Watergate Was The Name Of The Biggest Political Scandal In United Stat

Watergate was the name of the biggest political scandal in United States history. It included various illegal activities designed to help President Richard M. Nixon win reelection in 1972. Watergate resulted in Nixon's resignation from the presidency in 1974. Watergate differed from most previous political scandals because personal greed apparently did not play an important role. Instead, Watergate represented an attack on one of the chief features of a democracy--free and open elections. The Watergate activities included burglary, wiretapping, violations of campaign financing laws, and sabotage and the attempted use of government agencies to harm political opponents. The scandal also involved a cover-up of many of those actions. About 40 people were charged with crimes in the scandal and with related crimes. Most of these people were convicted by juries or pleaded guilty. Watergate involved more high-level government officials than any previous political scandal. It led to the conviction on criminal charges in 1975 of former Attorney General John N. Mitchell and two of Nixon's top aides, John D. Ehrlichman and H. R. Haldeman. Also in 1975, former Secretary of Commerce Maurice H. Stans, a leader of Nixon's reelection campaign, pleaded guilty to Watergate criminal charges and was fined $5,000. Watergate also had resulted in the resignation of Attorney General Richard G. Kleindienst in 1973. The break-in and cover-up. The scandal took its name from the Watergate complex of apartment and office buildings in Washington, D.C. On June 17, 1972, police arrested five men for breaking into the Democratic Party's national headquarters there. One of the burglars was James W. McCord, Jr., the security coordinator of the Committee for the Re-election of the President (CRP). The five men--along with G. Gordon Liddy, another CRP aide; and E. Howard Hunt, Jr., a White House consultant--were indicted for a number of crimes, including burglary and wiretapping. In January 1973, five of the seven, including Hunt, pleaded guilty. The other two--Liddy and McCord--were found guilty by a jury. Nixon's press secretary had said repeatedly that the scandal involved no member of the White House staff. But the press found evidence that White House aides had helped finance sabotage and spying operations against candidates for the 1972 Democratic presidential nomination. Reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward of The Washington Post led the investigation. Early in 1973, evidence was uncovered that tied several top White House aides to plans for the Watergate break-in or to concealment of evidence that implicated members of the Nixon Administration. The evidence indicated that White House officials had tried to involve the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the cover-up. These officials falsely claimed that national security was involved. On April 30, 1973, Nixon stated that he had no part in either planning the Watergate break-in or covering it up. He promised that the Department of Justice would appoint a special prosecutor to handle the case. In May, Archibald Cox, a Harvard Law School professor, was named to that position. Also in May, the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities began hearings on Watergate. Senator Sam J. Ervin, Jr., of North Carolina headed the committee. Former Presidential Counsel John W. Dean III became the chief witness against Nixon in the hearings. Dean admitted that he had played a major role in a White House cover-up and charged that Nixon knew of his activities. Dean also revealed Administration plans to use the Internal Revenue Service and other government agencies to punish opponents whom the White House had placed on so-called enemies lists. Dean was later sentenced to a prison term of 1 to 4 years. After serving four months, his sentence was reduced to that time a nd he was released. The tape controversy. In July, the Senate committee learned that Nixon had secretly made tape recordings of conversations in his White House offices since 1971. The committee and Cox believed the tapes could answer key questions raised in their investigations. They asked Nixon to supply them with certain tapes, but he refused to do so. Nixon argued that, as President, he had a constitutional right to keep the tapes confidential. In August, Cox and the committee sued Nixon to obtain the tapes. U.S. District Court Judge John J. Sirica decided to review the tapes himself