What Was The Significance of it to History?
Watergate is the reason of new laws that lead to extensive changes in campaign financing. It is a major factor in the passage of amendments to the Freedom of Information Act in 1986, as well as laws that require new financial disclosures by key government officials. It brought a distrust in the government that has grown to where we are today and aided in investigative journalism in the news media. The rules changed dramatically on what reporters investigated and looked into and how editors decided what a major story was ranging from local to national stories.The scandal revealed the that there was a White House dirty tricks squad. This squad was working behind a large connected campaign of political sabotage with an enemies list. They had a "plumbers" unit to plug political leaks and a secret campaign fund that was closely linked with CRP, which all had high-level administration involvement. Watergate is remembered by many people as a term that is used to describe the fall of President Richard Nixon. In June of 1972, Washington, D.C., a robbery/burglary happened that had worldwide importance. It was on this date that five people broke into the Democratic National Headquarters to bug their telephones. The five men who did this were members of the ‘Plumbers’. The Plumbers were a group of anti-Castro Cuban refugees, former FBI agents and former CIA agents among others. This was a strongly Republican group that had broken into The Watergate Hotel to do these activities. On August 8, 1974 Richard M. Nixon became the first United States President to resign. Gerald Ford became Vice President after Nixon's original VP, P Spiro T. Agnew, also resigned. Days after becoming President, Ford pardoned Nixon completely. Nixon was the only ‘Watergate conspirator’ who spent no time in jail.