The Watergate Scandal in United States History by David K. Fremon

TIMELINE
    1969 — January 20 :Richard Milhous Nixon is inaugurated president.
    1971 — June 13 : The New York Times begins publishing the Pentagon Papers, classified information about the Vietnam War.
    1971 — September 3–4 :White House “Plumbers” break into office of Dr. Lewis Fielding, Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist.
    1972 — March 30 :CRP Director John Mitchell approves Gemstone plan, including electronic surveillance of Democratic National Headquarters.
    1972 — May 28 : A group directed by G. Gordon Liddy breaks into the Democratic headquarters at the Watergate on its third attempt.
    1972 — June 17 : Police arrest five men breaking into the Watergate.
    1972 — June 23 :Nixon and H. R. Haldeman discuss plans to have the CIA stop the FBI investigation of Watergate.
    1972 — August 1 : Washington Post reveals a $25,000 check from President Nixon’s campaign appeared in Watergate burglar Bernard Barker’s bank account.
    1972 — September 15 : A grand jury indicts the five Watergate burglars, E. Howard Hunt, and Liddy.
    1972 — November 7 :Richard Nixon wins re-election by a landslide.
    1973 — March 19 :Watergate burglar James McCord writes Judge John J. Sirica that Watergate defendants were under “political pressure” to keep silent.
    1973 — March 21 :John Dean tells Nixon that there is “a cancer growing on the presidency,” due to the hush money demands by Watergate defendants.
    1973 — April 30 :Richard Nixon announces the resignations of H. R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, John Dean, and Attorney General Richard Kleindienst.
    1973 — May 17 :Senate Watergate Committee begins hearings.
    1973 — June 25–29 : Dean testifies before Senate Watergate Committee; Mentions “enemies list.”
    1973 — July 16 :Alexander Butterfield describes White House taping system.
    1973 — July 23 :Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox subpoenas nine White House tapes; Nixon refuses to turn them over; Over the next several months Nixon will refuse many times to release tapes and other documents.
    1973 — October 10 :Spiro Agnew resigns as vice president; A few days later Nixon nominates Gerald Ford to replace him.
    1973 — October 20 :Attorney General Elliot Richardson resigns and deputy William Ruckelshaus are fired when they refuse to fire Cox; The Cox firing, which shocks the nation, is known as the “Saturday Night Massacre.”
    1973 — October 23 :Twenty-one Congress members introduce resolutions calling for Nixon’s impeachment.
    1974 — March 1 :Seven former Nixon aides are indicted for Watergate-related crimes; President Nixon is named an “unindicted co-conspirator.”
    1974 — April 29 : White House releases 1,308-page document that contains edited transcripts of presidential conversations.
    1974 — May 9 :House Judiciary Committee opens impeachment proceedings.
    1974 — July 24 :Supreme Court rules 8–0 that Nixon must turn over sixty-four tapes subpoenaed by Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski.
    1974 — July 27 :House Judiciary Committee approves first article of impeachment (obstruction of justice) by 27–11 vote.
    1974 — August 5 :Nixon releases transcripts of June 23, 1972, “smoking pistol” conversation; Many former supporters leave him.
    1974 — August 9 : Nixon resigns; Ford takes oath of office as thirty-eighth president.
    1974 — September 8 :Ford issues Nixon a pardon for crimes he committed or might have committed as president.

FURTHER READING
    Ambrose, Stephen E. Nixon: Education of a Politician. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987.
    ———. Nixon: Ruin and Recovery 1973–1990. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992.
    Bernstein, Carl, and Bob Woodward. All the President’s Men. New York: Warner, 1976.
    ———. The Final Days. New York: Avon, 1976.
    Chester, Lewis, Cal McCrystal, Stephen Aris, and William Shawcross. Watergate: The Full Inside Story. New York: Ballantine, 1973.
    Emery, Fred. Watergate: The Corruption of American Politics and the Fall of Richard Nixon. New York: