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Watergate
The Watergate scandal, which
plagued President Richard Nixon's administration from 1972
until Nixon's resignation in 1974, still haunts the nation
and the office of the Presidency to this day. The Watergate
story begins in June 1972, one year after the New York Times
began publishing the Pentagon Papers revealing the Defense
Department's involvement in the Vietnam War. On June 17,
1972, five men found themselves at gunpoint in a sixth floor
office of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate
Hotel. After three plain-clothes officers discovered the
men, still wearing surgical gloves and carrying devices
to transmit conversations, they arrested them. One of them,
Edward Martin, also known as James W. McCord, was a former
CIA agent as well as security chief to the Nixon committee
and security consultant for the Republican National Committee.
Another of the five men, Bernard
Barker, was questioned again the next month for depositing
a $25,000 check, originally meant for President Nixon's
re-election campaign, in his personal bank account. In September,
several sources reported a secret fund to gather information
about the Democrats, controlled by US Attorney General John
Mitchell, who later became Nixon's campaign manager. Mitchell
and several others on Nixon's campaign staff denied both
the allegations and the existence of the fund.
However, the next month brought
more allegations against Nixon's campaign committee and
more evidence of tampering with the Democrats' files, as
FBI agents reported finding more campaign money designed
to finance investigations and discrediting of Democratic
candidates. In a landslide victory over Democratic opponent
George McGovern that was quite different from the close
election of 1968, Nixon regained the Presidency in November.
President Nixon's second term
began with more news about the Watergate scandal as his
former aides G. Gordon Liddy and James McCord were convicted
of conspiracy and burglary. Nixon gave a statement in May
accepting responsibility for his staff in the Watergate
incident after four of his aides resigned and he fired White
House counsel, John Dean. However, when Senate Watergate
hearings began later that month, the tables began to turn.
In June, John Dean reported
to Senate investigators that President Nixon had been present
to at least 35 conversations about the Watergate cover-up
and that he knew of bribes for conspirators, although he
had no documentation to back up his allegations. In a dramatic
discovery in July that President Nixon tape-recorded all
of his conversations and meetings--tapes that he refused
to release, the investigation committee and Special Prosecutor
Archibald Cox saw their opportunity to prove the President's
innocence or guilt in the Watergate affair. However, President
Nixon furthered speculation about his involvement when he
dismissed Cox and turned his function as special prosecutor
over to the Justice Department. President Nixon then agreed
to release some of the tapes.
Despite President Nixon's protest
of his innocence over the Watergate affair, an 18-minute
gap in one of the subpoenaed tapes drew further suspicion.
Transcripts of the tapes proving his involvement spurred
an immediate order from the Supreme Court for him to turn
over all of the tapes. In July 1974, for only the second
time in history, the House Judiciary Committee voted to
impeach a President. The next month, under the definite
threat of impeachment, President Nixon resigned his office,
becoming the first President to resign.
The Grahams' Connection
President Nixon was one of several presidents to enjoy
Billy's friendship and rely on his counsel; however, after
the story behind Watergate hit the headlines, Nixon refused
to see Billy for the rest of his presidency. Although Billy
knew no more about the scandal than did the rest of the
public, he was saddened by Nixon's response to him and about
the general infection the cover-up caused to spread through
the Nixon administration.
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