The Watergate Scandal

On 7th November 1972, Nixon won the second biggest election landslide in American history. In May 1973, one of the burglars, John McCord fearing a long prison sentence admitted that some "White House staff" were involved in the break in, but not Nixon.

One of Nixon's other advisors, John Dean, admitted to a Senate investigation that although Nixon had no part in planning the burglary, he had tried to cover up the scandal. Dean also revealed the existence of a taping system, on which Nixon had recorded all White House conversations. Dean said that the truth could be found on these tapes.

In July 1973, the Senate summoned the tapes to court. Nixon initially refused to hand over the tapes, claiming that they were his own personal property. However, from November 1973 he began to hand over the transcripts of the tapes. The foul mouth, 'locker room', racist and sexist language on the tapes destroyed Nixon.

Haldeman

Ehrlichman

On June 17th 1972, five burglars broke into the Watergate Hotel in Washington DC. The rooms that they broke into were rented by the Democratic party presidential election team. The five burglars were members of President Nixon's CREEP (Campaign to Re-Elect The President). In August 1972, Nixon denied any involvement in the burglary, but secretly ordered $500,000 to be given to the burglars in return for their silence.

More pressure was put on Nixon, when his two most trusted advisors, John Ehrlichman and Bob Haldeman were forced to resign for their part in the scandal.

Nixon surrenders the transcripts that destroyed him.

Nixon left a nation divided as President

	Congress reduced Presidential powers. The War Powers Act meant that Congress had to approve any decision to go to war in the future.
	There were much tighter controls on Presidential spending. Nixon had authorised $500,000 to be spent on a security system for his private ranch in California. It turned out that the security system was in fact a golf course.
	The Privacy Act was passed. This allowed the public any access to files that the government may have had on them.
	Public trust in politicians declined considerably.
	By the time the USA celebrated it's bicentenary year in 1976, the country was embroiled in political scandal and military defeat in Vietnam. The Union appeared more divided than ever before.

The Impact of Watergate

The Senate finally threatened to impeach Nixon. Rather than face a prison sentence, Nixon resigned from Office on the 7th August 1974. Nixon's tapes proved that he had tried to use the CIA to block an FBI investigation into the Watergate break in. This was a gross abuse of presidential powers.

A day after Nixon resigned, Gerald Ford became President and one month later pardoned Nixon of any wrongdoing, finally closing the matter.