Watergate Timeline
- 1972
- 21/02: Nixon visits China, beginning a strategic and diplomatic
overture, via the establishment of relations between the United
States of America and the People's Republic of China after years
of American diplomatic policy that favored Taiwan.
- 15/05: Bob Woodward uses information from a confidential source
Deep Throat for the first time in a Washington Post story.
- 26/05: Détente with Soviets - Nixon and Brezhnev signed an ABM
treaty in Moscow as well as SALT I which temporarily capped the
number of strategic arms.
- 07/06: McGovern locks up the Democratic presidential
nomination. He will be an easy candidate to beat by Nixon.
- 17/06: E. Howard Hunt and Liddy launched the second illegal entry
at the Watergate... This time, James McCord and the four Cuban
Americans were caught and arrested.
- 01/08: The press and the Department of Justice connected the cash
found on the burglars to the Committee for the Re-Election of the
President (Nixon).
- 26/10: During a press conference Kissinger announces: "We believe
that peace is at hand [in Vietnam]"
- 07/11: Incumbent Nixon is re-elected, receives over 47 million
votes, nearly 20 million more than the Democratic candidate. Sixty
percent of the electorate had backed the Republican incumbent. No
Republican had ever won the White House by so large a margin.
No president had ever won more popular votes or carried so many
states: all of them except Massachussets.
- 1973
- 23/01: Nixon announces the United States and North Vietnam had
signed an agreement to end the war.
- 29/03: The last American combat soldier left Vietnam, completing
the American military withdrawal.
- 04/05: Alexander Haig becomes the White House Chief of Staff,
replacing Haldeman.
- 1974
- 08/08: Nixon resigns from presidency. His VP Ford is sworn in.
- 20/08: Ford announced his nomination of former New York Governor
Nelson Rockefeller to fill the vacancy.
- 1975
- 05/09: Assasination attempt was made on President Ford, in Sacramento.
- 22/09: A second assasination attempt, in San Fransisco.