| • Science | • People | • Locations | • Timeline |
On June 17, 1972, Frank Wills, a security guard working at the office complex of the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. noticed a piece of tape on the door between the basement stairwell and the parking garage. It was holding the door unlocked, so Wills removed it, assuming the cleaning crew had put it there. Later on, he returned to discover the tape had been replaced. Upon seeing this, Wills contacted the D.C. police.
After the police arrived, five men — Bernard Barker, Virgilio González, Eugenio Martínez, James W. McCord, Jr. and Frank Sturgis — were discovered and arrested for breaking into the office of the headquarters of the Democratic National CommitteeThe Democratic National Committee is the principal campaign and fund-raising organization affiliated with the United States Democratic Party. The committee was established in 1848 at that year's Democratic National Convention. Its current leaders are: Cha. The men had broken into the office three weeks earlier as well, and they had returned to fix wiretaps that were not working and, according to some suggestions, photograph documentation.
The need to break into the office for a second time was just the highlight of a number of mistakes made by the burglars. Another one proved costly to them — and the White HouseThis page is about the official residence of the President of the USA. For other White Houses see White House (disambiguation). See also 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (musical . The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the President — when police found the telephone number of E. Howard HuntEdward Howard Hunt (born October 9, 1918) worked for the White House under President Richard Nixon, figured in the Watergate Scandal, and was convicted of burglary, conspiracy, and wiretapping, eventually serving 33 months in prison. Hunt, along with G. in Barker's notebook. Hunt had previously worked for the White House while McCord, at the time of his arrest, was officially employed as Chief of Security at the Committee to Re-elect the President (official abbreviation CRP but usually referred to as CREEP); so this quickly suggested that there was a link between the burglars and someone close to the President. However, Ron ZieglerRonald Louis Ziegler ( May 12, 1939 February 10, 2003) was White House Press Secretary during United States President Richard Nixon's administration from 1969 1974 and Assistant to the President in 1974. Ziegler was born in Covington, Kentucky. He worked, Nixon's press secretary, dismissed the affair as a "third-rate burglary".
At his arraignmentArraignment is a common law term for the formal reading of a criminal complaint, in the presence of the defendant, to inform him of the charges against him. In response to arraignment, the accused is expected to enter a plea. Acceptable pleas vary from ju, McCord identified himself as an agent of the CIA. The Washington, D.C., district attorney's office began an investigation of the links between McCord and the CIA, and eventually determined that McCord was in receipt of payments from CREEP. A reporter from the Washington Post by the name of Bob Woodward was present at the arraignment, and he, along with his colleague Carl Bernstein, began an investigation into the burglary over the following months. Most of what they published was known to the FBI and other governmental investigators — these were often the sources — but they helped keep Watergate in the spotlight and embarrass the White House. Woodward's relations with a principal inside source codenamed " Deep Throat", whose identity has yet to be revealed, added an extra layer of mystery to the affair.
President Nixon and White House Chief of Staff H. R. "Bob" Haldeman were tape-recorded (a standard, but secret, Nixon practice) on June 23 discussing use of the Central Intelligence Agency to obstruct the Federal Bureau of Investigation's investigation of the Watergate break-ins. Nixon followed through by asking the CIA to slow the FBI's investigation of the crime — claiming, speciously, that national security would be put at risk. In fact, the crime and numerous other " dirty tricks" had been undertaken on behalf of CREEP, mainly under the direction of Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy. They had also previously worked in the White House in the Special Investigations Unit, nicknamed the " Plumbers". This group investigated leaks of information the administration did not want publicly known, and ran various operations against the Democrats and anti-war protesters. Most famously, they broke into the office of the psychologist of Daniel Ellsberg. Ellsberg, a former employee of the The Pentagon and State Department, had leaked the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times and as a result was prosecuted for espionage, theft, and conspiracy. Hunt and Liddy found nothing useful, however, and trashed the office to cover their tracks. The break-in was only linked to the White House much later, but at the time it caused the collapse of Ellsberg's trial due to evident government misconduct.
There is still much dispute about the level of involvement of leading figures in the White House, such as Attorney General John Mitchell, chief of staff Haldeman, leading aides Charles Colson and John Ehrlichman, and Nixon himself. Mitchell, as the head of CREEP, along with campaign manager Jeb Stuart Magruder and Fred LaRue, approved Hunt and Liddy's espionage plans, including the break-in, but whether it went above them is unclear. Magruder, for instance, provided a number of different accounts, including having overheard Nixon order Mitchell to conduct the break-in in order to gather intelligence about the activities of Larry O'Brien, the director of the Democratic Campaign Committee.
On January 8, 1973, the original burglars along with Liddy and Hunt went to trial. All except McCord and Liddy pleaded guilty, but they were all found guilty of conspiracy, burglary and wiretapping. The accused had been paid by CREEP to plead guilty but say nothing, and this angered the trial judge John Sirica (known as "Maximum John" because of his harsh sentencing). Sirica handed down thirty-year sentences but indicated he would reconsider if the group would be more cooperative. McCord complied, implicated CREEP in the burglary and the payoff for the burglars' silence, and admitted to perjury.