If you were conscious in the former seventies , then you know about Watergate . Even if you were only six years previous , you know about it . It was a monolithic intelligence story that fiddle out like a max opera over the course of several years . It could be that Watergate was the news fib to end all news stories .
If you were not witting during the seventies , then you have take heed the Christian Bible " Watergate " but may have no idea what it means . One reasonableness for that is the fact that it was a very messy , convoluted , wide - range account with lots of moving part . So permit ’s review .
From the public ’s stop of aspect , Watergate started on June 17 , 1972 . On this day , five men got arrested at an office rooms in the Watergate Hotel / place quickness . The five men look as though they were burglarizing the Democratic National Committee office , but it turned out they were there to fix some bugs that they had planted a calendar week earlier . The five world were eventually found to be employees of a secret White House travail prepare up to spy on the Democratic Party .
That , obviously , was unsound enough . Then it was discovered that the money to fund this confidential try came by re - channeling campaign contribution in various illegal way . And the money fund a very large spying formation that also engaged in sabotage .
Nixon Impeachment and Resignation
At this peak , none of these activities link to or tainted President Nixon . He advance re - election on November 7 , 1972 , by a landslide .
The whole thing came unraveled and got firmly sequester to Nixon in 1973 . First , memorandum turned up that yoke Nixon and his office to the crimes . And then , in July 1973 , the world learned that all of Nixon ’s Oval Office minutes ( either spoken in coming together or on the telephony ) had been record on tape recording originate in 1971 . This uncovering marked the beginning of the tapeline dirt . Nixon would not plow over the tapes . Then , once he was compelled ( by a Supreme Court parliamentary law ) to turn them over , a key section had been wipe off .
At this point Congress began the process of impeachment , and Nixon resign . He was the first ( and still the only ) chairperson to do so .
It was an awesome stop in American history , and it entirely redefined the role of the medium in American politics . Reporters at the Washington Post and the New York Times were responsible for unknot and harbinger many of the different parts of this malicious gossip . Since Watergate , the press has play a major role in maintain government honest .
