Chapter 13 Summary

Early morning, Saturday, June 17th, 1972. Five men were caught attempting to place listening devices inside the Democratic National Committee offices in the Watergate office complex in Washington D.C. This scandal ultimately revealed that the Richard Nixon White House was at the center of the most widespread system of political corruption ever revealed to the American people. These events led to the eventual resignation of President Nixon, the first and only time that has ever happened.



Carl Bernstein (left) and Bob Woodward

 Two young men, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, were assigned to the Watergate story by the Washington Post. It was these two men who investigated the story relentlessly, letting no detail slip through their fingers. The duo informally became known as "Woodstein" and, through nonstop investigation, uncovered evidence that the White House was behind the Watergate burglary. The duo relied heavily on an annonymous source known as "Deep Throat", who was a friend of Woodward's before the Watergate scandal and who was an executive branch official. Rather than give the reporters new information, Deep Throat was used to confirm a multitude of facts that Woodstein had heard but needed to verify before printing, as well as steer the duo away from false leads. Over three decades later Deep Throat identified himself. W. Mark Felt had been, during the time that Woodstein was investigating Watergate, the second highest official in the FBI.

During the time of the Watergate investigation, The Washington Post was by itself in investigating the Watergate scandal. Other papers no only didn't follow the story themselves but accused the Post of overplaying it. The story was hard to paint in a visual view, and very complicated, which led to poor Television reporting. And while Woodward and Bernstein did a fantastic job of investigating during that time, ultimately it was executive editor Ben Bradlee and publisher Katharine Graham who bore the hefty burden of responsibility for the Post's relentless pursuit of the story. Both individuals saw relentless attacks on themselves from the White House, both on a personal level and professional level. During this time, Woodward and Bernstein made a mistake in their reporting, and White House officials and fellow journalists used it to discredit and criticize the Post. At the same time, President Nixon was misusing his power in order to prevent two TV stations in Florida from getting their license renewed. The stations were owned by the Washington Post. In the end the stations had their licenses renewed, but only after spending a great deal of time and money to prove that they had fulfilled the community-service requirements being refuted by Nixon's people in Florida. The President succeeded in impacting the Post, seeing as the value of a shar of its stock fell from 38 dollars in December to 21 dollars in May. The Presidents actions couldn't be proved at that time, but Graham suspected that the White House was behind the pressure.

The press wasn't alone in its exposing of the Watergate scandal, but it played a large part in it. The scandal was of such huge proportions that it demanded the joint effort of all four arms of the government. All branches of the government played a part in exposing the White House, whether it be in a big way or not.

In 1974 a panel of experts appointed by Judge John Sirica discoverd that eighteen and a half minutes in one of the tape recordings had been erased manually. The gap occured on June 20th, three days after the break in, and prompted critics to accuse Nixon of destroying evidence that would have proven that he'd known about the break in before it occured. Nixon was later forced to release the tapes, an although there was no clear evidence showing that he knew about the break in before it occured, there was a plethora of evidence showing that he played a major hand in its cover up. On August 9th, 1974, Nixon resigned.