Five burglars were arrested at 2:30 a.m. on June 17, 1972 at the Watergate offices of the DNC. Bernard L. Barker, Virgilio R. Gonzales, James W. McCord, Eugenio R. Martinez, and Frank A. Sturgis were the five men charged with attempted burglary and attempted interception of telephone and other communications. Barker was a realtor from Miami, FL. He was a former Central Intelligence Agency operative who was said to have been in the Bay of Pigs incident. Gonzalez, also a Miami native, was a locksmith and a refugee from Cuba after Castro’s takeover. McCord was one of the security co-ordinator for the Republican National Committee (RNC), and the Committee for the Re-election of the President (CREEP). Before that McCord was also a former FBI and CIA agent

The next month Nixon publicizes transcripts of three conversations he had with Haldeman. The June 23 tape becomes known as The Smoking Gun because it reveals that Nixon ordered the FBI to abandon the investigation of the break-in. Later Nixon releases three more tapes that proved he ordered a cover-up of the Watergate burglary. The tapes also prove that he knew of the involvement of some White House officials and members of the Campaign for the Re-election of the President. Lastly, it revealed that Nixon did order the FBI it’s investigation of the break-in. Because of these tapes, it was clear that Nixon would be impeached and convicted in the Senate.

In May, the Senate Watergate Committee begins public and nationally televised hearings. Archibald Cox was appointed as the Justice Department’s special prosecutor for Watergate. While testifying before the Committee, Dean claims that Nixon was involved in the cover-up of the Watergate burglary, he also details a program of political espionage activities conducted by the White House in recent years. This leads to Nixon trying to use Executive Privilege, so that he does not have to testify and will not grant access to Presidential documents.

On August 8 1974, Nixon delivers a farewell address to the White House. Later Nixon departs the White House by helicopter. Richard Milhouse Nixon resigns as the thirty-seventh President of the United States, the first president ever to do so. His resignation letter is received by the Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger at 11:35 a.m. Around noon Gerald Ford becomes the thirty-eighth president because the former Vice-President Spiro T. Agnew resigned after pleading no contest to a charge of income tax evasion. Ford then nominates Nelson Rockefeller the former Republican Governor of New York as Vice-President. They become the nation’s first unelected presidential duo. On September 8, 1974, Ford grants a “full, free, and absolute” pardon to Nixon for “all offenses against the United States” committed between January 20, 1969 and August 9, 1974.

Nixon very hesitantly agrees to comply with a subpoena and releases a few of the tapes. A new Watergate Special Prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, is selected. Soon after the tapes are reviewed, they find a gap of eighteen and a half minutes of a conversation between Nixon and Haldeman. Six court appointed electronic experts said that it took at l

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