This research paper examines the origins, evolution, resolution and consequences of the Watergate crisis of 1972-1974.
The series of abuses of power, which surfaced during the Watergate crisis, tested the viability of the American system of constitutional and representative government. They arose out of, and were facilitated by, significant changes in the American body politic, which began in the mid-1960s. And continued into the 1970Æs coalescing around President Richard Nixon's attempt to use the powers of the presidency, illegally and unethically, to achieve his domestic political and foreign policy objectives, especially with regard to the Vietnam War. Nixon's mindset and style of presidential leadership played a key role in setting the crisis in motion, covering up the excesses of his administration, and ultimately in resolving it short of a constitutional confrontation. The checks and balances of the American system of government proved strong and resilient enough to prevail, but many other factors, including luck and Nixon's own ineptness, were involved in his downfall. The most obvious legacies of Watergate were a decline in public trust in government and a weakening of the presidency. Watergate inspired many governmental reforms, most of which have had only limited effects on ameliorating some fundamental imbalances in the American political system which remain.
After Nixon was narrowly elected President in 1968, he stepped into a presidency the powers of which had been enormously expanded as a result of economic dislocations, two world wars and the Cold War. At the same time, according to Kutler, "Nixon had . . . inherited a vastly weakened and increasingly vulnerable presidency" (The Wars 10). The nation had passed through the turbulent decade of the 1960s which was marked by political assassinations, the civil rights struggle, racial violence, rising urban crime, and the divisive domestic effects of the Vietna...