By Patrick Allitt, Emory University
The Watergate scandal ruined Nixon and forced him to resign in disgrace in the summer of 1974. The greatest breakthrough in the Watergate investigations came when investigators discovered that Nixon had tape-recorded all his conversations in the Oval Office. Investigators, historians and everybody interested in Watergate have wondered why Nixon didn’t destroy the tapes.
McGovern’s Defeat
The Watergate break-in of 1972 was actually unnecessary. Nixon’s opponent in the 1972 election, George McGovern, was the weakest Democratic candidate in years, perhaps in the century. McGovern represented the Democratic left. The Democratic left certainly had a very passionate following, but only among a minority of the voters.
McGovern’s position worsened as his campaign went on because it was disclosed that his running mate, Thomas Eagleton, had had a series of electric shock therapies when he suffered from depression and, therefore, had a kind of medical liability. When the pressure got too great, McGovern dropped him and picked up Sergeant Shriver instead, a member of the big Kennedy political family. That made McGovern seem weak and indecisive.
When the election of November 1972 actually took place, it was very lopsided. There had been another very likely and viable Democratic candidate for president, Edward Kennedy, the brother of the slain former president and the slain former Attorney General, but Edward Kennedy had become politically vulnerable because of the Chappaquiddick ferry affair in 1969. A young woman whom he appeared to have been having a sexual affair with was drowned in a car that he was driving, and he fled from the scene, leaving her to her death. Ever since then, the Chappaquiddick scandal has dogged Edward Kennedy and prevented him from becoming a viable presidential candidate.
George Wallace, campaigning as one of the Democrats rather than as an independent, was shot and paralyzed during the Democratic primary campaigns, so that took him out as well, leaving McGovern in a severely compromised position which, in turn, led to a severe defeat.
This is a transcript from the video series A History of the United States, 2nd Edition. Watch it now, on Wondrium.
Nixon’s Tapes
Nixon, re-inaugurated in 1972, got into a very difficult position. While he had to appear to be prosecuting Watergate as vigorously as possible, he had to be simultaneously involved in covering it up.
Nixon’s tapes, in which he had recorded all his conversations in the Oval Office, became the highlight of the investigations.
Once the investigations had heated up, Nixon must have foreseen that the tapes were going to become a crucial part of the evidence. The reason he still didn’t destroy them may be that he was so obsessed with the idea that he was a historically vital character that he remained confident that historians would vindicate his commission of illegal acts, in view of the good ends to which they were directed.
There was also a long tradition of spying on one’s political enemies. We know that both Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy had done it as well. They’d bugged their opponents and spied on them.
Perhaps an even more intriguing question is this, though: Why had Nixon performed the bugging in the first place? Surely, Nixon was politically savvy enough to know that he would win anyway. Certainly, any Republican president, any Republican candidate, would have been jubilant at the prospect of running against George McGovern, whom all the polls showed was destined to lose.
Effect on Vietnam
In the summer of 1974, the House of Representatives prepared to indict Nixon for ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’, that is, to have him impeached. In addition, Congress denied Nixon’s appeal for renewed military efforts in Vietnam.
The agreement, which had been worked out between the Americans and South Vietnam in the north, had been violated by the north, which had invaded South Vietnam. Nixon wanted the Army to go back, to continue to shore up the South Vietnamese regime. By now, though, Congress found it to be too politically unpopular. The idea of arousing again all the demons of the late 1960s and the bitter unpopularity of this policy for a very dubious gain, the defense of South Vietnam, which can defend itself, was simply not going to happen.
Effect on Political Processes
In fact, the Watergate scandal was very disruptive to the regular political process, and hamstrung American foreign policy for two years. Faced with impeachment and the overwhelming probability that he would be convicted, Nixon finally resigned, denying to the end that he’d done anything wrong. Later on, in retirement, he wrote his memoirs and several very good books on foreign policy, demonstrating to anyone who doubted it that he was an extremely skillful and talented politician and historian, even though he also had fatal weaknesses.
Meanwhile, Vice President Gerald Ford took over until the next presidential election could take place in 1976. The reason Ford was vice president was because not only had Nixon had to resign, his vice president, Spiro Agnew, had also had to go, because further revelations by crusading journalists in the early 1970s showed that Agnew, when he’d been Governor of Maryland, had himself been accepting bribes in return for state contracts. Agnew was therefore forced to resign in disgrace first, and then Nixon. That left Gerald Ford, who had previously been a respected Michigan politician, in control, at least until the election of 1976.
The combination of the Vietnam War and then the Watergate scandal created a sour mood of suspicion and betrayal inside the United States—a very high level of popular skepticism and disillusionment. This was the era when ‘Question Authority’ stickers began to spread. By the mid-1970s, a large section of the American population, not just extremists, but even ordinary mainstream voters, woke up to the fact that, unfortunately, their own government could lie to them, and, sometimes, would do so routinely. The fact of being an important office holder did not necessarily make you a person of high principle and probity. It was a dismaying moment and a dismaying insight.
Common Questions about The Watergate Scandal: Impact on Nixon and America
The reason Nixon didn’t destroy the tapes may be because he was so obsessed with the idea that he was a historically vital character that he remained confident that historians would vindicate his commission of illegal acts, in view of the good ends to which they were directed.
In retirement, Nixon wrote his memoirs and several very good books on foreign policy.
The combination of the Vietnam War and then the Watergate scandal created a sour mood of suspicion and betrayal inside the United States. It led to a very high level of skepticism and disillusionment.
