Watergate

The tapes

The hearings held by the Senate Watergate Committee, in which Dean was the star witness and in which many other former key administration officials gave dramatic testimony, were broadcast through most of the summer, causing devastating political damage to Nixon. The Senate investigators also discovered a crucial fact on July 13: Alexander Butterfield, deputy assistant to the President, revealed during an interview with a committee staff member that a taping system in the White House automatically recorded everything in the Oval Office--tape recordings that could prove whether Nixon or Dean was telling the truth about key meetings. The tapes were soon subpoenaed by both Cox and the Senate.

Nixon refused, citing the theory of executive privilege, and ordered Cox, via Attorney General Richardson, to drop his subpoena. Cox's refusal led to the "Saturday Night Massacre" on October 20, 1973, when Nixon compelled the resignations of Richardson and then his deputy in a search for someone in the Justice Department willing to fire Cox. This search ended with Robert Bork, and the new acting department head dismissed the special prosecutor. Allegations of wrongdoing caused Nixon to famously state "I am not a crook" in front of 400 Associated Press managing editors at Walt Disney World in Florida on November 17.

While Nixon continued to refuse to turn over actual tapes, he did agree to release edited transcripts of a large number. These largely confirmed Dean's account, and caused further embarrassment when a crucial, 18Ð... portion of one tape, which had never been out of White House custody, was found to have been erased. The White House blamed this on Nixon's secretary, Rose Mary Woods, who said she had accidentally erased the tape by pushing the wrong foot pedal on her tape player while answering the phone. However, as photos splashed all over the press showed, for Woods to answer the phone and keep her foot on the pedal involved a stretch that would have challenged many a gymnast. She was then said to have held this position for the full 18Ð... minutes. Later forensic analysis determined that the gap had been erased several--perhaps as many as nine--times over, refuting the "accidental erasure" explanation..

This issue of access to the tapes went all the way to the Supreme Court and on July 24, 1974 the Court unanimously ruled in United States v. Nixon that Nixon's claim of executive privilege over the tapes was void and they further ordered him to surrender them to special prosecutor Leon Jaworski. On July 30 he complied with the order and released the subpoenaed tapes.

Articles of impeachment, resignation, and convictions

On March 1, 1974, the "Watergate Seven," former aides of the president--Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell, Colson, Gordon C. Strachan, Robert Mardian, and Kenneth Parkinson--had been indicted for conspiring to hinder the Watergate investigation. The grand jury also secretly named Nixon as an unindicted co-conspirator. Dean, Magruder and other figures in the scandal had already pleaded guilty.

Colson in his book Born Again stated that he was given a report by a White House aide that clearly implicated the CIA in the whole Watergate scandal and showed an attempt to implicate him as the one responsible.

Nixon's position was becoming increasingly precarious, and the House of Representatives began formal investigations into the possible impeachment of the President. The House Judiciary Committee voted 27 to 11 on July 27, 1974 to recommend the first article of impeachment against the President: obstruction of justice. Then on July 29 the second article, abuse of power, was passed and on July 30 the third, contempt of Congress, was also passed.

In August, a previously unknown tape was released for June 23, 1972, recorded only a few days after the break-in, in which Nixon and Haldeman formulated the plan to block investigations by raising bogus national security claims. The tape was referred to as a "smoking gun." With this last piece of evidence, Nixon's few remaining supporters deserted him. The ten congressmen who had voted against the Articles of Impeachment in committee announced that they would all support impeachment when the vote was taken in the full House.

Nixon leaving the White House after his resignation, August 9, 1974Nixon's support in the Senate was weak as well. After being told by key Republican Senators that enough votes existed to convict him, Nixon decided to resign. In a nationally televised address on the evening of August 8, 1974, he announced he would resign effective noon on August 9. Ultimately, Nixon was never actually impeached or convicted, since his resignation voided the issue. He was succeeded by Gerald Ford, who on September 8 issued a widely-scoped pardon for Nixon, immunizing him from prosecution for any crimes he may have committed as President. Nixon proclaimed his innocence until his death, but his acceptance of the pardon implied otherwise in the eyes of many. Accepting a presidential pardon is voluntary and constitutes a legal admission of guilt, as opposed to a commutation of sentence which cannot be denied since legal guilt was established at the time of conviction.

As for Nixon's aides, Dean pleaded guilty and served four months in protective custody as a cooperating witness. Colson later pled guilty to charges concerning the Ellsberg case; in exchange, the indictment against him for covering up the activities of CREEP was dropped, as it was against Strachan. The remaining five members of the Watergate Seven indicted in March went on trial in October 1974, and on January 1, 1975, all but Parkinson were found guilty. In 1976, the U.S. Court of Appeals ordered a new trial for Mardian; subsequently, all charges against him were dropped. Haldeman, Ehrlichman, and Mitchell exhausted their appeals in 1977. Ehrlichman voluntarily entered prison in 1976 and the other two entered prison in 1977.

Aftermath

The effects of the Watergate scandal did not by any means end with the resignation of President Nixon and the imprisonment of some of his aides. Indirectly, Watergate was the cause of new laws leading to extensive changes in campaign financing. It was a major factor in the passage of amendments to the Freedom of Information Act in 1986, as well as laws requiring new financial disclosures by key government officials.

While not legally required, other types of personal disclosure, such as releasing recent income tax forms, became expected. Knowing he was comfortably ahead in the 1972