Harrison Breault

December 4, 2013
U.S. History Since 1877

Watergate and its Effects On America

Watergate was an event pinned in our timeline that led to doubts about our
nations safety of internal affairs and to the first and only resignation of a president. It
gave way for the Democratic Party to make way in the government and began to change
what the American people believed a president should be and represent. A first person
account of the events transpiring therein and historical articles will put this statement in
the light.
In 1971, Jeff Breault, a now retired IRS Special Agent, was a Junior in high
school in Columbia, Maryland. He and his family had just gotten back from a tour in
Turkey due to his fathers, Norman Breaults career in the U.S. Department of Defense.
They were absent for his first election, but learned that Nixon was adamant about the
defense of the country, making Norman Breault fairly biased. My mother thought Nixon
was a punk, Jeff said, and my father liked him. Because his father was already on
board with Nixon, he of course voted for him in the reelection. Nixon won in a landslide
against Senator George McGovern, It was exactly who Nixon wanted to run against,
Race was a joke because he was running against George McGovern. Jeff said, which
resulted in a landslide win of Nixon pulling in more than 60% of the vote against
McGovern even after five men broke into the Democratic National Committee. America

was still not convinced that Nixon had much to do with the Watergate scandal, even after
a $25,000 check earmarked for the Nixon reelection campaign was deposited in one of
the burglars accounts, leading to their strong favor of him. This news was reported by the
Washington Post August 1, 1973. My father thought it was bullshit, Jeff Breault said.
He used to say that he was the only one that ever voted for Nixon, because near the end
of the hearings, people would revoke statements saying they supported his campaign.
On May 18, 1973, The Senate Watergate committee begins its nationally televised
hearings. These hearing cut into the few channels that were available in the seventies,
My mother was pissed cause the hearings cut into her soap operas, Breault said. Jeff
had trouble keeping an objective point of view because of his fathers bias towards a
president that values national defense over all else. Breault relied heavily on the
Washington Post that was given out daily for free at his high school. However, the Post
came up with more and more evidence that the President had an important role in the
burglaries. On June 3rd in 1973, John Dean told investigators that he had spoken to the
President approximately thirty five times about covering up the scandal. A man with
nothing to hide should have nothing to fear from an investigation into the affair. It was
also found that Nixon had a tape recorder that rolled throughout his time spent in the
office. These tapes were perfect primary sources that could serve the jury and judge in a
case against Nixons innocence. Knowing this, Nixon refused to give up the tapes.
Instead, on April 30, 1974, the White House released 1,200 pages of edited transcripts
from the recordings to the House Judiciary Committee. The Committee believed that
edited transcripts are far from beneficial and insisted on recovering the tapes themselves.
The Supreme Court agreed and demanded the evidence be submitted. Nixon claimed

executive privilege, stating that as the president he had the power to reject the order, but
the Supreme Court overruled this. Nixons attempts to hide everything he could showed a
disrespect of freedom of information and a negligence to be honest to the people that
voted him into office. This began to change what the American populace believed a
president should be. They began to look for more honesty.
Richard Nixon was the first and only president of the United States to resign from
office. His resignation jarred the American people and took a toll on their trust towards
the government. The House and Senate were highly populated by Republicans at the time
and many were replaced by democrats; 49 in the House of Representatives and five in the
Senate, which helped start the New Right, which was a call for a change into lower taxes,
more liberal views, and less government. His successor, Gerald R. Ford, pardoned him of
all charges related to the incident. It is believed now that Nixon wasnt directly involved
in the scandal, but was the kindling that started the flame. A group of people was trying
to make sure he was reelected. The end justified the means. Did Nixon tell them exactly
what to do? No. Did Nixon want to make sure there were no surprises? Yes. He gave
them the reason to do what they did, former IRS Special Agent Jeff Breault said. They
believed what he was doing was just and patriotic. His pardon was also completely
unnecessary, He got a pardon for something he was never indicted for. It was a get out
of jail free card when he wasnt going to jail, Breault says. People shouldnt be given
pardons for crimes yet unproven. President Ford was using this as an attempt to heal
the country and disband any negative thoughts to his predecessor. As a result,
Republicans now stand by their representative and many of the accusations against them.
The Republican Party was not happy about the situation as a whole and knew that Nixon

had really screwed up, as Breault would put it. His resignation was inevitable and, in
Breaults opinion, late. Resorting to such statements as Im not a crook, shows a level
of ineptitude and a corner Nixon could not get out of. It was later found, in one of the
many tapes the White House was required to submit to the Supreme Court, that upon
learning of the burglary, Nixon held a private meeting in his office and was heard saying
Which asshole gave the order? This was not a question of why the crime was
committed, but of who initiated it.
The CIA and FBI involvement in the Watergate scandal was enormous. When the
Federal Bureau of Investigations began to look into the break in of the DNC, Nixon used
the Central Intelligence Agency as a lapdog to stop and intercept the gathering of
information. Sometimes a persons loyalty is not with the agency but with someone else
or a separate entity, Breault says. And the reverse is true as well when it came to the man
referred to as Deep Throat. In 2005, William Mark Felt, Sr. came forward as the FBI
Associate Director that was feeding inside information to Bob Woodward and Carl
Bernstein of the Washington Post. His testimony was covered by Vanity Fair magazine.
Howard Simons, the managing editor of the Washington Post during Watergate, gave his
pseudonym and the name alluded to the informants depth inside the government and a
pornographic movie that was causing a lot of controversy with the American people at the
time. At the time, many, including Breault, believed that only an FBI agent could be the
source of such details relating to the incident of Watergate. Mark Felt is credited with
being instrumental to the investigation of Watergate.
But the involvement of federal agencies did not start there. Central Intelligence
Agency employee James McCord, Jr., was part of the five-man burglary that broke into

the Democratic National Committee. At that same time, he was a security man for
President Nixons Committee to Re-elect the President, also known as CREEP. This
was the primary link to Nixon that really spawned investigations into the President and
his involvement. It was also said that a former FBI agent was also paid to monitor the
recording devices around the clock that were meant to be planted in the DNC by the five
burglars.
The Watergate scandal was one of the most influential events in the American
government that was a huge influence on media. It was the inspiration for the book All
the Presidents Men which two years later was adapted into an Academy Award winning
film. The effect it had on the American people and society as a whole was daunting. It
relinquished a lot of trust the citizens had in their government and turned many people
into skeptics when it came to different problems in the future. When asked about the
situation as a whole, Jeff Breault said, The Watergate scandal was a huge
disappointment to me. I wasnt necessarily a Republican Party supporter at the time, but
being a 16 year old coming back to America after being in Turkey for two years, I
expected the government to be pure. High school was my most influential time of
learning and my beginning of attention towards the news. Nixons presidency took my
faith in the inner workings of the government away and began my skepticism with it. It
was a low point for our society and will likely be unmatched in later terms of the
Presidents office.