March 2, 1974: The Watergate Seven: fifty pages of new info - and what it means for today.

[sharedvalues]

Let's turn our eyes back to 1974. Specifically, early March 1974.

The Saturday Night Massacre had happened in October, 1973, 5 months before. In that five month interval, Washington simmered. People knew Nixon was likely guilty of criminal activity, and people knew that American democracy was at risk. Nixon had engaged in corruption: taking money from corporations to pay off his pals, dirty political dealings like burglaries and fabricated letters, obstruction of justice, and colluding with a foreign power, Vietnam. (Though the known crimes of the current administration were far worse: active conspiracy with a foreign power to sell out America for money.) Americans knew only parts of those crimes at the time. But the feeling in the country was that Nixon was corrupt and bad for America – what was unknown was what facts would come out, what crimes could be proven, and whether, and when, Republicans would turn on their party leader.

On March 2, 1974, the Watergate prosecutors released a 50 page federal indictment. Much of it contained information the country had not known.

There were thirteen counts. Seven were indicted (the Watergate Seven). Those were, with their high-profile jobs:

- Charles Colson: White House counsel. Head of the President's PAC (in modern terms; then called CReeP).
- John Erlichman: White House head of domestic (political) affairs.
- H.R. "Bob" Haldeman: White House chief of staff.
- John N. Mitchell: Attorney General.
- Robert Mardian: Top DOJ aide, top aide to President's PAC.
- Kenneth Parkinson: Counsel for President's PAC.
- Gordon Strachan: Top White House aide.

These were big, big names, who held top jobs.

And much of what we knew about their crimes didn't come out till a day in March, 1974.

Nixon resigned five months later, in August 1974.




https://www.nytimes.com/1974/03/02/archives/federal-grand-jury-indicts-7-nixon-aides-on-charges-of-conspiracy.html



Edit: We also now know that at the same time, the grand jury also delivered a document saying they had enough evidence to indict the president. Here's that draft indictment. March 2, 1974.

https://www.newsweek.com/grand-jury-indict-richard-nixon-watergate-1195613