AP US History – Unit 14 / Watergate: Road to Resignation
Timeline of Watergate Events – Road to Resignation
(“Watergate" is a general term used to describe a complex web of political scandals between 1972 and 1974.
The word specifically refers to the Watergate Hotel and office complex in Washington D.C.)
Preliminary Events:
November 1968: Richard Milhous Nixon, the 55-year-old former vice president who lost the presidency for the Republicans in 1960 (defeated by John F. Kennedy)
1960Party
Democratic
Republican
Independent / Candidate
John F. Kennedy
Richard M. Nixon
Harry F. Byrd / Electoral Count
303
219
15 / Popular Vote
49.7%
49.5%
00.7%
reclaims it by defeating Vice-President Hubert Humphrey and third party choice George Wallace in one of the closest elections in U.S. history.
1968Party
Democratic
Republican
American Independent / Candidate
Hubert H. Humphrey
Richard M. Nixon
George C. Wallace / Electoral Count
191
301
46 / Popular Vote
42.7%
43.4%
13.5%
January 21, 1969: Nixon is inaugurated as the 37th president of the United States.
1971
June 13, 1971: The New York Times begins publishing the Pentagon Papers -- the Defense Department's secret history of the Vietnam War. The papers, whose compilation had been ordered by Robert S. McNamara when he was Defense Secretary, demonstrated that the Johnson Administration had systematically lied, not only to the public but also to Congress, about the war in Vietnam. The U.S. Government sought and won a court order restraining further publication after three articles had appeared. The Washington Post began publishing the papers later in the week. They, too, were restrained. In an already politically charged environment, the Pentagon Papers added fuel to the debate over America's military involvement in Vietnam. .
June 26, 1971: the Supreme Court agrees to take both cases, merging them into New York Times Co. v. U.S. The question before the Court involves prior restraint: can the government block publication of a controversial story before the public even sees it? On June 30th, the Court said “No”. In a 6-3 decision, the Court ruled that the injunctions were unconstitutional prior restraints and that the government had not met the heavy burden of proof required for prior restraint. Publishers can be held responsible for the material after it is printed, but the government can not block its publication. The justices wrote nine separate opinions, disagreeing on significant substantive issues.
September 9, 1971: The White House "plumbers" unit - named for their orders to plug leaks in the administration - burglarizes a psychiatrist's office to find files on Daniel Ellsberg, the former defense analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers.
1972
June 17: Five men are arrested at 2:30 a.m. trying to bug the offices of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) at the Watergate hotel and office complex. There is evidence they are employed by the Committee to Re-elect the President (CREEP). Two former white house aides working for CREEP, G. Gordon Liddy and
E. Howard Hunt, are also arrested. The seven men are indicted on September 15. Even though their relationship to the election committee is established, none of the seven men connects the committee or the White House to the break-in.
June 19: A GOP security aide is among the Watergate burglars, The Washington Post reports. Former attorney general John Mitchell, head of the Nixon reelection campaign, denies any link to the operation.
August 1: A $25,000 cashier's check, apparently earmarked for the Nixon campaign, is found in the bank account of a Watergate burglar, The Washington Post reports.
September 29: John Mitchell, while serving as attorney general, controlled a secret Republican fund used to finance widespread intelligence-gathering operations against the Democrats, The Post reports.
October 10: FBI agents establish that the Watergate break-in stems from a massive campaign of political spying and sabotage conducted on behalf of the Nixon reelection effort, The Post reports.
October: A Gallup Poll shows that less than half of the American people have even heard of the Watergate break-in.
November 7: Nixon is reelected in one of the largest landslides in American political history, taking more than 60.8 percent of the popular vote and 520 of the 537 electoral votes, crushing the Democratic nominee, Sen. George McGovern of South Dakota.
1972Party
Democratic
Republican / Candidate
George S. McGovern
Richard M. Nixon / Electoral Count
17
520 / Popular Vote
37.5%
60.7%
1973
January 30: Former Nixon aides G. Gordon Liddy and James W. McCord Jr. are convicted of conspiracy, burglary and wiretapping in the Watergate incident. Five other men plead guilty, but mysteries remain.
February 7: Amid swirling rumors of widespread wrongdoing, corrupt financing and political dirty tricks committed by the Nixon reelection committee, the Senate establishes a Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, chaired by North Carolina Senator Sam Ervin.
March 23: Former CIA agent James W. McCord, one of the seven men convicted in the break-in, admits to Judge John Sirica that he and other defendants have been under pressure to remain silent about the case. McCord reveals that others were involved in the break-in, and he eventually names John Mitchell, the former Attorney General of the United States who is now chairman of the Committee to Re-elect the President.
April 17: An official statement from the White House claims Nixon had no prior knowledge of the break-in.
April 20: L. Patrick Gray, acting director of the FBI, resigns after admitting he destroyed evidence connected to Watergate, on the advice of Nixon aides in the White House.
April 30: President Nixon appears on national television and announces the dismissal of presidential counsel John Dean and the resignations of chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman and domestic affairs assistant John Ehrlichman, describing them as two of his "closest advisers". The Attorney-General, Richard Kleindienst, also resigns and is replaced by Elliot Richardson. Nixon denies any knowledge of a cover-up or White House involvement in the Watergate break-in.
May 11: Charges against Daniel Ellsberg and Anthony J. Russo are dropped for their theft and release of the Pentagon Papers. The judge makes the decision following the revelation that Watergate conspirators E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy had burglarized the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist in an attempt to steal Ellsberg’s medical records.
May 18: The Senate Watergate committee begins nationally televised hearings. Attorney General-designate Elliot Richardson appoints former solicitor general Archibald Cox as the Justice Department's Special Prosecutor for Watergate. He is sworn in on May 25.
June 25: Testifying in front of Sam Ervin’s Senate committee, John Dean accuses President Nixon of involvement in the Watergate cover-up and says the President authorized payment of “hush money” top the seven men arrested in the break-in. On national television, Dean recalls a conversation in which he warned the President "there was a cancer growing on the presidency, and if the cancer was not removed, the President himself would be killed by it."
July 7: Nixon tells the Senate Committee that he will not testify before it and will not grant access to Presidential documents, claiming “executive privilege.”
July 15: White House aide Alexander Butterfield tells the Ervin committee that since 1971, President Nixon has secretly recorded all Oval Office conversations and telephone calls. This startling revelation provides the committee with a means to substantiate testimony implicating the President in the cover-up of the Watergate burglary. It also sets off a constitutional crisis over the President’s right to keep the tapes secret under the umbrella of executive privilege.
July 18: President Nixon reportedly orders the White House taping system disconnected.
July 23: The Senate Committee and Archibald Cox demand that Nixon hand over a range of White House tapes and documents.
July 25: Nixon refuses to surrender any documents or tapes.
July 26: The Watergate Committee subpoenas several White House tapes.
August 9: The Senate Committee takes legal action against Nixon for failure to comply with the subpoena.
August 15: Nixon delivers a second Address to the Nation on Watergate. Nixon claims “executive privilege" for the tapes and argued that he should not have to hand them over. Archibald Cox and the Senate Watergate committee request the Supreme Court instruct Nixon to surrender the tapes.
August 29: Judge Sirica orders Nixon to hand over 9 tapes for Sirica to review in private.
October 10: In an unrelated development that further damages White House credibility, Vice President Spiro Agnew resigns after pleading nolo contendere (no contest) to tax evasion charges dating from his days as governor of Maryland. He is sentenced to three years of unsupervised probation and a $10,000 fine.
October 12: Under the provisions of the Twenty-fifth Amendment, President Nixon nominates House Minority Leader Gerald Ford to succeed Agnew. Ford is sworn in on December 6, after receiving Senate approval 92-3 and House approval 387-35.
October 19: Nixon offers a compromise to the Senate Watergate Committee, proposing that the Democratic Senator from Mississippi, John Stennis, be permitted to listen to the tapes and prepare summaries for Cox.
October 20: Cox rejects the Stennis compromise. In a series of events that became known as the Saturday Night Massacre, President Nixon orders Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox. Richardson and his assistant, William D. Ruckelshaus, refuse to follow this order and both resign. Solicitor General Robert Bork, third in Justice Department chain of command, fires Cox. The resignations and firing of Cox raise a storm of protest in Congress, and the House actively begins to consider impeachment charges.
October 23: The House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Representative Peter Rodino, announces an investigation into impeachment charges against the President. Under immense pressure, Nixon agrees to comply with the subpoena and releases some of the tapes. Investigators later learn that two of the requested tapes are missing.
November 1: Leon Jaworski is named as the new Watergate Special Prosecutor, replacing the fired Cox.
November 9: Six of the Watergate defendants are sentenced for their roles in the break-in. E. Howard Hunt receives a sentence of 2 ½ to 8 years. The others are given lesser sentences. G. Gordon Liddy is sentenced to 20 years, in part because of his refusal to cooperate with investigators.
November 17: Nixon declares, "I'm not a crook," maintaining his innocence in the Watergate case.
November 21: Investigators learn that one of the tapes contains a mysterious 18 ½ minute gap. The White House claims that Nixon’s secretary, Rosemary Woods, accidentally erased part of the tape while transcribing it.
1974
January: TIME Magazine names Watergate Judge John Sirica as Man of the Year.
January 4: Claiming executive privilege, President Nixon refuses to surrender 500 tapes and documents subpoenaed by the Senate Watergate Committee.
February 6: The House of Representatives votes to authorize the House Judiciary Committee to investigate whether grounds exist for the impeachment of President Nixon.
March 1: Seven former White House staff members, including Haldeman, Ehrlichman and former Attorney General John Mitchell, are indicted for conspiring to obstruct the investigation of the Watergate break-in. President Nixon is named as an unindicted co-conspirator.
April 16: Special Prosecutor Jaworski issues a subpoena for 64 White House tapes.
April 29: In another nationally televised address, President Nixon refuses the subpoena and offers a 1,200 page edited transcript of the tapes instead.
April 30: Both the committee and Jaworski reject the transcripts offer. As the public reads the released transcripts, there is public shock at the general tone of the conversations and the foul language used by Nixon and others. The expression "expletive deleted" enters the vocabulary.
May 9: Impeachment hearings begin before the House Judiciary Committee.
July 24: The Supreme Court, by a unanimous vote of 8-0 (William Rehnquist abstaining) upholds the Special Prosecutor's subpoena, ordering Nixon to make the tapes available for the Watergate trials of his former subordinates. The case is known as United States v. Nixon. Eight hours later, the White House announces it will comply with the order.
July 27: The House Judiciary Committee adopts the first Article of Impeachment by a vote of 27-11, with 7 Republicans voting with the Democrats. The Article charges Nixon with obstruction of the investigation of the Watergate break-in.
July 29: The House Judiciary Committee adopts the second Article of Impeachment that charges Nixon with misuse of power and violation of his oath of office.
July 30: The House Judiciary Committee adopts the third Article of Impeachment, charging Nixon with failure to comply with the House subpoenas.
August 5: Nixon releases transcripts of three conversations he had with Haldeman 6 days after the Watergate break-in. The June 23 tape becomes known as The Smoking Gun because it reveals that Nixon ordered the FBI to abandon its investigation of the break-in. Nixon releases three more tapes that prove he ordered a cover-up of the Watergate burglary on June 23rd 1972, six days after the break-in. The tapes show that he knew of the involvement of White House officials and the Campaign for the Re-election of the President, as well as revealing that Nixon ordered the FBI to abandon its investigation of the break-in. The eleven Republicans on the Judiciary Committee who voted against impeachment say they will change their votes. It is clear that Nixon will be impeached and convicted in the Senate.
August 7: Three senior Republican congressmen meet with Nixon, advising him that his chances of avoiding impeachment by the House and removal from office by the Senate are "gloomy". Around the country, calls mount for Nixon's resignation, and speculation builds about Nixon's intentions.
August 8: In a televised address to the nation at 9 pm, Nixon announces that he will resign the next day.
August 10: Mrs. Masty gets married in Michigan; Mr. Jordan gets married in Pennsylvania.
August 21: President Ford nominates the former Republican Governor of New York, Nelson Rockefeller, as vice-president. They become the nation's first unelected presidential duo.
September 8: In a surprise Sunday morning announcement, Ford grants a "full, free and absolute" pardon to Nixon for "all offenses against the United States" committed between Jan. 20, 1969 and August 9, 1974.
Aftermath
January 1, 1975: Four of the former White House staffers charged with obstruction of Justice are found guilty. They are H. R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, John Mitchell, and White House attorney Robert Mardian. A fifth, Nixon assistant Kenneth Parkinson, is acquitted. The Watergate chargers against Charles Colson are dropped after he pleads guilty to crimes connected with the Ellsberg-psychiatrist break-in. A seventh defendant, Gordon Strachan, is tried separately.