The Watergate Affair and its aftermath Exam Questions and Answers
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Watergate
Institution
Watergate
What is Watergate? - Answer-1)Watergate is an office complex in Washington DC that housed Democrat National Committee (DNC) headquarters.
2)It has also developed into a shorthand that sums up Nixon's illegal actions while president.
What experiences and advicers did Nixon have which made many t...
The Watergate Affair and its aftermath
Exam Questions and Answers
What is Watergate? - Answer-1)Watergate is an office complex in Washington DC that
housed Democrat National Committee (DNC) headquarters.
2)It has also developed into a shorthand that sums up Nixon's illegal actions while
president.
What experiences and advicers did Nixon have which made many think it was not
surprising that Watergate occurred? - Answer-1)The employment of vindictive cynics
such as Mitchell, Haldeman and Ehrlichman was disastrous as they helped bring out the
worst in him.
2)Nixon felt robbed of the presidency in 1960 by dubious electoral practices in Mayor
Daley's Chicago and Lyndon Johnson's Texas (Eisenhower wanted him to contest the
issue but he did not want to destabilise the nation).
3)Nixon had suffered vindictive cynicism under the Kennedy administration, which had
harassed him with an IRS (Internal Revenue Service, the US tax collection agency)
audit and an investigation into a loan to his brother and probably bugged his phone.
Who were important individuals in the Watergate affair? - Answer-Haldeman,
Ehrlichman and Mitchell were the main other important individuals included:
1)John Dean: White House Counsel from 1970, he gave Nixon legal advice over
Watergate.
2)Jeb Magruder: appointed special assistant to Nixon in 1969, he encouraged positive
phone calls and telegrams to the White House whenever the president felt in need of
support and worked closely with Haldeman and with Mitchell in CREEP.
3)James McCord: an ex-FBI and CIA employee, appointed security director of CREEP
in 1972.
4)Charles Colson: appointed as counsel to Nixon in 1969 then worked on CREEP.
Colson was very loyal to Nixon, Ehrlichman said that "if Nixon said "go blow up the
Capitol", Colson would salute and buy loads of dynamite".
5)Gordon Libby: campaigned for Nixon in 1968 and joined the White House staff in
1971, and ran CREEP's surveillance. He suggested electronic eavesdropping,
kidnapping of political opponents, disruption of Democratic political meetings and
employing prostitutes to compromise Democratic delegates to the National Convention.
He was one of the "plumbers" and organised the break in of Daniel Ellsberg's
psychiatrist's office with Hunt. When the Watergate Scandal broke, Liddy held a lighted
candle to his arm to show a lawyer that nothing could make him "spill the beans".
6)E. Howard Hunt: was a writer of spy novels, appointed to the White House staff by
Colson and Ehrlichman after his retirement from the CIA in 1971. Working under Liddy
he was a member of the "plumbers" whose job was to stop white house leaks.
Who were the White House Special Investigation Unit? What were the Pentagon
papers? - Answer-1)the White House Special Investigation Unit, were better known as
, the plumbers and were those on the White House staff whose job was to halt leaks of
information.
2)It was set up in summer 1971 after Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers.
3)The Pentagon Papers was the name given to a secret Department of Defense study
of U.S. political and military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967, prepared at the
request of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in 1967. As the Vietnam War
dragged on and the U.S. military presence in South Vietnam increased to more than
500,000 troops by 1968, the military analyst Daniel Ellsberg (who had worked on the
study) came to oppose the war, and decided that the information contained in the
Pentagon Papers should be more widely available to the American public.
4) He secretly photocopied the report and in March 1971 gave the copy to The New
York Times, which subsequently published a series of articles based on the report's
findings.
What did nixon do as he was not confident of Victory? - Answer-1)In 1972 the
administrations main preoccupation was the 1972 presidential election.
2)Nixon was not confident of victory because many disliked his prolongation of the
Vietnam War. As a result he set up CREEP.
What was CREEP and what did it get involved in? - Answer-the Committee for the Re-
election of the President (CREEP) did the following:
1)Illegal fundraising-it collected over $60 million in campaign contributions. For
example, the chairman of Mc Donald's donated $255,000 and so was allowed to
continue an unauthorised price increase on a quarter pounder cheeseburger.
2)Political subversion- CREEP worked to discredit moderate Democratic candidates
such as Senator Edmund Muskie (misled the Press into to thinking he had insulted
Canucks, french canadians).
2)Criminal Surveillance-notably in the office of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist and in the
DNC headquarters in the Watergate building.
What did Nixon do as he was concerned information on the Vietnam war was being
leaked? What did Nixon think about the powers of the President? - Answer-1)The Nixon
administration ordered the FBI to wiretap 11 officials (Including the Secretaries of State
and Defence ), 4 journalists and Don Nixon.
2)Nixon said that nothing the president ordered done on grounds of internal order and
national security could be considered illegal.
Why did Nixon want to discredit Ellsberg? What did the Plumbers do when they took
matters into their own hands? - Answer-1)Although they made the Democratic
presidents look disreputable over Vietnam, Kissinger convinced Nixon that national
security required that classified documents always be kept secret.
2)Fearing more leaks, Nixon sought to discredit Ellsberg. The FBI refused to tap
Ellsberg's phone and to undertake surveillance, so the "plumbers" along with Liddy,
Hunt and Colson were set up to do this.
3)The "plumbers" broke into the Los Angeles office of Ellsberg's psychiatrist on 3rd
September 1971, but found nothing to discredit Ellsberg Liddy and Hunt had borrowed
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