For the 50th anniversary of the Watergate break-in, the Richard Nixon Foundation has produced this new study resource, “Watergate Explained.” This newly published guide details the Watergate scandal from the leak of the Pentagon Papers in 1971 to the newly released documents from the National Archiv…
Watergate Explained: A Resource Guide | Nixon Library Foundation Contact [email protected] } Hours Open 7 Days a Week10am – 5pm Buy Tickets Store Donate Visit Tickets & Hours What to See Nixon Library Special Exhibits Group Tours Local Hotels FAQ News Nixon Today Events Speakers & Events The Nixon Seminar Event Videos Events at the Nixon Library – FAQ Private Events Programs Grand Strategy Summit Architect of Peace Award Distinguished Speakers Series Nixon National Cancer Conference Nixon National Energy Conference Nixon Seminar Pat Nixon Day of Service Resources & Learning Richard Nixon Bio Pat Nixon Bio Podcasts Research Guide Watergate Explained The Opening of China Nixon Legacy Forums Support American Civics Campaign Become a Member Donate Plan Your Event Weddings Meetings & Corporate Events Filming and Production About Contact Us Board of Directors Email Newsletter Careers and Employment Visit Tickets & Hours What to See Nixon Library Special Exhibits Group Tours Local Hotels FAQ News Nixon Today Events Speakers & Events The Nixon Seminar Event Videos Events at the Nixon Library – FAQ Private Events Programs Grand Strategy Summit Architect of Peace Award Distinguished Speakers Series Nixon National Cancer Conference Nixon National Energy Conference Nixon Seminar Pat Nixon Day of Service Resources & Learning Richard Nixon Bio Pat Nixon Bio Podcasts Research Guide Watergate Explained The Opening of China Nixon Legacy Forums Support American Civics Campaign Become a Member Donate Plan Your Event Weddings Meetings & Corporate Events Filming and Production About Contact Us Board of Directors Email Newsletter Careers and Employment This week marks the 50th anniversary of the June 17, 1972 Watergate break-in. This occasion presents an opportunity to explain Watergate — what we know, what we don’t know, and what we are still learning. To do this, the Richard Nixon Foundation has today released a new resource, “Watergate Explained,” now available on our website. This new historical resource guide takes you through the major elements of Watergate and references newly released documents from the National Archives that shed new light on this history today. Table of Contents: Richard Nixon: An Introduction The Presidential Tapes The Washington, D.C. Environment, 1968-72 The White House Watergate Tapes Leak of the Pentagon Papers A Cancer Close to the Presidency The White House “Plumbers” The Senate Watergate Committee The Moorer-Radford Affair The Watergate Special Prosecutor’s Office The Roots of Watergate President Nixon’s Resignation The Watergate Break-ins The Watergate Cover-up Trials Watergate Burglars Trial and Conviction The Changing Face of the Watergate Scandal The FBI and the CIA Richard Nixon: An Introduction Richard Nixon first came to national prominence in 1947 as a freshman congressman from California’s 12th congressional district. Appointed to the House Un-American Activities Committee, he led an investigation into former senior State Department official Alger Hiss, exposing Hiss as a Soviet spy – and turning Nixon into a national figure. Nixon then experienced a rapid rise in national politics, winning election to the United States Senate in 1950 and twice as vice president of the United States, in 1952 and 1956, as the running mate of Dwight D. Eisenhower. In 1960, Vice President Nixon narrowly lost the presidential election to Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy. In 1968 Nixon achieved one of history’s greatest political comebacks, winning the presidency in a three-way contest. In 1972 he carried 49 states in his re-election bid, receiving 61 percent of the vote. Nixon’s second term unraveled amid the political fallout from what became known as the Watergate scandal. Months of investigations by Congress and federal prosecutors gradually eroded Nixon’s political support. Nixon resigned the presidency on August 9, 1974. back to table of contents The Washington, D.C. Environment, 1969-72 Richard Nixon was the first president since Zachary Taylor entered office in 1849 with both houses of Congress under the control of the opposition party. Nixon inherited a controversial and increasingly unpopular war in Vietnam. In just three years, from 1965 to 1968, the number of Americans in Vietnam had escalated from 16,000 to over 500,000. The environment in Washington, D.C. was one dominated by opposition to the war from members of Congress and among college students. Between 1967 and 1972, more than a dozen large-scale demonstrations against the war took place in Washington including well over a million people. Nixon also faced opposition in the Executive Branch of government. The Democrats had held the presidency for 28 of the previous 36 years. During those years the number of civilian employees in the Executive Branch more than doubled, to 960,000 by 1969. Democrats dominated these career positions in the federal departments and agencies. The president also dealt with a media largely uniform in its reporting and opinions. In an era before cable, television news was dominated by three major networks, ABC, CBS, and NBC. In the era before the Internet, just two newspapers, the New York Times and the Washington Post and two newsmagazines, Time, and Newsweek, set the national tone for coverage of the White House. Throughout his presidency, Nixon governed in a political environment that was, at best, unfavorable, and at worst, hostile. back to table of contents Leak of the Pentagon Papers On June 13, 1971, the New York Times ran a front-page story revealing the existence of a Top-Secret, classified Pentagon study of American policy in Vietnam from the end of World War II through 1968. Known as the Pentagon Papers, these documents had been illegally removed from the headquarters of the Department of Defense at the end of the Johnson Administration and were being held, without authority, by private non-governmental think tanks. Nixon was informed by the FBI that, at the same time the Pentagon Papers were offered to the New York Times and other newspapers, copies had been left at the Soviet Embassy in Washington. A former Pentagon official who had turned against the war in Vietnam, Daniel Ellsberg, was soon identified as the person responsible for the illegal leak. Until Ellsberg’s identity was discovered, the thief’s identity was a mystery. It was also clear that more than one person had to be involved with the theft and copying of so many thousands of pages of classified materials. Even after Ellsberg’s identity was known, his motive or motives, and those of any other possible conspirators, were unknown. The Times and other newspapers began publishing portions of this classified study. The Times subsequently published classified information about the United States’ negotiating position on talks with the Soviet Union to limit the development of nuclear arms. Concerned about the illegal disclosure of Top Secret documents to the news media, the Nixon administration established a special unit inside the White House to investigate leaks that could compromise America’s national security. This office became known inside the White House as The Plumbers, given their mission of “plugging leaks.” Over the years, the Nixon Administration’s opposition to publication of the Pentagon Papers has been presented as an attempt to curb First Amendment freedoms. Rather, it was an attempt to prevent the release and publicizing of secret government documents involving national security during wartime. back to table of contents The White House “Plumbers” On July 24, 1971, six weeks after the initial publication of the Pentagon Papers, a Special Investigations Unit (The Plumbers) was established within the White House. White House aides Egil “Bud” Krogh and David Young were assigned to jointly lead the Unit and report to senior White House aide John Ehrlichman. Their mission was two-fold: 1) to investigate and stop leaks of classified information, and 2) to de-classify materials that no longer contained sensitive information. Future Watergate figures, G. Gordon Liddy, a former FBI agent, and Howard Hunt, a former CIA agent, were soon chosen by Krogh to become the Plumbers’ lead operatives. One of their first assignments was to acquire information that could be used to ascertain any Ellsberg plan to reveal more documents. They hatched a scheme to gain access to the files of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist, Dr. Lewis Fielding, to seek any information that could be used to either prevent further leaks or discredit Ellsberg. Ehrlichman approved a “covert plan” to examine Fielding’s files on Ellsberg. Liddy and Hunt hired CIA-connected Cuban nationals to conduct a break-in at Dr. Fielding’s office in Los Angeles, which failed to obtain any useful information about Ellsberg. When Dr. Fielding returned to his office, he immediately discovered that it had been broken into. back to table of contents The Moorer-Radford Affair In December 1971, it was revealed to Nixon that Navy Yeoman Charles Radford, a stenographer on National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger’s staff attached to the White House liaison office to the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon, had — for more than a year — passed about five thousand top-secret National Security Council documents through the liaison office to Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Thomas H. Moorer and Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Elmo Zumwalt. Radford had collected these documents from burn bags and even rifled through the briefcases of Kissinger and his assistant Al Haig. This internal espionage against the commander in chief by the nation’s top uniformed officers, during wartime, was unprecedented. Radford revealed this spy ring to the Plumbers Unit in the White House. back to table of contents The Roots of Watergate Dean hires Liddy to Develop an Intelligence Plan for President Nixon’s Re-election Campaign In the run-up to the 1972 presidential election, White House chief of staff H.R. “Bob” Haldeman directed White House counsel John Dean to develop a campaign intelligence plan for President Nixon’s re-election committee. Dean recruited Gordon Liddy to prepare the plan, promising an initial budget for this activity at $500,000. On December 8, 1971, Liddy left the White House staff to become general counsel at the re-election committee. Working first for the Committee to Re-elect the President, and then for the Finance Committee to Re-elect the President (Finance Committee), Liddy developed a series of plans for collecting campaign intelligence. Liddy’s Plans: Seeking Approval On January 27, 1972, Liddy presented his campaign intelligence plan to Attorney General John Mitchell, in Mitchell’s office at the Department of Justice, with John Dean, and CRP acting chair Jeb Stuart Magruder also in attendance. Mitchell was slated to become chairman of the Committee to Re-elect the President on March 1, 1972. Liddy’s plan, known as “Gemstone,” was rejected by Mitchell as not being “quite what we have in mind” and Liddy was asked to revise his proposal. A week later, on February 4, 1972, Liddy again met with Mitchell, Dean and Magruder in Mitchell’s office. Liddy had cut the cost of his plan in half – from $1 million to $500,000. His plan included specific targets for bugging. Dean pointed out that such a meeting should not be occurring in the Attorney General’s office. This meeting also ended without approval of Liddy’s plan. The following month, White House aide Charles Colson urged Magruder to proceed with the collection of campaign intelligence. On March 30, 1972, Magruder and Mitchell advisor Fred LaRue, met with Mitchell in Miami to discuss pending campaign items, including Liddy’s revised intelligence plan, now priced at $250,000. Following this meeting Magruder authorized Liddy to put his latest plan into action. Mitchell and LaRue would later testify under oath that Liddy’s plan was not approved by Mitchell. Magruder, however, would claim that Mitchell had approved it. back to table of contents The Watergate Break-ins On May 28, 1972, under Liddy’s direction, a small team of Cuban nationals with connections to the CIA, broke-in to the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in the Watergate office building. There, they planted wiretap devices (bugs) on the phones of several DNC officials, including the committee’s chairman. That bug did not operate as expected, so Liddy planned another break-in to replace the faulty equipment. Three weeks later, on June 17, 1972, James McCord, a former CIA agent who was serving as CRP’s head of security, and the same four Cuban nationals with CIA connections again broke into the DNC offices, this time to replace the non-working wiretap. A night watchman at the Watergate complex found evidence of a possible break-in and called the D.C. police. The burglars were caught red-handed and arrested. Materials in the burglars’ possession connected them to Howard Hunt through an address book containing Hunt’s White House telephone number. On September 15, 1972, Liddy and Hunt were indicted, along with the burglars, for their role in planning the Watergate break-in. The Cover-up Begins Shortly after the arrest of the burglars, John Dean met with Liddy, who admitted it was his team that was caught. Liddy said he planned the break-in because Jeb Magruder at the re-election committee was pressing him for campaign intelligence. Dean would later claim to have reported this to Ehrlichman and Haldeman. Both men denied, under oath, Dean’s statement. On June 19, 1972, two days after the break-in arrests, Dean met with Mitchell, Magruder, LaRue and Robert Mardian in Mitchell’s apartment to begin orchestrating a cover-up in earnest, designed to protect other CRP officials who had advance knowledge of the planned break-in. The FBI would eventually identify Dean as “the master manipulator of the cover-up.” back to table of contents Watergate Burglars Trial and Conviction On January 8, 1973, the Watergate Break-in trial began before John J. Sirica, chief judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. Of the seven defendants, Hunt and the four Cuban nationals pleaded guilty at the trial’s outset. McCord and Liddy chose to stand trial. Neither testified, and on January 30, 1973, Liddy and McCord were convicted on all counts. Threatened by Judge Sirica with an unusually long prison sentence, McCord wrote to Sirica on March 19, 1973, claiming the defendants were pressured to plead guilty and remain silent, that perjury had occurred, that the CIA was not involved in the break-in despite the number of former CIA operatives involved, and that others who were involved were not identified during the trial. McCord’s letter triggered the cover-up’s collapse and set in motion a series of events that took the break-in from an isolated crime to a major scandal. back to table of contents The FBI and the CIA Of the seven individuals indicted and later convicted of the planning and execution of the June 17, 1972, Watergate break-in, six had been employed by the CIA and the other was a former FBI agent. Over the years there has been speculation that the CIA played a role in the break-in, or at least had advanced knowledge of the plan. CIA director Richard Helms vehemently denied any CIA involvement before the Senate Watergate committee. Despite the involvement of six former CIA operatives, Helms’ assertion was unchallenged at the time. back to table of contents The Presidential Tapes Shortly after Richard Nixon took office on January 20, 1969, he ordered the removal of an extensive secret taping system his predecessor, Lyndon B. Johnson, had installed in the White House. Johnson, selectively recorded conversations on telephones in the Oval Office, his bedroom, and on several other phones he used regularly. He also installed a taping system in the Cabinet Room. In an attempt to ensure accurate records of presidential meetings—and to trace sources of public leaks emanating from the White House – beginning in February 1971, and at Nixon’s direction, recording equipment was installed in the Oval Office, the President’s office in the Old Executive Office Building, the Cabinet Room, and at the presidential cabin at Camp David. Unlike Johnson’s system, which was manually activated to record conversations Johnson wanted to tape, Nixon’s system was voice-activated and recorded everything. Nixon’s decision to place recording devices in his offices and elsewhere was not unique. Every president since Franklin D. Roosevelt had secretly recorded conversations with aides and others with whom they met or spoke on the telephone. Until a former White House aide revealed to the Senate Watergate Committee in July 1973 the taping system, the existence of the tapes had remained unknown except to a select few at the White House. When their existence became known, differing advice was offered Nixon as to what to do with them, as they were considered his personal private property. He chose not to destroy them. back to table of contents The White House Watergate Tapes Only about 5 percent of the nearly 3,600 hours of Nixon White House tape recordings contain references to Watergate. Two tapes proved to be particularly damaging. “The 18½ Minute Gap.” June 20, 1972, was the first recorded conversation between Nixon and Haldeman following the Watergate arrests. A portion of the tape was completely obscured by a distinct buzzing sound, which rendered the conversation inaudible. That section of the tape became known as “The 18½ Minute Gap.” Numerous efforts in the intervening 50 years to “clean-up” the tape, using state of the art methods, have failed to recover that part of the conversation. A comparison to Haldeman’s handwritten notes of the meeting similarly revealed nothing. When the existence of the gap was revealed on November 21, 1973, it launched an explosion of speculation about the content of the missing 18½ minutes. Yet John Dean, in his 2014 book, The Nixon Defense, wrote that the gap is “historically insignificant,” since it was too early for Nixon and Haldeman to have learned anything about the break-in and neither man took note of their conversation in their respective diaries. The “Smoking Gun” Tape The next recorded Watergate-related conversation between Nixon and Haldeman occurred on June 23, 1972, when the president and his chief of staff spoke about the Watergate break-in and arrests. During this conversation, the President agreed to Dean’s recommendation to get the CIA to tell the FBI not to proceed with two interviews of people thought to be connected to the financing of the break-in. On July 6, 1972, acting FBI Director L. Patrick Gray spoke to Nixon by phone to express concern that some on his staff were attempting to impede the Bureau’s investigation. According to Gray, “the President said to me, ‘Pat, you just continue to conduct your aggressive and thorough investigation.’ And that was the end of the phone call.” Gray’s recollection is confirmed on a recording of that phone call. The release on August 5, 1974, of the June 23, 1972, tape (which was termed the “Smoking Gun”), appeared to undermine Nixon’s contention that he was not involved in the Watergate cover-up. The reaction to the tape caused Nixon’s remaining political support in Congress to collapse. Three days later, on August 8, 1974, he announced his resignation as president, effective at noon the next day. back to table of contents A Cancer Close to the Presidency Shortly after 10:00 am on March 21, 1973, John Dean, Counsel to the President, entered the Oval Office. After a few minutes of talk, Dean got to his point: “Uh, the reason I thought we ought to talk this morning is because in, in our conversati… truncated (19,018 more characters in archive)