Watergate: From discovery to impeachment, what was the timeline?

[gatorboy]

With the Downing Street Memo picking up a little speed in the press, I was wondering how long it took the Watergate story to also pick up steam before it did Nixon in.
Would you say that the memo is making the rounds at the same pace that Watergate originally did or is it hitting more bumps in the road, slowing down the process of getting this story out to a wider public?

[jean]

1. I certainly can't recite it off the top of my head - here's the WaPo's

timeline:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/onpolitics/watergate/chronology.htm

[iconoclastic cat]

2. Research is easy on the Internetses!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate

[OldLeftieLawyer]

3. I remember every day of it

I was getting ready to start law school later that summer, so we took our last long vacation - heard about the Watergate break-in while up in the Maritimes - June 17, 1972.

Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974.

A little over two years, and what an amazing, historic two years they were..........

[MrBenchley]

9. Remember the Saturday Night Massacre?

That was what got lots of indifferent people worked up over Watergate....because it showed what a scummy crook Nixon personally was.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

13. Do I ever ..........

My then-husband and I had had dinner with a friend of ours who had an office in the Old Executive Office Building (he was on Kissinger's staff and one of Nixon's economic advisors), and we had gone there because Gus had to get something out of his office.

We three were walking down the driveway that separates the OEOB from the White House, and I saw Eliot Richardson come walking out of the White House, and then I saw William Ruckelshaus behind him. A car drove up, they got in, and then I saw Ron Zeigler come out and look around and go back in.

Gus, laconic as ever, said we'd hear about it on the news, and we went to dinner.

A few years ago, just as he was about to go public - a very strange thing for a very private man - Gus Weiss was found dead behind the Watergate condominium where he had lived for years. There was no investigation, nothing made it into the news except a brief obituary after he was already buried, it was proclaimed a suicide without any investigation, and I will live the rest of my life convinced that he was murdered.

Gus knew a lot of secrets. I miss him.

I remember the Saturday Night Massacre very well.

[MrBenchley]

14. What I will always recall

is that the father of a girl I was seeing, who up until then had been convinced of Nixon's non-involvement, became convinced of Nixon's guilt the moment the news of Cox's firing was announced. He cried out "That son of a bitch!" when the bulletin hit the air.

He had been a lifelong Republican, but he changed parties formally that very week....

[FreedomAngel82]

16. Did a lot of

republicans change then? I wonder if that'll happen with Bush.

[MrBenchley]

18. Don't remember...

I do remember that near the end Nixon went to Grand Old Opry and did yo-yo tricks on stage...at just about the time Kissinger called the Strategic Air Command and told them to disregard anything they heard from the Oval Office...

[OldLeftieLawyer]

20. Ford lost the election

And we got Jimmy Carter, so perhaps the Republicans did lose a lot of voters.

I think Ford was perceived as not up to the job, though - remember his "Eastern Europe" comment during the debate? Plus, he was always going to be the guy who pardoned Nixon, and I don't think he could ever have overcome that.

Whatever happened, Carter didn't last long, and then we got the Living Dead Republican, Ronnie Raygun. So, who knows if anyone really changed their voting preferences?

[MrBenchley]

21. If Carter had had the instinct for the jugular

that Clinton had, Reagan wouldn't have won...even with the GOP's dirty tricks.

Ford was not up to the job....remember, his plan to deal with inflation was handing out buttons that said "Whip Inflation Now" and hiring the guy who wrote "The Music Man" to write a fight song.

But doesn't he seem like Teddy Roosevelt compared to the piece of shit the GOP shoehorned into the White House now?

[OldLeftieLawyer]

24. Indeed he does

WIN buttons - ah, yes. Poor Jerry. He was so unprepared and so overwhelmed. But, a decent guy with exemplarly political credentials. He was a real pro who probably was the only one Nixon could have talked into pardoning him before he was even indicted. Jerry was that decent.

Of course, Betty in the back room, doing downers and getting drunk was - to me, anyway - a real bonus. She was magnificent, wasn't she, when diagnosed with breast cancer? Came right out with it at a time when that just wasn't done.

This thing in the White House now? I can't imagine what sins we've committed that would warrant punishing us like this.

[MrBenchley]

25. Betty Ford was a true American heroine

not only coming forward to talk honestly about her cancer (at the time there was a stigma attached to the disease, and the word "cancer" itself was rarely uttered aloud even though it was at epidemic proportions) but also coming forward with her substance abuse problem and moving to help others with the same problem.

[proud2BlibKansan]

19. I don't know if they changed parties

but the Democratic party could have put Mickey Mouse on the ballot in 1976 and he would have been elected POTUS.

[housewolf]

4. It took about 2 years

for the entire story to unfold, from the Watergate break-in until the resignation.

Just a point of history, there wasn't an impeachment. Nixon resigned rather than face impeachment.

[BeatleBoot]

5. I don't think Nixon ever was fully impeached by Congress

He resigned before the full Congress could vote on it.

Unless I'm wrong, I was but a rugrat at the time.

[DrDebug]

7. We was never impeached. He resigned in time

And later Gerald Ford pardonned him.

If only Goerge Bush were to resign...

[Dr Ron]

11. That is correct

Nixon resigned after Goldwater told him how little support he had among Republicans, warning he would be convicted in the Senate after an inevitable impeachment.

The way I recall it, the House just voted to accept the recommendations of the House Judiciary Committee regarding impeachment without formally impeaching him as he had resigned.

[Eloriel]

17. Well, Howard Baker had a hand in convincing him as well

Went to see him and 'splained the facts of life to him.

[gatorboy]

6. Yikes!...Two years....

I suppose being of the Microwave/Internet generation I want results about this memo NOW, but it looks like I'll have to wait it out....

[housewolf]

10. It's been 2 years (minus 1 month) since Novak leaked Plame's name

and it's still under investigation.

[MrBenchley]

8. The Memo is going much faster...

but then it leads directly to the pResident....the Watergate break-in did not, in its first wash....it took a long and determined effort to go through the chain of events and evidence to get to Nixon (and might not ever have if a low-level GOP goon named Alexander Butterworth hadn't got flustered while testifying to Congress under oath and blurted out that Nixon taped everything)....

Fun Fact: Douchebag of Liberty Bob Novak spent pretty much every day of the two years Watergate unfolded assuring the American public that the scandal didn't amount to anything and that Nixon was blameless...

Fun Fact #2: When the existence of the tapes was revealed, Nixon fought tooth and nail to keep them from the public--including proposing that only Mississippi segregationist Senator John Stennis, WHO HAD GONE DEAF, be allowed to "hear" them.

[jaysunb]

12. You are correct !

and your " fun facts " bring back some fond memories. Thanks

[MrBenchley]

15. The news that Deep Throat had been with the FBI

reminded me that Patrick Gray, who was head of the Bureau, had gone to the White House, cleared out Howard Hunt's safe and (according to his sworn testimony before Congress) thrown what he found there into the Potomac without looking to see what it was...

[JimmyJazz]

22. The break in took place 5 months before the election and

Nixon resigned two years after it.

[paineinthearse]

23. WP timeline

I've posted it in the past for the benefit of all born after Watergate, and as a reminder for all who lived through it but whose memory may be a bit hazy.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3803817