Watergate

Watergate THE WATERGATE SCANDALS The Watergate Scandal involved a number of illegal activities that were designed to help President Richard Nixon win re-election. The scandal involved burglary, wiretapping, campaign financing violations, and the use of government agencies to harm political opponents. A major part of the scandal was also the cover-up of all these illegal actions. “Watergate, however, differed from most previous political scandals because personal greed apparently did not play an important role. Instead Watergate attacked one of the chief features of Democracy – free and open elections” (McCarthy 43). The Watergate Scandal got its name from the Watergate Complex in Washington D.C. This large office building was the home of the Democratic National Headquarters, and the site of the break-in that began the largest scandal in American Politics. However, even before the break-in, President Nixon had begun illegal operations. President Nixon had created a special investigation unit to prevent the leaking of confidential documents to the public. He did this after a number of Defense Department papers were released to the public concerning President Nixon’s paranoia over the public’s criticism of his Vietnam War policies (Owens 1). The “Plumbers”, as they were nicknamed, were headed by two of Nixon’s nixon, watergate, president, scandal, house, tapes, white, break-in, ordered, nixon’s, jaworski, 1974, political, cox, cover-up, three, scandals, prison, presidential, plumbers, part, over, original, investigation, illegal, however, hand, general, evidence, dean, court, conversations, committee, attorney, years, released