I run into a lot of people who think that Nixon’s only crime was attempting to cover up a botched burglary that he had no hand in. But my understanding is that the burglary was really the tip of the iceberg of a whole conspiracy to deny people their First Amendment rights and to subvert the electoral process, in essence to steal the 1972 election (which he would have won anyway). What’s the straight dope? What were Nixon’s actual crimes?
Not only would Nixon have won the 1972, he did when the election of 1972. Nixon was elected president in 1968 and reelected in 1972. Through a series of resignations and appointments, Gerald Ford became president upon Nixon’s resignation (1974?). Ford was defeated by Jimmy Carter in 1976 and Carter was defeated by Ronald Reagan in 1980.
As to Nixon’s crime(s). If memory serves, he allegedly knew of the break-in at the Democrat’s headquarters. He may have ordered the break-in to take place. I don’t believe the break-in had to do with a pending election. As I was only six years-old at the the time, my memory is a bit fuzzy.
Isn’t that enough? The President of the United States was accused of covering up a felony. President Clinton was impeached for allegedly covering up his involvement in an activity that, while may be unsavory, was in no way illegal. President Nixon certainly would have been impeached had he not resigned, and he would have been convicted. President Ford illiminated all that by issuing a pardon to President Nixon for all crimes he may have committed.
IMHO, Nixon’s crimes led to much of the cynicism we see in American politics today. Before Nixon, our leaders were seen to be above the fray – true statesmen (and -women) would could be trusted to do their best, even if you disagreed with them. Nixon showed politicians to be sniviling liars with their own agendas that do not necessarily have the best interests of the nation in mind. If it weren’t for Nixon, perhaps people would trust Bush more. Watergate (and other scandals) has made it easier to believe that Bush’s adventures in the Middle East are nothing but a war to fill the coffers of Bush’s friends and family.
Here are the particulars of the Articles of Impeachment against Nixon. Now remember, in the U.S. Constitution, impeachment is only an accusation, but if Nixon had not resigned and the House approved the Impeachment, this is what his trial would have been based on:
On June 17, 1972, and prior thereto, agents of the Committee for the Re-election of the President committed unlawful entry of the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in Washington, District of Columbia, for the purpose of securing political intelligence. Subsequent thereto, Richard M. Nixon, using the powers of his high office, engaged personally and through his close subordinates and agents, in a course of conduct or plan designed to delay, impede, and obstruct the investigation of such illegal entry; to cover up, conceal and protect those responsible; and to conceal the existence and scope of other unlawful covert activities.
The means used to implement this course of conduct or plan included one or more of the following:
making false or misleading statements to lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States;
withholding relevant and material evidence or information from lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States;
approving, condoning, acquiescing in, and counselling witnesses with respect to the giving of false or misleading statements to lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States and false or misleading testimony in duly instituted judicial and congressional proceedings;
interfering or endeavouring to interfere with the conduct of investigations by the Department of Justice of the United States, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the office of Watergate Special Prosecution Force, and Congressional Committees;
approving, condoning, and acquiescing in, the surreptitious payment of substantial sums of money for the purpose of obtaining the silence or influencing the testimony of witnesses, potential witnesses or individuals who participated in such unlawful entry and other illegal activities;
endeavouring to misuse the Central Intelligence Agency, an agency of the United States;
disseminating information received from officers of the Department of Justice of the United States to subjects of investigations conducted by lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States, for the purpose of aiding and assisting such subjects in their attempts to avoid criminal liability;
making or causing to be made false or misleading public statements for the purpose of deceiving the people of the United States into believing that a thorough and complete investigation had been conducted with respect to allegations of misconduct on the part of personnel of the executive branch of the United States and personnel of the Committee for the Re-election of the President, and that there was no involvement of such personnel in such misconduct: or
endeavouring to cause prospective defendants, and individuals duly tried and convicted, to expect favoured treatment and consideration in return for their silence or false testimony, or rewarding individuals for their silence or false testimony.
I stand corrected. The break-in was related to the election of 1972. Nixon did still go on to win the election.
The ironic thing was, that Nixon would have won the election easily even without all the underhanded business carried out by his minions. Nixon basically did himself in, especially through his tape-recording of meetings at which he discussed illegal activity.
From this perspective we should probably be thanking him.
Call me a cynic (many do) but lying, greedy politicians go back to the beginning. (even the good ones - Washington had massive personal debt upon taking office, and yet didn’t eight years later…hmmm).
Though I would argue this is changing, as media conglomerates continue to merge with the help of their political allies the press grows more complacent and supportive daily.
sorry, maybe not exactly GQ material, I’ll stop now.
question authority.
I’m still trying to puzzle it out myself. I don’t quite agree with Drum God, although what he says is certainly the conventional wisdom, and has an element of truth to it. But politicians in general have never been considered terribly trustworthy.
My current thinking is that the press reaction to Nixon, and succeeding administrations dealings with the press, may be the most significant legacy of Watergate. Presidents’ personal integrity had not been an issue for a long time. Johnson was known to be a shady character in a lot of ways, but no one seemed disposed to go after him. Nixon, on the other hand, was despised by the press (primarily because of his role in the McCarthy hearings) to such an extent that the exulted position of his office did not deter the press from going after him. Nixon played into their hands by being incapable of coming clean about anything.
I do agree with Drum God that it’s been hard to trust a president ever since. But, IMO, the most lasting legacy of Watergate has been the ability of adminstrations to bully the press, if they feel the need to. The carefully controlled access of the press to the president, plus the threat of loss of that access, have been particularly evident in Reagan’s and Bush II’s administrations.
I don’t think the information lockdown would be very effective, though, if the press had the balls to go after the truth. What reporter wouldn’t want to follow in the footsteps of Woodward and Bernstein, given half a chance? I think that the still-growing centralization of the media under a few companies more concerned with profits than with good reporting is the main reason for the press sucking so hard these days, and I don’t think Watergate has much to do with that.
So there you have it: an IMHO answer to a GQ question that probably belongs in GD.
Vurtually all the senior officials in the Whate House staff, plus Attorney General John Mitchell, were indited and convicted of crimes related to the break in or coverup.
There was also the matter of an illegal campaign sluxh fund amounting to millions of dollars, that was used to pay for a “dirty tricks” campaign against Democratic candidates. There was informal White House staff unit called the Plumbers, created specifically to think up and execute these dirty tricks, one of which was the Watergate break in. There are credible but unvinvestigated (because of Nixon’s pardon) assertioans that the Plumbers commited dozens and perhaps hundreds of politically motivated breakins from 1968-72. The best known such event was the a search of the office of Danial Ellsberg;s psychiatrist for material to smear Ellsberg.
Oh yes, and the 5 Watergate burglars were paid several hundred thoudnd dollars by the slush fund to keep their mouths shut.
I highty recommend All the President’s Men ny Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein for an account of those times.
There is another version of the same events that is considerably more sympathetic to Nixon called Silent Coup, I can’t recall the auther, but it lays out a case that Nixon was set up by White House Counsel John Dean.
Wasn’t the primary responsibility of the Plumbers to find and plug leaks to the press (hence the name?)
No, IIRC, that was the cover story. They couldn’t afford to be caught making references to a “dirty trick squad”.
To correct myself, this site says that the Plumbers’ main job seems to be to harass the political enemies.
Quite a few people, myself included, believe that the Nixon CREEPs did an incredibly successful job of rigging the 1972 election. In particular, all the Democratic candidates that were considered realistic threats were successfully undermined. Muskie in particular went from clear front runner to drop-out in no time for reasons that remain mysterious to this day.
The Nixonites wanted to run against McGovern. They got McGovern. They won the election. That’s a pretty spectacular play on their part no matter how you spin it.
Again, read books like All the President’s Men, but note that they just scratch the surface of the black bag groups running out of CREEP. There were several such groups, the Plumbers, the Segretti pranksters, and the Ones That Were Never Investigated that keep the lid on other stuff. The later group remained key to the GOP national party and played big roles in later elections. The number of GOP moles in the DNP is amazing, they even got one to be National Chairman! They really hurt Carter and Dukakis big time. In 1992, they didn’t consider Clinton much of a threat until it was too late.
While most of those folks have long retired, the organization remains intact doing dirty work for the GOP.
I guess it shows the system works, since he did all this stuff and ended up getting caught and had to resign.
But people will still be cynics saying “This is the tip of the iceberg”
If you really think it’s a mystery as to what happened to Muskie, just Google “Muskie crying”. His slide might be compared to Dean’s Iowa scream.
ftg , with all due respect, those are an awful lot of claims for GQ. I for one would really like to look into any cites you have about “rigged elections” and the impact of a mole in the DNC on the national election (especially of someone like Dukakis, who, if I remember correctly, lost in a landslide).
what crozell said. cites, ftg?
That is incorrect. Perjury is most definitely a crime.
Sorry for the hijack, but this is the first I’ve heard the Washington example…cite?
I’m not debating that American politics has a long tradition of lying greedy politicians going back to the beginging…in fact, I’d say it was worse back then.
-Lixi
**Drum God’s ** point was that President Clinton was impeached for lying about an affair. The alleged cover-up may have been a crime a crime, but the affair was not. What’s important about Nixon (and what the OP was getting at) was that was that Nixon’s acts of perjury and obstruction and tampering were to cover up other crimes.
There is an excellent reference site – watergate.info – which includes the articles of impeachment drafted against Nixon. (Nixon resigned before he was impeached). **Kunilou’s ** first post quoted just the first article (charge) of the impeachment. There were two others.
Article two accused of him of misusing the IRS, FBI, the CIA, and other agencies to engage in covert and unlawful activities (namely investigation and harassment of his political enemies and furtherance of the coverup).
Article three (which folks tend to forget) charged him with refusing to comply with Congerssional subpoenas.
Say what you like about Clinton, but Nixon was a whole different ballgame.
Interestingly enough, The Big Book of Hoaxes hints that the fake Howard Hughes autobiography may have played a role in Nixon’s motivations, since Hughes had apparently given two illegal campaign contributions to Nixon or his brother in the past.