Watergate scandal

{{bronze}}[[File:WatergateFromAir.JPG|right|165px|thumb|The Watergate, looking water-great.]]{{uspolitics}}{{crimenav}}
{{cquote|On the other hand, the allowance of the privilege to withhold evidence that is demonstrably relevant in a criminal trial would cut deeply into the guarantee of due process of law and gravely impair the basic function of the courts. A President's acknowledged need for confidentiality in the communications of his office is general in nature, whereas the [[United States Constitution|constitutional]] need for production of relevant evidence in a criminal proceeding is specific and central to the fair adjudication of a particular criminal case in the administration of justice. Without access to specific facts a criminal prosecution may be totally frustrated. The President's broad interest in confidentiality of communications will not be vitiated by disclosure of a limited number of conversations preliminarily shown to have some bearing on the pending criminal cases.|||[[Supreme Court of the United States]], United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683 (1974)<ref>[https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep418/usrep418683/usrep418683.pdf United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683 (1974)] ''Library of Congress''.</ref>{{rp|712-713}}}}

The '''Watergate scandal''' was the most important [[American]] political event of the 20<sup>th</sup> century, ruining the reputation not just of [[Richard M. Nixon]], the [[President of the United States|president]] who resigned due to the cover-up, but of the entire goddamn presidency. [[Original sin|Every successive president's reputation is ever so slightly tainted]], simply because he was president, and therefore ''obviously'' a crook — such is the stain [[Tricky Dick]] left on the office.

When [[Bill Clinton]] was [[impeach]]ed over lying to Congress about [[Adultery|having a mistress]], it was revealed Monica Lewinsky was a lodger at the Watergate Hotel Complex, making things just that much more spicy.

==Brief outline==
[[File:ElectoralCollege1972.svg|thumb|left|47 million people stupid enough to vote for Nixon in 1972. "Don't blame me, I'm from [[Massachusetts]]!"]]
{{cquote|[The dictaphone] is stuck on record. It won't stop recording things; so it's just what you want lying around the White House Counsel's Office because there's never been a problem with that before.|||Oliver Babish, ''The West Wing''<ref>[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wfr8Vl0ORBaE *wink*]</ref>}}
The affair began in June 1972, when five men were arrested in the early hours of the morning breaking into the [[Democratic Party]]'s headquarters at the Watergate hotel (which gave its name to the scandal) in [[Washington, D.C.]] They had photographic equipment and wiretapping devices on them. In the following months, connections between several of the suspects and one part or another of the White House were revealed.<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/30/newsid_2933000/2933155.stm 1973: Nixon takes rap for Watergate scandal], BBC. </ref>

In January 1973, seven men were convicted of [[conspiracy]], burglary, and bugging the Democratic headquarters, two months after Nixon was re-elected President of the United States in a landslide. [[G. Gordon Liddy]], a Nixon operative,<ref>[http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-ca-jc-john-dean-20140803-story.html John Dean takes a fresh look at Watergate in 'Nixon Defense'], Carolyn Kellogg, ''LA Times, July 31 2014 </ref> and E. Howard Hunt Jr.,<ref>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/onpolitics/watergate/howardhunt.html E. Howard Hunt], ''Washington Post''. </ref> the White House contact who simultaneously was an employee of a [[CIA]] [[Front group|front company]], were the ringleaders of the burglary.<ref>[https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/08/08/watergate-and-the-white-house-the-third-rate-burglary-that-toppled-a-president Watergate and the White House: The 'Third-Rate Burglary' That Toppled a President] (Aug. 8, 2014, at 12:01 a.m.) ''U.S. News & World Report''.</ref>

After the arrests, Hunt blackmailed the Nixon White House to remain silent. John Dean ([[White House]] Counsel) paid him off with laundered Committee to Re-elect the President (CREEP) funds to pay the defendants' legal bills, but this [[money]] trail was uncovered by the ''[[Washington Post]]''. An [[FBI]] investigation started, but it was called off when the president directed the CIA to lie to the [[FBI]] and tell them it was a [[JFK|Bay of Pigs]] thing, ''hush hush''. The president was captured on his own tape recording system<ref>[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oe3OgU8W0s Nixon: raw watergate tape: 'smoking gun' section]. YouTube.</ref> telling Bob Haldeman (his Chief of Staff) and John Erlichmann (his domestic policy chief) to [[limited hangout|manipulate the FBI with the CIA]], and this tape was the "smoking gun" that proved the president knew about the blackmail and the cover-up just six days after the break-in.<ref>There was also the {{wpl|Nixon tapes#The 18.C2.BD minute gap|"18-½ minute gap,"}} content erased from the recordings (which still cannot be recovered) — and with differing excuses given.</ref> When the contents of the tapes were made public, even [[Barry Goldwater]] threw in the towel and told Nixon he should quit.

Nixon eventually resigned in 1974, thus avoiding a looming impeachment. His successor, [[Gerald Ford]], pardoned him.

===Motivation===
{{cquote|[[G. Gordon Liddy|Who]] was the [[asshole]] that did it?|||Nixon after learning of the Plumbers' arrest}}
Every conspiracy needs an element of [[logic]] that begs [[skeptical]] review. In this case, the obvious question becomes "''Why the hell'' would the [[President]] of the [[United States]] ever engage in such unbelievably bizarre, criminal behavior of the pettiest type?"

The Plumbers were an outside organization hired to fix leaks after FBI Director [[J. Edgar Hoover]] refused.<ref>[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=So7TRdh6rpI Watergate in Fifteen Minutes]</ref> Hoover had been burned in the McCarthy era on numerous cases when his questionable methods and doctored evidence were thrown out as civil rights abuses, even though guilty parties, in Hoover's estimation, walked.<ref>[http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/17/opinions/brinkley-nichter-nixon-watergate-huston-plan/ Great mystery of the 1970s: Nixon, Watergate and the Huston Plan], By Douglas Brinkley and Luke A. Nichter, CNN, June 17, 2015 </ref><ref>[https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/seventies/essays/understand-scandal-watergate-beyond-nixon To Understand a Scandal: Watergate beyond Nixon], by David Sarias, Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History </ref> The immediate motivation in the Nixon era had to do with the mess Nixon "[[Richard Nixon#Underachievements|inherited]]" in [[Vietnam War|Vietnam]]. Despite trying to 'Vietnam-ize' the peace process and 'de-Americanize' the war (through a series of illegal bombing campaigns in [[Laos]] and other idiotic ideas devised by Secretary of State [[Henry Kissinger]]),<ref>[[Christopher Hitchens]] (2001), ''The Trials of Henry Kissinger'' [http://books.google.ca/books/about/The_Trial_of_Henry_Kissinger.html?id=pBBBEH0OEoUC]</ref> everything was failing in his effort to end the most unpopular war in American history. Most problematic was when Daniel Ellsberg photocopied the entire report he wrote about how badly America was doing in the War, the so-called [[Pentagon Papers]], and dropped them off at the offices of the ''[[New York Times]]'', in case they were interested in some light bedtime reading. The Papers essentially undermined the entire point of Americans supporting the war effort, and turned what had been an average protest movement into a national outrage, with serious [[Congress]]ional sway.

They first engaged in a raid on the office of Ellsberg's [[psychiatrist]], trying to [[Poisoning the well|sully the credibility]] of the informant. From there, the Plumbers evolved into a private quasi-legal force of thugs that the President employed to illegally spy on political opponents. The Plumbers would feed info to the Committee to Re-elect the President (now you know why they're mocked as "CREEP"), and the [[PR]] end would work from there in tangent with the campaign.<ref>Woodward and Bernstein (1974), ''All the President's Men'' [http://www.amazon.com/All-Presidents-Men-Bob-Woodward/dp/0671894412]</ref>

The [[Hippie|free radical]], of course, was Nixon himself, who was, by this point, bumbling around [[Alcohol|drunk]] and prone to [[Antisemitism|paranoid fantasies about Jews]] and other nonsense.<ref>Woodward and Bernstein (1976), ''The Final Days'' [http://www.amazon.com/The-Final-Days-Carl-Bernstein/dp/0743274067/ref=pd_sim_b_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=05BQK489632H8G8AJA0G]</ref> When his tape transcripts were published as a result of the investigation, it became clear that Nixon was insane with power, a crude little [[bigot]] who was using the federal government like chess pieces in his own bizarre war-games devoid of [[reality]]. He attempted to pit the FBI, CIA, and [[IRS]] against each other and his opponents to subvert the 1972 election, despite the fact he was already sweeping the Democrats with the [[Southern Strategy]] and his opponent, {{wpl|George McGovern}}, was [[Red-baiting|tarred as a Commie-loving Stalin apologist]] by the GOP. The insanity was that Nixon never ''needed'' to even bother doing all these extracurricular shenanigans.

==Crimes==
More than 70 people were convicted of [[crime]]s related to Watergate; some pled guilty before trial.

==Consequences==
[[File:Nixon-depart.png|thumb|left|See ya, wouldn't wanna be ya.]]
The main consequence was the collapse of public confidence in [[government]] and [[politician]]s in general that has never really recovered.<ref>[http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-28669946 Looking back at when and why Americans trusted their government], BBC</ref> [[Jimmy Carter]] won the 1976 election by campaigning as an outsider, untouched by Washington politics. Almost every election since – even those to school council in northern [[Rhode Island]] – has seen people running that play. Unfortunately, it [[Reagan|still]] [[George W Bush|works]] [[Donald Trump|even at the presidential level]].

After Watergate, political [[conspiracy theorists]] could get a far wider audience for their views.

Other Watergate reforms include the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the War Powers Act, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and the creation of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Courts, the Federal Campaign Act which created the Federal Elections Commission. and the House and Senate standing Intelligence Oversight Committees.<ref>[http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/history/johnson/watergatelegis.htm Watergate effects]</ref><ref>[http://www.history.com/news/how-watergate-changed-americas-intelligence-laws How Watergate Changed America’s Intelligence Laws, By Barbara Maranzani, History Channel, March 7, 2017]</ref>

==Quotes==
*"Let me just say this, and I want to say this to the television audience: I made my mistakes, but in all of my years of public life, I have never profited, never profited from public service &mdash; I have earned every cent. And in all of my years of public life, I have never obstructed justice. And I think, too, that I could say that in my years of public life, that I welcome this kind of examination, because people have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I am not a crook. I have earned everything I have got." &mdash; Richard Nixon, not quite getting it
*"There will be no whitewash in the White House." &mdash; Richard Nixon
*"America must not again fall into the trap of letting the [[Utilitarianism|end, however great that end is, justify the means]]." &mdash; Richard Nixon
*"[[Dictator|"…but when the President does it, that means it is not illegal…]]"<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMt8qCl5fPk Nixon says, "…but when the President does it, that means it is not illegal…"] 1977 David Frost interview of Nixon (Mar 5, 2017) ''YouTube''.</ref> &mdash; Richard Nixon
*"[[Not even wrong|Had they not brought down Nixon, we wouldn't have lost Vietnam. Had [they] not brought down Nixon, the Khmer Rouge would not have come to power and murdered two million people in a full-fledged genocide]]." &mdash; [[El Rushbo]]<ref>[http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200506020001 The equivalent of shitting on a history textbook.]</ref>

==Pop culture==
The aftermath of the Watergate scandal has resulted in the introduction of a number of phrases into American (and world) [[culture]], such as:

*"What did the president know, and when did he know it?"
*"The previous statement is inoperative. This is the operative statement."
*"Follow the money." <ref group=Notes>Although attributed to Mark Felt (Deep Throat) in the film version of <i>All the President's Men</i>, it was not actually coined by the man himself but was written by screenwriter William Goldman. </ref>
*"I am not a crook."
*Expletive deleted
*The suffix "-gate" appended to {{wpl|List of scandals with -gate suffix|virtually every scandal since}}.

==See also==
*[[Pentagon Papers]]
*[[Constitutional crisis]]
*[[Ratfucking]]
*[[G. Gordon Liddy]]
*[[Chuck Colson]]

==External links==
*[http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/watergate.htm Watergate portal] at Spartacus
*[http://docuwiki.net/?title=Watergate BBC's Watergate documentary], replete with ratfuckers (or if you don't want to watch multiple hours, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHnmriyXYeg a summary])
*[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfXPcQroX1U The Best of the Senate Watergate Hearings], PBS
*[http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/press_box/2007/08/boob_job.html The Boob Job], ''Slate''
*[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vB9JgxhXW5w That Mitchell and Webb Look: Watergategate]
*[http://www.theguardian.com/news/2000/oct/10/guardianobituaries.haroldjackson Perhaps the most depressing tale from the whole shebang.]

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=Notes}}

==References==
{{reflist|2|80%}}

[[Category:Conservative deceit]]
[[Category:Gates]]
[[Category:Government coverups]]
[[Category:Government incompetence]]
[[Category:United States history]]

Categories: Conservative deceit, Gates, Government coverups, Government incompetence, United States history