Power, Lost and Found: America At Century’s End 503located in a huge complex called the Watergate Building, hence the name of
the scandal. The break-in was a mess—Nixon later, and accurately, called it
a “third-rate burglary.” The spies, whom were experienced and had reached
significant levels in the CIA or FBI, had forgotten to remove the duct tape
they used to keep the door unlocked so they could gain entry. Even more,
Nixon’s re-election was never in doubt and he won in a landslide, so the desire
for inside information on the Democrats was totally unnecessary. Frank Willis,
a night watchman, apprehended 5 men and arrested them after then had bro-
ken into the Watergate office, tapped phones, and taken documents. Of those
arrested, 2 stood out—E. Howard Hunt, a White House aide and ex-CIA
official who had been a major planner behind the 1954 coup in Guatemala,
and G. Gordon Liddy, an official on Nixon’s campaign with a checkered past.
While Watergate gained a great deal of attention, most of the coverage
stopped after Nixon’s huge election victory in November and there was no
reason to worry about it in the White House, or so it seemed.
But in January 1973, 7 men indicted in the break-in were tried, with 5
pleading guilty and the other 2 getting convicted. One of the men, however,
decided to talk. During sentencing, Judge John Sirica, who heard the case, read
a letter from James McCord, Jr. in which he alleged that Nixon demanded
that they all plead guilty and remain silent. What was probably a third-rate
burglary was about to become a first-rate cover-up. Given those revelations,
things got bigger, soon. Both the Department of Justice and the U.S. Senate
began their own investigations of Watergate, while, of greater consequence, a
couple of writers from the Washington Post named Bob Woodward and Carl
Bernstein began investigating the entire affair and writing about it, giving the
nation intricate coverage of the scandal as it unfolded. The reporters were
getting information from an anonymous source they called Deep Throat, the
title of an X-Rated movie [in 2005, a former FBI official, Mark Felt, revealed
himself as the informant], and they were ahead of even the government
authorities looking into the affair.
As the investigations continued, many of Nixon’s associates began to have
misgivings about covering up for him. Jeb Stuart Magruder, an assistant to
campaign director John Mitchell began to cooperate and said that Mitchell and
White House Counsel—the president’s legal advisor—John Dean had ordered
him to lie about Watergate at the earlier trial. By April 1973, the scandal was
becoming the dominant issue in America, especially with Vietnam over, and