The United States of America had its first President way back in 1789 and in the past 221 years only once did the President have to resign. This was the 37th president, Richard Nixon. He resigned from office due to his alleged involvement in the Watergate scandal. This paper will thus explore the question: “To What Extent Was Richard Nixon Responsible For the Watergate Scandal of 1974?”
For this incident there are no specific schools of learning, therefore I will wield three different perspectives to this incident, people who were neutral (people out for a true story, namely Bob Woodward from the Washington post and also Carl Bernstein), people who were anti-Nixon (who might or might not have been supporters of Nixon but blamed him for the entire scandal) and what the President had to say about the entire era during his interviews with Sir David Frost. The main limitation to this paper is that each perspective has a bias; either a loyalty bias or a personal bias as most of the sources themselves were a part of the scandal (whether an investigator or a conspirator). This paper deals with a time line of 1972 to 1976, from the first burglary up until the time the President resigns in 1976, these were the years in which the entire scandal was unearthed.
Even though Nixon’s involvement in the entire scandal is doubtful because there is no solid evidence of his involvement, I will try to find out in the course of my investigation whether this whole incident was blown out of proportion by the media. This paper will conclude that up till today even though nobody was able to convict Nixon for his involvement in the Watergate Scandal, he was however involved in a cover-up, an act to obstruct justice.
