Essay Sample on The Watergate Scandal

The Watergate Scandal is one of the largest offenses to the U.S. to ever take place in history. This event lasted from the late 1960s into the mid-1970s. The Watergate Scandal is best known as Richard Nixon’s crime for reelection. As president, Nixon thought that instead of only relying on campaigning and natural tactics to win over the American people, he chose a different route that is now known as one of the most complex acts to be put into action in the history of this nation. To fully acknowledge this event, it is necessary to look into who Richard Nixon was, what the Watergate Scandal was, and what the aftermath was of this event. 

Richard Nixon was a man of many things but is mostly known for being the only president to resign so far in American history. Richard Milhous Nixon was born on January 9, 1913, in Yorba Linda, California, he was one of five children. Throughout his early life, Nixon watched as his parents struggled financially and worked very hard to make a living. In seeing this, Nixon developed a powerful sense of ambition that would carry him throughout his life. Later in his life, Nixon served in the US Navy and while serving as an operations officer in the Pacific during WWII Nixon earned large sums of money playing poker which he would later use to fund his first campaign. Nixon’s political career took off in 1946 when he became a congressman for California. In 1950, he won a seat in the U.S. Senate and soon after was nominated for vice president by President Eisenhower. Following this, Nixon ran for President but lost his first time but after enduring many political losses including one of which was the governing within his own state, he made a huge comeback and eventually won his ticket to the White House.  (History.com, 2022)

From Nixon’s presidency came the Watergate scandal. The scandal at Watergate first started on the morning of June 17, 1972, when a break-in took place and was later investigated to also reveal multiple other misusages of power within the Nixon administration. The burglars who were arrested that day were caught doing the unthinkable: they had been bugging phones and stealing documents. Nixon took hostile steps in covering this up, claiming that his staff were never involved in such a thing—-and most voters were convinced, so he won his way into another term. Thereafter, Nixon was revealed as being untruthful and went on to try and save himself once more by instructing the CIA to terminate the FBI’s investigation of the whole thing. In time, a growing number of people suspected that there was more behind this whole situation and later people—-including some of Nixon’s aides, testified against Nixon and provided information on the president’s secrets. They even revealed that Nixon had taped all conversations within the Oval Office—-over 3,000 hours of footage was later revealed to have been recorded. On October 20, 1973, Nixon was ordered to hand over the tapes and when he wouldn't, multiple Justice Department officials resigned in protest and this was known as the Saturday Night Massacre. August 5 was the day that Nixon ultimately resigned from office, leaving tapes for investigation after his resignation. 

“Therefore, I shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow. Vice president Ford will be sworn in as president at that hour in this office.” These were the words that would put Nixon out of office. Nixon stated “the interests of the nation must always come before my personal considerations” this was the reason he claimed for standing down. He also knew that he didn’t have enough congressional support due to the Watergate scandal to carry on as president, but it was not only that that cut his term short, it was also the secret tapes revealing the inner workings of his presidency and plans. A critical point to address was also the fact that one month after his resignation, his issue to be solved about the consequences of his actions had been solved by a pardon from President Gerald F. Ford. Nixon was pardoned for his entire presidency, Ford did so because he said that Nixon wouldn’t be able to get a fair trial and that Nixon and his family had been through enough. People thought that the decision for a pardon was unwise, after time, however, some people were convinced that Ford’s decision was the right thing to do because it allowed healing for the country after the situation. All of this led up to the nation becoming distrustful of the government, but all started to come together when the good-natured Ronald Reagan came into office.