What's the Watergate incident?

The Watergate Incident originated from the Watergate Building on the Potomac River in the northwest district of Washington, D.C., USA. Hence that name, and this Watergate build, which is a hotel, office and apartment, is famous all over the world. The Watergate Building was built in 1967, which consists of a five-star hotel, a high-grade office building and two luxury apartment buildings. At the entrance of the main entrance of the building, there is a man-made waterfall flying down and splashing, which makes the whole building group have the reputation of "Watergate".

In fact, this place is nothing strange, just because it was associated with Watergate, one of the most disgraceful political scandals in American history, so it became famous. So, what happened to the Watergate incident?

Cause

The Watergate incident happened to Nixon, the first American president to visit China. As we all know, Nixon, who was elected president in 1968 for a four-year term, will be in office in 1972. According to the law, you can be re-elected for another four years, but you must pass the election.

Nixon is an ambitious president and certainly wants to be re-elected. But the American presidential election is like a battlefield, which is confusing and difficult to control. Although he made great achievements in his previous term, Nixon still had no idea, so he discussed countermeasures with his men. Dean, an aide to the White House lawyer, gave him a bad idea. To ensure that the election is safe, we must master the detailed campaign strategy of the Democratic Party, and the way is to eavesdrop, so that we can know ourselves and know ourselves, and we can win the election.

Nixon thinks it makes sense. So his men acted immediately and arranged for several people to install eavesdropping devices at the Watergate Building in Washington, the headquarters of the Democratic Party.

Disclosure

On the evening of June 17, 1972, a staff member of the headquarters of the Democratic Party of the United States left the Watergate Building after work, and unconsciously looked back at his office, but he was surprised to find that there was a shaking light beam in the office where no one had turned off the lights. This aroused the man's vigilance. Immediately returned to the Watergate Building, found the security guards to explain the situation, and asked to search the office immediately. As a result, five people wearing gloves and acting suspiciously were caught on the spot, including James McChord, the head of the Nixon Presidential Re-election Committee responsible for security work. The next day, Washington post reported it prominently on the front page.

In response to

After the incident, Nixon returned to the oval office of the White House in Washington the next day, which was already late at night. I worked with several close assistants to urgently study the countermeasures. Nixon finally decided, first, to put the blame on the Cubans, and to tell the outside world that those Cubans were engaged in espionage for their own national interests, and at the same time, he must make it clear that this matter had nothing to do with * * * and the party, especially himself; Second, Andy is responsible for McChord's appeasement. Never let him tell the truth, but spend more money to block his mouth. Third, Haldeman stepped forward to keep the FBI out of this matter in the name of national security.

So the aides split up, and Nixon made a big public opinion, and vowed to tell the American public: "No one in the White House team and the current government is involved in this absurd incident. I am ashamed of the mistakes made by some political parties in the election campaign. " Won the public's trust. Nixon won the election and was re-elected.

The situation

Just as Nixon and his aides were excited about winning the re-election, anonymous letters exposing Watergate were sent to the court one after another. So the Democratic-dominated Congress decided to set up a special investigation committee to thoroughly investigate the presidential campaign. As a result, on March 23, 1973, McChord handed Dean, the White House legal adviser, out in court. Nixon wanted Dean to take over. But Dean refused to do so, especially when he learned that his crime could be sentenced to 4 years in prison, so he poured out the matter in detail to make amends and seek pardon.

In order to save the situation, Nixon voiced again, saying that he didn't know about Watergate in advance, and stressed that eavesdropping was legal and necessary for national security, and it has been done since President Roosevelt's time. Trying to use the public's trust in him to get away with it.

but what he didn't expect was that the investigation Committee had a new situation. Nixon ordered the installation of eavesdropping devices in the White House office in early 1971 to record conversations and telephone conversations with his subordinates. The Committee asked Nixon to provide these recordings and materials. But Nixon refused on the grounds of administrative privilege. In the end, the court held that the president should also be bound by the law and must be handed over.

At this time, Nixon lost his mind and ordered to remove Cox, the special prosecutor investigating Watergate. This stone stirred up a thousand waves, and American media interrupted normal programs and competed to report this explosive news. The public reacted violently, students demonstrated and marched, and the public was furious, and the whole United States boiled over. The house of representatives decided to impeach the president.

Nixon was furious. While destroying the unfavorable contents on the tape, he emphasized the administrative privilege, saying that he would "follow the precedent followed and defended by presidents from Washington to Johnson and never do anything to weaken the presidency of the United States". The telephone records provided are beyond recognition and have no value. Nixon's actions angered the public, and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court ruled that Nixon must hand over the relevant tapes.

After

winning the presidential election in 1972 and mastering the intelligence of the internal campaign strategy of the Democratic Party, on the evening of June 17, 1972, five people, led by James McChord, chief security adviser of the Nixon campaign team of the United States and the Party, sneaked into the office of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate Building in Washington, D.C., and were caught red-handed.

After the incident, Nixon tried his best to cover up his excuses, but in the subsequent investigation, many people in Nixon's government surfaced one after another, pointing directly at Nixon himself, thus making it difficult for Nixon to ride a tiger and face a serious crisis.

In October p>1973, special prosecutor Cox, who was in charge of the investigation, asked Nixon to hand over the evidence related to Watergate. On October 2th, Nixon asked Attorney General Richardson to remove Cox from office. He refused the president and resigned immediately. Then Raquel Shaw, Deputy Minister of Justice, took over as Minister of Justice and resigned because he refused to recall Cox. Finally, Bok, the third person in the Ministry of Justice, became the acting minister of the Ministry of Justice before agreeing to remove Cox. Nixon also used the FBI to block the office of the special investigation agency, announced the abolition of their investigation and handed over the case to the Ministry of Justice. What Nixon did aroused strong public dissatisfaction.

On October 31st, the U.S. House of Representatives decided that the Judicial Committee should be responsible for investigating and collecting Nixon's criminal evidence to prepare for the next impeachment. On June 25, 1974, the Judicial Committee decided to publish all the evidence related to the impeachment of Nixon. At the end of July, the Judicial Committee passed three articles to impeach Nixon.

under such circumstances, on the evening of August 8, 1974, Nixon made a televised speech to the whole country, announcing his resignation as president, becoming the first president in American history and the only one who stepped down halfway because of a scandal.

Truth

The newly appointed special prosecutor found an audio tape among the tapes that the White House was forced to hand over, which clearly recorded that six days after Watergate, Nixon instructed his assistant to let the CIA stop the FBI investigation, which became the ironclad evidence that Nixon covered up the truth of Watergate. This made the whole White House in an uproar. The president they had always admired and believed was surprised in their minds. At that time, words such as abusing his power, covering up the truth, concealing Congress and deceiving the public appeared in their minds. Nixon was discredited, and even many senators and representatives of the party made him resign and fell into an embarrassing situation of being alienated from others.

Influence

The Watergate incident had a profound and far-reaching influence on the United States. After World War II, the power of the President of the United States continued to expand. From Truman, Kennedy to Nixon, one was more authoritarian than the other, but the Watergate incident suddenly ended this trend and put an end to the unlimited power expansion of the president.

Watergate incident is undoubtedly the biggest scandal in American political history, which has a profound impact on the atmosphere of American politics and even the world politics after the 197s. So far, the suffix "door" named "Watergate Incident" has become synonymous with political and non-political scandals in the United States and the world, saying that a scandal will be used to describe "so-and-so door".