OCTOBER 2022:
THE FLOODS OF WATERGATE…
President Richard Nixon’s advisers ordered a break-in at the Democratic Party’s headquarters in what would become known as the Watergate scandal. It led to the only time in the nation’s history when the sitting President of the United States was forced to resign. It all began on the morning of June 17, 1972, when a young Washington Post reporter named Bob Woodward was assigned to cover an insignificant but bizarre incident. Earlier that morning, five men had broken into the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters in the city’s Watergate apartment office complex. Woodward was asked to attend the arraignment of the five men caught and see if there was a story worth reporting. As Woodward listened from the back of the courtroom to the bail proceedings of the five defendants, the judge asked each of the five men their occupations. One of the men, James McCord, answered that he was retired from government service. The judge then asked him, “Where in government.” McCord then responded with a whisper, “CIA.” This response caught the attention of Woodward. He began to wonder why a former CIA agent was involved in what seemed like just a burglary gone wrong. Over the course of the next two years, Woodward and another reporter, Carl Bernstein, would investigate that question fully. The reporting and research they did for the story would uncover a scandal that helped trigger a constitutional crisis and eventually forced Nixon to resign.
FROM REELECTION FIGHTS TO RESIGNATIONS…
Woodward and Bernstein uncovered a direct correlation between the Nixon administration’s efforts to cover up the break-in and its involvement with the break-in itself, at the DNC headquarters, and this correlation and cover-up would be known as the Watergate scandal. The two reporters also uncovered other illegal actions that the Nixon administration partook in as a means to win reelection through an attempted wiretap and theft of sensitive information from the DNC headquarters at the Watergate apartment office complex. The scandal has been studied for decades by scholars and most of them believe the roots of the Watergate scandal lay in Nixon’s personal character and the atmosphere of the White House at the time of the break-in. The tactics his advisers would resort to in pursuit of reelection led to the Watergate scandal, but they may very well have believed it was the only way to win with what they felt they were up against from voters in America at the time and Richard Nixon in the White House. Nixon had battled a comeback against numerous political defeats and fought hard to become president. Along his battle-filled road, he became defensive, and secretive and often resented his critics. He became the president against an American backdrop of race riots, war protests, and other turmoil. He became so consumed with his opponents that he made a list of people he considered a threat to his presidency, which he called his “enemies list.” Richard Nixon, his supporters, and advisers worried about reelection, despite a successful first term. But the Watergate scandal along with the ill-fated war in Vietnam made many Americans feel that the nation’s leaders had misled them and therefore, the Nixon administration thought the 1972 presidential reelection campaign that was approaching seemed promising, but not certain.
BUT FIRST SOME BREAKING AND ENTERING…
Nixon had just finished trips to China and the Soviet Union that had gone triumphantly. A Nixon reelection seemed promising with the former governor of Alabama, George Wallace dropping out of the race after an assassin’s bullet paralyzed him. And many political pundits considered the Democratic challenger Senator George McGovern to be too liberal. But with the Vietnam War still raging on, and staff members who remembered the close election of 1968, they were determined to win, and his advisers began spying on the opposition rallies and got a rumor mill going about Nixon’s opponents. In trying to help the president, Nixon’s advisers then ordered the five men to break into the Democratic Party’s headquarters at the Watergate apartment office complex and steal sensitive campaign information and were attempting to wiretap the DNC phones for further spying by the Nixon administration. While the burglars were working on trying to wiretap the office telephones, a security guard named Frank Wills spotted a piece of tape holding a door lock open. Wills removed the tape, but when he passed the door later, the security guard saw that the tape he had removed had been replaced on the door. Wills quickly called the police, who arrived shortly and arrested the five men in the middle of the burglary and wiretap.
IT’S NOT THE CRIME, IT’S THE COVER-UP…
After Bob Woodward left that courtroom, he did some further digging into James McCord and if he was actually CIA, not only did Woodward and Bernstein confirm he was in fact an ex-CIA officer, but McCord was also a member of the Committee for the Re-Election of the President (CRP). It was also reported that the five burglars had been paid from a secret CRP fund controlled by the White House. While Nixon had not ordered the break-in at the DNC, he did order the cover-up of his administration’s involvement in all of it. White House officials destroyed incriminating documents and gave investigators false testimony. The CIA was asked to stop the FBI from investigating the source of the money paid to the burglars by administration officials and with Nixon’s consent. The CIA told the FBI that the investigation threatened national security. FBI deputy director W. Mark Felt then decided to secretly leak information on the investigation about Watergate to The Washington Post. Nixon’s secretary would dismiss the incident as rumors and the president would address the American people and told them,
“The White House has had no involvement whatever in this particular incident.”
– President Richard Nixon, On the Watergate Break-In
Most Americans believed Nixon when he lied to them, and despite the media’s attempt to keep the story alive, few people paid attention to it during the 1972 presidential campaign. Nixon won reelection by one of the largest margins in history.
FLOODGATES OF CONFESSIONS…
In early 1973, the trial would begin for the Watergate burglars. After the federal judge, John J. Sirica relentlessly went after James McCord, he agreed to cooperate with the grand jury investigation and to testify in Congress at the newly created Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities. The chairman of that committee was Democratic senator Sam J Ervin from North Carolina. Along with McCord’s testimony came an open door of confessions. Presidential counsel John Dean testified in June 1973 that former attorney general John N. Mitchell had ordered the Watergate break-in and that Nixon had indeed played a part in the cover-up. Of course, the Nixon administration denied these charges due to Dean having no evidence to prove his accusation. The Senate committee spent weeks trying to figure out who was motivated enough to be telling the truth to them. They would get an answer to their question on July 16, 1973. It was revealed in court by White House aide Alexander Butterfield testifying that Nixon had ordered a taping system installed in the White House to record conversations he would later listen to and help write his memoirs after leaving office from the recordings. The tapes had the ability to tell the committee what Nixon knew and when he knew it, but he would have to release the tapes first.
A COVER-UP, LIES AND AUDIO TAPES…
Nixon would at first refuse to hand over the audio tapes, pleading executive privilege, which is the principle that White House conversations should remain confidential to protect national security. In October 1973, Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox took Nixon to court to compel him to give up the tapes. Nixon then ordered his new Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire Cox, but he too in response, resigned from his post. Nixon would then go on to ask his solicitor general, Robert Bork, who would comply with the president’s request and would fire Archibald Cox, but not before it all damaged Nixon’s reputation. 1973 would find itself plagued with disastrous outcomes. Vice President Spiro Agnew would resign in disgrace due to investigators finding that he had taken bribes while he was governor of Maryland and while serving in office in Washington, D.C.. Gerald Ford, the Republican leader of the House of Representatives would become the Vice President.
A SECOND TERM CUT SHORT BY LIES…
Outrage would ensue and Nixon would try to quiet it with the appointment of a new special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, but he was also determined to get the audio tapes released. The Supreme Court would rule in July of 1974 that Nixon must surrender the tapes. He complied with the order and days later, the House Judiciary Committee voted to impeach Nixon, or officially charge him with misconduct. Charges would include obstructing justice, misusing federal agencies to violate the rights of citizens, and defying the authority of Congress. As this was occurring in Congress, new evidence was brought to light through the audio tapes. A tape revealed that Nixon had ordered the CIA to stop the FBI investigation into the Watergate burglary on June 23, 1972, and impeachment and conviction became inevitable for Nixon. On August 9, 1974, President Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace. Vice President Gerald Ford took office as president of the United States after the resignation of Nixon. He urged Americans to put the Watergate scandal behind them, saying,
“ Our long national nightmare is over.”
– Gerald Ford, In his Statement to the American People, on the Pardon of Richard Nixon
On September 8, 1974, President Gerald Ford announced a full pardon for Richard Nixon. Ford’s popularity would be diminished, and he would draw public criticism for his decision to pardon the now-disgraced ex-president.
THE LEVIES BUILT POST WATERGATE FLOODS …
The constitutional crisis of the Watergate scandal would lead to new laws intended to limit the power of the executive branch. The Federal Campaign Act Amendments of 1974 limited campaign contributions and set up an independent agency to enforce strict election laws. The Ethics in Government Act required high government officials to provide financial disclosures throughout all branches of government. The FBI Domestic Security Investigation Guidelines Act restricted the political intelligence-gathering activities of the FBI. And Congress also laid out a plan to appoint an independent counsel to investigate any wrongdoing by high government officials and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law. Americans would be left with a sour taste in their mouth not long after swallowing the sour of what they were told about the Vietnam War. Bob Woodward thought however that the Watergate scandal proved that no one is above the law saying,
“Watergate was probably a good thing for the country….The problem with kings, prime ministers, and presidents, is that they think….they have some special rights….We have our laws and believe them, and they apply to everyone, [which] is a very good thing.”
– Bob Woodward, On the Watergate scandal
A great biographical drama to recommend for the Woodward and Bernstein reporter perspective of the Watergate scandal and breaking the story wide open is the 1976 film, All the Presidents Men, starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman as Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. The film is based on the 1974 book of the same name written by Woodward and Bernstein.
MY CONFESSION OF A RECOMMENDATION…
Gaslit does a great job of filling in a lot of the blanks of what was going on behind the scenes in the Nixon administration as the cover-up of the Watergate scandal is unearthed and redeems the reputation of Martha Mitchell and the part she played in her quest, to tell the truth, no matter what side of it her husband, John N. Mitchell was on. You get to see what it was like from John Dean’s perspective of the events and the part he played in the cover-up as well as his own path to redemption through his testimony to Congress, and how that testimony impacted his life, with his wife Mo Dean, as well as the influence she had over his decision to testify to Congress. You also get to learn about the break-in and the five men responsible for the burglary including its mastermind, G Gordon Liddy. There is also an episode dedicated to the security guard, Frank Wills, who lost his job at the Watergate apartment office complex after the break-in and what it was like for him to become famous after the media broke the story on what happened, and you see how the media frenzy impacted Wills’ life. I highly recommend watching Gaslit not just for the political history but for the amazing acting on behalf of Julia Roberts as Watergate scandal whistleblower, Martha Mitchell, and Sean Penn as her husband, the disgraced former Attorney General, John N. Mitchell in an unrecognizable role.
All 8 episodes of Gaslit are available through you local cable provider ON DEMAND now on the STARZ channel or through the STARZ app.