Watergate: Implications for Responsible Government

1. Watergate: Implications forResponsible Government Maureen Tremblay PA 302 April 3, 2006

2. Worldview: • Shared concern that the competence and dependability of government be achieved and secured • To preserve the values that contribute to an effective and progressive social order • The integrity of the leaders in every branch of government is necessary to secure and retain the confidence of the citizens

3. Overview: • Watergate had a shattering impact upon our government at all levels • Growing disillusionment, cynicism, and contempt for government and politics • Reevaluation of our political and administrative systems and application of appropriate remedies must be undertaken

4. Aberration, Extension, or Culmination?

5. Aberration? • Watergate was a product of a system • Practices of the system • Use of governmental powers and resources in behalf of friends, against enemies • Politicization of the career services • Political espionage on American citizens • Excessive secrecy, usually on the grounds of national security • Use of governmental personnel and resources for partisan purposes • Solicitation of political contributions • Dirty tricks

6. Extension? • Consequence of trends in the larger systems of our society • Decline in social mortality and the influences of the churches • Weakening of the family unit and personal responsibility • Increasing power of the national government • Increasing prevalence of both public and private bureaucracies • Growing dominance of technology

7. Culmination?

8. Watergate: how and why “Presidential power,its enlargement, its exploitation, and its continuation.”

9. Political climate: • “It was evident that the imperative to reelect was so driving as to override many other considerations, including the public interest and normal ethical and legal constraints.” • The White House became the command post for conduct by the President’s staff of near warfare against those whom it considered “enemies.”

10. Climate: administrative • Usurpation by the White House of power over both policy and day-to-day operations heretofore carried on in the departments and other established agencies; • Enormous growth of the White House staff, accompanied by the establishment of a tight hierarchy within it; • Veiling of White House activities on grounds of national security or executive privilege;

11. Findings: • “The administrative and political aspects of the governmental climate were increasingly interlocked… together they constituted a critical threat to many of the values and protections Americans associate with a democratic system of government”

12. Recommendations: • The educational institutions around the nation, especially those professional schools which provide significant numbers of public officials, focus more attention on public service ethics

13. Did we seized the opportunity? • “___ was an inevitable outgrowth of a climate of excessive concern over the political impact of demonstrations, excessive concern over leaks, and insatiable appetite for political intelligence all coupled with a do-it-yourself White House staff regardless of the law.”

16. Is there hope?

17. The End