The Causes Of The Watergate Scandal

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The scandal involving President Nixon and many of his top aids took place over a total of 4 years and became known as the Watergate Affair. It involved many people, break ins, cover ups, corruption at the highest level of the American political system, and a man who would stop at nothing to achieve re-election. Watergate it’s self tested the faith of the American people in the democratic system and in the end led to the President losing the American peoples trust and support. From the beginning of President Nixon’s presidency he showed a great desire to gather information about his political adversaries and anyone he perceived as a threat to him. This included members of the press and even those working within his administration. When the …show more content…
This agency was headed by John D. Ehrlichman and only served the President. The new agency was immediately responsive to Nixon’s orders no matter what they were and unlike the CIA and FBI this new agency operated outside the federal bureaucracy. Ehrlichman’s first recruit for the new agency was John J. Caulfield. Caulfield was a former New York City police detective and had worked with the 1968 Nixon campaign as a liaison. Caulfield however refused to accept the job directly. Instead he asked for a job on the White House staff, which he received. Caulfield’s official title was “Liaison officer with the federal law enforcement agencies” in reality his job was to conduct investigations that Ehrlichman handed him. Soon after Caulfield started his new job, Ehrlichman hired Anthony T. Ulasewicz, who had formally worked with Caulfield. Ulasewicz name however did not show up on the White House staff payroll. Instead he was paid out of an account that was funded by extra campaign funds. Caulfield hired another man named John Ragan. Ragan had worked with the 1968 Nixon campaign and made sure the rooms they stayed in where free of bugs and wire taps. Ragan previously was a FBI electronics …show more content…
The new members were Egil Krogh Jr. and David R. Young Jr. Both Krogh and Young worked as white house aids. The third man to join was G. Gordon Liddy. Liddy was a lawyer who had worked with the FBI for five years before opening his own private practice. Another man who was already working for Charles Colson (white house aid) was E. Howard Hunt. Hunt had more then 20 years of experience with the CIA and had been involved in major operations in Guatemala and the Bay of Pigs invasion. These four men were called the “plumbers” because there jobs was to fix the leaks coming out of the government. The Plumbers mainly focused on leaks like the Pentagon Papers but also worked to discredit President Kennedy and his work. In 1972 Nixon ordered that a new committee be formed. This new committee was called CREEP. CREEP stood for Committee to Re-elect the President. CREEP and its members took part in many of the operations that they believed would help Nixon get reelected. Many of Nixon’s aids had never held an office of this position before and believed that Nixon not being reelected to the presidency would cause a disaster for the country. As a result many where willing to do anything to get Nixon reelected. This thinking that Nixon needed to be reelected led to the “Dirty Tricks” campaign. The goal of this campaign was to create hate among the Democratic party nominee’s so that the party would not be

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