Watergate affair

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The Watergate Affair (or Watergate for short ) is, according to a definition by the United States Congress , a series of serious "abuses of government authority" that occurred between 1969 and 1974 during the tenure of Republican President Richard Nixon . The disclosure of these abuses in the USA massively intensified a social crisis of confidence in politicians in Washington that was triggered by the Vietnam War and ultimately led to a serious constitutional crisis . The climax of the sometimes dramatic developments was Nixon's resignation on August 9, 1974.

introduction

The scene of the break-in: the Watergate building complex in Washington

The Watergate Affair is named after the Watergate building complex in the center of the American capital Washington , which was the headquarters of the Democratic Party in the early 1970s . On the night of June 17, 1972, the police, who had been notified by the security guard Frank Wills , arrested five intruders who had apparently tried to install bug bugs and to photograph documents. This sensational event was brought early on in connection with the upcoming presidential elections in November 1972 , in which the incumbent Richard Nixon was to run again for the Republican Party .

Extensive investigations by the FBI soon revealed that the contractors for the Watergate break-in were to be found among close employees of the president or his election committee . After Nixon's re-election, this finding led, through a snowball effect, to the uncovering of further crimes and misdemeanors, some of which had been committed in previous years on direct orders from the White House . In a series of revelations that dominated media coverage from March 1973 onwards, the American public learned of the extent of these abuses of office to the detriment of Nixon's political opponents. As a result, pressure grew on the President to help fully solve the affair and to cooperate fully with the judiciary and several committees of Congress. Nixon's refusal to do so, and his sometimes massive attempts to hinder or limit the investigation, plunged the US into a protracted constitutional crisis and ultimately prompted the House of Representatives to initiate impeachment proceedings against Nixon. The confrontation between the three powers , unprecedented in American history, ended on August 9, 1974 with the only resignation of a US president to date.

The Watergate affair is often interpreted as a triumph of freedom of the press , because journalists had made a significant contribution to clearing it up. In this context, the reporting of the Washington Post and its two reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, which received the Pulitzer Prize in 1973, became famous . While the prosecutors investigating the Watergate break-in viewed it, despite contradicting evidence, until the beginning of 1973 as the result of the over-zeal of subordinate figures, the Washington Post speculated as early as the summer and fall of 1972 - in the middle of the presidential election campaign - about a far-reaching political conspiracy including the White House . The basis of such articles was formed above all the covert information that Woodward had received from his main informant Mark Felt from June 1972 . Until June 1973, Felt, who was given the code name Deep Throat by an editor of the Washington Post , served as the FBI's deputy director, and in this function was very familiar with the results of the Watergate investigation.

Although the often-read allegation that Woodward and Bernstein "uncovered" Watergate is sometimes viewed as highly exaggerated, their commitment to the control of the state by the " fourth estate " is now often seen as an example of investigative journalism . Although its origins in the USA can be traced back to the Muckrakers at the beginning of the 20th century and earlier, the Watergate affair became, according to the words of sociologist Michael Schudson, "the heart of the myth about American journalism". This has inspired the following generations of reporters to investigate abuses of power in politics, business and society more decisively and to denounce them. On the other hand, after the Watergate affair, the media were increasingly accused of a tendency to sensationalism and to “produce” scandals (English scandal mongering ).

What is part of the Watergate affair?

There is no binding definition of which "abuses of government powers ", for which President Richard Nixon was ultimately responsible as head of the executive branch , fall under the umbrella term "Watergate Affair" apart from the core complex of the failed Watergate break-in of June 17, 1972 and which ones don't. A first distinction in this regard arises from the subject areas that the Senate Watergate Committee (actual name: Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities ) under its chairman Senator Sam Ervin examined from May 1973. The results of these investigations were summarized in June 1974 in a 1250-page final report. According to the Ervin Committee, the following ten sub-areas belong to the "Watergate Affair":

  1. abuse of government agencies by or on behalf of the White House
  2. the actual Watergate break-in
  3. the cover-up of the background to the Watergate break-in
  4. the campaign practices of the Committee for the Re-election of the President
  5. the obstruction of justice in the Watergate investigation
  6. the financial practices and electoral donation practices of Nixon's re-election committee
  7. the "milk fund" of illegal party donations with which a conglomerate of American milk producers sought to influence politics in Washington
  8. an illegal party donation of $ 100,000 to Nixon's personal friend Charles "Bebe" Rebozo of billionaire Howard Hughes had received
  9. Taking advantage (for example, by "selling" ambassadorial posts in exchange for campaign donations) and tax evasion by President Nixon
  10. the “ ITT affair”, which involved the alleged granting of advantages to the industrial giant in connection with antitrust proceedings in exchange for an indirect campaign donation.

In addition to these issues, journalists and historians have identified numerous other incidents from Nixon's tenure as aspects of the Watergate affair. Some of these were merely disreputable, but some were later classified as illegal by the courts. These events were investigated by investigators from the Watergate Special Prosecution Force (WSPF). Almost without exception, the American public only found out about them in connection with the great wave of Watergate revelations from March 1973:

  1. shortly after Nixon took office, the White House hired its own private investigator; this should collect incriminating information about political opponents of the Republicans and then pass it on to the media; an example was research on Edward Kennedy after his car accident in Chappaquiddick ;
  2. the so-called "Kissinger bugs", an illegal wiretapping carried out at the instigation of Nixon's security advisor Henry Kissinger from April 1969 on members of the National Security Council and against various prominent journalists; this was done to find out who leaked information to the media on Kissinger's staff;
  3. the (ultimately not implemented) " Huston Plan " of 1970 to network the activities of the CIA , FBI and other espionage and law enforcement agencies under direct control of the White House; according to him, the executive should be given far-reaching powers in the fight against alleged left-wing extremist public enemies and militant opponents of the Vietnam War;
  4. the creation of an " enemy list " (Nixon's enemies list) under the aegis of Nixon's advisor Charles Colson ; this was constantly expanded ( Master list of Nixon's political opponents ) and contained the names of people who were said to be hostile to the president, his government or the Republican Party; These people should, for example, increasingly have to reckon with audits by the Federal Tax Authority (IRS) or should be excluded from the award of lucrative government contracts from the outset;
  5. the partly illegal activities of the White House “plumbers” unit founded in the summer of 1971; on the one hand it should plug "leaks" from the government apparatus to the media and on the other hand it should collect negative information about opponents of the White House and pass it on to the public in a targeted (but undercover) way; two members of the "plumber" unit, Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt , were later also directly responsible for planning, organizing and carrying out the Watergate break-in.

Processing in literature and television

Last but not least, there is an attempt by revisionist authors with a strong propensity for conspiracy scenarios to rewrite the history of the Watergate affair by presenting an alleged "sub-plot" that is largely unknown to the public. In particular, the Watergate break-in and the attempts to cover up its background, optionally as a result of the covert actions of Nixon hostile institutions such as the CIA or the American army, or the activities of scheming individuals guided by personal motives (such as John Dean or Alexander Haig ) in the immediate vicinity of President Nixon. In these interpretations, the Watergate affair is reinterpreted as a "silent coup" with which an unpopular incumbent was driven out of the White House. The fact that some serious historians have accepted these theories in part is due to the fact that various aspects of the affair, in particular the exact background to the Watergate break-in, have not yet been clearly clarified.

Examples of popular adaptations of these conspiracy theories are the films JFK - Tatort Dallas and Nixon by Oliver Stone . Stone focuses on the role of Howard Hunt, who was one of the organizers of the Bay of Pigs invasion during his time with the CIA . According to various authors, their failure provided the motive for an alleged CIA murder plot against the democratic president who was held responsible; Hunt even plays the role of a wire-puller for the Kennedy assassination of November 22, 1963 in some of these depictions. In the film Nixon , the viewer is also suggested that a Nixon who knows about these connections uses the same as leverage against the CIA in order to bring it about to hinder the Watergate investigations (and thus a threatened exposure of Hunt's role not only in the Watergate break-in but also in the Kennedy assassination).

Nixon's style of governance and the role of his closest advisers

Nixon in his office aboard Air Force One (1972)

In contrast to other presidents, Nixon rarely met with recognized experts from ministries and authorities. Instead, he consulted a narrow circle of advisors, mainly White House employees, who should do everything else for him. This resulted in a centralized and hierarchical style of government. The President was apparently "shielded" from many processes, while his staff, through their constant access to the Oval Office, could always convince their own subordinates that their orders and instructions were covered by the President. However, the latter was not always the case. Traditionally influential institutions such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or the Ministry of Defense lost importance at the same time because the ministers responsible, William P. Rogers and Melvin R. Laird, did not belong to the exclusive Nixon circle.

Nixon distrusted the ministerial bureaucracy. He saw them "infiltrated" by hostile democrats and representatives of the liberal East Coast establishment who had studied at Ivy League universities such as Harvard or Yale. The distrust was encouraged by the many "leaks" (leaks) , of which his government was plagued from the start. Even the most secret government documents and information were leaked to the (often liberal) media. Nixon saw this not only as a personal affront, but also as a deliberate attempt to sabotage his political initiatives, which were strictly shielded from the public. Above all, this concerned foreign policy, which was of primary interest to him . Nixon's well-documented obsession with plugging these "leaks" at all costs became an important starting point for White House-directed criminal activity.

Nixon countered the alleged unreliability of the ministries and authorities by promoting people loyal to him to key positions. The attempt to instrumentalize these people in his political or even personal interest, the Congress later counted as one of Nixon's "abuses of government powers". However, out of consideration for public opinion, the president had to be hesitant when it came to restructuring the government, so that his skepticism towards the bureaucracy increased rather than decreased during his first term of office. The President and his closest advisers formed a Manichaean friend-foe way of thinking that was reinforced by initial failures in government policy. A re-election of Nixon in 1972 seemed increasingly questionable. In the course of 1970 at the latest, a siege mentality developed in the White House, which was also registered and criticized in the media. There was talk of a “palace guard” or even (because of the German or German-sounding surname of Nixon's employees) of a “Berlin Wall” that shields the president more and more from reality.

John Ehrlichman and Harry Robbins Haldeman in April 1973

This "palace guard", the daily usually contact with the president, had existed at the beginning of Nixon's tenure essentially of three people: Minister of Justice (Attorney General) John N. Mitchell , White House Chief of Staff (White House Chief of Staff) HR "Bob" Haldeman and the President's Counsel and later Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs, John Ehrlichman . Haldeman and Ehrlichman had been politically affiliated with Nixon since the early 1960s and had participated in his failed election campaigns for the presidency (1960) and the post of governor in California (1962). As West Artisans, they not only shared Nixon's conservative worldview, but also his reservations about the East Coast establishment, which was viewed as equally arrogant and liberal . Nixon initially had business ties with Mitchell, a distinguished attorney, when he was a lawyer in New York in the 1960s . As the only one of his closest advisers, Mitchell can also be considered a personal friend of Nixon.

Two more men joined this circle of political confidants in 1969: Henry Kissinger, who, as National Security Advisor, personified the shift in responsibility for foreign policy away from the State Department and into the White House, and Charles Colson . The latter functioned formally as Chief Counsel to the President, but actually directed party-political activities that were actually prohibited by the White House, and confrontational media campaigns.

Mitchell agreed, at the urging Nixon in 1971 to give up and his ministerial post in the spring of 1972 with the guidance of the Committee for the Re-election of the President (English , CRP Committee to Re-elect the President ) to assume responsibility for the organization of the election campaign. But even during this time he remained one of the President's closest advisers and had daily contact with his staff. Immediately after the Watergate slump on June 17, 1972, however, he had to give up the chairmanship of the CRP and withdrew from politics. At the turn of the year 1972/1973 Colson resigned from the White House, also secretly because of his Watergate entanglements. After a wave of Watergate revelations that hit the country between March and April 1973, Haldeman and Ehrlichman were also forced to vacate on April 30, 1973.

With the partial exception of Kissinger, the members of the “Palace Guard” were deeply involved in the breaches of law that existed during Nixon's tenure. Mitchell, Haldeman, Ehrlichman and Colson later received imprisonment for this. The departure of Haldeman and Ehrlichman from their positions at the latest in May 1973 shifted the public's attention to the central question "what did the president know when" (as the Senate Committee of Inquiry repeatedly formulated) of the entire Watergate incidents that were carried out by the "Palace Guard" had been controlled.

History of the Watergate Burglary

1968 election campaign: Nixon with his " trademark "

Since his political rise thanks to the Alger-Hiss affair, Nixon has felt opposed by the liberals - as he called the supporters of the Democratic Party - and the East Coast establishment press, which they dominate. As early as 1952, when he ran for vice-president, he was only able to save himself from their allegations through a rhetorical appearance ( Checkers Speech ). In his memoir, he attributed his defeat in the 1960 election campaign to John F. Kennedy to the machinations of these liberals. Even in 1968, when the Democrats were at rock bottom because of their responsibility for the Vietnam War, he narrowly won the election .

When preparations were made for the 1972 election in 1971, his prospects for re-election were by no means as rosy as they were afterwards; the anti-Vietnam war demonstrations were at their height and Nixon could not even attend his daughter's graduation ceremony because the police there could not ensure his safety. In order to secure his re-election, he set up the Committee for the Re-election of the President under the direction of his Attorney General John Mitchell. The funding of this committee is lost in the dark. Among other things, the masterminds behind the Watergate break-in were employed there. The committee continued its work long after Nixon's re-election had been secured.

Organizations that deal with the less subtle and legal aspects of the election campaign were quite common then - on both sides - and should not be seen as Nixon's invention.

How familiar Nixon was with the details of the work of the CRP is not known. In his memoirs, he described this break-in as idiotic and completely pointless. According to his account, there was nothing to be learned there that was not already known. In addition, at the time of the break-in, his re-election was almost certain.

The break-in

On the night of June 17, 1972, while security guard Frank Wills was walking around the Watergate complex, he noticed that a piece of tape had been attached to a door to keep it from slamming shut. Unsuspecting, he removed the tape and continued his tour. When he passed the door later, he noticed that another piece of duct tape had been attached. This seemed suspicious to him, which is why he alerted the police. The then arrested a group of five men after they had already broken into the headquarters of the Democratic Party in the Watergate building complex in Washington, DC . These men were Bernard Barker , Virgilio R. González , Eugenio Martínez , James W. McCord, Jr., and Frank Sturgis . This was the second break-in. Monitoring microphones that are not working should be readjusted and some photos should be taken.

McCord's involvement, associated with the Presidential Re-election Committee (CRP) , sparked speculation about the White House's involvement in the crime.

Cover-up

Nixon's secretary Ron Ziegler, however, denied this and described the break-in as "third rate". However, at the time the charges were read out, McCord identified himself as a former member of the CIA, which attracted the interest of a Washington Post journalist who was present at the trial. That journalist was Bob Woodward . Together with his colleague Carl Bernstein - with the backing of their editor-in-chief Ben Bradlee - he began to uncover the facts about the arrested men. An informant (“deep throat”) helped the journalists by confirming the respective research results or telling them if they were on the wrong track. The man's identity was kept secret for 33 years. It was not until May 31, 2005, through an article in the American magazine Vanity Fair , that it was about Mark Felt , at the time number two in the FBI. Felt and Woodward arranged regular secret meetings in an underground car park to exchange information.

Nixon consults with Kissinger (November 1971)

The President tried unsuccessfully to call in the CIA in order to delay the investigation of the Federal Police FBI by asserting national security interests. In fact, the crime, along with numerous other "dirty tricks", was planned by the White House by CRP chairman and Attorney General John N. Mitchell, on the orders of President Nixon. A special investigation unit had been set up by the White House since 1971. This was the aforementioned group of "plumbers", under the direction of Gordon Liddy and Howard Hunt , who investigated information leaks and carried out various operations against the Democrats. The fulcrum of the company was Nixon's paranoia about the Democratic campaign manager, Larry O'Brien , who had been on the payroll of billionaire Howard Hughes since 1968 , from whom Nixon himself had received donations and bribes on several occasions. His presidential candidacy failed in 1960 because of a fundraising affair in which Hughes and Nixon's brother Donald were involved. Hence, Nixon feared that O'Brien had inside knowledge that could ruin Nixon's reputation. The president ordered the wiretapping in the Watergate complex to find out how dangerous O'Brien could be.

Court hearings

On January 8, 1973, the intruders were tried along with Liddy and Hunt. All but McCord and Liddy pleaded guilty and all were found guilty of conspiracy , burglary and wiretapping . The defendants were paid to plead guilty, but no further statements to make. This so enraged Judge John Sirica (also known as Maximum John for his unforgiving sentences) that he pronounced 30-year prison sentences (as a comparison: a murderer got 20 to 25 years at the time and could expect his release after 15 years) , however, indicated that he would reconsider his judgment if the defendants were more cooperative. McCord then agreed to work together, accusing the president re-election committee and admitting perjury . So instead of ending the trial, the investigations were expanded. The Senate set up the Watergate Committee to investigate the Watergate scandal, and White House staff members began to be summoned.

Investigations around the president

On April 30, Nixon was forced to persuade two of his most influential advisers to resign: HR "Bob" Haldeman (White House Chief of Staff) and John Ehrlichman (Internal Affairs Adviser). Both were sentenced to prison shortly afterwards. Nixon also fired White House legal advisor John Dean , who had agreed to cooperate with the prosecution and would later become a key witness against Nixon himself when he appeared before the Senate Watergate Committee. On the same day, Nixon named Elliot L. Richardson, a new attorney general, and gave him the authority to appoint a special prosecutor for the growing investigation into the Watergate affair. Richardson took Nixon to assure him that the special prosecutor (who would be institutionally under the Justice Department) would have a free hand in the Watergate investigation. On May 18, Richardson appointed Harvard law professor Archibald Cox to this post. The televised Senate hearings had started the day before. Seven advisers to President Nixon were convicted and convicted on March 1, 1974, of their roles in the Watergate scandal of conspiracy and obstruction of justice.

The tapes

The hearings, conducted by the U.S. Senate's Watergate Committee, in which Dean gave a devastating testimony as the lead witness along with many other key former Nixon government officials, televised for most of the summer of 1973 and caused catastrophic political damage for Nixon. Senate investigators discovered a crucial fact on July 16: Alexander Butterfield , who until December 1972 was one of the few employees of Nixon's chief of staff Haldeman who had been privy to this closely guarded secret, testified that there was a tape system in the White House automatically recorded everything that was said in the Oval Office. These tapes, the investigators concluded, could reveal whether Nixon or Dean were telling the truth about the key White House meetings. The tapes were then requested by both Cox and the Senate for confiscation . Nixon stated, however, that direct access by the judiciary or parliamentary committee to tape recordings of the president would constitute an unjustified encroachment on his powers as executive privilege and thus a violation of the separation of powers .

A month-long tug of war developed over the release of the tapes, in which Nixon wanted to influence Cox with the aim of dropping his demand for confiscation. Finally, on October 19, 1973, the president offered a compromise under which he respected Senator John C. Stennis , a conservative Southern Democrat, would listen to the tapes and summarize their contents for Cox in writing (Stennis compromise). However, Cox immediately rejected the offer, whereupon Nixon asked on October 20, 1973, a Saturday when Prime Minister Justice Elliot Richardson to remove the Special Prosecutor from office. Referring to Nixon's earlier promise to give the investigator a free hand, Richardson said he could not do so and resigned from his position. Thereupon Nixon ordered the deputy and now acting Attorney General William Ruckelshaus to implement his order, but this also refused and was dismissed by Nixon. Only the third man in the ranks of the Justice Department, Solicitor General Robert Bork , found himself willing to accept the President's orders and dismiss Cox. The dramatic events of October 20, 1973 were quickly characterized by the media as the " Saturday Night Massacre " and sparked a wave of outrage among the American public. In the days that followed, numerous MPs in Congress launched legislative initiatives aimed at the impeachment of Nixon.

While Nixon continued to refuse to hand over the tapes, he consented to handing over copies of a large number of tapes. For the most part, they confirmed Dean's statements. Nixon eventually lost the United States v. Nixon and had to surrender the tapes. As a result, it was discovered that a critical portion of a tape that had never left White House custody had been erased.

Nixon had by no means invented the system with the ribbons himself; he found the system when he took office. First he had it dismantled. It was later reinstalled - as he said - to use the tapes in writing his memoir. John Ehrlichman says in his memoir, however, that Nixon had the system reinstalled in order to be able to document his share in foreign policy against Henry Kissinger's claim. The swear words that he used now and then were also accused. Nobody said that his predecessor, Lyndon B. Johnson , far surpassed him in this respect. It is astonishing that the poor quality of the tape recordings was only noticed during the investigation. Even experts often disagreed about what was said and who said it. Obviously no one - not even Nixon - had ever bothered to check that the system was working.

Some of the tape recordings were released in 2011.

Impeachment and resignation

Nixon left the White House with Army One on August 9, 1974 after his resignation speech

In 1974, the House of Representatives began formal investigations into the impeachment of the President based on the Special Counsel's report. Previously, Vice President Spiro Agnew , against whom allegations of corruption had been raised, had been urged to resign; his successor was Gerald Ford . The first article of the law was passed by the United States House Committee on the Judiciary on July 27, 1974, by 27 votes to 11, days after the Supreme Court unanimously ruled Nixon's claims in the tape recordings. Three additional articles on obstructing the judiciary's investigation into the original Watergate break-in and the investigation into the illegal use of campaign funds were also passed.

In August, a previously unknown tape from June 23, 1972, just a few days after the Watergate break-in, was published in which Nixon and his chief of staff Haldeman forged a plan to block the investigation for fictitious reasons of national security. This tape was called the "Smoking Gun", so as irrefutable proof. Due to the weight of this final piece of evidence, Nixon has now been abandoned by his last remaining followers. The ten congressmen who had previously voted against the impeachment article in committee have now announced that they will support the impeachment in their home. Nixon's support in the Senate was also now very weak.

Resignation from Richard Nixon
Gerald Ford announced Nixon's pardon in September 1974

On August 7, 1974, Senator Barry Goldwater , the influential Conservative leader in Congress, told Nixon that he would no longer support him and that there was a majority in the House of Representatives for condemnation. Goldwater later recalled that Nixon had acted strangely at the meeting, especially that his fake good mood was noticeable and unsettling. As early as December 1973, after an appointment with the President, Goldwater had noted in his diary: "I have reason to believe that mentally everything is not in order in the White House" and that Nixon was close to collapse. Other top politicians, such as Defense Secretary James R. Schlesinger, were also concerned about Nixon's mental state. Eventually Richard Nixon stepped down as president on August 9th.

Ultimately, Nixon was not removed from office and never convicted, as his resignation ended the impeachment process and his Vice President and successor Gerald Ford, after only a few weeks in the new office , issued a pardon for Nixon on September 8, 1974 .

Consequences and public intake

Political Impact

The Watergate scandal continued to have consequences even after President Nixon's resignation. Indirectly, Watergate was the reason for new laws that led to dramatic changes in campaign funding. Watergate was also a major contributor to the passage of both the Freedom of Information Act and new laws requiring government officials to disclose their finances. Although not required by law, the public has been expecting other forms of disclosure since the affair, such as: B. the publication of tax returns from politicians.

Knowing that he was way ahead of his opponent George McGovern in the 1972 presidential election , Nixon declined to debate with his political opponent. No presidential candidate after him was able to turn down such debates.

Many presidents since Franklin D. Roosevelt had recorded their conversations, but this practice was effectively abolished after the Watergate scandal.

A few months after Nixon's resignation, in November 1974, midterm elections were scheduled for rotation . Although losses by the presidential party in midterm elections are not uncommon in American history , the Democrats, who had a majority in both chambers before the elections, recorded significant gains in the elections. In the House of Representatives, the Democrats were even able to achieve a two-thirds majority . Attempts by many Republican candidates to distance themselves from Nixon and Watergate also had little effect. Democrats, first elected in the 1974 election, were quickly dubbed Watergate Babies by the American public . The power shift in Congress was of great domestic and foreign policy importance and had a decisive influence on the policies of the new President Gerald Ford.

Since the term Watergate is inextricably linked to extensive political conspiracies, it is often transferred to other political scandals, for example the Whitewater affair (real estate scandal of the Bill Clintons family ), which became the "Whitewatergate" in the media. Many other political (and non-political) scandals in the USA and around the world were and are based on this with names ending in "-gate" (e.g. Monicagate , Nipplegate or Waterkantgate for the Barschel affair ).

media

Watergate ushered in a new era in which the mass media became much more aggressive, but also more cynical in terms of political reporting. A new generation of journalists who wanted to become the new Woodward and Bernstein themselves devoted themselves to investigative journalism in the hopes of uncovering new political scandals.

In 1976 turned Alan J. Pakula on a book by Woodward and Bernstein on the Watergate scandal the film All the President's Men (German title: The Untouchables ). Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman played the two reporters in it.

Robert Altman made the film Secret Honor in 1984 ; In a chamber play-like format, it develops how the affair could have presented itself from Richard Nixon's point of view.

Directed by Oliver Stone , the film Nixon, starring Anthony Hopkins as Nixon, was released in 1995 .

Numerous other films that are not directly concerned with Watergate also refer - mostly satirically - to the affair. For example, Tom Hanks as Forrest Gump innocently complains that he cannot sleep due to activities in the Watergate building across the street. On the Rocky Horror Picture Show , Brad and Janet listen to Richard Nixon's farewell speech on their car radio as they drive through the rain. On February 5th, 2009 the film Frost / Nixon was released in Germany, which also deals with the Watergate affair; Directed by Ron Howard . The film was first seen on October 15, 2008 at the London Film Festival.

The Dead Kennedys song I Am The Owl deals in part with the Watergate affair. The text says: “I am your plumber (plumber) […] I still bug your bedrooms” or “Watergate hurt; But nothing really ever changed; A teeny bit quieter; But we still play our little games ".

Exposure of Deep Throat

In February 2005 (Mark Felt was 91 years old) reports in the media suggested that Deep Throat was sick and near death. Bob Woodward is also said to have written an obituary for Deep Throat and informed colleagues at the Washington Post about it. When Vanity Fair published the story about Deep Throat in May 2005, Woodward finally confirmed that Felt is Deep Throat.

Because he had passed on his information at the time for moral and patriotic reasons, Mark Felt was then referred to by his family in public statements as "American hero" ("American hero"). However, media commentators suspected that since he was not appointed as his successor as FBI director after Hoover's death, thoughts of revenge against Nixon also led Felt to act in this way. Others said that Felt's motivation was to be found in his institutional loyalty to the FBI, because many officials believed that the Watergate affair showed the independence of the FBI.

Mark Felt has meanwhile sold the film rights to his story to Tom Hanks and in May 2006 published a partly biographical, partly autobiographical book entitled A G-Man's Life . On December 18, 2008, Mark Felt died of heart failure at his Santa Rosa , California home at the age of 95.

Finally, in 2017, a feature film with Liam Neeson as Felt came out called The Secret Man .

Retrospective evaluation

On the 40th anniversary in June 2012, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward published a joint article in the Washington Post for the first time in 36 years. In it they summarized their experiences with Nixon and the affair. They found that illegal practices that systematically violate democratic processes and civil liberties had become the practice of Nixon's government long before Watergate. Nixon and his team waged a five-fold war: against the protests of the Vietnam War, against the media, against the political opponents (Democratic Party), against the judiciary and against history as such, by Nixon systematically since his resignation and until his death tried to disguise connections. The title of the article was: Woodward and Bernstein: Forty Years After Watergate, Nixon was far worse than we thought .

Persons involved in the Watergate affair

literature

  • Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward: The Watergate Affair . Droemer Knaur, Munich a. a. 1974, ISBN 3-426-00362-7 .
  • Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward: American Nightmare - The Inglorious End of the Nixon Era . (Original title: The Final Days ). European Publishing House, 1976, ISBN 3-434-00227-8 .
  • Fred Emery: Watergate - The Corruption of American Politics and the Fall of Richard Nixon . Touchstone, New York 1990 (English)
  • John W. Dean : The Nixon Defense. What He Knew And When He Knew It . Viking, New York. 747 pages, 2014 (English)
  • Christopher Hitchens: The Trial of Henry Kissinger . Verso, London and New York 2001 (English)
  • Joan Hoff: Nixon Reconsidered . Basic Books, New York 1994 (English)
  • Stanley L. Kutler: The Wars of Watergate - The Last Crisis of Richard Nixon . Knopf, New York 1990 (English)
  • Louis W. Liebovich: Richard Nixon, Watergate, and the Press: A Historical Retrospective. Praeger, Westport 2003, ISBN 978-0-275-97915-7 , (English)
  • J. Anthony Lukas: Nightmare - The Underside of the Nixon Years . Viking, New York 1976 (English)
  • Dan Rather and Gary Paul Gates: The Palace Guard . Harper & Row, New York 1974 (English)
  • Michael Schudson: Watergate in American Memory - How We Remember, Forget, and Reconstruct the Past . BasicBooks, New York 1992 (English)
  • Bob Woodward: The Informant - Deep Throat, the secret source of the Watergate revealers . DVA, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-421-05928-4 .
  • Friedrich Karl Kaul: Watergate. A sign for the USA . 2nd edition, Verlag Das Neue Berlin, Berlin 1977 (first edition 1976) License no. 409-160 / 151/77 LSV 7004
  • Tim Weiner: A Man Against the World, Rise and Fall of Richard Nixon . S. Fischer Verlag GmbH, Frankfurt am Main 2016, ISBN 978-3-10-002462-6 .

Web links

Commons : Watergate Affair  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ So the definition of the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act (PRAMPA) of 1974, 44 USC § 2111, Sec. 104 (a) (1) .
  2. ↑ James McCord, head of security at CREEP , had hired four Cubans in exile for this purpose: Bernhard “Macho” Barker, Eugenio Martínez, Virgilio Gonzales and Frank Sturgis. Tim Weiner, A Man Against the World , ISBN 978-3-10-002462-6 .
  3. ↑ Edward Jay Epstein: "Did the Press Uncover Watergate?", Commentary, July 1974, pp. 21–4 ( online (English))
  4. ↑ Michael Schudson: Watergate in American Memory: How We Remember, Forget, and Reconstruct the Past, New York: BasicBooks, 1992, esp. Pp. 69–82 and 103–126, quotation p. 126 (English)
  5. ^ Nixon Presidential Materials - About Watergate-Related Tapes ( Memento June 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ↑ The best known "revisionist" Watergate representations are: Jim Hougan, Secret Agenda: Watergate, Deep Throat and the CIA, New York: Ballantine Books, 1984; Len Colodny and Robert Gettlin, Silent Coup: The Removal of a President, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991 (all English)
  7. ↑ AP / dpa / sueddeutsche.de: Permit, Deep Throat. For more than three decades, it was one of the best-kept secrets in US history, now it's out. “Deep Throat” - the anonymous informant whose revelations sparked the Watergate scandal and led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon - has been given a name. Süddeutsche Zeitung , May 17, 2010, accessed on June 22, 2015 .
  8. ^ Nixon Presidential Library & Museum ( transcription , online ( memento of October 15, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), English).
  9. ↑ The report was made public in October 2018, see Benjamin Wittes: The Watergate Road Map Unsealed. In: Lawfare , October 31, 2018.
  10. ^ Committee on the Judiciary (ed.): History of the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives, February 1982 . United States Government Printing Office , Washington 1982. p. 32 (English)
  11. ^ Anthony Summers: The Arrogance of Power. The Secret World of Richard Nixon. Penguin, New York 2000 ISBN 0-14-02-6078-1 , pp. 462f. and p. 482 (English)
  12. ↑ 1974 Midterms Bolster Liberalism in Congress , information text from Ashbrook University (English)
  13. ^ John Robert Greene: The presidency of Gerald R. Ford . University of Lawrence: Press of Kansas, 1995, ISBN 0-7006-0639-4 , ISBN 0-7006-0638-6 , pp. 54 ff (English)
  14. ↑ Tim Weiner : W. Mark Felt, Watergate Deep Throat, Dies at 95. In: The New York Times . December 19, 2008, accessed December 20, 2008 .
  15. ^ Peter Landesman: Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House. September 29, 2017. Retrieved November 1, 2017 .
  16. ↑ Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward: Woodward and Bernstein: 40 years after Watergate, Nixon was far worse than we thought , Washington Post, June 8, 2012 (English)