The Watergate Scandal

1. On June 16, 1972, a security guard at the Watergate Hotel in Washington , D.C.,
discovered a piece of tape on the lock of the door that led to the National Democratic
Headquarters.
2. This foiled break-in attempt at the Watergate Hotel was part of a larger campaign by
Nixon supporters to tarnish the reputation of Democratic candidates and the Democratic
Party. Democratic candidates were harassed, subject to negative campaign ads, and on
two separate occasions the National Democratic Headquarters was broken into.
3. As soon as the attempted break-in at the Watergate Hotel became known, president
Richard Nixon ordered the entire affair covered up. It became clear that the Nixon
presidency had been involved in serious manipulation and abuses of power for years.
Millions of dollars coming from Nixon supporters were used to pay for the cover-up in an
attempt to hide the truth from Congress and the American people.
4. The investigation would introduce to the American people John Ehrlichman and Bob
Haldeman. Ehrlichman was the President and Chief of the Domestic Council and
Haldeman was the Chief of Staff at the White House. Both would be fired in a desperate
attempt to save the presidency.
5. The investigation asked two questions which would forever live in political infamy. The
questions are, "What did the president know?" and "When did he know it?"
6. The investigation into the Watergate scandal revealed that Nixon knew about the break-in
from the beginning and that he was involved in the cover-up as it progressed.
7. In the early stages of the Watergate scandal almost of the media reported the break-in as a
minor story with little national significance. This was until two young reporters, Carl
Bernstein and Bob Woodward, who were working for the Washington Post began to dig
deeper into the mystery.
8. Aided by an informant identified as Deep Throat, Woodward and Bernstein uncovered
one of the significant stories of the twentieth century. They became the catalyst in forcing
the first presidential resignation in American history.
9. As the Watergate scandal investigation began, testimony revealed that there was a taping
system which was installed to record conversations in the Oval Office, Camp David , the
Cabinet rooms, and Nixon's hideaway office.
10. Nixon argued that the tapes contained only private conversations between the president
and his advisors. The Supreme Court did not agree. The court ordered the president to
release the tapes.
11. The Nixon tapes were released in the 1970s and contained 18 minutes of silence that have
never been explained.

12. In mid-1974, the House of Representatives approved the articles of impeachment against
President Nixon.
13. They were: Article I: Obstruction of justice; Article II: Abuse of power; and Article III:
Defiance of committee subpoena.
14. On Thursday, August 8, 1974, Richard Nixon announced to the American people that he
no longer had a political base strong enough to support his remaining time in office and
resigned the presidency.
15. In 1996, 200 new hours of tape were released in the lawsuit of historian Stanley I. Kutler.
The new tapes revealed that Nixon was intimately involved both before and after
Watergate in abuses of power. A taped conversation on June 23, 1972, proved that Nixon
and Haldeman talked about using the CIA to thwart the FBI investigation into
the Watergate scandal cover-up.