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The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal that occurred in the United States in the 1970s as a result of the June 17, 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C., and President Richard Nixon's administration's attempted cover-up of its involvement. When the conspiracy was discovered and investigated by the U.S. Congress, the Nixon administration's resistance to its probes led to a constitutional crisis. The term ''Watergate'' has come to encompass an array of clandestine and often illegal activities undertaken by members of the Nixon administration. Those activities included such "dirty tricks" as bugging the offices of political opponents and people of whom Nixon or his officials were suspicious. Nixon and his close aides ordered harassment of activist groups and political figures, using the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The scandal led to the discovery of multiple abuses of power by the Nixon administration, articles of impeachment,〔http://classes.lls.edu/archive/manheimk/371d1/nixonarticles.html〕 and the resignation of Nixon as President of the United States in August 1974. The scandal also resulted in the indictment of 69 people, with trials or pleas resulting in 48 being found guilty and incarcerated, many of whom were Nixon's top administration officials.〔 The affair began with the arrest of five men for breaking and entering into the DNC headquarters at the Watergate complex on Saturday, June 17, 1972. The FBI investigated and discovered a connection between cash found on the burglars and a slush fund used by the Committee for the Re-Election of the President (CRP), the official organization of Nixon's campaign.〔 This book is volume one of a two-volume set. Both volumes share the same ISBN and Library of Congress call number, E859 .C62 1973 〕 In July 1973, evidence mounted against the President's staff, including testimony provided by former staff members in an investigation conducted by the Senate Watergate Committee. The investigation revealed that President Nixon had a tape-recording system in his offices and that he had recorded many conversations.〔 〕〔 〕 After a protracted series of bitter court battles, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the president had to release the tapes to government investigators, and he eventually complied. These audio recordings implicated the president, revealing he had attempted to cover up activities that took place after the break-in and to use federal officials to deflect the investigation.〔〔The evidence was quite simple: the voice of the President on June 23, 1972 directed the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to halt an FBI investigation that would be politically embarrassing to his re-election. This direction was an obstruction of justice. 〕 Facing near-certain impeachment in the House of Representatives and equally certain conviction by the Senate, Nixon resigned the presidency on August 9, 1974.〔White (1975), ''Breach of Faith,'' p. 29. "And the most punishing blow of all was to come in late afternoon when the President received, in his Oval Office, the Congressional leaders of his party -– Barry Goldwater, Hugh Scott and John Rhodes. The accounts of all three coincide… Goldwater averred that there were not more than fifteen votes left in his support in the Senate…."〕〔 "Soon Alexander Haig and James St. Clair learned of the existence of this tape and they were convinced that it would guarantee Nixon's impeachment in the House of Representatives and conviction in the Senate." 〕 On September 8, 1974, his successor, Gerald Ford, pardoned him. The name "Watergate" and the suffix "-gate" have since become synonymous with political scandals in the United States〔Trahair, R.C.S including the recent "bend-gate" scandal regarding Apple's iPhone 6. ''From Aristotelian to Reaganomics: A Dictionary of Eponyms With Biographies in the Social Sciences.'' Santa Barbara, Calif.: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1994. ISBN 0-313-27961-6; Smith, Ronald D. and Richter, William Lee. ''Fascinating People and Astounding Events From American History.'' Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 1993. ISBN 0-87436-693-3; Lull, James and Hinerman, Stephen. ''Media Scandals: Morality and Desire in the Popular Culture Marketplace.'' New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. ISBN 0-231-11165-7; Hamilton, Dagmar S. "The Nixon Impeachment and the Abuse of Presidential Power," In ''Watergate and Afterward: The Legacy of Richard M. Nixon.'' Leon Friedman and William F. Levantrosser, eds. Santa Barbara, Calif.: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1992. ISBN 0-313-27781-8〕 and in other English- and non-English-speaking nations. == Wiretapping of the Democratic Party's headquarters == In January 1972, G. Gordon Liddy, general counsel to the Committee for the Re-Election of the President (CRP), presented a campaign intelligence plan to CRP's Acting Chairman Jeb Stuart Magruder, Attorney General John Mitchell, and Presidential Counsel John Dean, that involved extensive illegal activities against the Democratic Party. According to Dean, this marked "the opening scene of the worst political scandal of the twentieth century and the beginning of the end of the Nixon presidency."〔Dean, John W. ''The Nixon Defense'', p. xvii, Penguin Group, 2014 ISBN 978-0-670-02536-7〕 Mitchell viewed the plan as unrealistic. Two months later he was alleged to have approved a reduced version of the plan, to include burgling the Democratic National Committee's (DNC) headquarters at the Watergate Complex in Washington, D.C.—ostensibly to photograph campaign documents and install listening devices in telephones. Liddy was nominally in charge of the operation, but has since insisted that he was duped by Dean and at least two of his subordinates. These included former CIA officers E. Howard Hunt and James McCord, then-CRP Security Coordinator (John Mitchell had by then resigned as Attorney General to become chairman of the CRP).〔〔(Lawrence Meyer, "John N. Mitchell, Principal in Watergate, Dies at 75" ), ''Washington Post'', 10 November 1988〕 In May, McCord assigned former FBI agent Alfred C. Baldwin III to carry out the wiretapping and monitor the telephone conversations afterward.〔(Alfred C. Baldwin ) Spartacus Educational, Accessed May 17, 2015〕 McCord testified that he selected Baldwin's name from a registry published by the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI to work for Committee to Re-elect the President.〔 Baldwin first served as bodyguard to Martha Mitchell, the wife of John Mitchell, who was living in Washington.〔 Baldwin accompanied Martha Mitchell to Chicago.〔 Martha did not like Baldwin and described him as the "gauchest character I've ever met."〔 The Committee replaced Baldwin with another security man.〔 On May 11, McCord arranged for Baldwin, whom investigative reporter Jim Hougan described as "somehow special and perhaps well known to McCord,"〔 to stay at the Howard Johnson's motel across the street from the Watergate complex.〔 The room 419 was booked in the name of McCord’s company.〔 At behest of G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt,〔 McCord and his team of burglars prepared for their first Watergate break-in,〔 which began on May 28.〔 Two phones inside the offices of the DNC headquarters were said to have been wiretapped.〔 One was the phone of Robert Spencer Oliver, who at the time was working as the executive director of the Association of State Democratic Chairmen, and the other was the phone of DNC secretary Larry O'Brien. The FBI found no evidence that O'Brien's phone was bugged. However, it was determined that an effective listening device had been installed in Oliver's phone.〔 Despite the success in installing the listening devices, the Committee agents soon determined that they needed to be repaired.〔 They planned a second "burglary" in order to take care of this. Shortly after midnight on June 17, 1972, Frank Wills, a security guard at the Watergate Complex, noticed tape covering the latches on some of the doors in the complex leading from the underground parking garage to several offices (allowing the doors to close but remain unlocked). He removed the tape, and thought nothing of it. He returned an hour later and, having discovered that someone had retaped the locks, Wills called the police. Five men were discovered inside the DNC office and arrested.〔 They were Virgilio González, Bernard Barker, James McCord, Eugenio Martínez, and Frank Sturgis, who were charged with attempted burglary and attempted interception of telephone and other communications. On September 15, a grand jury indicted them, as well as Hunt and Liddy,〔 〕 for conspiracy, burglary, and violation of federal wiretapping laws. The five burglars who broke into the office were tried by a jury, Judge John Sirica officiating, and were convicted on January 30, 1973.〔 〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Watergate scandal」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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