(The New York Times, 2002). This caused a new furry in the public eye over how Nixon used and abused his political power.

The country followed the Watergate story evolve on television, thrusting for knowledge of what their president did or did not do in regard to the scandal. The unbelievable story slowly became obvious that President Nixon did get caught doing illegal deeds, the questions that Americans wanted answered were did he hurt our national security, did he gain monetarily by his actions and was Nixon always involved in criminal behavior throughout his entire political career.

Americans were appalled at the sheer fact that one man could bring down the office of the presidency with his own desires, and paranoia's especially in a time of war and social change. America has always believed politicians are crooked, and untrustworthy President Nixon's actions and the Watergate scandal only reinforced and deepened those ideals. A belief that is still shared by most Americans and has lasted until this day due to Nixon and Watergate (Murphy, 2000).

The Watergate case had many facets to the cover-up. The plumbers broke into the Democratic National Headquarters to smear the character of Democratic candidates, this happened on two occasions. Upon the discovery of the break-ins, President Nixon attempted to cover up the incident. Desperate, Nixon would fire John Ehrlichman, President, and Chief of the Domestic Council, and Bob Haldeman, Chief of Staff believing it would save his presidency (Pious, 2002). Tapes that Nixon claimed to be of private conversations he had in the Oval office were at issue, and after a court battle, The Supreme Court ordered Nixon to release the tapes. When the tapes were finally released, 18 minutes of silence were never explained. Putting this together would begin impeachment proceedings. With irrefutable evidence clearly stacking up against President Nixon, it finally became clear to everyone including Nixon that if he continued to fight to stay in office he would be impeached. Although Nixon stood firm that he did nothing wrong he made the decision to resign from office as on August 8, 1974. In his resignation, he explained he no longer had the political backing or support to be affective as president (Pious, 2002). The next day Gerald Ford took the oath of office and became Americas 38th President.

Many of Richard Nixon's decisions throughout his political career were made due to his own paranoia. Although not always extremely popular, Nixon did have his successes, yet, they were never enough to calm his fears of not being in control. Lessons that can be learned from Ex-President Nixon are that no one man or woman is above the law no matter his or her position in life. Watergate is a final act of a paranoid man who was, is, and will be controversial then, now and throughout history.

References

Byrnes, M. (2003). Checkers Speech. Dictionary of American History 2, Third ed. , pp. 115. Murphy, P. (2000). Watergate and the Constitution. Encyclopedia of the

American Constitution, 6. Retrieved March 27, 2009. From:

http://go.galegroup.com/ps/sta rt.do?p=GVRL&u=apollo

Pious, R. M. (2002). Nixon, Richard M. Presidents: A Reference History , pp.517-536.

Retrieved March 23. 2009. From:

http://go.galegroup.com/ps/sta rt.do?p=GVRL&u=apollo

New York Times, The. (2002). Land Mark Supreme Court Cases. United States v. Nixon

(1974). Retrieved March 27, 2009. From:

http://www.landmarkcases.org/n ixon/nixonview.html

Von Drehle, D. (June 1, 2005). FBI's No. 2 Was 'Deep Throat' Mark Felt

Ends 30-Year Mystery of The Post's Watergate Source. Washington Post.

Retrieved March 25, 2009. From:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ wpdyn/content/article/2005/0

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