The Watergate scandal It is the largest political scandal in the history of the United States, which emerged during the campaign for the 1972 presidential elections and which led to the resignation of the president Richard Nixon. Five men were arrested in Complex of buildings called Watergatein Washington, while they placed bugs in the offices of the National Committee of the Democratic Party. Thanks to an accurate journalistic investigation by Washington Postit was discovered that the Republican Party organized Spying operations against his opponents. President Nixon, re -elected despite the scandal, tried to cover up the investigations, but was discovered and in 1974, after months of controversy, it was forced to resign: To date, he is the only president of the United States to resign. The tradition of using the suffix originates from the Watergate affair -gate to refer to a scandal of some kind.
The Watergate scandal: the 1972 election campaign and the effort in buildings
The Watergate scandal broke out in 1972 during the Campaign for the presidential elections: The two contenders were Richard Nixon, republican candidate, president in office who was underway for the second term; George McGovernrepresentative of the Democratic Party, lined up on progressive positions (it is considered the most leftist candidate in the history of the United States). Nixon was ahead, as certified by all surveys.
The scandal broke out in Washington, in Watergate Complexa complex of buildings at the Potomac river (from this the name Watergate, which means water door), in which the headquarters of the Democratic Electoral Committee. On the night of June 17, the police arrested five men, upon reporting of a security guard, because they had illegally entered the headquarters of the committee to arrange bugs, placed two weeks earlier. It was soon discovered that the five men were linked to the Republican Party, but at the moment the story, which did not involve big names, aroused little clamor. The elections were held regularly in November and Nixon was winner with a large margin of votes.
The investigation of the Washington Post and the involvement of Nixon
After the elections, the investigation went on. The five men arrested in the Watergate complex were processed and condemnedbut they did not reveal those who ordered the effort. Some newspapers carefully followed the evolution of the story: the most attentive was the Washington Post, especially thanks to two reporters, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernsteinwho published numerous articles on the effectiveness and suggested that Nixon was informed and had tried to hinder investigations. The suspicion, then proved to be founded, was that the operation was part of a vast plan to spy on the Democratic Party.
Woodward and Bernstein could benefit from a source (call in code Deep Throatthat is, deep throat, an expression then entered the common use to indicate an anonymous source) which gave them suggestions of vital importance. Today we know that the source was Mark Felta high -level FBI official, who revealed his identity in 2005.
The investigation of the two journalists made attention grow on the matter and in 1973 the congress established a special Investigation Commission. Gradually, the circle around Nixon squeezed. Both the commission and a federal prosecutor, Archibald CoxThey asked to access the ribbons of the recordings of the oval studio of the White House (all the meetings that take place in the study are recorded). Nixon rejected, entrenching himself behind the “Executive privilege”That is, the faculty of the President not to detect information, and also obtained the removal of Cox (a question for which the Minister and Deputy Minister of Justice resigned). In July 1974, however, the Supreme Court He declared the use of the executive privilege illegitimate to avoid delivering the tapes, in fact by ordering Nixon to sell them. The president, threatened with impeachment (The procedure provided in the United States to ignore a president from the assignment), was forced to deliver the copies of the recordings. It was discovered so that, together with his staff, he had tried to cover the scandal From the first days after the effort and he would have even wanted to use the CIA to convince the FBI to keep out of the story. The tapes, therefore, did not allow to ascertain those who ordered the effort and if Nixon was informed (We don’t even know now), but showed that the president had violated the law and tried to cover some culprits.
Nixon’s resignation after the Watergate scandal
The Republican Party “Download” Nixonrealizing that, in the face of illegality and abuse of power, he could not defend it. Also thepublic opinionincluding the one closest to the Republicans, took a position against the President: respect for legality prevailed with respect to ideological belonging.
The fact is that the congress started the impeachment procedure And on August 8 Nixon, aware that the majority would approve it, resigned. It was the first, and so far unique, resignation of a President in the United States. In his place the vice -president took over, Gerald Fordwhich came into office in October 1973, after the elected vice -president, Spiro Agnewhe had been involved in a scandal, as he was responsible for tax evasion, and had had to resign (although not implicated in Watergate). Ford was therefore the first and only President of the United States to take on the assignment without having been elected to the office of President or to that of deputy.
Watergate’s memory
The Watergate scandal left a deep sign In the United States politics and has had repercussions all over the world. The affair were dedicated to the affair Hundreds of scientific books and articlesbeyond Several movies. The most famous is All the men of the Presidentbased on the book of the same name by Woorward and Bernstein, released in 1976 and winner of four Oscar prizes.
Watergate has also shown The importance of investigative journalism: Without the stubbornness of the journalists of the Washington Post, the story would have been forgotten without consequences for Nixon and the other managers.
Watergate’s popularity has also been shown by the fact that, since then, journalists have the habit of giving political scandals a name with the suffix -gate: for example, Rangated (which involved Ronald Reagan in the 1980s), Sexgate (which involved Bill Clinton in the 90s) or, in Italy, Rubygatethat is, the story in which Silvio Berlusconi was involved between 2011 and 2012.
