Second Semester Essay
Literature can be interpreted many ways depending on who is looking at the piece. Pieces of literature show how certain individuals or groups fought to receive rights or freedom and to express themselves. Speeches empowered others to believe what was said and to support them to not want to back down until their goal was achieved. Literature impacts culture and society when people’s views are expressed through beliefs, speeches, and other forms of media – including television, newspaper, fliers and underground press. Many known figures used their voices in novels and written work (such as speeches) to express their beliefs which had a profound effect on the politics of America. Martin Luther King Jr. expressed his beliefs
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One of the most notorious scandals in recent political history is Watergate. The burglary at the Watergate Hotel broke into the Democratic Party’s National Committee offices on June 17, 1972. The burglars tried to input listening devices into the DNC’s offices in the early hours of the morning but were eventually all discovered and arrested. Frank Willis was the security guard that broke the news of this scandal early. Richard Nixon was the centermost piece into the Watergate scandal. Nixon wanted all of the meetings he had in the offices to be recorded ("Watergate: The Scandal That Brought Down Richard Nixon."). Nixon denied many of the allegations of him being involved in the Watergate Scandal. The impact of literature are tapes of Nixon’s conservations in the Oval Office. These tapes were valuable evidence against Nixon in the Watergate scandal because there was one tape that had an unusual eighteen-and-a-half-minute gap between one of the recordings of Nixon’s conservations. This gap was never figured out and still remains a mystery today. Woodworth and Bernstein who wrote for the Washington post reported the case to the press and they received information from a person known as Deep Throat. Deep Throat was the unknown intelligence within the White House that was feeding the two reporters sensitive information ("Watergate: The Scandal That Brought Down Richard Nixon.") Deep Throat was later to be revealed as Mark Felt who was the head of the CIA at the time when the Watergate Scandal was going on. This was controversial because Felt was second-in-command of the FBI during the 1970’s which made all high government officials
To make things worse, “one and one third million dollars of the pre- April 7 contribution came from persons Nixon latter appointed as U.S. Ambassadors.” (36) The Section of CREEP which spear headed the break-in was the group in charge of gathering and leaking information about critics of the Nixon administration. The man who headed this operation was Gordon Liddy. Liddy’s original plan consisted of break-ins, kidnappings, wiretapping, prostitutes, and mugging.
The Watergate Scandal eventually led to President Nixon’s resignation from office. Before his re-election, a group aptly coined CREEP, illegally broke into the Democratic National Committee office to steal information to use in the upcoming election. Nixon tried to cover up the incident by denying his involvement in the crime. His top aides, including his Vice President Spiro Agnew, resigned to avoid giving anything away that would connect Nixon to the Watergate Scandal. The only piece of evidence seemed to be Nixon’s recordings of all conversations had by him in the White House; however, Nixon refused to give up the tapes, claiming Executive Privilege.
Nixon had an abundance of evidence against him and had many people, who were willing to testify, that wanted to make the public aware as to what unjust crimes he had committed. He had no chance of not being impeached, so he saw this as an opportunity to resign. Warren G. Harding and other members of his cabinet took bribes from private investors and began to lease government oil to them, which is illegal. He then went to great measures to cover it up. Unlike Nixon, these actions did not catch up to him until after he died.
The writings of Frederick Douglass and Upton Sinclair provide examples the address the essential question, how does literature shape or reflect society? Cultural events and ethics provide inspiration for authors to discuss the political and social occurrences during this era. In his autobiography, Frederick Douglass, explains his yearning for freedom when he was a slave. Frederick Douglass was born a slave, escaped to freedom, and used the rest of his life to fight slavery. Frederick, as a child, is deprived of learning to read and write because his owner Mr.Auld told his other owner Mrs. Auld not to teach him.
The Watergate scandal was one of the most infamous political controversies in American history during the early 1970s. It uncovered a web of lies created by former president Richard Nixon. The Watergate Scandal affected the trust of US citizens to the government by spreading false information, obstruction of justice, and deceiving politicians to cover up his tracks. President Nixon has instilled a distrust between the people and the government that will leave its mark for years. During the 1968 election, President Nixon had won by a landslide vote against the democrats.
Although it is debateable whether or not Nixon knew of the break-ins, he did behave very suspiciously. He became very secretive, resentful, and defensive towards his critics, even going so far as to make
Question 7 (for 10 points): After Nixon was connected to the break-in of the offices of the DNC at the Watergate business complex, in part due to the affiliation of his connection to one of the burglars, who was an employee of Nixon’s Committee for the Re-election of the President (CREEP), it gradually became apparent that the Watergate break in was largely a result of Nixon’s beliefs concerning the degree of latitude his office afforded him with regards to transgression of federal law. As the result of an investigation by a senate committee prompted by the Watergate scandal, it was discovered that during his presidency Nixon had committed a number of crimes, which included “extending political favors to powerful business groups in exchange
All of these men were involved in the break-in but the true mastermind behind it all was Howard Hunt. Howard Hunt and Gordon Liddy were both Ex CIA operatives and Nixon's Secret agents. Hunt's Phone number was found in address books leading back to the Watergate scandal which made its way to the oval office and that's how he was caught. He said, “ I cannot escape feeling that the country I have served for my entire life and which directed me to carry out the Watergate entry is punishing me for doing the very things it trained and directed me to do.” Gordon
Senator George McGovern was especially disturbed by a curious incident on June 12, 1972, when five men were caught breaking into the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate
The more famous one, however, would have to be Richard Nixon. Watergate- The events and scandal surrounding the break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in 1972 and the subsequent cover-up of White House involvement, leading to the eventual resignation of President
At the time, he was aware of the break-in and participated in efforts to hide its occurrence by authorizing the creation of a special investigative unit, known as the "plumbers," to prevent leaks of sensitive information. These “plumbers” included G. Gordon Liddy, E. Howard Hunt, and James McCord, all of whom were involved in the planning and completion of the Watergate break-in. Nixon also ordered the CIA to inhibit the FBI's investigation into the Watergate break-in. Thankfully for the investigation, Nixon was caught saying this on tape, as well as discussing hush money payments for the burglars involved. The cover-up had been successful for over two years before the discovery of the tapes that voiced Nixon's complicity.
The men arrested would not speak of who sent them there but they were later traced back to Richard Nixon’s Committee to Re-Elect the President members. Nixon seemed to be in enough trouble, being moderately involved with this scandal, it was then known that the crooks had also been wiretapping the office and stole copies of top secret files. Although even to this day it is unknown if Nixon knew of the break-ins in the Watergate while it happened, it is fact that the President had sent hundreds of thousands of dollars in “hush-money” to the burglars to keep it out of the public eye. Nixon and his affiliates then began attempting to create the CIA to stop any further investigations of the FBI’s on the Watergate scandal (Staff). The former president continuously denied he was involved in the scandal, until the court ordered he handed over recordings that proved he attempted to redirect the fact-finding (“Richard”).
John F. Kennedy was the youngest president to step foot in the White House, and he was also known for his various affairs. Biographer Robert Dallek described Kennedy as a "compulsive womanizer" and based on the number of accused affairs it is safe to say Dallek's description is accurate. Even one of Kennedy's close friends Florida Senator George Smathers stated, "Jack liked girls... he was a great chaser. " By far the most popular rumored affair was
Richard Nixon was the 37th president of the United States; he resigned as president after his involvement in the Watergate Scandal. People broke into the Watergate building to wiretap phones and steal secret documents. Nixon knew about the break in before hand and tried to cover it up. When people found out about him trying to cover it up, he decided to resign as president. He gave his speech on August 8th 1974 and resigned on the 9th.
He had amassed a collection of government fills, tape records, and intelligence on the common people in the Watergate building. After it was broken into, files were stolen and released to the public. It was the first real time that the general public learned just how paranoid Nixon was, but also how much he wanted to keep the power he already had. As these precious documents surfaced, one could see in full light that Nixon exhibited all the symptoms of Paranoid Personality Disorder. He was always distrustful of people, he recorded every encounter he had, so that one could twist his words against him.