Watergate scandal

The Watergate Scandal was a political scandal leading to President Richard M. Nixon's resignation. It began when members of the campaign to reelect Richard Nixon broke into the Democratic National Committee Headquarters in the Watergate Hotel during the 1972 presidential election. Nixon had no prior knowledge of the burglary plans, nor gave consent to the escapade, yet his loyalty to subordinates led to Nixon consenting to cover up activities and transferring money from the Presidential election campaign fund to pay for the legal defense of those who were involved. Nixon resigned when it became clear he had lost support within his own party and Congress was likely to impeach him for obstruction of justice.

The tapes

Nixon was caught by a recording system whose installation he had himself ordered. It transpired during the course of the investigation that all conversations in the President's office had been secretly recorded for years, as an historical record. During the investigation the White House was forced to release transcripts of Watergate-related tapes. These transcripts showed that at the very least Nixon was participating in near-daily, ongoing discussions of how to manage the spreading Watergate scandal. Many dubious actions, such as the payment of "hush money" to the defendants, were openly discussed and, seemingly, considered.

Tension was heightened when a tape with a key conversation, recorded a week after the burglary, turned out to have an eighteen-minute gap. To date the gap has not been explained, nor has anyone managed to recover the erased material. White House chief Alexander Haig provoked derision by a suggestion that the erasure had been caused by "some sinister force." Nixon's secretary Rose Mary Woods told the press that she could have erased the tape by accident while talking on the phone; when the press asked her to demonstrate, it became clear that this explanation was literally a long stretch. Later analysis by acoustics firm Bolt, Baranek and Newman concluded that the gap was the result of at least five separate erasures; since the tape recorder had a two-button interlock to prevent accidental erasure, the conclusion was that it must have been a deliberate action. If the conversation had involved Watergate, then it might have proved that Nixon learned of the burglary earlier than he had admitted.