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发表于 2006-8-19 13:12:17
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Issue作业 将覆盖一下所有方面
【ISSUE 分类】
From 飞跃重洋 by feiba
点击此处链接
今日Issue:
185. "Scandals—whether in politics, academia, or other areas—can be useful. They focus our attention on problems in ways that no speaker or reformer ever could."
185. 丑闻,不管是政治、学术还是其他领域,都能发挥有利的作用。它们让我们以不同的角度去看待问题,而这些是演讲者和改革家不能带给我们的。
1、 政治丑闻
2、 学术丑闻
3、 其他领域:艺术,Machal Jackson
大家怎么想这篇文章?
我觉得对我来说,这个不太好写,尤其是政治 艺术领域的丑闻
Watergate
Under the relentless prodding of Judge John J. Sirica, one of the Watergate burglars began to tell the full story of the Nixon administration’s complicity in the episode. James W. McCord, a former CIA agent and security chief for the Committee to Reelect the President (CREEP), was the first of many informers and penitents in a melodrama that unfolded over the next two years, which mixed the special qualities of soap opera and Machiavellian intrigue. It ended in the first resignation of a president in American history, the conviction and imprisonment of twenty five officials of the Nixon administration, including four cabinet members, and the most serious constitutional crisis since the impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson.
UNCOVERING THE COVER-UP The trial of evidence pursued by judge Sirica, a grand jury and several special prosecutors, and a televised Senate investigation headed by Samuel J. Ervin, Jr., of North Carolina, led directly to the White House. No evidence surfaced that Nixon had ordered the break-in or that he had been aware of plans to burglarize the Democratic National Committee. But from the start Nixon was personally involved in the cover-up, using his presidential powers to discredit and block the investigation. Perhaps most alarming was the discovery that the Watergate burglary was merely one small part of a larger pattern of corruption and criminality sanctioned by the Nixon White House.
The White House had become committed to illegal tactics in May 1970 when the New York Times broke the story of the secret bombings in Cambodia. Nixon, by nature a man possessed by insecurity, had ordered illegal telephone taps on several newsmen and government employees suspected of leaking the story. In 1971, during the crisis generated by the publication of the Pentagon Papers, a team of burglars under the direction of White House advisor John Ehrlichman had broken into a psychiatrist’s office in an effort to obtain damaging information on Daniel Ellsberg, the former Pentagon employee who had supplied the press with the secret documents. By the spring of 1972 Ehrlichman commanded a team of “dirty tricksters” who performed various acts of sabotage against prospective Democratic candidates for the presidency, including falsely accusing Hubert Humphrey and Sen. Henry Jackson of sexual improprieties, forging press release, setting off stink-bombs at Democratic gatherings, and associating the opposition candidates with racist remarks.
The cover-up unraveled further in April 1973 when L. Patrick Gray, acting director of the FBI, resigned after confessing that he had confiscated and destroyed several incriminating documents. On April 30 Ehrlichman and Haldeman resigned, together with Attorney-General Richard Kleindienst. A few days later Nixon nervously assured the public in a television address: “I’m not a crook.” But new evidence suggested otherwise. John Dean, whom Nixon had dismissed as presidential counsel, testified before the Ervin Committee and a rapt television audience that Nixon had approved the cover-up. In another “bombshell” disclosure a White House aide told the committee that Nixon had installed a taping system in the White House and that many of the conversations about Watergate had been recorded.
A year-long battle for the “Nixon tapes” then began. The Harvard law professor Archibald Cox, whom Nixon had appointed as a special prosecutor to handle the Watergate case, took the president to court in October 1973 to obtain the tapes. Nixon, pleading “executive privilege,” refused to release them and ordered Cox fired. In what became known as the “Saturday Night Massacre,” the new attorney-general, Elliot Richardson, and his deputy resigned rather than execute the order. Cox’s replacement as special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, proved no more pliable than Cox, and he also took the president to court. On July 24, 1974, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the president must surrender the tapes. A few days later the House judiciary Committee voted to recommend the three articles of impeachment: obstruction of justice through the payment of “hush money” to witnesses and withholding of evidence; using federal agencies to deprive citizens of their constitutional rights; and defiance of Congress by withholding the tapes. But before the House of Representatives could meet to vote on impeachment, Nixon handed over the complete set of White House tapes. On August 9, 1974, fully aware that the evidence on the tapes implicated him in the cover-up, Richard Nixon resigned from office.
EFFECTS OF WATERGATE Vice-president Spiro Agnew did not succeed Nixon because Agnew himself had been forced to resign in October 1973 when it became known that he had accepted bribes from contractors before and during his term as vice-president. The vice-president at the time of Nixon’s resignation was Gerald Ford, the former minority leader in the House, whom Nixon had appointed with Congressional approval, under the provisions of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment (1967). Ford insisted that he had no intention of pardoning Nixon, who was still liable for criminal prosecution. “I do not think the public would stand for it,” predicted Ford. But a month after Nixon’s resignation the new president issued the pardon, explaining that it was necessary to end the national obsession with the Watergate scandals. Many suspected that Nixon and Ford had made a deal, though there was no evidence to confirm the speculation. President Ford testified personally to a congressional committee: “There was no deal, period.” But suspicions remained.
If there was a sliver lining in Watergate’s dark cloud, it was the vigor and resiliency of the institutions that had brought a president down the press, Congress, the courts, and an aroused public opinion. The Watergate revelations provoked Congress to pass several pieces of legislation designed to curb executive power in the future. The War Powers Act (1973) required presidents to consult with Congress before sending American troops into combat abroad and to withdraw troops after sixty days unless Congress specifically approved their stay. In an effort to correct abuses of campaign funds, Congress enacted legislation in 1974 that set new ceilings on contributions and expenditures. And in reaction to the Nixon claim of “executive privilege,”
Congress strengthened the 1966 Freedom of Information Act to require prompt responses to requests for information from government files and to place on government agencies the burden of proof for classifying information.
The nation had weathered a profound constitutional crisis, but the aftershock of the Watergate episode produced a deep sense of disillusionment with the so-called “imperial presidency.” Coming on the heels of the erosion of public confidence generated by the Vietnam War, the Watergate affairs renewed public cynicism toward a government that had systematically lied to the people and violated their civil liberties, said one bumper sticker of the day: “Don’t vote. It only encourages them.”
Nixon’s resignation pleased his critics but also initiated a prolonged crisis of confidence. A 1974 poll asked people how much faith they had in the executive branch of government. Only 14 percent answered “a great deal”; 43 percent said “hardly any.” Restoring credibility and respect became the primary challenge facing Nixon’s successors. Unfortunately, a new array of economic and foreign crisis would make that task doubly difficult.
[ 本帖最后由 ChunyanLi2005 于 2006-9-4 21:27 编辑 ] |
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