The Nixon Administration: The Watergate Scandal

Words: 552
Pages: 3

Differences: -Nixon had an incriminating tape concerning the burglury that forced him to resign or face almost certain impeachment. -After the arms sales were revealed in November 1986, President Ronald Reagan appeared on national television and denied that they had occurred. A week later, however, on November 13, Reagan returned to the airwaves to affirm that weapons were indeed transferred to Iran. Reagan's Administration destroyed or withheld the majority of the incriminating information, so there was no "smoking gun" to convict Reagan with or his Adminstration officials. Reagan never faced impeachment and did not have to resign. -Seven of Nixon's Administration were indicted. The majority were convicted as well. -Three members of Reagan's …show more content…
Watergate Details: The Watergate scandal was a 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at a Watergate Office Building in Washington, D.C. by members of Richard Nixon's administration (as well as former members of the CIA) and the resulting cover-up which led to the first and only resignation of a US …show more content…
On March 1, 1974, former aides of the President, known as the Watergate Seven—Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell, Charles Colson, Gordon C. Strachan, Robert Mardian, and Kenneth Parkinson—were indicted for conspiring to hinder the Watergate investigation. The grand jury also secretly named Nixon as an unindicted co-conspirator. Most of Nixon's former aides were later convicted. Iran-Contra Details: The Iran-Contra Affair was a political scandal in the United States in 1987. Large volumes of documents relating to the scandal were destroyed or withheld from investigators by Reagan Administration officials. The affair is still shrouded in secrecy and discovering the facts is very difficult. It involved several members of the Reagan Administration who in 1986 helped to illegally sell arms to Iran, an avowed enemy, and used the proceeds to fund, also illegally, the Contras, a right-wing insurgent organization in Nicaragua. Both the sale of weapons to Iran and the funding of the Contras attempted to circumvent not only stated Administration policy, but also legislation passed by Congress known as the Boland Amendment.