Essay - The Watergate Crisis the Watergate Scandal Began with Some Confidential...

The Watergate Crisis

The ***** scandal began with some confidential papers, bungling burglars, a preeminent hotel complex in Wash*****gton, D.C., and a trail of fraud leading directly to the Committee ***** Re-Elect President Richard M. Nixon. The scandal didn't stop at inept White House staffers, but went all the way to the Oval Office and ***** president himself. Watergate was the ultimate political crisis brought about by one man's ruthlessness and paranoia. In the end, Richard M. Nixon's own worst enemy was *****.

When former defense analyst for ***** Rand Corporation, Daniel Ellsberg, leaked the Defense Department's secret history ***** the Vietnam War to The New York Times, Nixon wanted in*****mation to discredit Ellsberg. Nixon aide, G. Gordon Liddy, a former FBI *****gent, and E. Howard Hunt, a shadowy figure rumored ***** be a CIA **********, agreed to place a wiretap on the telephone line of *****'s Beverly Hills psychiatrist, Dr. Lewis Fielding. When the wiretap didn't provide the necessary incriminating evidence, Liddy came up ***** another plan. Ellsberg's actual files could prove ***** be ***** immense value. (Liddy 218)

The White House Plumbers, so named because they were hired to stop information leaks, included Liddy and Hunt. Seven men took on the task of breaking into Fielding's office to find the Ellsberg files. However, the plumbers didn't find any information on ***** former Pentag***** worker. But nearly a year later, their break-in skills were put ***** use when the plumbers were hired to ***** the offices of the Democratic National ***** at the Watergate Hotel in June 1972.

A laid it out for [Jeb] Magruder, telling him that five of our ***** had been arrested in DNC headquarters in ***** Watergate early that morn*****g and that ***** could compromise the committee," Liddy wrote in his autobiography, Will. (Liddy 343) ***** was Nixon's special assistant and the ***** Liddy refers to is the Committee to ***** the President, headed by *****mer attorney general John Mitchell.

***** c*****ed a press conference to deny any link from the committee to ***** ***** break-in. However, the money that was *****d ***** the burglars to post bail ***** eventually traced back to funds from the Committee to Re-Elect the President.

By September 1972, it was discovered that Mitchell, while serving as Nixon's attorney general, controlled a ***** Republic*****n fund used to finance widespread intelligence-gathering operations against the Democrats.

Nixon exercised control over the situation from the start. 'Track down Magruder ***** see what he knows,' ***** ***** ordered [H.R.] Haldeman... The c*****-up and ***** destruction of evidence began at once. Then he met with [*****] Ehrlichman. Watergate was discussed, although no tape ***** t***** conversation has ever been produced." (Summers 428)

Nixon had ***** the installation of a c**********led tape recording system in the Oval *****, the Executive Office Building, and Camp David. "As late as April 25, 1973, well after the smoking-gun conversations about stonewalling and hush money, Nixon ***** still congratulating ********** on ***** secret system. 'I'm damn glad we have it,