Watergate Timeline

Watergate Timeline

Timeline of the Watergate scandal —Regarding the burglary and illegal wiretapping of the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate complex by members of President Richard Nixon's re-election committee and subsequent abuse of powers by the president and administration officials to halt or hinder the investigation into the same.

• November 5, 1968: Richard Nixon elected President
• July 1, 1971: David Young and Egil “Bud” Krogh write a memo suggesting the formation of what would later be called the "White House Plumbers" in response to the leak of the Pentagon Papers by Daniel Ellsberg.
• August 21, 1971: Nixon's Enemies List is started by White House aides (though Nixon himself may not have been aware of it); to "use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies."
• September 3, 1971: "White House Plumbers" E. Howard Hunt, G. Gordon Liddy et al. break into the offices of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist Lewis Fielding looking for material that might discredit Ellsberg, under the direction of John Ehrlichman or his staff within the White House. This was the Plumbers' first major operation.
• By early 1972 The Plumbers, at this stage assigned to the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP), had become frustrated at the lack of additional assignments they were being asked to perform, and that any plans and proposals they suggested were being rejected by CREEP. Liddy and Hunt took their complaints to the White House - most likely to Charles Colson - and requested that the White House start putting pressure on CREEP to assign them new operations. It is likely that both Colson and White House Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman did just that, setting in train events that would lead to the Watergate break-in's a few months later. This narrative is confirmed in the famous "Cancer of the Presidency" conversation between Nixon and White House Counsel John Dean on March 21 1972.
• May 2, 1972: J. Edgar Hoover dies; L. Patrick Gray is appointed acting FBI director.
• June 17, 1972: The plumbers are arrested at 2:30 a.m. in the process of burglarizing and planting surveillance bugs in the Democratic National Committee offices at the Watergate Hotel.
• June 20, 1972: Reportedly based on a tip from Deep Throat, Bob Woodward reports in the Washington Post that one of the burglars had E. Howard Hunt in his address book and possessed checks signed by him, and that Hunt was connected to Charles Colson.
• September 15, 1972: Hunt, Liddy and the Watergate burglars are indicted by a federal grand jury.
• November 7, 1972: Nixon re-elected in the largest plurality of votes in American history.
• January 8, 1973: Five defendants plead guilty as the burglary trial begins. Liddy and McCord are convicted after the trial.
• February 28, 1973: Confirmation hearings begin for confirming L. Patrick Gray as permanent Director of the FBI. During these hearings, Gray reveals that he had complied with an order from John Dean to provide daily updates on the Watergate investigation, and also that Dean had "probably lied" to FBI investigators.
• March 17, 1973: Watergate burglar James McCord writes a letter to Judge John Sirica, claiming that some of his testimony was perjured under pressure and that the burglary was not a CIA operation, but had involved other government officials, thereby leading the investigation to the White House.
• April 6, 1973: White House counsel John Dean begins cooperating with federal Watergate prosecutors.
• April 27, 1973: L. Patrick Gray resigns after it comes to light that he destroyed files from E. Howard Hunt's safe. William Ruckelshaus is appointed as his replacement.
• April 30, 1973: Senior White house administration officials John Ehrlichman, H. R. Haldeman, and Richard Kleindienst resign; John Dean is fired.
• May 17, 1973 : The Senate Watergate Committee begins its nationally televised hearings.
• May 19, 1973: Independent special prosecutor Archibald Cox appointed to oversee investigation into possible presidential impropriety.
• June 3, 1973: John Dean tells Watergate investigators that he has discussed the cover-up with Nixon at least 35 times.
• July 13, 1973: Alexander Butterfield, former presidential appointments secretary, reveals that all conversations and telephone calls in Nixon’s office have been taped since 1971.
• July 18, 1973: Nixon orders White House taping systems disconnected.
• July 23, 1973: Nixon refuses to turn over presidential tapings to Senate Watergate Committee or the special prosecutor.
• Vice President replaced:
  • October 10, 1973: Spiro Agnew resigns as Vice President of the United States due to corruption while he was the governor of Maryland.
  • October 12, 1973: Gerald Ford is nominated as Vice President under the 25th Amendment.
• October 20, 1973: "Saturday Night Massacre" - Nixon fires special prosecutor Cox. Ruckelshaus and Elliot Richardson refuse to comply and resign. Robert Bork considers resigning but carries out the order.
• November 1, 1973: Leon Jaworski is appointed new special prosecutor.
• November 17, 1973: Nixon delivers "I am not a crook" speech at a televised press conference at Disney World (Florida).
• January 28, 1974: Nixon campaign aide Herbert Porter pleads guilty to perjury.
• February 25, 1974: Nixon personal counsel Herbert Kalmbach pleads guilty to two charges of illegal campaign activities.
• March 4, 1974: "Watergate Seven" indicted.
• April 5, 1974: Dwight Chapin convicted of lying to a grand jury.
• April 7, 1974: Ed Reinecke, Republican lieutenant governor of California, indicted on three charges of perjury before the Senate committee.
• April 30, 1974: White House releases edited transcripts of the Nixon tapes, but the House Judiciary Committee insists the actual tapes must be turned over.
• June 15, 1974: Woodward and Bernstein's book All the President's Men is published by Simon & Schuster (ISBN 0-671-21781-X).
• July 24, 1974: United States v. Nixon decided: Nixon is ordered to give up tapes to investigators.
• Congress moves to impeach Nixon.
  • July 27 to July 30, 1974: House Judiciary Committee passes articles of Impeachment.
  • Early August 1974: A previously unknown tape from June 23, 1972 (recorded a few days after the break-in) documenting Nixon and Haldeman formulating a plan to block investigations, is released. This recording would later became known as the "Smoking Gun".
  • Key Republican Senators tell Nixon that enough votes exist to convict him.
• August 9, 1974: Nixon resigns presidency. Gerald Ford becomes President.
• September 8, 1974: President Ford ends investigations by granting Nixon a pardon.
• November 7, 1974: 94th Congress elected: Democratic Party picks up 5 Senate seats and 49 House seats. Many of the freshman congressmen are very young; the media dubs them "Watergate Babies".
• December 31, 1974: As a result of Nixon administration abuses of privacy, Privacy Act of 1974 passes into law. Ford is persuaded to veto the bill by Cheney and Rumsfeld; Congress overrides Ford's veto. (Note that the newly-elected Congress had not taken office yet, this Congress was still the 93rd Congress.)
• January 1, 1975: John N. Mitchell, John Ehrlichman and H. R. Haldeman convicted of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and perjury.
• July 27, 1975: Church Committee chaired by Frank Church commences, to investigate foreign and domestic intelligence-gathering activities.
• November 4, 1975: Ford replaces several Nixon cabinet members in the "Halloween Massacre", engineered by Ford aide Donald Rumsfeld. Richard Cheney, George H. W. Bush and Brent Scowcroft join Ford administration; Rumsfeld becomes Secretary of Defense; Henry Kissinger remains as Secretary of State but not National Security Advisor.
• May 5, 1976: Church Committee superseded by Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
• November 2, 1976: Ford is defeated in the United States presidential election by Jimmy Carter.
• October 25, 1978: Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act enacted, creating Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and limiting federal government domestic surveillance powers. Recommended by Church Committee.
• April 22, 1994: Richard Nixon dies.
• May 21, 2005: W. Mark Felt, former Associate Director of the FBI during the Watergate years, declares that he is Deep Throat, this declaration would later be confirmed by reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Some writers would later dispute this claim.
• December 18, 2008: Mark Felt dies at the age of 95.