United States v. Nixon

1. Regardless of the outcome, should the President of the United States have a right to privacy in regards to the Oval Office tapes? Explain.

No, I do not think that the President should have the right to keep the tapes, especially because they were evidence of the Watergate scandal. If Nixon truly had not been a part of the Watergate Scandal then he wouldn't have objected as much to showing them to the supreme court. I think that the president should have a right to keep certain articles private, but if it is a mnatter of national security, then I think exceptions should be made.

2. Was President Nixon justified when he fired special prosecutor Archibald Cox? Explain.

No, Nixon was not justified in firing Archibald Cox because he was only doing it to prevent any more of the tapes being given to the Supreme Court. Nixon claimed that they were a matter of national security, and so he offered to provide a summary of the rest of the tapes (only eight had been given up by Nixon); however, Archibald said that that would not be suffiecient.

3. Was Nixon creating a Constitutional crisis by refusing to hand-over the tapes? Explain.

Yes because the president is entitled to the right to privacy, but since he refused to hand over the tapes it became an issue of national security.

4. Why do you think the American public was so outraged by Watergate?

Because the president had lied to the country, he had knowingly violated the law, and participated in the cover up of Watergate.


5. Do you think President Nixon should have resigned? Explain.

Yes because he would have been impeached by the Supreme court for obstructing justice, defying Judiciary Commitee subpoenas an misusing the presedential power to violate the constitutional rights of US citizens.

6. Do you think President Nixon should have been prosecuted? Explain.

Yes i think Nixon should have been prosecuted. If he had come clean about his crimes in the beginning I think that he wouldn't have needed to step down, but even at the very end he insisyed he was innocent.

Watergate: Nixon's Downfall

1. How were the "plumbers" connected to President Nixon? They worked for Nixon, they made sure government secrets did not get out. They were the ones that broke in Watergate. they also tried to find unflattering secrets about people who were against him.


2. Who was the judge? Why did he hand out maximum sentences?
John Sirica was the judge. He handed out maximum sentences because he thought the men had not acted alone.

3. How were Mitchell and Dean connected to Nixon?Mitchell was Nixon's former attorney general. Dean was on the presidential counsel.



4. How were Haldeman and Erlichman connected to Nixon?White house cheif of staff, chief domestic advisor.

5. What did the following men tell the Senate about Nixon?

a. Dean-revelaed that Nixon had been deeply involved in the cover-up.

b. Butterfield-revelaed Nixon had taped nearly all of his presidential conversations.

6. Who was fired or forced to resign in the "massacre"? Atoorney General Richardson

7. Why weren't investigators satisified with the transcripts? beacuse they had been edited and contained large gaps.

8. What did the tapes reveal? Nixon had known about the memebers of his adminsitration's involovement in the burglary, he also agrred to the plan to obstruct the FBI's investigation.

9. Why did Vice President Spiro Agnew resign? he had accepted bribes from engineering firms while he had been Governor of Maryland.

10. What did the House Judiciary Committee charge President Nixon with?

11. How did the Watergate scandal create a constitutional crisis?