Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Watergate

Starting point is 00:00:00 On June 17, 1972, a seemingly minor burglary at a Washington, D.C. office building set off a chain of events that would shake the American political system to its core. What began with five arrests, soon revealed secret campaign operations, legal surveillance, hush money, destroyed evidence, and an expanding effort to conceal the truth. The investigation would consume the country and ultimately bring down a president. Learn more about Watergate, the scandal that forever changed American politics, On this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. At Volvo, safety is not a feature. It's our purpose. Rigorous crash testing.

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Starting point is 00:01:12 Learn more at Volvo's. Don't you wish you could just hit skip on the worst parts of your life? You know the same way you can skip an ad? I get it. I'm Siaia and I live in Ice Cove. I've made some questionable decisions that didn't end up the way I planned. And today I'm still figuring it out. Somehow things usually get worse before they get better.

Starting point is 00:01:36 Apparently, that's how I roll. So bundle up and come along for the bumpy ride. stream a new episode of North of North Tuesdays on CBC Gem. In 1968, the former vice president, Richard Nixon, was elected the 37th president of the United States. When Nixon took office, the United States was deep in the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement was underway, and the country had just experienced the assassinations of both Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. In this backdrop of unrest, Nixon promised to restore law and order. He won the popular vote and had an electoral landslide victory against the Democratic nominee, Vice President Hubert Humphrey.

Starting point is 00:02:19 After he was elected, many people saw Nixon as ambitious but practical. He was especially respected for his foreign policy. During the Cold War, he helped reduce tensions between the United States, China, and the Soviet Union. His foreign policy strategy was to decrease direct involvement in the Vietnam War, and he took measures to withdraw American troops and shift the burden of combat to the government of South Vietnam. At home, Nixon signed laws to protect the environment, expand civil rights and help the economy. He created the Environmental Protection Agency, pushed for desegregation in Southern schools,

Starting point is 00:02:50 and took the U.S. off the gold standard and ended the Bretton Woods Agreement. Nixon's public accomplishments were only part of the story. Even though he promised to end the Vietnam War, he secretly increased bombing in Cambodia to try and force a diplomatic resolution. The New York Times exposed his secret bombings in May of 1969. And after that, Nixon started using unusual and

Starting point is 00:03:13 legal methods to deal with his political opponents and critics. That month, the FBI placed wiretaps on national security council staff members and other government officials and journalists. Even with these efforts, classified information still leaked. In June of 1971, the New York Times published documents known as the Pentagon Papers. When the report came out, people learned that the United States government had repeatedly misled both the public and Congress about the true extent of the war in Vietnam. Because these documents were produced during the Johnson administration, Nixon wasn't too worried about how it would affect his popularity. But National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger, used his position to pressure Nixon and other White House staff to prevent the

Starting point is 00:03:57 papers from being published. They filed a restraining order against the New York Times, which halted the paper's publication. But while they focused on the New York Times, the Washington Post got hold of the Pentagon Papers and started publishing them, too. The New York Times challenged the restraining order and the Supreme Court ruled against Nixon, saying that the New York Times had the right to publish. After losing in the Supreme Court, Nixon took even more drastic steps to stop leaks. He was especially worried about files on the Chenalt affair. The Chinnalt affair was the Nixon campaign's alleged 1968 effort,

Starting point is 00:04:32 through intermediary Anna Chennault, to persuade South Vietnam to delay peace talks with North Vietnam until after the U.S. presidential election. Nixon told his aide Chuck Colson to get the files, but getting the files really meant breaking into the Brookings Institution and stealing them. The team included G. Gordon Liddy and Aides Egel Crow and David Young. Their plan to break into the Brookings Institution didn't work, but the group was repurposed to stop leaks, and they became known as the White House plumbers, a secret team meant to prevent leaks like the Pentagon Papers.

Starting point is 00:05:09 One of their first missions was to break into the office of Dr. Lewis Fielding, a psychiatrist. Their mission was to steal the medical files of Daniel Ellsberg, the man who leaked the Pentagon papers. Nixon hoped the psychiatrist files would have something damaging that could discredit Ellsberg. The plumbers broke into the office, but found nothing useful. To hide what they had done, they made it look like someone with an addiction had broken in. Even though they found nothing incriminating in Ellsberg's records. They still wanted to ruin his reputation. And their next idea was to drug him with LSD at a Washington event, but the White House approved it too late for it to happen. The plumbers did other jobs as well, like lead investigations,

Starting point is 00:05:52 make assessments, and even forged documents. They also discovered that someone at the Pentagon was leaking information about the National Security Council, which made Nixon even more paranoid. As the 1972 election got closer, Nixon and Nixon, and his team feared losing. Early polls showed him behind the Democrats, and he had good reason to worry. The Vietnam War was still going on and people wanted it to end. Inflation and unemployment were also very high. Nixon also had a history of close political losses, like losing the 1960 presidential election to President John Kennedy. As Nixon became more paranoid, he took bigger steps to protect himself. He had the Secret Service put microphones in the White House to record conversations.

Starting point is 00:06:33 Nixon then asked the plumbers to carry out more schemes. They planned to break into several Democratic Party offices, including a law firm in the Watergate building. The group was officially called the Committee for the Relection of the President or CRP, but after the Watergate story broke, people just started calling them creep. They planned to break into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate office complex on Memorial Day weekend. The team included James W. McCourt.

Starting point is 00:07:03 Jr., Bernard Baker, Verhielio Gonzalez, Eugenio Martinez, and Frank Sturgis. The break-in was supposed to happen on the night of May 26th. Organized by E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy, the group dressed up as executives and waited in a banquet room connected to the office's stairwell. The break-in didn't happen, and they got stuck in the banquet room overnight. The next night, they tried to break into the DNC headquarters again, but Gonzalez didn't have the right tool to get in the door, so they had to abort. and he flew to Miami to get his tools.

Starting point is 00:07:36 On May 28th, the team tried a third time to break into the DNC office and this time through the garage. They got in, photographed files, and bugged the phones of a secretary and a staff member. But one of the wiretaps didn't work. This led them to try a fourth break-in on June 17th. And during the break-in, the team put tape over the door latches so the door wouldn't lock. Security guard Frank Willis noticed the tape and called the police. Undercover police officers arrived just three minutes later. Because they were dressed as hippies, the Outlook didn't notice them and never warned the team.

Starting point is 00:08:17 When the Outlook saw lights on the 8th floor, they warned the team that someone was there. The police saw the taped locks and caught the burglars. They were arrested after giving fake names. When the police found their listening devices, they called in the FBI for a federal communications violation. Federal prosecutors investigated the burglars hotel room and found spy gear, money, papers, address books, and a telephone directory. Investigators also found that the burglars had used aliases and that one of the suspects

Starting point is 00:08:46 they arrested worked for the committee to reelect the president. While the FBI investigated the case, the White House destroyed incriminating material linking into the burglary. On June 22nd, Nixon publicly denied White House involvement in the Watergate break-in. The Washington Post reported the break-in, but other papers like the New York Times gave it little coverage. The Post investigation was led by two young reporters, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. They learned that Hunt was once involved with the CIA, and they began publishing articles about the White House's suspicious behavior and accused it of spying.

Starting point is 00:09:24 Fearful of the investigation, the White House wanted the CIA to pressure the FBI to stop investigating Watergate, claiming it was a national security issue. Nixon approved this plan on June 23rd. This conversation was recorded and later became known as the smoking gun tape. The CIA complied with Nixon's request and agreed to help pressure the FBI to end its investigation. However, the FBI refused to end the investigation unless the CIA put the request in writing, something which they refused to do. As an attempt to cover their bases, the C.

Starting point is 00:10:00 CRP fired Liddy and used him as a scapegoat. And to ensure that Liddy complied, he was promised that the plumbers would be financially compensated. The questionable actions of the CRP and the Nixon administration began to catch up with them. Investigators discovered that $89,000 in Nixon campaign contributions had been routed through a Mexican bank account, helping obscure the money's source, before some of it ended up with the Watergate burglars. These reports made Nixon even more fearful, and he tried to stop the probe. Liddy and the five burglars were indicted on eight counts on September 15th. Despite a gag order, the Times printed a story linking the burglary to the White House.

Starting point is 00:10:42 To help keep the scandal private, Liddy was bribed further. His legal fees were paid and he was promised a future presidential pardon, which was enough to make him take the blame. All the burglars claimed that they were rogue agents acting on Liddy's behalf, and on January 30, 1973, all five defendants were found guilty. By this point, Nixon's cover-up was largely effective. Many Americans knew of the DNC break-in, but didn't connect it to Nixon. Nixon had been re-elected in November of 1972 in an electoral landslide, winning 49 of 50 states. But not everyone was satisfied. An inquiry led by Senator

Starting point is 00:11:25 Ted Kennedy resulted in a Senate committee to investigate. the issue. The committee found more suspicious information on Nixon and the plumbers. Most notably, during sentencing, some of the plumbers confessed that they were told to plead guilty and commit perjury. This information was then leaked to the LA Times. The press then turned its full attention to Watergate and the scandal exploded. Suspicion of White House involvement grew despite Nixon's denials. Although Nixon consistently rejected the allegations, live broadcasts of the plumber's testimony before a congressional committee aired in May of 1973, drawing an audience of three out of every four American households. Although Congress subpoenaed the White House recordings,

Starting point is 00:12:07 Nixon initially refused to relinquish them until judicial rulings ultimately compelled them to comply. Desperate to prevent the tapes from leaking, Nixon executed an event dubbed the Saturday Night Massacre. On October 20th, 1973, Nixon ordered the firing of Watergate's special prosecutor Archibald Cox, prompting the resignations of Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckels House. The public condemned Nixon and his approval rating fell to 24%. Many members of Congress on both sides of the aisle launched an impeachment inquiry. Investment into Nixon continued while he attempted to find loopholes to prevent documentation of his legal activities from getting out. Meanwhile,

Starting point is 00:12:50 he continued to be interviewed and denied wrongdoing. He famously stated that he was not a crook. Despite his denials, investigations continued. One tape made on June 20, 1972, involving Nixon and his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, just three days after the Watergate arrest, had a highly suspicious 18-5-minute gap. Impeachment hearings against Nixon began. Over the span of weeks, accounts of the Watergate break-in and cover-up appeared, and in addition, the smoking gun tape was finally released. Nixon facing the inevitability of impeachment and removal.

Starting point is 00:13:25 from office, announced his resignation on August 8, 1974, and his vice president, Gerald Ford, assumed the presidency the following day. Just a month after taking office, President Ford issued a presidential pardon for Nixon. Despite Nixon getting away Scott Free, 69 people were charged with crimes related to Watergate, and almost all were convicted or pleaded guilty. Watergate ultimately became far more than a failed burglary. It exposed abuses of presidential power, illegal political operations, and an extensive effort to obstruct investigations and conceal wrongdoing. The scandal led to criminal convictions, major reforms, and the only resignation of a U.S. president

Starting point is 00:14:10 in history. It also left a lasting mark on American political culture, deepening public skepticism towards government and making Watergate a shorthand for any political scandal. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Austin Otkin and Cameron Kiefer. Research and writing for this episode was provided by Olivia Ash. My big thanks go to everyone who supports a show over on Patreon. Your support helps make this podcast possible.

Starting point is 00:14:42 And I also want to remind everyone about the community groups on Facebook and Discord. This is where everything happens that's outside of the show. As always, if you leave a review on any major podcast app or in the above community groups, you two can have it run on the show.

Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Watergate

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