6859836513 | Topic: Nixon political career Source: watergate.info | 1947- House of Representatives. 1952- Dwight Eisenhower's vice-presidential running mate Scandal that led to the infamous Checkers Speech. Vice-President for eight years lost the 1960 election to John F. Kennedy. chosen again as the Republican Party's candidate at the 1968 election. Nixon became the nation's 37th President on January 20, 1969. He delivered his 'Silent Majority' speech on the Vietnam War, articulating his belief that the bulk of the American people supported his policies and programs. Won landslide re-election. He was sworn in for a second term in January 1973 | 0 | |
6859836514 | Topic: Nixon during the scanal Source: watergate.info | Nixon made three major speeches on the Watergate scandal during 1973 and 1974. April 30, 1973- he announced the departure of Dean, Haldeman and Ehrlichman. August 15, 1973 April 29, 1974- Nixon released partial transcripts of the White House tapes. | 1 | |
6859836515 | Topic: Investigations Source: watergate.info | Initial investigations of Watergate- media, Washington Post, Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein, Deep Throat. Political investigations- February 1973- Senate established a Committee to investigate the Watergate scandal. The public hearings of the Committee- evidence of John Dean, Nixon's former White House Counsel. The Committee uncovered the existence of the secret White House tape recordings- political and legal battle between the Congress and the President. 1974- the House of Representatives authorized the Judiciary Committee to consider impeachment proceedings against Nixon. | 2 | |
6859836516 | Topic: Nixon's resignation Source: watergate.info | The House Judiciary Committee voted to accept three of four proposed Articles of Impeachment, Decision by the Supreme Court to order Nixon to release more White House tapes. 'smoking gun' tape- revealed that Nixon had participated in the Watergate cover-up as far back as June 23, 1972. There were calls for Nixon to resign. August 8, 1974- Nixon resignation speech. The next day, he sent his resignation letter to the Secretary of State, Dr. Henry Kissinger. | 3 | |
6859836517 | Topic: Causes of Burglaries Source: watergate.info | The New York Times begins publishing the Pentagon Papers - the Defense Department's secret history of the Vietnam War. The Washington Post begins publishing the papers later in the week. | 4 | |
6859836518 | Topic: Burglary Source: watergate.info | The White House "plumbers" unit - named for their orders to plug leaks in the administration - burglarizes a psychiatrist's office to find files on Daniel Ellsberg, the former defense analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers. | 5 | |
6859836519 | Topic: Burglary Source: Washington Post | Five men, one of whom says he used to work for the CIA, are arrested at 2:30 a.m. trying to bug the offices of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate hotel and office complex. A GOP security aide is one of the Watergate burglars. Former attorney general John Mitchell, head of the Nixon reelection campaign, denies any link to the operation. | 6 | |
6859836520 | Topic: Aftermath of burglary Source: Washington Post | A $25,000 cashier's check,presumably for the Nixon campaign, wound up in the bank account of a Watergate burglar. FBI agents establish that the Watergate break-in stems from a massive campaign of political spying and sabotage conducted on behalf of the Nixon reelection effort. | 7 | |
6859836521 | Topic: Aftermath of burglary Source: Washington Post | Former Nixon aides G. Gordon Liddy and James W. McCord Jr. are convicted of conspiracy, burglary and wiretapping in the Watergate incident. Five other men plead guilty. Nixon's top White House staffers, H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, and Attorney General Richard Kleindienst resign over the scandal. White House counsel John Dean is fired. | 8 | |
6859836522 | Topic: Investigation Source: watergate.info | The Senate Watergate committee begins its nationally televised hearings. Attorney General-designate Elliot Richardson taps former solicitor general Archibald Cox as the Justice Department's special prosecutor for Watergate. John Dean has told Watergate investigators that he discussed the Watergate cover-up with President Nixon at least 35 times. | 9 | |
6859836523 | Topic: Investigation Source: watergate.info | Watergate prosecutors find a memo addressed to John Ehrlichman describing in detail the plans to burglarize the office of Pentagon Papers defendant Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist. Alexander Butterfield, former presidential appointments secretary, reveals in congressional testimony that since 1971 Nixon had recorded all conversations and telephone calls in his offices. | 10 | |
6859836524 | Topic: Coverup Source: watergate.info | Nixon reportedly orders the White House taping system disconnected. Nixon refuses to turn over the presidential tape recordings to the Senate Watergate committee or the special prosecutor. | 11 | |
6859836525 | Topic: Coverup Source: history.com | Saturday Night Massacre: Nixon fires Archibald Cox and abolishes the office of the special prosecutor. Attorney General Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William D. Ruckelshaus resign. Pressure for impeachment increases in Congress. | 12 | |
6859836526 | Topic: Coverup Source: history.com | Nixon declares, "I'm not a crook," maintaining his innocence in the Watergate case. The White House can't explain an 18 1/2 -minute gap in one of the subpoenaed tapes. Chief of staff Alexander Haig says one theory is that "some sinister force" erased the segment. | 13 | |
6859836527 | Topic: Coverup Source: history.com | The White House releases more than 1,200 pages of edited transcripts of the Nixon tapes to the House Judiciary Committee, but the committee insists that the tapes themselves must be turned over. The Supreme Court rules unanimously that Nixon must turn over the tape recordings of 64 White House conversations, rejecting the president's claims of executive privilege. | 14 | |
6859836528 | Topic: Nixon's resignation Source: watergate.info | House Judiciary Committee passes the first of three articles of impeachment, charging obstruction of justice. Richard Nixon becomes the first U.S. president to resign. Vice President Gerald R. Ford assumes the country's highest office. He will later pardon Nixon of all charges related to the Watergate case. | 15 | |
6859836529 | Topic: Pardon Source: history.com | Richard Nixon was granted a "full, free and absolute pardon" by his successor as president, Gerald Ford.A Memorandum from within the office of the Watergate Special Prosecutor, Leon Jaworski on the day Nixon resigned weighed up the arguments for and against prosecution. However, President Ford decided to pardon his predecessor. He made a television address on September 8, 1974 to give his reasons for the pardon proclamation. | 16 | |
6859836530 | Topic: Nixon's resignation Source: House Resolution 803, pbs.org | "RESOLVED, That the Committee on the Judiciary acting as a whole or by any subcommittee thereof appointed by the Chairman for the purposes hereof and in accordance with the Rules of the Committee, is authorized and directed to investigate fully and completely whether sufficient grounds exist for the House of Representatives to exercise its constitutional power to impeach Richard M. Nixon, President of the United States of America. The committee shall report to the House of Representatives such resolutions, articles of impeachment, or other recommendations as it deems proper." | 17 | |
6859836531 | Topic: Nixon's resignation Source: watergate.info | In 1974, the House Judiciary Committee recommended Articles of Impeachment to the full House of Representatives, but Nixon resigned before the House voted on the Articles. Nixon was not impeached during the Watergate scandal. | 18 | |
6859836532 | Topic: Watergate speeches Source: watergate.info | President Nixon used his first televised Watergate speech to announce the departure of several members of his staff. The resignations of John Ehrlichman, Bob Haldeman, Richard Kleindeinst and John Dean were all announced in this speech. | 19 | |
6859836533 | Topic: Watergate Speeches Source: watergate.info | Nixon delivered his second speech on Watergate just over three months the first. Nixon tried to explain the executive privilege argument about the Watergate tapes and decried the nation's "backward-looking obsession with Watergate". | 20 | |
6859836534 | Topic: Watergate Speeches Source: watergate.info | President Nixon used his third address to the nation on Watergate to release edited transcripts of the White House tapes. | 21 | |
6859836535 | Topic: Coverup- Tapes Source: watergate.info | Smoking Gun Tape- Nixon released the tape on August 5, 1974. It was one of three conversations he had with Haldeman six days after the Watergate break-in. The tapes prove that he ordered a cover-up of the Watergate burglary. The Smoking Gun tape reveals that Nixon ordered the FBI to abandon its investigation of the break-in. Nixon resigned three days later. | 22 | |
6859836536 | Topic: US v Nixon Source: casebriefs.com | The special prosecutor in the Watergate scandal subpoenaed tape recordings made of President Nixon (the "President") discussing the scandal with some of his advisers. The President claimed executive privilege as his basis for refusing to turn over the tapes. | 23 | |
6859836537 | Topic: US v Nixon Source: casebrief.com | Decision- The special prosecutor in the Watergate scandal subpoenaed tape recordings made of President Nixon (the "President") discussing the scandal with some of his advisers. The President claimed executive privilege as his basis for refusing to turn over the tapes. | 24 | |
6859836538 | Topic: Investigation Source; Washington Post | May 31, 2005- Vanity Fair magazine identified a former top FBI official named Mark Felt as Deep Throat, the secret source who helped Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncover the Watergate conspiracy. | 25 | |
6859836539 | Topic: Investigation Source: Washington Post | Bernstein and Woodward were two investigative journalists for the Washington Post, who investigated the Watergate burglary and tied it to Nixon. Their role was very important, and very possibly without them, the investigation would have been silenced or nonexistent. | 26 | |
6859836540 | Topic: Burglary Source: watergate.info | Frank Wills was a young security guard on duty at the Watergate complex on June 17, 1972. It was the alertness of Wills that led to the apprehension and arrest of the Watergate burglars | 27 | |
6859836541 | Topic: Nixon's Resignation Source: pbs.org | "In all the decisions I have made in my public life, I have always tried to do what was best for the Nation. Throughout the long and difficult period of Watergate, I have felt it was my duty to persevere, to make every possible effort to complete the term of office to which you elected me. In the past few days, however, it has become evident to me that I no longer have a strong enough political base in the Congress to justify continuing that effort. As long as there was such a base, I felt strongly that it was necessary to see the constitutional process through to its conclusion, that to do otherwise would be unfaithful to the spirit of that deliberately difficult process and a dangerously destabilizing precedent for the future. But with the disappearance of that base, I now believe that the constitutional purpose has been served, and there is no longer a need for the process to be prolonged." | 28 | |
6859836542 | Topic: Watergate Speeches Source: authentichistory.com | "These actions will at last, once and for all, show that what I knew and what I did with regard to the Watergate break-in and coverup were just as I have described them to you from the very beginning." | 29 |
AP US history notecards: watergate Flashcards
Primary tabs
Need Help?
We hope your visit has been a productive one. If you're having any problems, or would like to give some feedback, we'd love to hear from you.
For general help, questions, and suggestions, try our dedicated support forums.
If you need to contact the Course-Notes.Org web experience team, please use our contact form.
Need Notes?
While we strive to provide the most comprehensive notes for as many high school textbooks as possible, there are certainly going to be some that we miss. Drop us a note and let us know which textbooks you need. Be sure to include which edition of the textbook you are using! If we see enough demand, we'll do whatever we can to get those notes up on the site for you!