International Encyclopedia of Communication Online

Extract

Watergate was more than a break-in at Democratic national headquarters. It reflected a larger struggle over US foreign policy between an increasingly powerful executive branch and a resurgent legislative branch. The precursor to this struggle was US involvement in the war in Indochina. The Watergate crisis grew directly out of this war. As was usual with President Richard Nixon's public crises, the press played a major role in the beginnings of Watergate (→  Fourth Estate ; Historic Key Events and the Media ). In June 1971 the New York Times began publishing a series of articles that chronicled American involvement in the Vietnam War. The documents, which had been leaked to the Times by former Pentagon employee Daniel Ellsberg who had become disillusioned with the war, were basically a historical account of American participation in the conflict. They dealt with mishandling of the war by the previous Democratic administration and were first thought by Nixon to be embarrassing only to his political opponents. However, Nixon's national security advisor Henry Kissinger convinced the president that to allow the leakage of such classified information without retaliation on his part would be harmful to ongoing secret negotiations with the North Vietnamese, the Chinese, and the Soviet Union. The United States might be viewed by these countries as being unable to keep a secret. The ... log in or subscribe to read full text