On November 17, 1973, President Richard M. Nixon gave a televised press conference in which he denied his involvement in the Watergate cover-up, despite recent congressional testimony by former White House legal counsel John Dean to the contrary. The embattled president also spoke of his questionable tax record and the subpoena of the Watergate tapes--official recordings of White House conversations expected to prove that Nixon was guilty of criminal activity. The Watergate affair began when a break-in at the Watergate Hotel by White House officials was uncovered by journalists and the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, and then escalated when President Nixon attempted to use executive privilege as justification for suppressing investigation of the incident. On July 16, 1973, a former White House aide brought the existence of the Watergate tapes to the attention of the Senate committee investigating Watergate, and on July 26, the recordings were subpoenaed. Nixon failed to comply with the subpoena, and on August 9, the Senate committee filed suit against the president. Finally, on October 23, Nixon agreed to turn over the tapes to a District of Columbia court, but when the recordings arrived, several of the key tapes were missing, and an eighteen-and-a-half-minute gap was discovered on another. The White House failed to satisfactorily explain the long silence during a key conversation between Nixon and White House staff member H. R. Haldeman, although an expert later testified that the gap had been caused by deliberate and repeated erasures. On July 24, the Supreme Court rejected Nixon?s claims of presidential privilege as unconstitutional, and ordered him to honor the special prosecutor?s subpoenas.

Hard Target takes a look with John Dean at the secrecy inside the Nixon White House.

On October 10, 1973, less than a year before Richard M. Nixon's resignation as president of the United States, Spiro Agnew became the first U.S. vice president to resign in disgrace. The same day, he pleaded no contest to a charge of federal income tax evasion in exchange for the dropping of charges of political corruption. He was subsequently fined $10,000, sentenced to three years probation, and disbarred by the Maryland court of appeals. Admitted to the bar in 1949, Agnew entered politics as a Republican, and in 1961, was elected chief executive of Baltimore County. In 1967, he became governor of Maryland, an office he held until his nomination as the Republican vice presidential candidate in 1968. During Nixon's successful campaign, Agnew campaigned on a tough law-and-order platform, and after becoming vice president frequently attacked opponents of the Vietnam War and liberals as being disloyal and un-American. Reelected with Nixon in 1972, Agnew was forced to resign on October 10, 1973, after the U.S. Justice Department uncovered widespread evidence of his political corruption, including shocking allegations that his practice of accepting bribes had continued into his tenure as U.S. vice president. Representative Gerald R. Ford of Michigan was sworn in as Nixon's new vice president on December 6, and became president of the United States on August 9, 1974, after the escalating Watergate affair forced President Nixon's resignation.

On October 20, 1973, U.S. Attorney General Elliot Richardson resigned after refusing to fire special Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox, who earlier in the day had announced that he would not accept White House summaries of the Watergate tapes. The Watergate tapes, subpoenaed three months before under the authority of the Senate, were official recordings of White House conversations that were believed to heavily implicate the president and his staff in the Watergate affair. Hours after Richardson resigned, Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus, also unwilling to fire Cox, likewise handed in his resignation. Finally, Solicitor General Robert Bork agreed to fire the special prosecutor. Later that night, Alan Cranston, a Democratic senator, reacted to what became known as the ''Saturday Night Massacre.'' On Capitol Hill, the event galvanized congressional outrage at President Nixon's conduct, and on October 23, even as the president finally agreed to turn over the tapes, eight impeachment resolutions were introduced against him in the House of Representatives.

On August 8, 1974, in an evening televised address, President Richard M. Nixon announces his intention to become the first president in American history to resign. With impeachment proceedings underway against him for his involvement in the Watergate affair, Nixon was finally bowing to pressure from the public and Congress to leave the White House. "By taking this action," he said in a solemn address from the Oval Office, "I hope that I will have hastened the start of the process of healing which is so desperately needed in America."

On the evening of August 8, 1974, in a nationally televised address, President Richard M. Nixon announced his intention to resign his office effective noon the next day. With impeachment certain for his criminal involvement in the Watergate affair, Nixon was finally bowing to pressure from the public and Congress to become the first president in American history to resign. ''By taking this action,'' he said in the subdued yet dramatic address from the Oval Office, ''I hope that I will have hastened the start of the process of healing which is so desperately needed in America.'' At noon the next day, Nixon officially ended his term as the thirty-seventh president of the United States. Before departing with his family in a helicopter from the White House lawn, he smiled farewell and enigmatically raised his arms in a victory or peace salute. A moment later, the helicopter door was closed and the Nixon family began their journey home to San Clemente, California. Meanwhile, in the Oval Office, Vice President Gerald R. Ford was sworn-in as the thirty-eighth president of the United States. Ford, the first president who had come to the office through appointment rather than election, had replaced Spiro Agnew as vice president only eight months before. In a political scandal independent of the Nixon administration's wrongdoings in the Watergate affair, Agnew had been forced to resign in disgrace after he was charged with income tax evasion and political corruption. On September 16, President Ford pardoned Nixon for any crimes he may have committed or participated in while in office, explaining that he wanted to end the national divisions created by the Watergate affair.

On September 16, 1974, President Gerald Ford pardoned his disgraced predecessor Richard Nixon for any crimes he committed or may have committed while in office. Nixon had resigned as president on August 9 after evidence of his direct involvement in the Watergate scandal was revealed and his impeachment became a certainty. His successor, Vice President Ford, was the first president to come to the office through appointment rather than election. Ford had replaced Spiro Agnew as vice president only eight months before, when the latter was forced to resign in an independent scandal. After taking the oath of office of August 9, President Ford spoke to the nation in a television address, declaring, "My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.? His September 16 pardon of Nixon caused a national uproar, but Ford later defended the action before Congress, explaining that he wanted to end the national divisions created by the Watergate scandal. Decades later, the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation presented its 2001 Profile in Courage Award to Gerald Ford for his 1974 pardon of Nixon. In pardoning Nixon, the foundation said, Ford placed his love of country ahead of his own political future and brought needed closure to the divisive Watergate affair. Ford left politics after losing the 1976 presidential election to Democrat Jimmy Carter.

"I was surprised at the naivety of white Americans." "I know that there is an enduring naivety. It's really a contrived innocence you see." Angelou feels the unsavory nature of politicians should have come as no surprise. She expresses it as an example of white attitudes as opposed to black attitudes in terms of trusting other people.

Hard Target speaks to Pat Buchannan on the secrecy of Richard Nixon's White House.

Bribery, scandal and pay-offs. Are American politics cleaner today than in the past? Also, our continued look inside a rare archive of American documents and artifacts at The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. Guests: Julian Zelizer, Boston University and Ken Walsh, Chief White House Correspondent for US News and World Report. Jim Basker, President of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.<p>To download this Podcast onto your personal digital music player, simply copy and paste <a href='http://www.historychannel.com/broadband/podcasts/historycenter/historycenter_xml.jsp'>this url</a> into your Podcast program: <a href='http://www.historychannel.com/broadband/podcasts/historycenter/historycenter_xml.jsp'>HistoryCENTER Podcast (xml file)</a> <p>For more information on Podcasts <a href='http://www.historychannel.com/broadband/common/faq.html'>visit our help section</a>.