In the summer of 1972, a story broke that changed the presidency and the nation itself from there on. The Washington Post alleged that a recent break in at the Democratic National Committee was linked to "higher-ups" in Washington. The story ballooned into a national scandal that ended with the pardon given from President Ford to Nixon after Nixon resigned from office on August 9, 1974. This forever changed the way people thought about the president's privacy and brought about questions of executive privilege.

During Nixon's first term which begun in 1968, the administration started a war against all enemies to his presidency. In 1969, Nixon, backed by his close friends in the administration, started investigating the tax-exempt status of groups, educational institutions, and think tanks opposed to the administration's policies. At this time, Murray Chotiner, a former campaign manager, compiled a list of names and organizations " largely Democrats," "for the purpose of having audits commenced." Though The Brookings Institution was one of the first to be harassed by the IRS and Nixon's covert group known as the Plumbers, it certainly was not an isolated incident during Nixon's first term.

In 1967, the Central Intelligence Agency, with President Johnson's approval, created a program called Operation CHAOS. Originally formed to ferret out information about foreign support for dissident groups in the United States, by the time Nixon had entered office it had turned into far more than a "clandestine collection abroad of information on foreign. . . efforts to support/encourage/exploit domestic extremes and dissidence in the United States." With CHAOS, the CIA, Nixon, and his national security adviser Henry Kissinger were able to indirectly obtain secret information about dissident groups in the country (Hoff 283).

By the summer of 1970, national security leaks were still a major annoyance for Nixon and his administration. In an attempt to defeat these leaks, the head of the NSC (National Security Council) Henry Kissinger began a program of extensive background checks on all White House staff, physical surveillance, and seventeen White House-authorized wiretaps installed by the FBI, without court ordered warrants, on the phones of friends and associates of Kissinger. The legality of theses taps was disputed between the head of the FBI's Domestic Intelligence Division, William Sullivan, and Kissinger. Kissinger argued that the taps were installed to uphold national security and if in that case, the taps would be legal under the Omnibus Crime bill. The opposition stated that the taps might be infringing on the civil rights of citizens and if in that case, the taps would be illegal. After going over the logs of the taps extensively, Kissinger and Sullivan agreed to keep four of the fifteen taps functional (Hoff 285)

Even though Nixon and his administration had worked vigorously and typically overstepping the boundaries of the law to retain the dispersal of leaks, the publication of the documents that detailed the country's involvement in the Vietnam War were brought into the open. In June 1971, The New York Times began publishing The Pentagon Papers. These papers were photocopied and released by Daniel Ellsburg, a former Defence Department employee. Nixon initially took this revelation with a grain of salt considering the papers were highly critical of the Johnson administration, their foreign policies, and their involvement in the war itself. It was only after convincing by Kissinger and another leaked story in July published by The New York Times that Nixon became infuriated. The story carried information about the U.S.'s position in the talks to contain the proliferation of arms between the U.S. and the Soviet Union known as the SALT I talks. The story was written by a reporter named William Beecher, the same reporter who published the story on Nixon's secret bombing of Vietcong bases in Cambodia two years earlier. Upon learning this information, the president then hysterically ordered his aides to conduct polygraph tests of all government bureaucrats with top-security clearance. This was never carried out though (Hoff 294).

By this time Nixon and Kissinger were almost hysterical in their demands to punish Ellsburg for leaking the papers. To meet the presidents demands, John Ehrlichman, chief domestic policy adviser to the president, gave the go-ahead to the Plumbers for their first "black-bag" job. This was the first in a string of illegal actions undertaken by the Plumbers. On September 3, 1971, the Plumbers, lead by Bud Krogh, Ehrlichman's deputy, and David Young, Kissinger's aide, broke into the office of Dr. Lewis Fielding. Fielding was Ellsburg's psychiatrist and the Plumbers were hoping to find his files. The plan was to gain access to his office by posing as UPS and then leave his door unlocked so they could get in later. The plan went smoothly until the cleaner noticed later and locked the door. G. Gordon Liddy, council to the committee to re-elect the president (CRP) and leader of the Plumbers, gave the men authorization to break one of the ground floor windows in order to get in. After the men got in, E. Howard Hunt, longtime CIA clandestine officer and fellow Plumber arrived with the news that Fielding had left his house and was possibly on his way back to his office. Liddy and Hunt radioed the men but there was no response. At the moment that Hunt had decided to go in himself, the other men inside emerged and the team fled to a nearby hotel. The men reported that once they had to force open Fielding's door they decided to trash the office and scatter pills around to make it look like a drug related break-in. The Plumbers later broke into Fielding's home. That was a failure as well. (Emery 67-68)

The Plumbers' next job came in the 1972 presidential elections. Nixon's biggest concern was Senator Edmund Muskie, a Democrat from Maine. The Plumbers started a campaign of "dirty tricks" on the opposition. They fed phony statements issued in Muskie's name and false rumors about him to the press. This operation named RUBY I, funded by the CRP, paid a taxi driver commissioned by Muskie to intercept correspondence, speech drafts and even floor plans of the campaign office. This continued for eight months until Muskie pulled out of the race. (Emery 96)

Nixon's own campaign, in the meantime, was running a very well financed campaign. In Joan Hoff's book, she alleges that Nixon received $100,000 from people such as George Steinbrenner to Howard Huges. This money insured political backing and a good portion of the campaign money went to Nixon himself, financing his personal property. It was nonetheless an unstoppable campaign. With Kissinger's announcement that he and North Vietnam's Le Duc Tho had signed an agreement to a cease-fire and a withdraw of all remaining U.S. troops in South Vietnam, Nixon had sealed his victory against George McGovern (Colby 272)

Before Nixon could be assured of his victory he called upon the Plumbers for their definitive "black-bag" job. On the evening of May 26, 1972, Hunt, James McCord, the hired Cubans, and the rest of the Plumbers entered the Watergate building and were set upon getting inside the DMC headquarters. On this particular night, the Plumbers failed to gain access due to the alarms that were supposedly turned on at eleven o'clock. So they tried again the next night. The failed again because one of the Cuban Plumbers could not pick the lock. The next night, Sunday, they tried again but this time they were successful. After sending one of the Cuban men to get the proper lock-picking tools the night before and using McCord's strategy of taping the garage level door open, they were able to get inside of the DMC offices. McCord worked on installing bugs around the offices while Bernard Barker, the Cuban's tactical leader, took photographs. The Cubans were mostly used for look-outs and on this night one of them even was caught by a security officer and was escorted out of the building. The security guard failed to call the police after that. This, the third Watergate break-in, was by all means a success. Until . . .

The phone bug which McCord had installed was discovered to be malfunctioning. In addition to fixing the bug, McCord claims he was instructed by Liddy to place a sophisticated listening device inside of Lawrence O' Brien's office, the chairman of the DMC. In the early morning of June 17, the Plumbers first tried to get inside the Watergate complex. One of the Cubans had to pick the garage level lock due to one of the security guards had removed the first piece earlier. McCord, Barker, the Cubans, and Frank Sturgis, an ex soldier who served in Cuba, were inside only after taking the back door to the DMC of it's hinges. Hunt and Liddy were positioned in a parked car by the building while Al Baldwin was stationed on the balcony of the adjacent Howard Johnson Hotel. It took the security guard about an hour to contact the police after finding the taped doors. Two policemen in plain clothes and an unmarked car responded to the call. The five burglars were caught. When other police arrived at the scene, Liddy and Hunt fled back to the hotel and sent Baldwin on a flight to Los Angeles to meet up with the rest of the CRP. Hunt and Liddy were later arrested after their equipment was seized and were indicted in September on charges of burglary, conspiracy, and wiretapping (Emery 129-137).

In January of 1973, the trial of the burglars begun headed by District Court Judge John J. Sirica. The judge used heavyhanded methods to try and make the men admit that the conspiracy was connected to higher officials. When Sirica offered leniency for further information, McCord testified that the men were offered "hush money" in exchange for their services. The defection of Jeb Stuart Magruder, assistant to CRP director John N. Mitchell , quickly implicated others in Nixon's inner circle. Even though Mitchell was one of Nixon's closest aides and his longtime friend, Nixon denied knowing about the break-in or the cover up.

The Senate established an investigative committee headed by Sen. Sam Ervin to look into the growing scandal the next month. John W. Dean, counsel to the president, gave a testimony implicating that John Ehrlichman and H. R. Haldeman, two of the president's closet aides, tried to cover up the Watergate break-ins. In April, Nixon made a final attempt to save his own name. Nixon forced the resignations of Ehrlichman, Haldeman and dismissed Dean as his counsel. In July, a former White House staffer named Alexander Butterfield testified that the president had secretly tape-recorded conversations in his offices. Prosecutor Archibald Cox and the Ervin committee began their efforts to obtain selected tapes. Nixon cited executive privilege and refused to give the tapes to Cox.

Not only did Nixon refuse to give up the tapes, he also tried to have Cox fired. On Saturday, October 20, 1973, Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliot L. Richardson to fire Cox. He refused to do so and resigned in protest. His deputy, William Ruckelshaus, also refused and was fired. Nixon's solicitor general Robert Bork, who was next in command, agreed to fire Cox. This was further known to as the "Saturday Night Massacre".

On March 1, 1974, a federal grand jury indicted seven men, including Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell, and White House special counsel Charles Colson, for conspiracy to obstruct justice.

Leon Jaworski, who replaced Cox as prosecutor still pressed Nixon for the tapes. On April 30, Nixon released edited transcripts of Watergate related conversations taped inside the Oval Office. There were suspicious gaps in the transcripts. One of which was over eighteen minutes long.

Judge Sirica was not satisfied with the transcripts and subpoenaed additional tapes. Nixon refused and the case moved to the Supreme Court. On July 24, the court ruled against him by an eight to zero vote. The court conceded that the president could withhold material vital to national security but not the Watergate tapes because they were considered criminal evidence.

On July 27-30, the House Judiciary Committee, whose public hearings had disclosed evidence of illegal White House activities, recommended that Nixon be impeached on three charges: obstruction of justice, abuse of presidential powers, and trying to impede the impeachment process by defying committee subpoenas. The committee rejected two other possible counts: Nixon's unauthorized, secret bombing of Cambodia in 1969 and misappropriation of public funds to improve his private property.

Nixon released three tapes to the public on August 5, 1974. One of the tapes revealed that Nixon had taken steps to thwart the FBI's investigation into the burglary. The tape also revealed that Nixon had been involved in the cover-up from the get go. The tapes ruined his remaining congressional support. With impeachment certain and Senate conviction probable, Richard M. Nixon resigned from office on August 9, 1974.

Nixon's partisan paranoia and his use of the covert group known as the Plumbers did more harm than good. The tactics used against his enemies, political and personal, violently backfired on him and ultimately led to his downfall. Johnson was right when he said to the newly nominated President Nixon: " Leaks can kill you"(Hoff 284).