United States Senate Watergate Committee

1973 US Senate committee to investigate the Watergate scandal

Senate Watergate CommitteeSpecial committee

Defunct

United States Senate
93rd Congress
History
Formed| February 7, 1973 (1973-02-07)
Disbanded| June 27, 1974 (1974-06-27)
(abolished, when the committee's final report was published)
Leadership
Chair| Sam Ervin (D)
Ranking member| Howard Baker (R)
Structure
Seats| 7 members
Political parties| Majority (4)

* Democratic (4)

Minority  (3)

* Republican (3)

Jurisdiction
Purpose| To investigate "illegal, improper, or unethical activities" conducted by individuals involved with a campaign, nomination, and/or election of any candidate for President of the United States in the 1972 presidential election, and produce a final report with the committee's findings.
Rules

* S.Res. 60, 93rd Cong. (1973).

Watergate scandal

The Watergate complex in 2006

Events

List

* Presidency of Richard Nixon
* Timeline
* Nixon White House tapes
* Operation Sandwedge
* Operation Gemstone
* 1972 presidential election
* "Saturday Night Massacre"
* Impeachment process against Richard Nixon
* United States v. Nixon
* Resignation speech
* Inauguration of Gerald Ford

People

Watergate burglars

* Bernard Barker
* Virgilio Gonzalez
* Eugenio Martínez
* James W. McCord Jr.
* Frank Sturgis

Groups

* Master list of Nixon's political opponents
* Nixon's Enemies List
* Watergate Babies
* Watergate Seven
* White House Plumbers

CRP

* Committee for the Re-Election of the President (CRP)
* Fred LaRue
* Jeb Stuart Magruder
* Robert Mardian
* John N. Mitchell
* Kenneth Parkinson
* Hugh W. Sloan Jr.
* Maurice Stans

White House

* Richard Nixon
* Alexander Butterfield
* Charles Colson
* John Dean
* John Ehrlichman
* Gerald Ford
* H. R. Haldeman
* E. Howard Hunt
* Egil Krogh
* G. Gordon Liddy
* Gordon C. Strachan
* Rose Mary Woods

Judiciary

* Archibald Cox
* Leon Jaworski
* John Sirica

Journalists

* Carl Bernstein
* Bob Woodward
* Barry Sussman
* Harry M. Rosenfeld
* Howard Simons
* Ben Bradlee
* Katharine Graham
* Lesley Stahl
* The Washington Post

Intelligence community

* Mark Felt ("Deep Throat")
* L. Patrick Gray
* Richard Helms
* James R. Schlesinger

Congress

* Howard Baker
* Sam Ervin
* Peter W. Rodino
* U.S. Senate Watergate Committee
* Impeachment process

Related

* Frank Wills (security guard)
* James F. Neal (prosecutor)
* All the President's Men (book, film)
* The Final Days (book, film)
* Blind Ambition (miniseries)
* Dick (1999 film)
* Mark Felt: The Man who Brought
Down the White House (2017 film)
* Watergate (2019 board game)
* Slow Burn (2020 series)
* Gaslit (2022 series)
* White House Plumbers (2023 miniseries)

* v
* t
* e

The Senate Watergate Committee, known officially as the Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, was a special committee established by the United States Senate, S.Res. 60, in 1973, to investigate the Watergate scandal, with the power to investigate the break-in at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters at the Watergate Hotel in the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C., and any subsequent cover-up of criminal activity, as well as "all other illegal, improper, or unethical conduct occurring during the controversial 1972 presidential election, including political espionage and campaign finance practices".

American print news media focused the nation's attention on the issue with hard-hitting investigative reports, while television news outlets brought the drama of the hearings to the living rooms of millions of American households, broadcasting the proceedings live for two weeks in May 1973. The public television network PBS broadcast the hearings from gavel to gavel on more than 150 national affiliates.

Working under committee chairman Sam Ervin, the committee played a pivotal role in gathering evidence that would lead to the indictment of forty administration officials and the conviction of several of Richard Nixon's aides for obstruction of justice and other crimes. Its revelations later prompted the impeachment process against Nixon himself, which featured the introduction of three articles of impeachment by the Democratic-led House Committee on the Judiciary. Watergate led to Nixon's resignation on August 9, 1974.

## Background

[edit]

Main article: Watergate scandal

Shortly after midnight on June 17, 1972, five men were arrested inside the DNC offices.[1] The FBI launched an investigation of the incident, and the dogged reporting of two Washington Post journalists, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, raised questions and suggested connections between Richard Nixon's controversial reelection campaign and the men awaiting trial. The White House denied any connection to the break-in, and Nixon won reelection in a landslide.[2] Following confirmation that such a connection did in fact exist, the Senate voted 77–0 in February 1973 to create the Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities.[3]

Before the election, the House Banking Committee chaired by Wright Patman (D-TX) held hearings on Watergate but were stymied by Nixon Administration officials. A vote to issue subpoenas in October 1972 failed when several Democratic members joined all Republican members of the committee to oppose the vote.[4] The failure of the committee hearings formed an impetus for action in the Senate.

## Members

[edit]

The members of the Senate Watergate Committee were:

| Democratic Party members  | State

|

| Sam Ervin, Chair | North Carolina
| Daniel Inouye | Hawaii
| Joseph Montoya | New Mexico
| Herman Talmadge | Georgia
| Republican Party members  | State

|

| Howard Baker, Ranking Member | Tennessee
| Edward Gurney | Florida
| Lowell Weicker | Connecticut

The chief counsel of the Committee was Samuel Dash, who directed the investigation. The minority counsel was Fred Thompson. Members of the Senate Watergate Committee's professional staff included:

* Scott Armstrong
* David M. Dorsen (Assistant Chief Counsel)
* Rufus Edmisten (Deputy Counsel)
* Gordon Freedman
* James Hamilton (Assistant Chief Counsel)
* Terry Lenzner[5] (Assistant Chief Counsel)[6]
* Marc Lackritz
* Robert Muse
* Donald Sanders (Deputy Minority Counsel - Republican)
* Jill Wine-Banks (prosecutor's staff)[7]

## Hearings

[edit]

From left to right: minority counsel Fred Thompson, ranking member Howard Baker, and chair Sam Ervin of the Senate Watergate Committee in 1973.

Hearings opened on May 17, 1973, and the Committee issued its seven-volume, 1,250-page report on June 27, 1974, titled Report on Presidential Campaign Activities. The first weeks of the committee's hearings were a national political and cultural event. They were broadcast live during the day on commercial television; at the start, CBS, NBC, and ABC covered them simultaneously, and then later on a rotation basis, while PBS replayed the hearings at night.[8] Some 319 hours were broadcast overall, and 85% of U.S. households watched some portion of them.[8] The audio feed also was broadcast, gavel-to-gavel, on scores of National Public Radio stations, making the hearings available to people in their cars and workplaces, and increased the profile of the fledgling broadcast organization.[9]

The hearings made stars out of both Ervin, who became known for his folksy manner and wisdom but resolute determination, and Baker, who appeared somewhat non-partisan and uttered the famous phrase "What did the President know, and when did he know it?" (often paraphrased by others in later scandals). It was the introduction to the public for minority counsel Thompson, who would later become an actor, senator, and presidential candidate.

Many of Watergate's most famous moments happened during the hearings. During former White House counsel John Dean's four days before the committee, he testified about the cover-up, who was involved including himself and events related to it, including him telling Nixon on March 21 that there was a "cancer on the Presidency") . Dean confirmed to Inouye that the Nixon White House kept a list of its enemies – including Weicker, who then called for added transparency in the executive branch. Meanwhile, FAA chairman and former White House deputy assistant Alexander Butterfield revealed the existence of the secret Nixon White House tapes and Ervin sparred with former Nixon chief domestic policy advisor John Ehrlichman about whether constitutional law allowed a President to sanction such actions as the Watergate break-in and a break-in at the office of the psychiatrist to Daniel Ellsberg, the former assistant to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs who had leaked the Pentagon Papers.[10]

## References

[edit]

1. ^ "Watergate Scandal, 1973 In Review". United Press International. September 8, 1973. Retrieved June 17, 2010.
2. ^ "Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities (The Watergate Committee)". Senate Historical Office. Retrieved December 31, 2016.
3. ^ "March 28, 1973: Watergate Leaks Lead to Open Hearings". Senate Historical Office. Retrieved December 31, 2016.
4. ^ Kenworthy, E. W. (1972-10-13). "PATMAN BALKED ON WATERGATE; Fails Twice to Get Enough Democrats for Quorum". The New York Times. Retrieved 2023-02-06.
5. ^ The $100,000 Misunderstanding, Time, May 6, 1974
6. ^ Senate Select Committee Final Report of the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, by Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, USA, 1974, pages III and VII. Retrieved June 4, 2018.
7. ^ Kiernan, Laura A. (October 1, 1979). "A Watergate Lawyer Decides to 'Move On'". The Washington Post. Retrieved 3 February 2022.
8. ^ a b Ronald Garay, "Watergate" Archived 2013-09-25 at the Wayback Machine, Museum of Broadcast Communications. Accessed June 30, 2007.
9. ^ "'Gavel-to-Gavel': The Watergate Scandal and Public Television", American Archive of Public Broadcasting. Retrieved November 10, 2019.
10. ^ Summer of Judgment: The Watergate Hearings (Part 1 of 2) American Archive of Public Broadcast

## External links

[edit]

* Works by United States Senate Watergate Committee at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
* Coverage of the Watergate Hearings by the National Public Affairs Center for Television (NPACT) at the American Archive of Public Broadcasting

* v
* t
* e

Richard Nixon

* 37th President of the United States (1969–1974)
* 36th Vice President of the United States (1953–1961)
* U.S. Senator from California (1950–1953)
* U.S. Representative for CA–12 (1947–1950)

Presidency|

* Transition
* First inauguration
* Second inauguration
* Nixon Doctrine
* "Bring Us Together"
* Economic policies
* Nixon shock
* Tar Baby Option
* Environmental Protection Agency
* creation
* National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
* Space exploration
* 1971 National Cancer Act
* Vietnam War
* Cambodian bombing
* Paris Peace Accords
* "Peace with Honor"
* Vietnamization
* Silent majority
* Cold War period
* Linkage policy
* Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act
* 1970 Lincoln Memorial visit
* 1972 visit to China
* Shanghai Communiqué
* Détente
* 1972 Moscow Summit
* Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty
* SALT I Treaty
* Prevention of Nuclear War Agreement
* Threshold Test Ban Treaty
* Endangered Species Act
* National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse
* War on drugs
* Drug Enforcement Administration
* Cannabis policy
* Enemies List
* list of opponents
* Operation CHAOS
* Watergate
* timeline
* White House tapes
* United States v. Nixon
* Senate Watergate Committee
* impeachment process
* "I am not a crook"
* Resignation
* speech
* Pardon
* State of the Union Address
* 1970
* 1971
* 1972
* 1973
* 1974
* Wilson desk
* Judicial appointments
* Supreme Court
* controversies
* Executive Orders
* Presidential Proclamations

Life and
politics|

* Richard Nixon Foundation
* Presidential Library and Museum
* Birthplace and boyhood home
* Checkers speech
* 1958 motorcade attack
* Kitchen Debate
* Operation 40
* "Last press conference"
* Florida White House
* "La Casa Pacifica"
* Nixon Center
* Nixon v. General Services Administration
* Death and state funeral

Books|

* Six Crises (1962)
* Bibliography

Elections|

* U.S. House of Representatives: 1946
* 1948
* U.S. Senate: 1950
* California gubernatorial election: 1962
* GOP presidential primaries: 1960
* 1964
* 1968
* 1972
* GOP national conventions: 1952
* 1956
* 1960
* campaign
* 1968
* campaign
* 1972
* campaign
* Presidential elections: 1952
* transition
* 1956
* 1960
* debates
* Kennedy transition
* 1968
* 1972

Popular
culture|

* "Nixon goes to China"
* Millhouse (1971 film)
* An Evening with Richard Nixon (1972 play)
* Richard (1972 film)
* Another Nice Mess (1972 film)
* Four More Years (1972 film)
* Impeach the President (1973 song)
* The Werewolf of Washington (1973 film)
* White House Madness (1975 film)
* All the President's Men (1976 film)
* The Public Burning (1977 novel)
* Washington: Behind Closed Doors (1977 miniseries)
* Secret Honor (1984 film)
* Nixon in China (1987 opera)
* The Final Days (1989 film)
* Nixon (1995 film)
* Elvis Meets Nixon (1997 film)
* Futurama (1999 TV series)
* Dick (1999 film)
* Nixon's China Game (2000 film)
* Dark Side of the Moon (2002 film)
* The Assassination of Richard Nixon (2004 film)
* Frost–Nixon interviews (2006 play, 2008 film)
* Black Dynamite (2009 film)
* "The Impossible Astronaut" (2011 TV episode)
* Our Nixon (2013 film)
* X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014 film)
* Crooked (2015 novel)
* Elvis & Nixon (2016 film)
* The Post (2017 film)
* Watergate (2019 board game)
* U.S. postage stamp

Related|

* Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act
* Presidential Townhouse
* Richard Nixon mask
* Nixon diamond

Staff|

* Jack Brennan (aide de camp)
* Murray Chotiner (early campaign manager)
* Manolo Sanchez (valet)
* Rose Mary Woods (secretary)

Family|

* Thelma "Pat" Ryan Nixon (wife)
* Tricia Nixon Cox (daughter)
* Julie Nixon Eisenhower (daughter)
* Christopher Nixon Cox (grandson)
* Jennie Eisenhower (granddaughter)
* Francis A. Nixon (father)
* Hannah Milhous Nixon (mother)
* Donald Nixon (brother)
* Edward Nixon (brother)

* ← Lyndon B. Johnson
* Gerald Ford →

* Category

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