Sam Ervin
Watergate scandal Watergate complex Events List Timeline Nixon White House tapes Operation Sandwedge Operation Gemstone 1972 U.S. presidential election Presidency of Richard Nixon "Saturday Night Massacre" "White House horrors" United States v. Nixon Inauguration of Gerald Ford People Watergate burglars Bernard Barker Virgilio Gonzalez Eugenio Martínez James W. McCord, Jr. Frank Sturgis Groups Master list of Nixon's political opponents Nixon's Enemies List Watergate Babies Watergate Seven White House Plumbers CRP Committee for the Re-Election of the President (CRP) Fred LaRue Jeb Stuart Magruder Robert Mardian John N. Mitchell Kenneth Parkinson Hugh W. Sloan, Jr. Maurice Stans White House Alexander Butterfield Charles Colson John Dean John Ehrlichman Gerald Ford H. R. Haldeman E. Howard Hunt Egil Krogh G. Gordon Liddy Richard Nixon Gordon C. Strachan Rose Mary Woods Judiciary Archibald Cox Leon Jaworski John Sirica Journalists Carl Bernstein Bob Woodward The Washington Post Intelligence community Mark Felt aka "Deep Throat" L. Patrick Gray Richard Helms James R. Schlesinger Congress Howard Baker Sam Ervin Peter W. Rodino U.S. Senate Watergate Committee v t e Samuel James "Sam" Ervin, Jr. (September 27, 1896 – April 23, 1985) was an American politician. A Democrat, he served as a U.S. Senator from North Carolina from 1954 to 1974. A native of Morganton, he liked to call himself a "country lawyer", and often told humorous stories in his Southern drawl. During his Senate career, Ervin was a legal defender of the Jim Crow laws and racial segregation, as the South's constitutional expert during the congressional debates on civil rights. Unexpectedly, he became a liberal hero for his support of civil liberties. He is remembered for his work in the investigation committees that brought down Senator Joseph McCarthy in 1954 and especially his investigation in 1972 and 1973 of the Watergate scandal that led to the resignation in 1974 of President Richard Nixon.