President Nixon And White House example essay topic

821 words
The Watergate scandal had everything. Nixon disgraced the presidency by lying to the country and abusing his power and his committees were involved in illegal acts and a big cover up, all leading to little side roads of corruption and lies. Watergate is by far one of the worst presidential scandals in the history of the United States. In the story of Watergate, five burglars were found breaking into democratic offices at the Watergate complex in Washington DC. The break-in was passed off as just another burglary, but when the burglars were found to have connections with the CIA, questions were starting to be asked. Then when the phone number of Howard Hunt was found in one of the burglar's phone books, it made people think, why would one of the burglars have the phone number of one of the presidents men?

When Watergate was uncovered, it revealed that the president was a liar and a cheat. The president lied to our country, lied about his involvement, concealed self incriminating evidence, abused his power, and planed to have the CIA stop the FBI investigations. During the times of the unraveling of Watergate, questions were asked about connections with the White House and the president, but when the president was asked about it at a press conference he assured Americans that The White House has no involvement whatever in this particular incident. The lying and cover-ups did not end there, it went on and on for months, and as the scandal kept unraveling, President Nixon and White House, and CREEP officials were deliberately misleading the public about the significance of the Watergate affair.

As Watergate was becoming a front-page article in the newspapers, new evidence was being uncovered. One piece of evidence that changed the peoples' ideas of our president was the tapping of every conversation in the oval office since about the 18th month of President Nixon's term. Those tapes would soon prove that the president was deeply involved in the scandal. The Nixon tapes brought out much controversy.

The tapes alone could prove the president innocent or guilty, but whichever one it was, Nixon refused to hand over the tapes. After much struggle Nixon agreed to give a transcript of the tapes. The transcripts brought to light a significant amount of evidence against Nixon. The transcripts revealed payoffs, affiliation with the burglaries and the OK's to the cover-up, but most important the transcripts showed that Nixon had lied repeatedly after he had denied knowing anything about the conspiracy.

Soon the country would find a new problem with the tapes. When the president's lawyers were going over the tapes, they came along an 18 minute gap during a conversation with Nixon and Haldman. Watergate was unraveling, and the story kept getting bigger. Former attorney general John Mitchell knew that the FBI had a long-standing agreement with the CIA that neither agency would jeopardize the other's operations. The president agreed in a March 21, 1973 meeting with John Dean, to get money to payoff Mr. Hunt.

Without question, the most notorious examples of dirty politics in the nation's history occurred during President Nixon's 1972 re-election campaign. Nixon's committees were deeply involved with the whole scandal and other unethical acts. During the 1972 election, they were involved in illegal acts like, smear campaigns, and they attacked and harassed political enemies, and they were involved in Watergate break-in. Also the committees had a great role in the cover-up. They destroyed evidence, paid people off, and lied to the country. When Nixon was running for president in 1972, ambitious plans were prepared for spying on the democrats.

For four years the White House used the power of the presidency to attack on political enemies. They spied on & harassed anyone who did not agree with Nixon's policies. Nixon also had an enemies list that included the names of about 21 organizations and some 200 individuals. Someone had to take care of these people, so CREEP ordered the establishment of several secret teams assigned to carryout political espionage and harassment operations against the democrats.

Nixon's chief aid, H.R. Haldman, also destroyed files which might prove to be potentially dangerous. As more problems came along, more pressure was being put on the men in jail to keep quiet. The lies went on and on, and the truth kept leaking out. The president and his com ities were being exposed, and the presidency was disgraced and all trust in the government was lost. Watergate is and was the story of lies and corruption in the government. The scandal that will forever be known as by far one of the worst scandals in the history of the United States Of America..