Criminal and congressional investigations followed the Post reporting and found a massive cover-up orchestrated by the Nixon campaign and the White House, right up to the president himself.

During Senate hearings in 1973, it came to light that Nixon recorded his conversations in the White House, and those tapes eventually helped to prove Nixon’s involvement in the cover-up.

The most dramatic thing

VOA’s David Dyar covered the Watergate scandal as a young reporter for United Press International, including President Nixon’s decision to order the firing of the Watergate special prosecutor in 1973.

“When I was hearing all this unfold in the White House briefing room, there was a sense among many there that something truly historic had happened and that the president was putting himself above the law and that the entire constitutional fabric of the justice system in the country was being challenged," said Dyar. "It was the most dramatic thing I have ever witnessed firsthand as a reporter.”

Once the White House tapes showed Nixon’s complicity in the cover-up, the president lost his base of Republican Party support in Congress and he announced his resignation in August of 1974.

“I have never been a quitter," said Nixon. "To leave office before my term is completely is abhorrent to every instinct in my body. But as president I must put the interests of America first.”

"Long national nightmare is over"