By the time of Richard Nixon’s reelection to a second term as president in November 1972, Nixon and his White House staff were deeply involved in covering up a crime that led eventually to his resignation in August 1974. Early in the morning of June 17, 1972, five men employed by Nixon’s Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP) were arrested at the Democratic Party’s national headquarters at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. At the time of their arrest the burglars were attempting to replace defective listening devices they had installed previously on the Democrats’ telephones in an attempt to gather information they could use against Nixon’s opponent in the 1972 general election, Senator George S. McGovern of South Dakota.