2. The Characters The President: Richard M. Nixon The President’s Men:
Dwight L. Chapin
Alexander P. Butterfield
Kenneth W. Clawson
Charles W. Colson
John W. Dean III
John D. Erlichman
L. Patrick Gray
H. R. Haldeman

3. Characters cont’ The President’s Men
E. Howard Hunt (Watergate Burglar, Colson aid, and former CIA employee)
Frederick C. La Rue
Herbert W. Kalmbach
EgilKrogh, Jr.
G. Gordon Liddy (CREEP employee and planner of the Watergate burlary)
Jeb Stuart Magruder
Robert C. Mardian
John N. Mitchell
The President’s Men
Robert C. Odle, Jr.
Donald H. Segretti
Herbert L. Porter
Hugh Sloan
Maurice H. Stans
Gordon C. Strachan
Ronald L. Ziegler

4. Characters cont’ The Burglars: James W. McCord, Jr.
Eugenio R. Martinez
Bernard L. Barker
Frank A. Sturgis
Virgilio R. Gonzalez
E. Howard Hunt
G. Gordon Liddy
The Prosecution:
Donald E. Campbell
Earl J. Silbert
Seymour Glanzer

5. Characters cont’ The Judge: John J. Sirica “Maximum John”
The Washington Post:
Katherine Graham
Benjamin C. Bradlee
Harry M. Rosenfeld
Howard Simons
Barry Sussman
Carl Bernstein
Bob Woodward

6. Characters cont’ The Senators: Sam J. Ervin, Jr. Howard Baker, Jr.
Optional Assignment/Teacher note: Assign each student 1-2 characters to briefly
identify. Write 1-2 good sentences about each character and present a picture
of each character. This is to be completed as a homework assignment for the next
day!

7. Nixon and Watergate

8. The Election of 1968
Richard Nixon only narrowly won the 1968 election, but the combined total of popular votes for Nixon and Wallace indicated a shift to the right in American politics.
The 1960's began as an era of optimism and possibility but ended in disunity and distrust.
The Vietnam war and a series of assassinations and crises eroded public trust in government and produced a backlash against liberal movements and the Democratic party.

9. The Election of 1968 "Bring Us Together"
Nixon campaigned as a champion of the "silent majority," the hardworking Americans who paid taxes, did not demonstrate, and desired a restoration of "law and order.”
He vowed to restore respect for the rule of law, reconstitute the stature of America, dispose of ineffectual social programs, and provide strong leadership to end the turmoil of the 1960's.
"Bring Us Together"

10. Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers
Daniel Ellsberg was an employee of the Defense Department who leaked a classified assessment of the Vietnam War in 1971.
The 7,000 page document came to be known as the Pentagon Papers.
They cast doubt on the justification for entry into the war and revealed that senior government officials had serious misgivings about the war.
When the New York Times and Washington Post began to publish the Pentagon Papers, the Nixon Administration sued them.
The Supreme Court ruled that the papers could continue to publish the documents.

11. On June 13, 1971, the New York Times began publishing installments
of the "Pentagon Papers," documents about American involvement in
Indochina from the end of World War II to the mid 1960s. The Nixon
administration moved to block further publication of the papers, and
Attorney General John Mitchell obtained a temporary injunction against
The New York Times. The Washington Post then released two
installments before being similarly enjoined. Other papers picked
up the series, until June 30, when the Supreme Court rejected
the government's request for a permanent injunction.
The "New Figure" cartoon was one of many depicting
President Richard Nixon's attempts to curb public information,
partly through government control of broadcast stations
owned by newspapers. *See next slide

13. Paranoid Politics – all about getting reelected
“enemies list” – list of people who objected his policies of which he was “out to get”
Ordered tax audits on antiwar protestors and civil rights activists
Fired people in appointed positions within the gov’t
Cold War since World War II
Nixon a “Cold War Warrior”
Time of suspicion and espionage
Remember Alger Hiss, and the Rosenbergs

14. Cont’
Before the Watergate scandals, Herb Block was pointing out excessive use of government power to wiretap or otherwise investigate the activities of citizens an administration felt were at odds with its policies. In 1970, the Civil Service Commission admitted to having a Security Investigations Index with over 10 million entries, and the armed forces revealed surveillance of Americans involved in anti-Vietnam war activities. *See next slide – Political Cartoon - January 18, 1970

16. The White House Plumbers
After the release of the Pentagon Papers, the White House created a unit to ensure internal security.
This unit was called the Plumbers because they stopped leaks.
In 1971 *they burglarized the office of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist, seeking material to discredit him. Did they or did they authorize it! *Check your list
It was later revealed that Nixon’s domestic advisor John Ehrlichman knew of and approved the plan.
Howard Hunt
G. Gordon Liddy
James McCord
Chuck Colson

17. The Watergate Break-in
When initial polls showed Nixon in the Election of 1972, the Plumbers turned their activities to political espionage.
On 17 June 1972, 5 men were arrested while attempting to bug the headquarters of the Democratic Party inside the Watergate building in Washington D.C.
One of the men arrested, James McCord, was the head of security for the Republican Party.
The Nixon campaign denied any involvement.

18. Watergate office complex where the Democratic National Committee headquarters were located.
A security guard noticed an exit door had been taped to keep the latch open. He removed the tape but on his second round found that it had been retaped and called the police.

19. Seized wiretapping evidence
When police arrived, they found five burglars who were attempting to bug the offices of the Democratic National Headquarters.
All five men worked for the Committee to Reelect the President, President Richard Nixon's campaign committee.
Seized wiretapping evidence

20. Woodward, Bernstein and the Washington Post
Watergate came to public attention largely through the work of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, investigative reporters from the Washington Post.
Despite enormous political pressure, Post editor Ben Bradlee, publisher Katherine Graham, Woodward and Bernstein, aided by an enigmatic source nicknamed “Deepthroat” kept the story in the public consciousness until Nixon’s resignation.

21. Watergate Enters the Nixon Campaign
The break-in was eventually tied to the Nixon reelection campaign through a $25,000 check from a Republican donor that was laundered through a Mexican bank and deposited in the account of Watergate burglar Bernard Barker.
Later it was discovered that Former Attorney General John Mitchell, head of Nixon’s “Committee to Re-Elect the President,” (CREEP) controlled a secret fund for political espionage.
Mitchell would later go to prison for his role in the scandal

22. The Election of 1972
Despite the growing stain of Watergate, which had not yet reached the President, Nixon won by the largest margin in history to that point.

23. The Watergate Investigations: Judge John Sirica
Watergate came to be investigated by a Special Prosecutor, a Senate committee, and by the judge in the original break-in case.
Judge Sirica refused to believe that the burglars had acted alone.
In March 1973, defendant James W. McCord sent a letter to Sirica confirming that it was a conspiracy.
Sirica’s investigation transformed Watergate from the story of a “third-rate burglary” to a scandal reaching the highest points in government.
“Maximum John”

24. Senate Investigation – Ervin Committee
Televised
Senator Samuel James Ervin (NC) called members of administration to testify
Howard Baker (TN) led questioning

25. Senate Investigation and the Oval Office Tapes
The Senate began hearings into Watergate in May 1973.
The hearings were televised in their entirety.
They focused on when the President knew of the break-in.
In June 1973, former White House legal counsel John Dean delivered devastating testimony that implicated Nixon from the earliest days of Watergate.
Howard Baker
Sam Irvin

26. Senate Investigation and the Oval Office Tapes
The Administration was eager to discredit Dean and his testimony so it began to release factual challenges to his account.
When former White House aide Alexander Butterfield was asked about the source of the White House information, he revealed the existence of an automatic taping system that Nixon had secretly installed in the Oval Office.
These tapes would become the focus of the investigation.

27. U.S. v Nixon, July 1974
During the investigation it was revealed that there were audio tapes from the White House. Nixon claimed executive privilege in an attempt to keep the tapes secret, however the Supreme Court ruled that executive privilege did not apply in criminal cases and ordered Nixon to surrender the subpoenaed White House tapes to John Sirica, U.S. District Court Chief Judge. The tapes revealed widespread involvement, including by the President.

28. The Smoking Gun Tapes
When the Supreme Court forced Nixon to surrender the tapes.
Nixon was implicated from the earliest days of the cover-up:
authorizing the payment of hush money
attempting to use the CIA to interfere with the FBI investigation.
One tape had an 18 ½ minute gap.
Nixon’s secretary Rosemary Woods demonstrated how she could have inadvertently erased the tape, but no one bought it.
“The smoking gun tapes,” were released in August 1974, just after the House Judiciary Committee approved Articles of Impeachment against Nixon.

29. The Watergate break-in and cover-up led to the resignation of several members of the government.
Ehrlichman, Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs
Halderman, Chief of Staff
Pictured: Front Row: Donald Rumsfeld, Sec. of Transportation John Volpe, Sec. of Commerce Peter Peterson, Sec. of Defense Melvin Laird, Richard M. Nixon, Sec. of State William Rogers, Sec. of the Interior Rogers C.B. Morton, Sec. of HEW Elliot Richardson, Director of OMB Casper Weinberger Back Row: Robert Finch, Sec. of HUD George Romney, Sec. of Agriculture Earl Butz, Sec. of the Treasury George Shultz, Vice President Spiro Agnew, Attorney General Richard Kleindienst, Sec. of Labor James Hodgson, Ambassador at large David Kennedy, Ambassador to the UN George Bush.
Ruckelshaus, Deputy Attorney General
Dean, Counsel to the President

30. The Saturday Night Massacre
The Administration reached an agreement with the Senate Watergate Committee that its Chairman would be allowed to listen to tapes and provide a transcript to the Committee and to Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox.
The deal broke down when Cox refused to accept the transcripts in place of the tapes.
Since the Special Prosecutor is an employee of the Justice Department, Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire Cox.
Archibald Cox

31. The Saturday Night Massacre
When Richardson refused, he was fired.
Nixon ordered Deputy Attorney General William D. Ruckelshaus to fire Cox .
When he refused, he was fired.
Nixon then ordered Solicitor General Robert Bork (who was later nominated for the Supreme Court by Reagan) to fire Cox and he complied.
The Washington Post reported on the “Saturday Night Massacre.”
Robert Bork

32. The 22 month investigation involved the press, House of Representatives, Senate, special prosecutors, and the Supreme Court; it uncovered covert action on the part of the president and his advisers.

33. Nixon Resigns
On 27 July 1974, the House Judiciary Committee approved Articles of Impeachment against Nixon.
The House was to vote on the matter soon.
Nixon conceded that impeachment in the House was likely, but he believed that the Senate vote to remove him would fail.
On 5 August 1974, when the “smoking gun tape” became public, a delegation from the Republican National Committee told Nixon that he would not survive the vote in the Senate.
On 9 August 1974, Richard Nixon became the first American president to resign.

34. The Nixon’s left the White House.

36. Nixon was forced to resign the presidency on August 9, 1974 because of the Watergate scandal. Gerald Ford was appointed Vice President and later became president after the corrupt Spiro Agnew resigned.

37. Gerald R. Ford became 38th President, August 9, 1974

38. Ford immediately damaged his Presidency by granting Nixon a pardon.
Ford announced the pardon

39. Ford announcing the pardon
Aftermath
Ford announcing the pardon
More than 30 government officials went to prison for their role in Watergate.
Richard Nixon was not one of them.
In September 1974, President Gerald Ford gave Nixon a full pardon.
Woodward and Bernstein won the Pulitzer Prize.
They collaborated on 2 books, All the President’s Men and The Final Days.
In 1976 All the President’s Men was adapted into an Oscar winning film.
The identity of Deepthroat was kept secret until W. Mark Felt unmasked himself in 2005.

40. Political Cartoons What can we learn from the following
Political Cartoons What can we learn from the following? Do you have your Cartoon Analysis Worksheet?

44. "Move over – We can't stay in a
holding pattern forever"

45. Nixon, "unindicted co-conspirator"

46. By July 14, 1974, President Richard Nixon stood almost alone
By July 14, 1974, President Richard Nixon stood almost alone. His vice-president Spiro Agnew, pleaded nolo contendere to a charge of tax evasion, and was forced to resign. Many of Nixon's closest aides had been convicted of illegal activities. Nixon himself was named an "un-indicted co-conspirator" by the Watergate grand jury. A few days later, the House Judiciary Committee recommended impeachment, and the Supreme Court required him to turn over all subpoenaed tapes. When even his closest friends, reviewing these tapes, agreed that the evidence against him was overwhelming, Nixon bowed to the inevitable, resigning on August 9.

51. By June 1973, the country had become transfixed by the investigation of
Watergate via the televised hearings of the Senate Select Committee on
Presidential Campaign Activities. On June 25, former presidential counsel
John Dean began his testimony, the first before the committee to directly
accuse President Richard Nixon of involvement in the cover-up.

52. Nixon awash in his office

53. "There's no need for an independent investigation–We
have everything well in hand“
As the 1972 presidential campaign progressed, reports surfaced of
violations of campaign regulations and laws. On August 26, the
General Accounting Office said that it had found irregularities in
reports by the Republican Committee to Re-elect the President
(known by the acronym CREEP). Democrats complained that an
investigation by the Justice Department and the White House were
insufficient and called for a special team to handle the matter.
See next slide – Political Cartoon by Herblock

55. The following slides are excerpts
from All The President’s Men
by Bernstein and Woodward

56. Former Attorney General John N. Mitchell and White House
Counsel John W. Dean III approved and help plan the
Watergate bugging operation, according to President Nixon’s
Former special assistant, Jeb Magruder.
Mitchell and Dean later arranged to buy the silence of the
Seven convicted Watergate conspirators, Magruder has also
said.
Magruder, the debuty campaign manager for the President,
made these statements to federal prosecutors Saturday,
According to three sources in the White House and the
Committee for the Re-election of the President.
P.294

57. President threatened Dean personally and said if he ever revealed
the national security activities that President would ensure he went
to jail. P. 318

58. The covert activities involve the whole US intelligence
community and are incredible…P. 318
The cover-up had little to do with the Watergate, but
was mainly to protect covert operations.
P.318

59. Cover-up cost to be about $1 million. Everyone is involved-
Haldeman, Erlichman, the President, Dean, Mardian, Caulfield
and Mitchell. They all had a problem getting the money on the
outside and chipping in their own personal funds. Mitchell
couldn’t meet his quota and … they cut Mitchell loose …
CIA people can testify that Haldeman and Erlichman said the
President orders you to carry this out, meaning the Watergate
Cover-up … P. 318

60. Liddy told Dean, that they could shoot him and/or that he would shoot himself, but that he would never talk and always be a good soldier. P. 319

61. Excerpts from The Wars Of Watergate by Stanley I. Kutler
Nixon, as should be clear, was not the first president to perceive a hostile press, but perhaps no other president saw hostility more clearly and consistently, or chose to combat it so passionately. P. 173
Nixon’s attitude toward the press was demonstrated first in his shunning it. The President averaged less than seven press conferences a year. P. 173

62. Excerpts cont’
The President’s anger focused in a particularly vicious manner in November that year, when Haldeman, at Nixon’s direction, called J. Edgar Hoover and asked for “a rundown on the homosexuals known and suspected” in the Washington press corps. Hoover confirmed he had the material and noted that he would not need to make any specific investigation. The Director sent the files to the White House.
P. 176

63. Excerpts cont’
Did the Nixon Administration conspire to discredit the press? Did the President and his aides foster the “us-against-them” mentality with respect to the news media that eventually boomeranged with such devastating results for the Presidents in his second term? Did the President himself encourage and direct the campaign against the media? The President’s friend and former aide, William Safire, long ago concluded that the answer to all the questions
“ is, sadly, yes.”

64. Excerpts cont’
The Watergate break-in itself eventually diminished in importance as the nation discovered what John Mitchell labeled the “White House horrors” and the clear patterns of presidential abuses of power. The subsequent attempts by the White House to obstruct the investigation of the Watergate affair-the “cover-up,” which led to more abuses of power-further detracted from the significance of the break-in. P. 200

65. Excerpts cont’
The Watergate burglary …ultimately must be seen as part of a behavior pattern characterizing the President and his aides that stretched back to the beginnings of the Nixon administration. P. 209
… the White House directed a campaign of noncooperation, lies, and a tragic betrayal from within to effectively hamstring the FBI’s efforts. P. 209
The President had a favorite word for the White House strategy: “stonewall.” P. 211

66. Excerpts cont’
Dean perhaps managed details, but the mission had been determined by others. John Dean did not decide that there would be a cover-up: that was determined by the President of the United States and his Chief of Staff. P. 217
“The President was involved in the cover-up from Day One,” Haldeman later revealed-thus conceding his own involvement. P

67. Excerpts cont’
…Nixon talked to Haldeman about raising money for the burglars and for the first time suggested bringing CIA pressure on the FBI to limit the investigation. Surely he was anxious to avoid any links between the burglars and the White House; but Haldeman also knew that Nixon feared any expose of “other things,” as the President often characterized certain White House activities and campaign “dirty tricks.” P. 218

68. Excerpts cont’
The President also met with Colson and Ehrlichman at one point on June 23rd. Accordingly to Ehrlichman’s notes, either the President or Colson put a fitting epitaph on the day: “Responsible administrations in a tough political year are born losers.”
The President capped his long day with a western gunslinger movie, Hang’ Em High. The story centers on a wrongfully accused man who promises to play by the rules but then disposes of his enemies one by one, convinced that he is an avenging angel. P. 220

69. Excerpts cont’
… there were two cover-ups: one to conceal the involvement of CREEP in the Watergate break-in, the other to protect the President. They eventually converged, ostensibly to “protect the presidency,” as Nixon liked to say; what he meant, of course, was to protect himself. P 248

70. Excerpts cont’
In White House conversations, Richard Nixon called the sentences “outrageous’; John Sirica himself was a “son-of-a-bitch of a judge’ by the President’s lights. When Nixon admitted the possibility that Watergate was more than a “third-rate burglary,” the President praised Sirica as a “courageous judge,” in an obvious attempt to mollify growing public restlessness.
P. 261

71. Excerpts cont’
Senator Herman Talmadge asked Ehrlichman to recall some fundamental principles: Do you remember when we were in law school, we studied a famous principle of law that came from England and also is well known in his country, that no matter how humble a man’s cottage is that even the King of England cannot enter without his consent [?]. Ehrlichman stared across the table, eyebrows furrowed, jaw set, and replied: I am afraid that has been considerably eroded over the years, has it not? Talmadge never hesitated: Down in my country we still think it is a pretty legitimate principle of law. P. 375
Spontaneous applause from the audience left Ehrlichman momentarily stunned. The President’s confident aide had touched upon a tender, treasured principle, one not as readily dismissed as the less well understood First and Fifth amendments. P. 376

72. Excerpts cont’
When Attorney General Saxbe … he suggested his deputy “tell the President to piss up a rope.” P (I had to put this one in here!)
“The best thing he [Nixon] can do for the country is to get the hell out of the White House, and get out this afternoon,” Goldwater told his Senate colleagues.

73. Excerpts from Kutler’s book concluded
After the “smoking gun” tape became public, Columnist James Kilpatrick could take no more. “I am close to tears,” he wrote. “Nixon’s duplicity is almost beyond bearing.” Had he told the truth from the outset, Kilpatrick declared, Watergate would have been a nine-day wonder, Nixon would have been re-elected and no more would have been heard of the affair. Kilpatrick had believed the President when he said knew nothing of the cover-up and that he was not a crook. Now, he sadly concluded, it no longer really matters … My President is a liar. I wish he were a crook instead.

74. Excerpt from PRESIDENT NIXON'S RESIGNATION SPEECH August 8, 1974
At 9:00 P.M. the thirty-seventh President addressed the nation from the White House for the thirty-seventh time.
“…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…

75. “Thank you, thank you very much”