Furthermore, it resulted in a resignation of a United States president. With the many conspiracies, social issues, and briberies to this scandal exposed an abuse of power during the presidency and added more stress to the people of the nation.
On June 19, 1972, there was a break in to the Democratic Party headquarters in at the Watergate Apartment in Washington D.C. Those who broke into the Democratic National Committee offices were instructed to spy on the opposing party, against President Nixon's campaign.
Frank Wills was the guard on duty that night. He had found evidence of a break in on one of the door's locks, and called the police from the scene of the crime. The break-in failed and the five men were found within the building and caught. They would be later identified as Frank Sturgis, Virgilio Gonzales, Eugenio Martinez, Bernard L. Barker, and James W. McCord. As the investigation continued, the men were caught with lock picks, tear gas, cameras, and bugs to spy on the many political conversations between the democrats.
A notebook with the name and phone number of “E. Howard Hunt” was found on one of the men. A significant sum of money was an also found. It would later be traced back to CRP, and this along with the notebook, led to a significant breakthrough in the scandal. These two objects could be directly linked back to the White House.
On further examination, James W. McCord was proven to be a part of Nixon's campaign organization. He was apart of CREEP, or CRP, the Committee to Reelect the President. This was a group of people whose purpose was to get President Nixon reelected in the 1972 election. John Mitchell was the leader of this association. He had been an attorney general, but he resigned to take care of this occupation.
The money that was discovered on the burglars traced right back to a CRP account, but Mitchell repeatedly declined any relationship with this assembly and the Watergate hotel robbery. Later, a member of the White House staff , John Dean, made his own run through the scene and also stated no one was involved in this accident.
With Nixon still running for the 1972 election, federal juries finally went ahead and made indictments against the five burglars and two other people connected to the crimes. E. Howard Hunt was arrested as his name was found within the notebook at the crime scene. Also G. Gordon Liddy, Mr. Liddy was a part of the CREEP counsel.
Liddy was found guilty on January 30th, 1973 and was sentenced in March. Liddy first brought himself into the political sense when he became a member of the White House staff and had worked for Egil Krogh. Ironically, then he was apart of the group SIG, Special Investigations Group, which helped Nixon keep his political administration in privacy .
Once the indictments were made, the media started to get a hold of different stories about Watergate and would just not let it go. One of the more major media sources was The Washington Post. Each issue of the paper came out with more and more stories about illegal activity and the money being placed into them. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were the major reporters for the Post and generally wrote about the flow of campaign contributions to pay for the illegal activities.
When Woodward first found out about the Watergate scandal, he tried to take a direct approach. He had known that Hunt's name was found in the notebook at the scene of the crime, so he tried him first. Woodward called Hunt but no one answered at first. He obtained his work number and got ahold of him. Woodward questioned him about his name being found, Hunt denied it and hung up instantly . This was once of the first leads the reporters took.
Once Nixon learned of this information, he and many other members of his committee denied ever taking part of any of these printed actions. Other reports include a donation to the CREEP association that was deposited into Bernard L. Parker's bank account. He was one of the Watergate robbers.
These two reporters were not able to do this on their own. Most leads and information came from a secret source they called “Deep Throat”. This plays a very important role in the entire Watergate scandal. If it were not for Deep Throat, Nixon might have never been caught. Woodward and Bernstein vowed not to let the identity of their sources known. The identity was finally revealed though 30 years later. Two years ago in 2005, a "Vanity Fair" interview revealed who Deep Throat really was.
Mark Felt, aged 91, told the reporter he was Deep Throat and after further examination, Woodward also confirmed it was true. (McConnell 19). Mark Felt had joined the FBI in 1942, and worked for J Edgar Hoover, one of the agency directors. He would secretly meet with the reporters whenever he could to give him the progressing time line of the Democratic Party. Deep Throat was known as one of the greatest secrets during this age and in the long run, led to one of the reasons President Nixon was caught during the scandal.
