American History: Nixon Resigns Over Watergate
15 December 2011
Reporters Bob Woodward, right, and Carl Bernstein in the Washington Post newsroom on May 7, 1973. Their reporting of the Watergate case won them a Pulitzer Prize.
STEVE EMBER: Welcome to THE MAKING OF A NATION -- American history in VOA Special English. I’m Steve Ember.
This week in our series, we conclude the story of the thirty-seventh president of the United States, Richard Nixon.
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Richard Nixon's first term ended with the hope for a complete American withdrawal from the war in Vietnam. Yet Americans were still angry about the war and its economic effects on life at home. Inflation and unemployment were both high.
Some political observers thought Nixon would not win a second term. Nixon, however, was sure the American people would support him.
He did not actively campaign in the state primary elections leading up to the Republican nominating convention. He focused much of his attention on foreign policy -- including his historic trip to China in February nineteen seventy-two. In May he traveled to Austria, the Soviet Union, Iran and Poland. In Moscow, he signed the first Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty, or SALT, with the Soviets.
But back in Washington, something happened. It was a small incident, but one that would have a huge effect.
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On June seventeenth, nineteen seventy-two, five men wearing surgical gloves broke into the headquarters of the Democratic Party. The Democratic National Committee offices were located in one of the buildings in a complex called Watergate. Police caught the burglars and, at the time, the incident did not seem very important.
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