In the election of 1972, Richard Nixon had once again won the presidential election, allowing him to run for a second term. Nixon beat George McGovern with most of the electoral votes and most of the popular vote as well. Nixon had won the election by a landslide due to his popularity and his invested interest in the Vietnam war and his "detente" policy of easing the tension in Vietnam. Nixon was a pompous and assertive man in the eye of the public, yet he managed to deceive his fellow Americans in what is now known as the Watergate Scandal. Nixon ordered 5 men to break into the Democratic National Committee(DNC), in order to steal information from the Democratic party which he could then utilize as an advantage. This incident resulted in the arrest of these men, and the sure suspicion of Richard Nixon alongside his administration being involved in covering up this scandal.
Eventually, the U.S. Congress became aware of Nixon's sketchiness, and ordered a full-on investigation in uncovering the secrets within Watergate. Nixon grew restless since he and his administration both knew that if the U.S. Congress were to find out about their wrongdoing, Nixon was sure to be impeached.
In the attempts preceding the untold truths of Watergate, Nixon utilized "hush money" to keep the people who knew about the scandal, quiet. Nixon went as far to say that he had no recollection of the incidents of Watergate; Nixon explained to the American public that he was "No crook" in one of his speeches. Moreover, Nixon had installed tape recorders in the oval office and many other offices, in order to put the conversations of potential enemies on record. Eventually, Congress found about these recordings and demanded they be turned in for thorough inspection. Nixon was not able to cope with the whole predicament and eventually began to fire his staff, and even forced some of them to take the fault of the scandal. Nixon's administration soon recognized his egocentric personality due to his attempt to save himself.
Eventually, Congress got a hold of the recordings, ascertaining Nixon's dirty tricks during his presidency. Nixon resigned in August of 1974, and was then pardoned by his successor, Gerald Ford.
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate_scandal
This post gives some insight into the stickiness of Nixon's situation; it sort of snowballed and got worse and worse as Nixon did one thing after another ("hush money", keeping the recordings private) to ensure his own safety. Not only did this bring into question the scope of presidential power, but it left a huge dent on the international perception of the presidency; in fact, many scandals since then have been given the "-gate" suffix, and a movie Frost/Nixon detailed the interviews that exposed Nixon's scandal to the public.
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This post is extremely developed and is contains a great explanation of Nixon's impeachment. However, one thing you should say is explain and analyze Nixon's actions and how they were unconstitutional. For example, Nixon's abuse of Power, etc.
ReplyDeleteI agree, this post could use some more insight on Nixon's abuse of power. Thank you.
DeleteI agree, this post could use some more insight on Nixon's abuse of power. Thank you.
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