Watergate: The Scandal That Brought Down a President

by Charles River Editors

*Includes pictures.*Profiles the important participants in the Watergate scandal and their recollections of what happened.*Includes footnotes and quotes about Watergate, as well as quotes from some of the Nixon tapes.*Includes Nixon's resignation address.*Includes a bibliography for further reading.*Includes a table of contents. Increasingly and mistakenly viewed as a single scandal within the United States government, what is commonly referred to as the Watergate scandal serves as an overarching term for a series of scandals beginning in 1971 and extending through 1974. But more than any other, it refers to the specific break-in at the Watergate Hotel and office complex in Washington, D.C. The crisis, originating in a secretive battle between the two major political parties, the Nixon White House’s paranoia, and the ensuing conflict concerning the release of confidential information to the public, induced senior government officials into committing crimes (most notoriously petty burglary) and coverups for the purposes of character assassination and inter-political espionage, and it ultimately resulted in the first and only resignation of a sitting American president, Richard Milhous Nixon. Watergate has since become so synonymous with scandal that “gate” is typically added to the end of words associated with scandals even today, and the Watergate complex still remains well known ( “Even today, it is home to former Senator Bob Dole, and was the place where Monica Lewinsky laid low.”) In the wake of the seemingly peculiar burglary, gradual media and judicial pursuits of the thread of scandals led from one thing to another over the following years until it began to culminate with Congressional impeachment proceedings and a momentous showdown between the President and the Supreme Court over the release of presidential tapes, a moment in which Nixon seriously considered defying the Court and initiating a constitutional crisis. When he at last surrendered them, excerpts were blatantly missing, most famously an 18 minute stretch. Given the flurry of activities, it has only been in recent years that historians have gained a full measure of the nation’s perilous status during the intense battle between the various branches of the federal government, and the American public’s view of government in general took a decidedly negative turn, resulting in social and political disillusionment and distrust of the government that still resonates today. If anything good came out of the Watergate scandal, it was that “in its wake, Watergate spawned a reform-minded Congress.” For the last 40 years, President Nixon has been mostly reviled, and understandably, he’s ranked among the country’s worst presidents, but this view of the President and the Watergate scandal was not and still is not necessarily unanimous. A growing number of Republicans, led by conservatives such as former Nixon speechwriter Pat Buchanan, describe the bringing down of the president as a quasi-coup generated by the press and liberal social forces from within the anti-war movement, which gravitated to the release of information on Vietnam, an increasingly unpopular war, and tapping the widespread campus unrest throughout the country. Paul Johnson, in his book, Modern A History of the World from the 1920s to the Year 2000, referred to the whole affair as nothing more than “this Watergate witch hunt.” The Scandal That Brought Down a President chronicles the controversial events that led to Nixon’s resignation and the impact the scandal has had on American politics ever since. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about Watergate like you never have before, in no time at all.

Genres: History

60 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 3, 2014

About the author

Charles River Editors is an independent publisher of thousands of ebooks on Kindle, Nook, Kobo, and Apple iBookstore & provider of original content for third parties.

Reviews

[Josetta · Rating 4 out of 5]

I now have a better understanding of a historical event that happened when I was very young.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book for those who remember parents glued to the television, but were too young to understand or care what was going on. The book scatters important details about the individuals involved with the plot. It was easier for me to read this as an historical event than watch the events unfold as they did in the 70s. I now have a great framework from which to do further reading on this era.

[Sarah - All The Book Blog Names Are Taken · Rating 3 out of 5]

So to be honest, Watergate has never interested me beyond the idea it is possible to get rid of a president from office and hopefully this US nightmare will end in a similar way soon. But, as I am an educated adult I figured I should know the story and this provided a sufficient foundation if I were to read further in the future.