Watergate Scandal Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Watergate Scandal - Research Paper Example Five other men plead guilty, but mysteries remain. April 30 - Nixon's top White House staffers, H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, and Attorney General Richard Kleindienst resign over the scandal. White House counsel John Dean is fired. May 18 - The Senate Watergate Committee begins its nationally televised hearings. Attorney General-designate Elliot Richardson taps former solicitor general Archibald Cox as the Justice Department's special prosecutor for Watergate. June 3 - John Dean has told Watergate investigators that he discussed the Watergate cover-up with President Nixon at least 35 times, The Post reports. June 13 - Watergate prosecutors find a memo addressed to John Ehrlichman describing in detail the plans to burglarize the office of Pentagon Papers defendant Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist, The Post reports. July 13 - Alexander Butterfield, former presidential appointments secretary, reveals in congressional testimony that since 1971 Nixon had recorded all conversations and telephone calls in his offices. July 18 - Nixon reportedly orders the White House taping system disconnected. July 23 - Nixon refuses to turn over the presidential tape recordings to the Senate Watergate Committee or the special prosecutor. October 20 - Saturday Night Massacre: Nixon fires Archibald Cox and abolishes the office of the special prosecutor. Attorney General Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William D. Ruckelshaus resign. Pressure for impeachment mounts in Congress. November 17 - Nixon declares, "I'm not a crook," maintaining his innocence in the Watergate case. December 7 - The White House can't explain an 18 ?-minute gap in one of the subpoenaed tapes. Chief of Staff Alexander Haig says one theory is that "some sinister force" erased the segment....In the cold war era of the United States and Russia, and the war raging on in Vietnam, Nixon felt a need to increase the funding for domestic intelligence gathering. On July 23, 1970, he approves the expanded plans per taining to this action but decides to cancel the plans a few days later. This move on Nixon's part starts a snowballing of events that spin out for control the next year. The president seemed to have been developing a growing distrust of the the people around him so much so that he no longer trusted anyone within his own political party and the opposition party as well. There was never any given psychological explanation for his actions and to this very day, the reasons for his actions at Watergate remain somewhat muddled although most experts tend to believe that the event was closely tied into his re-election campaign and black mail gathering moves. These politically motivated actions have led to the term Watergate as having to refer to political burglary, bribery, extortion, phone tapping,