main victim of the Watergate case, Richard Nixon, left for his homeland, leaving the presidency. Naturally, he did not admit his guilt. Later, recalling the scandal, he will say that, as president, he made a mistake and acted indecisively. What did he mean by this? What kind of decisive action was discussed? Perhaps, about providing the public with additional compromising evidence on officials and close associates. Would Nixon have made such a grandiose confession? Most likely, all these statements were a simple attempt to justify themselves.
The role in the development of the scandal was clearly decisive. According to an American researcher, during the Watergate scandal, it was the media that challenged the head of state and, as a result, inflicted an irreversible defeat on him. In fact, the press did what no other institution in American history had ever done before - stripped the president of his post, which he had obtained by enlisting the support of the majority. That is why the Watergate case and the press still symbolize the control of power and the triumph of the press.
The word "Watergate" is fixed in the political slang of many countries of the world. It refers to the scandal that led to the impeachment. And the word "gate" has become a suffix that is used in the name of new political and not only scandals. For example: Monicagate under Clinton, Irangate under Reagan, the scam of the Volkswagen car company, which was nicknamed Dieselgate, and so on.
The Watergate case in the USA (1974) has been depicted more than once in varying degrees in literature, cinema and even video games.
Conclusion
Today we found out that the Watergate case is a conflict that arose in America during the reign of Richard Nixon and led to the resignation of the latter. But as you can see, this definition describes events rather sparingly, even considering the fact that they, for the first time in US history, forced a president to leave his post. The Watergate case, the history of which is the subject of our conversation today, was a great upheaval in the minds of Americans and, on the one hand, proved the triumph of justice, and on the other, the level of corruption and cynicism of those in power.
"Watergate" is an example of how personal traits of his character have an impact on the activities of a politician. Richard Nixon was an extremely suspicious man, prone to secrecy, stealth and underhanded activities. He loved intrigues and always suspected those around him that they were plotting against him. Its natural habitat would have been the court of Catherine de Medici or Ivan the Terrible. Nixon satisfied part of his suspiciousness by collecting materials on his competitors and opponents, incl. through listening. For example, he was the only one of all presidents who gave the order to listen to the Oval Office - the president's office, which ultimately led to his political collapse and resignation under the threat of impeachment. After him, none of the presidents, of course, allowed such listening anymore.
In 1972, in the midst of a tense presidential election campaign, during which Nixon wanted re-election from the Republican Party, he agreed to a plan proposed to him by his aides to bug the office of the Democratic Party, rented in the luxurious housing complex "Watergate" in downtown (downtown) Washington. Nixon and his campaign hoped to collect more data on Democratic tactics during the election.
On the night of June 17, 1972, a security guard for the management company of the complex, during a routine inspection of the premises, accidentally noticed that the front door to the Democrats' office was not closed tightly. Opening it slightly, the guard made sure that no one was in the office. The tongue of the door lock was sealed with adhesive tape, which aroused the guard's suspicions. He called the police. Five people were found inside the premises, and they were detained. When the burglars were found seized by them from the tables and cabinets of the documents of the campaign of the Democrats. Later it turns out that this was the second time they entered this office - the originally installed listening equipment was junk and it was necessary to fix it. At first glance, it seemed like an ordinary robbery, but with the burglars, telephones and contacts of employees of the Republican headquarters were found.
Nixon stated that his headquarters had nothing to do with this hack, voters believed and in November 1972 Nixon won a landslide victory, continuing his activities as President of the United States, and an investigation began against the hackers, which was greatly helped by a parallel investigation of two journalists from an influential newspaper Washington Post. After some time, the investigation brought to the very top - Nixon's closest and most trusted aides. At some point, when everything began to point to the involvement of the president in this scam, Nixon publicly declared: "I'm not a crook."
A special prosecutor was appointed, which meant giving the investigation an extremely important status. Everything would be fine, but one of the suspects accidentally blurted out that there are tapes with recordings of conversations in the Oval Office. The special counsel demanded extradition, was denied and then fired, which caused a political crisis in Washington and made impeachment inevitable.
In order to avoid it, Nixon resigned and August 8, 1974, in the middle of the second term of his presidency, left the White House. George Ford, who replaced him, took advantage of the right of pardon, and Nixon thus avoided trial and punishment.
While the motives behind Watergate were largely personal, the aftermath was political, hard, and long-lasting. It is generally accepted among Americans that Watergate dealt a severe blow to the institution of the presidency. Ordinary swindlers are condemned for lying under oath, but here the president himself turned out to be a swindler, a swindler, from whom they expect clear moral guidelines and an example in observing laws. The perception of the scandal was exacerbated by the defeat at this time in the Vietnam War, i.e. American society received at that time Double punch. Society was shocked by the revealed abuses of power and ordinary criminality at its highest level.
The national trauma from Watergate began to be overcome only with the coming to power of R. Reagan in 1981.
Nixon was facing impeachment not for the hack itself, but for lying and obstructing justice.
History is repeating itself now with Trump, and surprisingly in many details. There was a hack (servers), there are traces pointing to the very top, there is a statement by the president that he is innocent, there is the dismissal of the FBI director who led the investigation, there is a special investigator whom Trump also wants to fire, the first defendants have appeared, the Congress has already been put question of impeachment.
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From childhood, Americans hear assurances that they live in the freest and most democratic state in the world. However, every now and then there are incidents that demonstrate the true state of things: that those in power do not at all consider themselves obliged to obey the laws common to all.
The word "Watergate" in American culture has become a symbol of immorality, corruption and crime in government circles.
The Watergate Hotel
The Watergate scandal is associated with the name Richard Nixon- 37th President of the United States (1969-1974). Political games became his profession in 1945, when the 33-year-old Republican, known for his anti-communist beliefs, won a seat in Congress.
Five years later, he became a senator (the youngest in US history). He was predicted excellent prospects, in 1952, President Eisenhower nominated the young politician to the vice-presidential position. Soon, however, Nixon had to step aside for a while.
One of the New York newspapers accused him of using campaign funds for personal purposes. Along with serious accusations, there were also rather comical ones: journalists claimed that Nixon used part of the funds to buy his children a Cocker Spaniel named Checkere. In response, the senator spoke on national television.
Richard Nixon
He denied everything, declaring that he would never allow himself to commit an immoral and illegal act that would endanger his political career. He did not buy a dog, they simply gave it to his children (I immediately recall the classic: bribes with greyhound puppies).
Nixon ended his speech with the words: “I'm not going to resign. I just don't give up." Nixon would say a very similar phrase during the Watergate scandal.
Nixon tried to become the owner of the White House back in 1960, but then J.F. Kennedy was elected president. There was no need to talk about an equal fight: Kennedy's popularity was very high, he won by a wide margin. Eleven months after Kennedy was elected, Nixon ran for governor of California—and lost.
Under the influence of this double fiasco, he was even going to leave politics, but the lust for power turned out to be stronger. In 1963 Kennedy was assassinated. Johnson took his place. However, when the situation in the United States became critical (the protracted war in Vietnam caused massive protests throughout the country), Johnson announced that he would not run for a second term.
Nixon took advantage of the situation and, ahead of his rival by only half a percent of the vote, became the owner of the White House in 1968.
Perhaps he was far from the worst president of the United States, although he is still far from the great American presidents. His administration succeeded in resolving the problem of the US withdrawal from the Vietnam War and normalizing relations with China.
In 1972, Nixon made a trip to Moscow, which became the first official visit to the USSR by a US president in the history of Soviet-American relations. As a result, important agreements were signed in the sphere of bilateral relations and in the field of arms reduction.
However, everything that Nixon had done for the United States became worthless in just a few days, when in 1974 it became known what methods the United States government uses to achieve its goals. What so shocked the imagination of Americans? What caused the stormy scandal?
The confrontation between Republicans and Democrats in the US is taken for granted. Representatives of these parties alternately occupy the presidency, which each time turns into the greatest joy for the winners: in their hands are the main levers of power.
Pre-election struggle is often quite sharp. Compromising evidence is used on those who take part in the "big race" and a wide variety of propaganda campaigns. But even during the term of office, the president has to be very careful: any mistake can be fatal, since the competing party is always ready to go on the offensive.
It's no secret that the victors do everything possible to consolidate their position and protect themselves from the intrigues of political opponents. The Watergate scandal showed that Nixon surpassed all his predecessors in this respect.
When the fifty-six-year-old Nixon became the owner of the White House, one of the most important tasks for him was to organize his own secret service, which could control potential political opponents without being limited by the law. Nixon began by wiretapping his opponents.
In July 1970, he went further: he approved a plan by the secret services to conduct unauthorized searches and screen the correspondence of Democratic congressmen. Nixon was never shy about using the old divide and conquer method.
To disperse anti-war demonstrations, he used mafia fighters. Militants are not policemen: no one will accuse the government of violating human rights and the laws of a democratic society.
The president more than compensated for his lack of wisdom with a wide arsenal of means, which are somehow not customary to talk about in a decent society. He did not shy away from bribery, blackmail. Before the next round of elections, Nixon decided to enlist the support of officials.
And in order to ensure their loyalty, he requested information about the payment of taxes by the most unreliable. When his team tried to protest (the tax department doesn't issue such certificates), Nixon made it clear to them that he only cares about the result. "Damn it! Sneak in there at night!" - he said.
A somewhat cynical statement for a representative of power and legitimacy in America ... But if you look at the facts impartially, then in big politics rule violations happen all the time. An honest politician is the exception rather than the rule. Nixon was no exception.
In 1971 (only a year away from re-election), The New York Times published secret materials CIA that dealt with the Vietnam War. And although Nixon's name was not mentioned there, he considered the publication a threat to himself.
After that, a division of "plumbers" appeared. The created secret service was engaged not only in espionage. During the investigation, it turned out that its employees were considering options for eliminating people objectionable to the president, as well as operations to disrupt the rallies of the Democrats.
Of course, during the campaign, Nixon, who was determined to win re-election to a second term, used the services of "plumbers" much more often than before. This excessive activity led first to the failure of one of the operations, and then to the scandal.
On the evening of Saturday, June 17, 1972, five men entered the Watergate Hotel, the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee, carrying suitcases of plumbers. They were all wearing rubber gloves.
It seemed that everything was calculated: both the route and the scheme of actions. However, at that very moment one of the guards decided to make a round of the building and stumbled upon unexpected visitors. He acted in accordance with the instructions: he called the police.
The evidence was clear: the door to the Democratic headquarters had been forced open. At first, everything looked like an ordinary robbery, but during the search, the most sophisticated sound recording equipment was found in the criminals. An investigation has begun.
At first, the White House tried to hush up the scandal. But almost every day, new facts were discovered: "bugs" in the headquarters of the Democrats, a permanent record of all the conversations that took place in the offices of the White House ... Congress demanded to show all the records. Nixon provided only a subset of them.
However, half-measures and compromises no longer suited anyone. The only thing the president managed to do was to erase about eighteen minutes of the tapes. These films have not yet been restored. But even the surviving materials were enough to demonstrate Nixon's utter disregard for the society that elected him president of the country.
Former White House aide Alexander Butterfield said the conversations were being recorded "just for history." As an argument, he mentioned that presidential conversations were recorded as early as the days of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
But even if this argument is accepted, it cannot justify eavesdropping on political opponents. Moreover, relatively recently (in 1967), unauthorized listening was prohibited.
As the investigation progressed, public outrage grew. By the end of February 1973, it was proven that the president had committed a number of serious violations regarding the payment of taxes. There was no doubt that a huge amount of public money was used for personal purposes.
This time, Nixon failed, as at the beginning of his career, to convince journalists of his complete innocence: it was no longer about a puppy, but about two luxurious mansions in the states of Florida and California. The plumbers were arrested and charged with conspiracy. And since June 1974, Nixon himself has become not so much the owner of the White House as its prisoner.
He stubbornly denied his guilt. And just as stubbornly refused to resign: "I do not intend under any circumstances to resign from the post to which I was elected by the American people." The American people were very far from the thought of supporting their president. The Senate and House of Representatives were determined to remove Nixon from power.
The conclusion of the legislative committee of the House of Representatives was: Richard Nixon behaved inappropriately for the president, undermined the foundations of the US constitutional order and should be removed from office and stand trial. The scandal affected not only the president and his closest aides.
Tape recordings and testimonies of witnesses helped to establish that many prominent political figures took bribes, used their official position for personal gain, and did not skimp on threats. The greatest shock among the Americans was caused not even by the fact that the "unworthy" were able to break into the highest echelons, but by the scale and scope of corruption. What until recently was considered an unfortunate exception turned out to be the rule.
Rally
Outraged student protests
On August 9, 1974, Nixon resigned and left for his home state. But he never admitted his guilt. And his references to the Watergate scandal sound very strange:
“I now clearly realize that I made a mistake and acted in those years hesitantly and recklessly ... I know that many honest people consider my actions during Watergate illegal. Now I understand that it was my mistakes and misconceptions that contributed to the formation of such assessments.
Where did President Nixon go wrong? And what decisive action could he take? To provide the general public with all the compromising evidence he has collected on top officials? Show America the true face of her government?
It is unlikely that Nixon set himself such a grandiose and suicidal task. After all, the existence of the US democratic system is based on a number of myths. And the destruction of these myths would lead to the collapse of the system itself. So, most likely, Nixon's statement is just an attempt to justify himself.
The Watergate case is a high-profile investigation into the abuses of the administration of the American president, which took place in 1972-74. The Watergate scandal is associated with the name of US President Richard Nixon. The investigation found that the highest circles of the republican administration were engaged in political espionage, mired in corruption and did not disdain the most dirty methods in achieving their goals.
Origins of the Watergate scandal
The Republican took office in 1968. His presidency brought America many victories: Nixon managed to brilliantly resolve a number of important foreign policy issues. However, Nixon's methods used in domestic politics, caused the fall of the 37th President of the United States.
One of Nixon's first activities in his new post was to organize his own secret service. She was engaged in listening to the phones of the president's political opponents, viewing their mail, and even occasionally conducting unauthorized searches. For Nixon's people, there was no inaccessible information and forbidden ways to obtain it. They resorted to bribery, blackmail and intimidation. Periodically, the president's agents clashed with another powerful force - the FBI and the CIA. Contradictions and conflicts regularly occurred between the services.
June 1972 events
In June 1972 (a few months before the start of the presidential election), five men were arrested at the Watergate Hotel, the headquarters of the US Democratic National Committee. They sneaked into the hotel at night, breaking into front door. The guard who called the police at first decided that he was dealing with robbers, but the law enforcement officers who arrived at the scene found objects somewhat strange for ordinary thieves from the arrested. In addition to lock picks, the detainees had cameras, sound recording equipment, notebooks with the telephone numbers of some high-ranking Republican officials, and a large sum of money. Later it turned out that four of those arrested were Cuban immigrants, and the fifth was an employee of the Nixon Electoral Committee. The detainees tried to impersonate ordinary robbers, however, this version seemed very doubtful.
Investigation
At first, the deputy head of the FBI, Mark Felt, was investigating this complicated case. According to investigators, the main target of the hackers were the documents of Nixon's main political opponent, Democrat George McGovern. As Felt found more and more facts, more and more obstacles were placed on him. Later, when it became clear that all the threads lead to the White House, and irritation in society reached its limit, the US Senate decided to create an independent investigative body. Thus, in early 1973, a special Watergate Committee appeared.
At first, the White House tried to portray the five burglars as ordinary robbers, however, this version did not stand up to scrutiny. Experts who examined the headquarters of the Democrats found a lot of listening devices in it. In addition, it turned out that the services of the burglars were paid for by the Nixon re-election committee.
In the summer of 1973, the investigation became aware that, at the direction of Nixon himself, equipment was installed in the Oval Office that records all the president's conversations. Ignoring the committee's demands, Nixon withheld the tapes from investigators for more than a year. When the films were nevertheless received, it turned out that some of the information was erased. However, what was available was enough. So, on one of the tapes, a conversation between Nixon and the head of the presidential administration, Bob Holdman, was found. They discussed the need to hush up the Democratic HQ hacking scandal. In addition, the tapes contained material exposing high-ranking representatives of the Republican Party in corruption and abuse of their official position.
As a result, 21 people ended up in the dock, including the US Attorney General and one of the directors of Nixon's election committee. At the initiative of representatives of the Democratic Party, the proceedings affected many high-ranking Republicans. A series of scandals and high-profile layoffs followed.
Results
At first, the Watergate scandal had no effect on Nixon's political career. He won the 1972 presidential election. After the investigation got close to to the White House, Nixon tried to hush up a high-profile case. He tried to the last to avoid responsibility for the Watergate story and obstruct justice. Nixon refused to obey the court, citing the fact that he is the head of the executive branch, and also made an attempt to fire the prosecutor involved in this case.
The Watergate scandal led to the resignation of President Nixon. In early 1974, the impeachment proceedings began, however, Nixon resigned voluntarily, without waiting for the decision of the Senate. Prisons former president managed to avoid, thanks to his successor - Gerald Ford, who held an amnesty. The direct perpetrators - the five men who invaded the Watergate - received short sentences.
Watergate scandal and public opinion
The Watergate scandal was best covered in the press by two Washington Post journalists, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Young people conducted their own investigation and managed to find an informant close to the presidential administration (30 years later it turned out that this person was Mark Felt himself). Many researchers admit that it was the press that made the greatest contribution to the investigation of the Watergate scandal.
The televised court hearings were watched by all of America. Nixon's approval rating plummeted. The population openly supported impeachment, and a whole wave of rallies and demonstrations swept across the country. And the very word "Watergate" has become in the American press and culture a symbol of a dirty political game and violation of the constitution.
