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Watergate Scandal

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Watergate Scandal
The Watergate scandal is arguably the biggest scandal to come from the White House since Andrew Johnson’s impeachment in 1868. Like everything else in this world it started off small, but escalades into something bigger. It started off as a small break in, but as time progressed the American people ran into a corrupt leader in Richard Nixon. At the end of this ordeal it rendered one of the most powerful men in America helpless. For it was Nixon’s active involvement in the cover up, combined with his administrations involvement in the scandal, which led to the tumultuous downfall of his presidency and would change presidential trust forever. The Watergate scandal is one of America’s most shameful memories, but it is forever burned into our memories. On the morning of June 13, 1971 unbeknownst to the American population a transcendent moment in American history was about to take place. On this morning the New York Times published some of the Pentagon Papers released by former military analyst Daniel Ellsberg. These papers were written by former secretary of defense Robert McNamara and contained the secrets about what really happened in Vietnam. McNamara wrote over seven thousand pages and more and more was being published each day. When Nixon found this out he was absolutely infuriated. On the outside he was able to stay calm and collective. However, in reality Nixon was terrified. He was afraid because the Pentagon Papers contained the information about his secret, unauthorized bombing on North Vietnamese sanctuaries in Cambodia. President Nixon had become known for his paranoia in his tenures as president. His trend of paranoia persisted as he worried about his secret bombing being released. Even though Henry Kissinger (Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs) continuously told President Nixon that no information had been released about the bombing Nixon insisted that something must be done to stop the release of these papers. Soon before the
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