Richard Nixon And The Watergate Scandal

Richard Nixon

Richard Nixon is known as the 37th president of the United States of America, but he is better known as the only commander-in-chief to ever resign in his position after the Watergate Scandal. He was born on January 9th, 1913 in Yorba Linda, California. Born into a poor family, he was the second of five children born to Frank Nixon and Hannah Milhouse Nixon. His father was a service station owner and grocer, who also owned a small lemon farm in Yorba Linda, and his mother was a Quaker which had a strong influence on her son. Richard Nixon got married in 1940 with Thelma Catherine ("Pat") Ryan who he met during a local community theater. After marrying, they had two daughters named Tricia and Julie. Nixon died on April 22, 1994

Pat and Nixon moved to Washington D.C in August 1942 and Nixon got a job as Franklin Roosevelt's Office of Price Administration. He then left the public service realm to join the U.S Navy. Although he saw no combat, he returned to the United States with two service stars and many commendations. Slowly but surely, he rose to the rank of lieutenant commander but resigned his commission in January 1946. Shortly after he returned to his civilian life, he was encouraged by a group of Whittier Republicans to run for Congress and won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in November 1946. In November 1952, Nixon caught the interest of Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Republican party, so he won the nomination as vice president. “Two months before the November election, the New York Post reported that Nixon had a secret "slush fund" provided by campaign donors for his personal use”(biography.com). This incident put Nixon's place in the ticket at stake and he delivered a speech on September 23, 1952 where he defended himself to try and keep his place on the

“Defeat doesn't finish a man, quit does. A man is not finished when he's defeated. He's finished when he quits.” ~ Richard Nixon and quitting is what Nixon did on August 9, 1974. The main reason for him doing so was because of the Watergate Scandal. Richard Nixon was a very paranoid man and thought that his enemies were everywhere so in the re-election in 1972, he would prove the his enemies and to the world that he was the greatest and he would stop at nothing to get to his goal. The results that came out from the re-election were amazing, he defeated George McGovern by the almost 20 million more votes which made him seem invincible at the time. During his 2 years as president, 2 reporters from the Washington Post, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein did not believe that he could win by such a milestone so they dug and dug on Richard Nixon and they found everything out about him. They found out that there was a committee made called the Committee to Re-elect the President (CRP) that was a secret committee that would break laws in order for Nixon to win the re-election. The most well known incident of the Watergate Scandal was when 3 burglars from the CRP sneaked into the Watergate complex to put tiny microphones all over the place so they could listen on what the Democrat’s strategies were so they could always be one step ahead. The burglars were not very good ones so they got caught and