Who Took the Upper Hand in 1973?

In 1973, the United States and the world were searching for dominance — in all kinds of ways. Some wanted to tighten their grip on the power they already had but feared they were losing. Some wanted to wrest authority from others.

For most Americans, the battle for the upper hand was most visible in the Senate Watergate hearings, which were televised live starting in May.

On January 20, Richard Nixon took the oath of office as president for the second time — but two months later, a letter to Judge John Sirica from Watergate burglar James McCord breathed new life into the Watergate investigation that would culminate in Nixon's resignation the following year.

From May until August, Nixon's defenders (chiefly former officials and White House advisers) and one major accuser (former White House counsel John Dean) paraded before the cameras and the nation to answer the senators' questions — and, in the process, produced the startling revelation that the Oval Office had been bugged.

In the autumn, the struggle over Nixon's tapes led to the "Saturday Night Massacre." Special Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox refused to accept transcripts of the tapes instead of the tapes themselves and was fired by the solicitor general, Robert Bork, after the attorney general and deputy attorney general resigned.

In the firestorm of protest that followed, Nixon eventually felt compelled to proclaim in a nationally televised press conference, "I am not a crook."

A few days later, the 18½-minute gap in one of the White House tapes was made public by one of Nixon's lawyers, and the year came to an end a few weeks after Gerald Ford was sworn in to replace Vice President Spiro Agnew, who had resigned in October.

Watergate wasn't the only thing making news in 1973, even though it may have seemed that way at times.

In January, the Supreme Court handed down its Roe v. Wade decision, which continues to influence politics in America.