Watergate

4 Pages 1034 Words

Kutler’s Watergate

Watergate was a site of major scandal in the U.S. It involved burglary, wiretapping of the Democratic Party’s headquarters. The President and many of his trusted men were targets of investigation. Water gate led to the first ever resignation of a President.
The burglary was committed on June 17, 1972, by five men who were caught in the offices of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate apartment and office complex in Washington D.C. Their arrest eventually uncovered a White House sponsored plan of espionage against political opponents. This conspiracy involved many of the highest officials in the land, including former U.S. Attorney General John Mitchell, White House Counsel John Dean, and White House Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman, White House Special Assistant on Domestic Affairs John Ehrlichman, and President Nixon. On April 30, 1973, a year after the burglary and arrest and following a grand jury investigation of the burglary, Nixon accepted the resignation of Haldeman and Ehrlichman and U.S. Attorney General Richard Kleindienst and announced the dismissal of Dean, The new attorney general, Elliot Richardson, appointed a special prosecutor, Law School professor Archibald Cox from Harvard Law, to conduct a full investigation of the Watergate breakin. In May of 1973, the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Activities opened hearings, headed by Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina as chairman. A series of startling revelations followed. John Dean said is his opening statement, that he had discussed the cover-up with President Nixon in several meetings. At the first meeting, in September 1972, he told the president how he and other members of the White House had handled the cover-up so far. Dean claimed that in another important meeting with Nixon, on March 21, 1973, the president agreed $1million should be raised to silence the burglars. However Dean said that he dealt with the presid...