The Watergate Story

It all began with a simple break-in into the Democratic headquarters in the Watergate Hotel in Washington. The guard who caught the five housebreakers surely didn't know that this was to become one of the biggest political scandals in the history of the US.

After the guard had noticed that a lock to a staircase had been loosely re-attached, he called the police who caught five men who were just about to readjust a bug they had obviously installed during an earlier break-in in May. This was on June 17, 1972.

First off, it must be said that the exact circumstances of the Watergate Affair could never be fully reconstructed. In any case, what was revealed was a serious case of espionage and political manipulation, and all attempts to solve the case were constantly being hindered by ‘manipulation from above.' Fact is that the investigations, after a short time, showed that the 37th president of the US, Richard Nixon, was somehow involved in the affair and the only thing he could do to avoid being removed from office was to resign himself. He is the only president in the history of the US who ever ended his term in office that way.

Today, the Watergate Affair is being quoted for all kinds of other espionage cases, many cases are being evaluated according to this one. On November 5, 1968 Richard Milhous Nixon was elected 37th president of the US by a very small margin. The events of June 17, 1972 are in the middle of the campaign for the next election.

One of the men who were caught turned out to be a security advisor on Nixon's campaign committee. He was the former CIA agent James McCord Jr. It was apparent immediately that the Republican party was somehow connected to the break-in. This was vehemently denied two days later by Attorney General John Mitchell, Nixon's campaign manager. On August 2, a $25,000 check that had already been deposited in April is found on the account of one of the alleged burglars - Bernard I. Barker. The campaign committee could not explain or understand how the check, which had been a campaign donation, ended up on Barker's bank account. Further payments of $75,000 by a high-ranking lawyer in Mexico are not even really investigated because the chances of solving this are just not good enough.

FBI files appear before the elections on November 7 and the FBI issues statements that during a campaign, both sides will always collect information about the others in order to evaluate the opponents weaknesses, but the intensity of it and the money spent on it would be exceedingly high in Nixon's campaign. The Democrats say they don't understand why there had been a break-in into their headquarters and why bugs had been planted there, because no very sensitive information was being kept there.

All the uproar and the investigations weaken Nixon in no way whatsoever and on November 7 he is re-elected as president of the US.

On January 30, 1973, the first burglars are being sentenced. McCord and Liddy are being sentenced for conspiracy, breaking and entering and illegal wiretapping. More participants start confessing. However, they also say that Nixon had known of their actions. This now finally becomes a nationwide scandal and becomes known as the Watergate scandal.

John Mitchell, Nixon's Attorney General, assigns a special investigator to find out to what extent Nixon had participated in the break-in. This investigator is Archibald Fox, who takes his job seriously and starts investigating. One witness testifies that Nixon had taped all conversations between him and his staff for years. When Cox demands that the Nixon administration hand over these tapes, which contain conversations related to the Watergate affair, he is refused. Even worse - Nixon fires Archibald Cox on October 20, 1973. This makes a lot of people suspicious and Congress starts demanding that Nixon be removed from office. Leon Jaworski becomes Cox's successor. Now, the tapes are being subpoenaed by the court. In these times, Nixon still says on November 17 "I'm not a crook" and denied any participation in the Watergate affair.

On December 7, the Nixon administration proves unable to explain a 18.5 minute gap on one of the tapes, speaks of circumstances beyond their control and suspicion keeps growing. Investigation and arguments about the tapes go on until July of the following year and the Supreme Court finally rules that Nixon has to hand over the missing tapes. Nixon, who keeps referring to his immunity, fails. The situation keeps getting worse for him and first decisions in the direction of removal from office are being made.

In order to prevent this, Nixon decides to resign on August 8, 1974. He is the first president to ever do this. His successor is Gerald R. Ford, who had been his vice-president until then. He also promises Nixon immunity from criminal prosecution. After Nixon's abuse of power when he fired Archibald Cox who had been hired by the Department of Justice, Congress passed a bill stating that an independent special commission must be formed in such cases for investigation of high-ranking members of government, in order to prevent that kind of dependence.

This law was the Independent Counsel Law. A number of commissions have already been created according to this law, some key words are the Iran-Contra Affair (for the Reagan administration) and the Kenneth Starr activities against Bill Clinton (Lewinsky and Whitewater).

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