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.
  • 01/10: Ford continues Nixon's détente policy with both the Soviet Union and China.
• 1975
  • 05/09: Assasination attempt was made on President Ford, in Sacramento.
  • 22/09: A second assasination attempt, in San Fransisco.