Watergate: A Brief History with Documents

Watergate: A Brief History with Documents places the reader at the epicenter of one of the most significant political scandals in American history. Watergate represented a constitutional crisis on a scale not experienced since the Civil War, and the documents included in this volume capture the powerful emotions of this crucial moment, revealing the partisan politics that were at play and the extraordinary efforts of participants to bring the episode to a conclusion without causing permanent damage to the Constitution.

The documents include excerpts from speeches, news conferences, congressional testimony, memos, and court rulings. Transcripts of tapes involving the White House staff, President Richard Nixon, members of Congress, the CIA, and FBI, and others are supplemented with transcripts of recently released tapes that reveal Nixon′s innermost thoughts and reactions to events as they unfolded, including his awareness of the identity of the anonymous source known as Deep Throat. This book serves as a powerful lesson in how American law and politics work and will resonate deeply with all readers, especially a new generation unfamiliar with the constitutional crisis that shook our nation and ultimately toppled a presidency.

Acknowledgments vii

The Cast of Characters viii

Introduction 1

Watergate: A Brief History 5

I Richard Nixon: At Work and in His Own Words 9

Acceptance Speech: 1968 9

The Personality of the President 10

The Man on Top 12

II The White House Horrors 19

Plumbers and Enemies 19

III The Watergate Break–In 31

The Burglary 31

The Role of the President s Campaign Committee 34

What Did the White House Know? 36

The White House Reacts: Private and Public Comment 37

IV Cover–Up! The White House Responds 41

The Smoking Gun : Using the CIA 41

The Money Trail 47

Stonewalling and Perjury 59

V The Conspiracy Unravels: Judge Sirica, the Ellsberg Case, the Senate, and the Special Prosecutor 75

Fatal White House Leaks 75

Sirica and McCord 76

Defections: Dean and Magruder 79

The Ellsberg Case 82

Nixon Responds 87

The President and His Men: Taped Conversations, February April 1973 90

Haldeman and Ehrlichman Resign 109

The Special Prosecutor 111

The Special Prosecutor: Nixon s Reaction 114

The Special Prosecutor Takes Over 117

Senate Select Committee: John Dean 117

Senate Select Committee: Ehrlichman and Haldeman 122

Senate Select Committee: Revelation of the Tapes 131

VI The Tapes and the Saturday Night Massacre 135

The Battle for the Tapes 135

The President Retreats 145

October: The Cruelest Month 148

The Saturday Night Massacre 155

The President Succumbs 156

The New Special Prosecutor 158

The 18½–Minute Tape Gap 163

VII The Final Agony: Impeachment, Resignation, Pardon 167

Nixon Embattled 167

The Impeachment Inquiry 176

U.S. v. Nixon 190

Resignation 198

The Pardon 203

Appendix 207

Watergate Special Prosecution Force Criminal Actions Final Report, 1975 207

Bibliographical Note 219

Stanley I. Kutler is the E. Gordon Fox Professor Emeritus of American Institutions, History, and Law at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is the author of several books on American history, including Abuse of Power: The New Nixon Tapes (1997), which resulted from his successful lawsuit against the National Archives and Nixon that forced the release of the long–suppressed Watergate tapes. He is also the author of The Wars of Watergate (1990).