1. By Vicente Saldivar
WATERGATE AND THE FALL OF
RICHARD NIXON

2. Research Problem
How did the Watergate break-in,
and the subsequent cover-up,
influence the course of American
history?

3. Background
 Richard Milhous Nixon
 He was an attorney that lead the prosecution against
Alger Hiss, who was being tried as a communist spy
 Gave Nixon a strong Anti-Communist reputation
 Became Vice President under Dwight D. Eisenhower
 Accused of accepting funds in return for gifts
 “Checkers” Speech
 Won nationwide support for the speech

4. Background
 Presidential Election of 1960
 Ike was determined to win Nixon the Presidency over
John F. Kennedy
 Damaged Nixon’s chance for election
 Jokingly said that he could not remember any of Nixon’s
social reform goals
 First televised debates
 Nixon had a cold and was very pale, Kennedy had make-
up and a tan
 Nixon answered toward Kennedy and was straight
forward, Kennedy looked at the camera and answered to
America
 People that watched on TV thought Kennedy won, but
listeners on the radio thought Nixon won
 Kennedy Wins

5. Presidency
 Defeats Hubert Humphrey to finally win Presidency
 One of the closest elections in history
 Selects Spiro Agnew as VP
 Had a secret plan to get America out of Vietnam
 Eventually removed most troops from Vietnam
 Agnew resigns
 Involved in a scandal involving accepting bribes
 Gerald Ford is appointed VP
 Wins reelection by an unprecedented landslide

6. Background: Watergate
 June 17th, 1972
 The Democratic Party National headquarters at
the Watergate Complex is broken into
 A guard noticed a tampered door lock
 At 2:30 am five burglars are arrested
 Edward Martin, former CIA operative
 Frank Sturgis
 Eugenio Martinez
 Virgilio Gonzalez, Miami locksmith
 Bernard Barker

7. Background: the Burglars
 Three of the men were Cuban born
 One is a locksmith in Miami
 Another claimed to be a former CIA agent
 The last man trained Cuban exiles to fight in
the Bay of Pigs invasion

8. Break-In
 Nixon did NOT order or even know about the
break-in at the time
 They were sent by the Nixon administration
 CRP or “CREEP”
 They carried thousands of dollars in $100 bills
 Each $100 bill had the same serial number sequence
 The entire scandal was exposed through the work
of reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein,
with the help of an unnamed informant known as
“Deep Throat,” later revealed to be William Felt,
the former Deputy Director of the FBI

9. The Cover-Up
 When President Nixon heard of the break-in, he
tried to cover it up
 The transcripts of the taping system in the White
House would have been the evidence needed to
prove Nixon guilty
 Recorded all conversations in the White House
 It caught him on drunken rants and swearing
constantly
 The transcripts were full of (expletive deleted)
 The “smoking gun” tape had 18 ½ minutes of blank
tape, supposedly damaged by a secretary

10. Impact
 Saturday Night Massacre
 Nixon fires the majority of his aids in an effort to
hide the scandal
 The scandal is leaked
 Nixon becomes the first president to resign
from office
 In the face of almost certain impeachment, he
gives a speech on live television, announcing his
resignation

12. Impact
 The scandal directly influenced the outcome
of the next two presidencies
 Gerald Ford, the accidental president
 Ford was never elected to a position in the White
House: He was appointed to VP when Agnew
resigned and to president when Nixon resigned
 Ford granted Nixon a full pardon for any crimes
committed while in office
 People hated Ford for this, Nixon never went on
trial, and never served any jail time

13. Impact
 Carter
 Jimmy Carter defeated Ford for the Presidency in
the 1976 election
 He was raised outside of politics
 He wasn’t just another untrustworthy politician
like Nixon
 The “-gate” Suffix
 Any high profile scandal would have the term
“-gate” added to the end of it

14. -gate
 Nannygate- Schwarzenegger’s affair with the
nanny
 Spygate- The New England Patriots’ scandal
involving the use of videotaping
 Bountygate- The New Olreans Saints coaches
paying players to injure opponents
 Contragate- The Reagan administration had
secretly, illegally sold arms to Iran, sending
the profits to fund the anti-communist
Contras in Nicaragua
 Monicagate- President Bill Clinton’s well
known scandal and affair with an intern

15. Impact
 People thought of politicians as arrogant with
power
 Made people think all politicians felt above
the law
 Led to overall closer examination of activities
in the executive office
 Served as a civics lesson to the public
 They began to question their leaders in
Washington

16. Impact
 Cause of new laws in campaign financing
 Income tax reports expected to be released
 Tarnished the public view of lawyers
 Nixon and many members of his staff were lawyers
 The American Bar Association launched major
reforms
 Guidelines on professional responsibility

17. Oral History
 I decided to interview my grandma
 Q: Do you think that Nixon was a good president
before Watergate?
 A: You know I don’t know (expletive deleted) about
Nixon.
 I then decided to interview her (die-hard
Republican) cousin Bill, who lived in D.C. at the
time

18. Oral History
 Q: Do you think that Richard Nixon was a
good president before the break-in at
Watergate?
 A: Yeah, I do.
 OK
 Q: Do you think he was a good president after
the break-in?
 A: No, because he was distracted from what
he wanted to do.

19. Oral History
 Q: How do you think the Watergate scandal
changed the way people felt about politicians
immediately after the scandal?
 A: I don’t think it changed a whole lot about
what people thought about politicians.
 Q: How do you think the Watergate scandal
changed the way people felt about politicians
long term?
 A: I don’t think it had that big of an effect on
it.

20. Oral History
 Q: How did that change your opinion and
your vote?
 A: It didn’t really change the way I felt. I felt
that this was the way things might happen in
politics occasionally.
 Q: How did that new opinion influence the
outcomes of later elections?
 A: I don’t think it effected any of the elections
other than the very next one, between Carter
and Ford. It only effected one election.

21. Oral History
 Q: What are your thoughts on Nixon’s
statement from the interviews with David
Frost “When the president does it, that
means it’s not illegal?”
 A: I think he thought he had the executive
power to do what he wanted, because
presidents are allowed to do a lot of things.
But I don’t think that worked out for him.

22. Oral History
 Q: How do you feel about President Ford’s
decision to grant Nixon a full pardon?
 A: I think that it was the smartest possible
thing that could have been done at the time.
People thought it was the worst- I thought it
was the worst- decision ever made. But the
country had to move on. People couldn’t
dwell on this like they wanted to. They hated
him for it. It was why he didn’t stand a
chance at winning the upcoming election.

23. Conclusion
 Research Problem: How did the Watergate break-in, and the
subsequent cover-up, influence the course of American history?
Answer: The Watergate Scandal led directly to Richard
Nixon’s downfall, the “accidental presidency” of Gerald
Ford, and the election of Jimmy Carter. The break-in
was unnecessary for Nixon, as he won by an unheard-
of landslide. It also caused the public to view
politicians differently, as “crooks” who cannot be
trusted, leading to the election of Carter, an outsider to
politics. The failure of Carter caused people to vote for
Ronald Reagan during the following election. The
Watergate Scandal has come to be the ideal example
of a high profile political scandal, with all future
scandals being immediately compared to Watergate.

24. Sources
 FBI Finds Nixon Aides Sabotaged Democrats
 By Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward
 Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, October 10, 1972
 5 Held in Plot to Bug Democrats’ Office Here
 By Alfred E. Lewis
 Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 18, 1972
 Nixon Resigns
 By Carroll Kilpatrick
 Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 9, 1974
 Shadow, Five Presidents and the Legacy of Watergate
 By Bob Woodward
 The Right and the Power, the Prosecution of Watergate
 By Leon Jaworski
 Presidential Approval Graph courtesy of wsj.com
 Examples of scandals courtesy of wikipedia.org
 Oral history interview with Bill Cruciger