Burglars Plead Guilty

E. Howard Hunt and several other burglars pleaded guilty to Judge John Sirica. In the mean time James McCord and G. Gordon Liddy went to trail and were convicted of the crime. In April 1973 H.R. Hadleman, Nixon's Chief of Staff, John Ehrlichman, Chief Domestic Policy Advisor, Richard Kleindienst, Attorney General, and John Dean, a White House lawyer, all lost their jobs in connection with the burglary. In the summer the Watergate scandal had the nation's full attention and was the topic of to major official investigations. One investigation was lead by Archibald Cox and the other lead by Sam Ervin, a North Carolina Senator. It was also discovered in April 1973 that two of the burglars , Hunt and Liddy, had also broken into the office of Daniel Ellsberg, former Defense Department analyst, and gave top-secret Pentagon papers to the New York Times. Dean broke ties with Nixon after losing his job and told the proscuters that Nixon knew of the plan behind to cover up the burglary. Another White House aide came forth in July 1973 and told the committee that Nixon had a secret taping system that record all of his conversations and phone calls within the Oval Office. The White House refused to give the investigators the tapes. After several negotiations the White House provided written letters of the tapes. Ervin like the deal but Cox rejected it and on October 20, 1973 Nixon ordered his new Attorney General, Elliot Richardson, to fire Cox. Instead of firing Cox, Richardson resigned as did William Ruckleshaus, Richardson top deputy.