A look back at the scandal that brought down Richard Nixon
May. 14, 1973: How Much Did He Know?
Within less than a week after Richard Nixon had solemnly denied any personal involvement and promised to see justice done, one of his ousted aides threatened to implicate the President himself in a conspiracy to conceal White House involvement.From: Nixon's Nightmare: Fighting to Be Believed, May. 14, 1973
Aug. 27, 1973: Nixon’s Problems
Clearly, a troubled nation was waiting for an explanation, a restoration of public trust. What it received instead was a plea by the President to put aside the "backward-looking obsession with Watergate that is causing this nation to neglect matters of far greater importance." From: Scrambling to Break Clear of Watergate, Aug. 27, 1973
Oct. 29, 1973: Nixon on the Brink
With astonishing speed in a frantic Washington weekend, an effort by President Nixon to compromise in the battle for his tapes and to preserve the authority of his office crashed toward a fateful climax, leaving his survival in the Oval Office in grave doubt and pitching the nation into one of the gravest constitutional crises in its history. From: Richard Nixon Stumbles to the Brink, Oct. 29, 1973
Nov. 5, 1973: The Push to Impeach
Richard Nixon's survival as President was in grave doubt, and, by Nixon's account, so was the peace of the world for a few tense hours. The foreign crisis was resolved, but the unmaking of the presidency of Richard Nixon gathered such momentum as to almost ensure even more crises in the days ahead.From: Seven Tumultuous Days, Nov. 5, 1973
Nov. 12, 1973: Nixon’s Jury: The People
For only the second time in U.S. history, the American people seriously confront the possibility of the impeachment or forced resignation of a President. It is a painful, lacerating process, as agonizing for them as it may ultimately be for the stricken President.From: The Jury of the People Weighs Nixon, Nov. 12, 1973
Dec. 10, 1973: The Secretary and the Tapes
In Judge Sirica's court last week, Miss Woods testified that she must have been responsible for at least 4 and a half minutes of a raspy, overriding hum on the tape of a talk between Nixon and H.R. Haldeman, then his Chief of Staff, on June 20, 1972, just three days after the Watergate burglary.From: The Secretary and the Tapes Tangle, Dec. 10, 1973
Jan. 7, 1974: Judge J. Sirica, Man of the Year
More than any other event, it was the multifaceted Watergate affair, the worst political scandal in U.S. history, that dominated the news in 1973. As it gradually unfolded, involving more and more areas of President Richard Nixon's Administration, it revealed a shocking disdain for both the spirit and the letter of the law at the highest levels of Government.From: Standing Firm for the Primacy of Law, Jan. 7, 1974
Jan. 28, 1974: The Telltale Tape
The report was coldly scientific, its source unassailably objective, its grave import unmistakably clear: at least as late as last October, an effort to conceal evidence in the Watergate scandal was still in operation in the innermost reaches of Richard Nixon's White House.... But in reporting to Federal Judge John J. Sirica that the conversation had been erased by pushing buttons on a tape recorder at least five, and probably nine, times, they had found, in effect, that this destruction of evidence necessarily had to be deliberate.From: A Telltale Tape Deepens Nixon's Dilemma, Jan. 28, 1974
Feb. 4, 1974: The Impeachment Congress
No U.S. President has ever been found guilty of the Constitution's "high Crimes and Misdemeanors" and turned out of office before his time. Only once has a President been impeached by the House and stood trial in the Senate, and Andrew Johnson's ordeal took place a full century ago.From: Judging Nixon: The Impeachment Session, Feb. 4, 1974
Mar. 11, 1974: Charging Nixon’s Men
They unlawfully, willfully and knowingly did combine, conspire, confederate and agree together and with each other, to commit offenses against the United States ... They would corruptly influence, obstruct and impede ... the due administration of justice ... and by deceit, craft, trickery and dishonest means, defraud the United States. From: Seven Charged, a Report and a Briefcase, Mar. 11, 1974
May 13, 1974: Nixon’s Gamble
Given the enormous hazards for Nixon in the transcripts, it seemed baffling that he released them at all. He may have felt that he had Little choice. Having resolved not to turn over the tapes to the Judiciary Committee, he had to make some extraordinary gesture to avoid almost certain impeachment for defying Congress.From: The President Gambles on Going Public, May 13, 1974
May 28, 1973: Watergate Revelations
The Watergate story was now being dramatized under the klieg lights of the crowded Senate Caucus Room and thrust into the living rooms of America. Figuratively, the testimony represented at least half a dozen sticks of dynamite that could blow the scandal skyhigh. From: The Newest Daytime Drama, May 28, 1973
May 20, 1974: Nixon’s Collapsing Presidency
Nixon's moral authority and ability to govern seemed shattered beyond repair. By all the usual political omens, Nixon had lost the most audacious gamble in his political career and with it, in all likelihood, his chance of serving.out his term of office. From: Richard Nixon's Collapsing Presidency, May 20, 1974
July 22, 1974: Nixon and the Court
The specific legal questions before the court did not, of course, involve impeachment directly. As debated in a historic three-hour oral argument last week, the basic dispute was constitutional: Does the President have the power to withhold from use in the September conspiracy trial of six former aides 64 tape recordings of White House conversations, merely on his assertion that it is not in the public interest to release them?From: "The United States v. Richard M. Nixon, President, et al.", July 22, 1974
Jul. 29, 1974: Republicans and Impeachment
Resolved, that Richard M. Nixon has violated the duties and abused the powers of the Office of President of the United States of America. He has ignored his oath to execute the Office faithfully and to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States....From: The Charges: Articles of Impeachment, Jul. 29, 1974
Aug. 5, 1974: The Vote to Impeach
The room was silent, and so, in a sense, was a watching nation. One by one, the strained and solemn faces of the 38 members of the House Judiciary Committee were focused on by the television cameras. One by one, their names were called. One by one, they cast the most momentous vote of their political lives, or of any representative of the American people in a century.From: The Fateful Vote to Impeach, Aug. 5, 1974
Aug. 19, 1974: The Healing Begins
It was the first time in American history that a President had resigned his office. The precedent was melancholy, but it was hardly traumatic. All of the damage had been done before in the seemingly interminable spectacle of high officials marched through courtrooms, in the recitation of burglaries, crooked campaign contributions and bribes, enemies lists, powers abused, subpoenas ignored, above all, in the ugly but mesmerizing suspense as the investigations drew closer and closer to the Oval Office.From: Time for Healing, Aug. 19, 1974
Mar. 29, 1976: Watergate on Film
Most of the time, Washington Post Executive Editor Benjamin C. Bradlee is a lean, tough, profane newsman. He directed his paper's contribution to exposing Watergate, the great political scandal, the constitutional crisis that brought down Richard Nixon. But just now Ben Bradlee is starstruck. He has seen All the President's Men, a new $8.5 million film about Watergate, the Post and Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, the two young reporters whom Bradlee had guided and frequently defended. From: Watergate on Film, Mar. 29, 1976
May. 9, 1977: Nixon Talks
The only U.S. President to be forced from office makes his first extensive accounting of his tumultuous presidency. He does so not in a court of law, as did his highest aides. Nor at a Senate impeachment trial—he resigned to avoid that. Instead, nearly three years after a helicopter lifted him off the White House lawn and into seclusion at his San Clemente retreat, he appears in a four-part TV series, The Nixon Interviews.From: NIXON TALKS, May. 9, 1977
Apr. 2, 1990: Nixon’s Memoir
I really wrote this book for those who have suffered losses or defeats and so forth, and who think that life is over. I felt that if I could share with them my own experiences, it might help.The problem with that, of course, is that resigning the presidency is something that is beyond their imagination. And so, consequently, that's why throughout the book I tried to put it in a context that they could understand. But I felt that if I could let them see what I went through, and how I at least recovered in part, that that might tell them that life wasn't over.From: Paying The Price, Apr. 2, 1990
June 4, 1973: Nixon Fights Back
Last week, seemingly cornered, Nixon simultaneously fought back and fell back by issuing one of the strangest presidential documents in U.S. history; a 4,000-word statement that presented his defense. The document contained confessions that no other U.S. President has had to make. From: Nixon's Thin Defense: The Need for Secrecy, June 4, 1973
July 2, 1973: Dean Talks
Something very close to guerrilla warfare at credibility gap erupted, as both critics and defenders of Nixon and Dean joined in nasty combat over the character and believability of the witness before he could take the stand. Testifying to the staff of Senator Sam Ervin's committee in private, Dean found that his words, some self-damning, some damaging to the President, leaked out and were carried across the nation.From: Guerrilla Warfare at Credibility Gap, July 2, 1973
July 9, 1973: Can Nixon Survive Dean?
Now the grave charges against the President had passed a point of no return. Carried with chilling reality into millions of American homes and spread massively on the official record of a solemn Senate inquiry, the torrential testimony of John W. Dean III fell short of proof in a court of law. But the impact was devastating. As President, Richard Nixon was grievously, if not mortally wounded.From: Dean's Case Against the President, July 9, 1973
July 23, 1973: John Mitchell
Even accepting Mitchell's testimony completely, one still has to conclude that as the nation's highest law officer or as a close aide to Nixon, Mitchell 1) condoned serious illegal acts; 2) put the re-election of one man above the law and the Constitution; 3) arrogated to himself the huge responsibility of shielding the President from vital facts.From: Mitchell: "What Nixon Doesn't Know...", July 23, 1973
July 30, 1973: The Nixon Tapes
The revelation last week that Nixon had ordered the automatic and covert recording of all of his office talks and most of his telephone conversations since the spring of 1971 cast a startling new light on the astonishing affair. A case against the President that had seemed destined to rest ambiguously on the often credible but thus far wholly uncorroborated testimony of Nixon's fired counsel, John W. Dean III, now might have a clear-cut resolution.From: The Battle for Nixon's Tapes, July 30, 1973
Aug. 6, 1973: Constitutional Challenge
Watergate thereby became not only an epic whodunit of daytime television but a political and constitutional struggle of historic dimensions. At stake was nothing less than the definition of presidential powers and the President's relationship to the two other, nominally coequal branches of Government.From: Battle Over Presidential Power, Aug. 6, 1973
Aug. 20, 1973: Can Trust Be Restored?
Just as the President seemed about to be given some respite, a new scandal exploded. Vice President Agnew, who had hitherto escaped the taint of Watergate, was officially informed that he was under investigation for allegedly taking kickbacks from contractors. From: Can Public Confidence Be Restored?, Aug. 20, 1973
