Watergate was the name of the biggest political scandal in United States History; which potentially divided the American public, and in my opinion forced America to lose a great president. It included wire-tapping, burglary, damage and a huge amount of cover-up. Watergate itself involved more high-level government officials than any other previous scandal. Mistakes were made and words were said but all in all, the Watergate scandal was an event in American history that changed the role of the presidency forever. .
Watergate really began in 1969 when the White House made an "enemies list"; which was kept of the people whom the president's men wanted vengeance on. This was done so because President Nixon not only wanted to be re-elected but he wanted to completely dominate his opponent (Kilian 153). This campaign was often involved in unethical "dirty tricks". False information somehow leaked in to the press, altering of schedules of campaign appearances took place, forged letters, and assembling reports on democratic political candidates about their personal lives. The basic goal of these nasty tricks was to help do away with the strongest candidates from the democratic primaries. The majority of these tricks were lead by White House staffers Charles Colson-Committee to Re-elect the President (CRP), deputy Jeb Magruder, Dwight Chapin-deputy assistant to the President, and Donald Segretti-an attorney (Kilian 155). .
In 1971, Nixon created the Special Investigation Unit, known as the "plumbers"; their job was to plug all leaks as a result of the Pentagon papers in the New York Times. The Pentagon papers revealed a pattern of government dishonesty related to Vietnam. Somehow these papers found their way in to the New York Times by Dr. Daniel Ellsberg. The Nixon administration responded by stopping the publications and charging Ellsberg with espionage. Soon after, the "plumbers" job was to set wiretaps, open mail and conduct break-ins in order to gain information about the leaking.
