The watergate story Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

The watergate story - Essay Example During the re-election campaign he got incredible number of votes and won. However, he was brought down by the scandals he got involved in. There were many smaller dealings he was involved in that went undetected by the public and FBI or CIA. Nevertheless, in his fight to assure victory on the elections, he committed more serious crimes. It started with break-in to the headquarter office of the Democrat Party. Then the long and drawn-out court hearings followed, many high officials lost their positions, a power struggle and, finally, the first in the history of USA resignation of the President. WATERGATE COMPLEX BREAK-IN In June 1972 five people were arrested inside the offices of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate office complex in Washington. They were carrying wiretapping equipment, thus they were not just an ordinary robbers or burglars. The men were wearing surgical gloves and carried thousands of dollars in cash. The whole operation was carefully and professiona lly planned and was not an ordinary case of robbery. The press got right into investigating this case and Nixon had to make to make a claim that White House had nothing to do with this break into the headquarters of the Democratic Party. As was found later, the bugging was a part of the President’s Nixon’s re-election campaign. ... Two masterminds of the break-in were G.Gordon Liddy (who was fired from the committee only few days before the accident) and E. Howard Hunt, a White House consultant (who did not want to give his testimonies during the investigations, he was paid to keep silence). Both of them were former FBI and CIA agents. Other suspects were also agents of either FBI or CIA. Democrats have tried to bring this incident up in the White House and at Nixon’s re-election committee. The five men arrested, or so it seemed, had something to do with Cuba, and most of them were connected to CIA or FBI in some way. The Police confiscated the spying equipment these men carried with them as well as cash, total amount of which was $2,300. During the case of investigation it was determined that prior to the incident a check for a large sum of money was deposited to the banking account of one of the people, who participated and were arrested for the break-in, namely, to Bernard Baker. The finance chairman of the President’s re-election campaign could not provide any substantial explanation as to where the check came from, why and how it got to Mr. Baker or what was the purpose of it. Mr. Baker was trying to pretend the money got to him by accident, however, it was determined that he was well aware of this financial operation and withdrew large amount of money from his account. Some of that money was found on men who were arrested for break-in. All these evidence and more led former Democratic National Chairman Lawrence O’ Brien to file a civil suit against Nixon and his committee as well as five suspects on the ground of violation of constitutional rights of all Democrats. Mr. O’Brien stated that a special counsel to the President, Charles