All language subtitles for [SubtitleTools.com] Watergate.S01E01.1080p.HEVC.x265-MeGusta[eztv.re]

Good evening. The men who worked
closest to Richard Nixon

in the White House and in politics,
today, were sentenced to prison

for their role in the
Watergate cover-up.

Former Attorney General
John Mitchell.

Anybody puts one of those near me
I'm gonna knock it down his throat.

White House Chief of Staff,
H.R. 'Bob' Haldeman.

I'm prepared now to
accept the results.

Mr Nixon's Domestic Affairs
Counselor, John Ehrlichman.

- Give each other room, man.
- Yes, sir.

All were sentenced to at least
2 1/2 years in prison.

I want it implemented
on a thievery basis.

Goddammit, get in
and get those files.

Blow the safe and get it.

We're up against an enemy.

A conspiracy.

They're using any means.

We are going to use any means.

We have a mystery story
out of Washington.

Five people have been arrested
and charged with breaking

into the headquarters
of the Democratic National Committee

in the middle of the night.

Police confiscated extensive
photographic and electronic

eavesdropping gear as well as
several thousand dollars

in consecutively numbered bills.

Please get me the names of the Jews.

Big Jewish contributors
to the Democrats.

Could we please investigate
some of the cocksuckers?

- Mr President.
- Mr Rather.

I wonder if you could share
with us your thoughts.

Tell us what goes through your mind.

When you hear people--people
who love this country and people

who believe in you, say reluctantly
that perhaps you should resign

or be impeached.

Well, I'm glad we don't take the vote
of this room, let me say.

Uh.

The presidency of Richard Nixon
was in many ways a reaction

to a nation in chaos.

By 1967, protest movements,
racial tension, and the Vietnam War

were tearing America apart.

Vietnam threatened to dominate
the 1968 presidential election

dividing the country
into hawks and doves.

Over a million Americans
had been drafted.

There were 1/2 million troops
in Vietnam, and over 20,000

Americans had already been killed.

If America's soul becomes totally
poisoned, part of the autopsy

must read Vietnam.

My people are being
clobbered and stoned.

And then they will turn around
and send us to war.

For what?

What we do know is that
our military situation

has substantially improved.

And then came 1968, starting
with the Tet Offensive in Vietnam,

which turned millions
of Americans against the war.

The Viet Cong simultaneously
attacked just about every major city

and town in South Vietnam.

Much of the destruction was caused
by Viet Cong but much of it was also

caused by United States bombs.

An American officer said it had been
necessary to destroy the city

to save it.

To say that we are closer
to victory today

is to believe
in the face of the evidence

the optimists who have been
wrong in the past.

The 1968 presidential campaign
mirrored America's chaos.

I shall not seek, and I will not
accept, the nomination of my party

for another term as your president.

The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr
was shot to death by an assassin

late today, as he stood on a balcony
in Memphis, Tennessee.

Everybody out.

Oh, no.

Senator Robert Francis Kennedy
died at 1:44am.

He was 42 years old.

After Robert Kennedy's
assassination,

Vice President Hubert Humphrey won
the democratic nomination

but the anti-war movement wouldn't
let Humphrey off the hook

and at the 1968 Democratic
Convention, police beatings

of anti-war demonstrators
tore the Democratic Party apart.

A noisy but non-violent crowd
jammed the streets

as Chicago police charged
suddenly in all directions.

They jabbed night sticks
into stomachs and skulls,

battering demonstrators
and bystanders

who were hopelessly trapped
on sidewalks, in panic,

with nowhere to run.

Racist former Alabama Governor
George Wallace

ran as a third party candidate

and carried most of the
traditionally democratic south.

But any place you see
the Confederate flag fly,

you will see people who will fight
with more zeal and determination

for the American flag
than anybody I know.

With the country divided
and disillusioned by Vietnam,

many Americans wanted a saviour,
and Nixon promised to be one.

My fellow Americans, the long,
dark night for America

is about to end.

Nixon's media image
was carefully packaged

by a young man named Roger Ailes,
who would later create FOX News.

I pledge to you, we shall
have an honourable end

to the war in Vietnam.

With those promises
and with the Democratic party

divided and crippled by Vietnam,
Nixon won the presidency.

The president-elect, Richard Nixon.

My general opinion was,
he's well qualified.

I felt a kind of deep sigh of relief,
the Johnson years were over.

A chance for the country,
if you will,

to take its collective breath
and start over

and I was fairly optimistic.

But Richard Nixon hated
the privileged, the media,

and enemies both real and imagined.

Demons that eventually
led to Watergate.

The first sign of possible trouble

came from his presidential
appointments.

As National Security Advisor,
Nixon chose

a brilliant Harvard professor,
Henry Kissinger.

We will not be blackmailed
into an agreement.

And if I may say so,

we will not be charmed
into an agreement,

until its conditions are right.

For Attorney General, Nixon chose

his friend and campaign manager,
John Mitchell.

A hardliner on law and order,
drugs, and Vietnam.

They spread the idea that any act,
no matter how monstrous,

is justifiable if it is in
what they refer to as their cause.

And to run the White House,
Nixon chose John Ehrlichman

and H.R. 'Bob' Haldeman,

both devout Christian scientists.

Ehrlichman was a lawyer with
a thin skin and a sharp tongue.

Contrary to the, uh, statements
of the Eastern establishment press,

uh, which, uh, understandably
confuses the location

of all cities
west of the Mississippi,

I do not come from Portland -
I come from Seattle,

and they are not suburbs
of one another.

Haldeman was an advertising executive
with a reputation for ruthlessness.

Just after Richard Nixon
was elected president,

and I was the White House
correspondent at the time,

H.R. 'Bob' Haldeman,
the new Chief of White House Staff,

he had asked to meet with me
in a small restaurant.

And he looked me in the eye
in a very cold way and said,

"Dan Rather, we know
who you are and what you are

"and we know what you're after

"and we'll be watching you
the whole time."

Ehrlichman and Haldeman, as a pair,

became Nixon's gatekeepers
and enforcers.

The White House staff called them
the 'German Shepherds'

or the 'Berlin Wall.'

As soon as he took office,
Nixon began alienating

both the media
and the anti-war movement.

In his campaign, he had promised
to end the Vietnam War

but instead, he initially expanded it
by secretly bombing Cambodia,

invading Cambodia, and escalating
the bombing of Vietnam.

Because, let us understand,

North Vietnam cannot defeat
or humiliate the United States.

Only Americans can do that.

The anti-war movement
and the media exploded in anger

and that triggered Nixon's dark side.

This is David Mixner
who, at the age of 23,

became one of the four co-chairmen

of the Vietnam Moratorium
anti-war organisation.

Mixner was totally committed,
but he had a secret.

At first the Nixon people
tried to treat us nice

and then they threatened us

and I had meetings
with Ehrlichman and Kissinger.

And I was blackmailed
in an attempt to get me out

of the anti-war movement.

Well, I was very closeted
and if I hadn't been

I would not have been
allowed to participate

at the leadership level
that I was at.

It just was, in the times, in 1969,

would have been a horrible
liability, public relations wise.

So, you'd go to a bar that was down
an alley and had no sign on it,

and in walked a gentleman who I fell
head over heels in love with.

He liked all the poets I liked,
the music I liked,

and I got a key and went back
for, oh, near 30 days

and it was beautiful, beautiful.

One weekend we were gonna
meet at a restaurant.

I went to the restaurant and two
guys show up, with badges.

And they emptied on the table
very explicit photographs

of Frank and I having sex.

They said, "Think about it,

"but we want you out
of the anti-war movement.'

I went to warn Frank.

Opened the apartment and there
wasn't a stick of furniture,

a book, or a record in it.

Never saw him again.

Don't even know if he was Frank.

After contemplating suicide,
Mixner decided to continue his work.

On October 15th, 1969,

we were gonna bring the nation
to a standstill, to a moratorium.

And then we met with Ehrlichman.

He said, "You know this march
isn't going to take place."

We said, "Well, of course it is."

And then before he left
I remember him tapping my knee...

..and saying, "David."

And I said, "Yes, sir?"

He said, "We know all about you.
All about you. Don't forget that."

# All we are saying

# Is give peace a chance... #

Vietnam Moratorium Day.

The largest demonstration
against the Vietnam War

the nation has ever experienced.

In the end we had 2 million
people demonstrate.

Covers of 'TIME' magazine,
'LIFE' magazine.

It was the biggest
news story that year.

By this time, even Henry Kissinger's
advisors were warning him

that escalation in Vietnam
wouldn't work.

I had consulted for Henry Kissinger
almost as soon as he was appointed

in the fall
right after the election in 1968

as National Security Advisor.

And I did a study for him,
of options in Vietnam and I said,

"I don't think there is
a win option in Vietnam."

It was clear to me that nothing
we were doing would succeed

and would only prolong
a stalemated war,

killing a lot of people
to no end, effectively.

And Mort Halperin, who was
Kissinger's deputy at that point,

and I, I think, agreed.

The South Vietnamese Army
was completely corrupt.

That it was incapable
of defending itself.

That when we left,
it would fall apart.

We knew, for example,
that of every three rifles we gave

to the South Vietnamese Army,

one of them--we gave it to a person
who was actually in the Viet Cong

because about 1/3
of the South Vietnamese Army

was actually Viet Cong.

And then the second of the 1/3
was given to somebody

who's totally corrupt and immediately
sold it on the black market

to the Viet Cong.

So we were supplying 2/3
of the weapons to the enemy.

Disillusioned with Kissinger,
Halperin resigned.

But, despite increasing evidence
and expert advice

that Vietnam couldn't be won,

Nixon and Kissinger
still couldn't accept defeat.

We know this from Nixon's
White House tapes.

In early 1971, Nixon secretly
installed a taping system.

Bob Haldeman was the only senior
official who knew the system existed

and one of the very first
conversations recorded

was about Vietnam.

Thank God we're not going to lose.

You say the air
is pounding them good.

They're pounding them.

They're putting every B-52
they've got in there.

Main thing is to be sure

the South Vietnamese fight well.

If they fight well, North Vietnam,
can never beat South Vietnam.

- South Vietnam has more people.
- And more equipment.

We've gotta stay as long
as we're needed there.

Kennedy and the libs
all get together and...

And this bastard Halperin.

Used to be on my staff.

Mr President, I'm convinced
you're now 80% of the way.

Nixon and Kissinger's overriding
priority regarding Vietnam

was not the future of South Vietnam.

It was the future
of American prestige.

Each day, to facilitate the process
by which the United States

washes her hands of Vietnam,
someone has to give up his life,

so that the United States
doesn't have to admit something

that the entire world already knows.

So that we can't say
that we've made a mistake.

Someone has to die so that
President Nixon won't be,

and these are his words,

"The first president to lose a war."

When escalation
didn't bring victory,

Nixon started withdrawing
ground troops.

But to prevent South Vietnam
from collapsing,

he intensified American bombing.

The United States dropped
7 million tons of bombs

during the Vietnam War.

50% more than in
all of World War II.

It also used napalm
and cancer-causing defoliants,

killing over a million civilians.

I had come back from Vietnam

believing that we should get
out of Vietnam.

Left the government.
Went to the RAND Corporation.

Actually, one of the first things
I did there was to be assigned

to a study group that was
preparing the McNamara study

but then became more well known
as the Pentagon Papers.

The Pentagon Papers,
7,000 pages long, documented

the history of American failure
and dishonesty in Vietnam,

showing that many experts
and government officials had known

the war was unwinnable.

The Pentagon Papers show that on--
at several critical moments,

the government lied.

Just straight-out lied.

That simply put the question
in my mind -

what can I do to help end this war
now that I'm ready to go to prison?

And so, in 1971, Daniel Ellsberg
decided to do something.

Something that triggered
all of Richard Nixon's demons.

'The New York Times' began publishing
parts of a voluminous report

that the Pentagon had drawn up
on the causes and conduct

of American involvement in Vietnam.

Henry Kissinger exploded over it.

Kissinger came in and said
we got to do something about this

because we can't conduct
secret negotiations

if we can't maintain our secrets.

The Justice Department
went to court in New York today

and got a temporary order restraining
'The Times' from publishing

the next and last two instalments.

The American press unites
in this massive force.

'The Times' is stopped
from publication

and 'The Washington Post'
rushes into the breach.

'The Post' is stopped
from publication

and 'The St Louis Post Dispatch'
and 'The Boston Globe' continue.

17 papers in all had brought
them out by this time.

It was a wave of civil disobedience.

A name has now come out
as the possible source

of 'The Times' Pentagon documents.

It is that of Daniel Ellsberg,
40 years old, one-time marine,

later a top-policy analyst for
the Defense and State Departments

during the Vietnam build-up.

Finally, only when I had gotten rid
of all of the copies that I had,

I surrendered.

Was charged initially
with three counts of felonies,

which later became 12,

for a possible sentence
of 115 years in prison.

As it came out that it was Ellsberg
who was the person who leaked

the papers, Kissinger began
to get a little nervous

because he was the one who brought
Ellsberg into the counsels

of the Nixon administration
during the transition period.

And he starts spinning
these lurid tales about Ellsberg

that Richard Nixon just gobbles up.

It started as the Ellsberg story.
Front page, big black type.

Curse that sonofabitch.
I know him well.

- You know him?
- Well.

- He's nuts, isn't he?
- Nuts.

Why did they have him
in the Defense Department?

Well, Mr President,
he's a funny guy.

He's a genius.
Brightest student I've ever had.

He was a hardliner.
Volunteered for Vietnam.

He was so nuts, he'd drive around
all over Vietnam with a carbine.

When it is guerilla-infested,
he'd shoot at peasants in the fields

on the theory that
everyone in black...

He's a born killer.

He's always been
a little unbalanced.

It's the most slanderous lie
that could be made of me.

He also said that I was his
most brilliant student.

I'd never been a student of his
for a minute.

They brought him into Defense
and he came back from Vietnam

but he flipped, late '67,
suddenly turned into a peacenik.

He's moved into more
and more radical position.

What do you suppose
'The Times' paid him for this?

He wouldn't do that for money.

Well, they do if they're on dope.

He's married a very rich girl
he doesn't need money.

Well, the other reason is that this
is a labor of love for 'The Times.'

There's nobody in 'The Times'
that's for us on Vietnam.

You can maybe blackmail Johnson
on the bombing halt stuff.

Huston swears there's
a file on it at Brookings.

I wouldn't be surprised.

Tom Huston was a hard-line official
who had developed an aggressive

and highly illegal plan for spying
on the anti-war movement.

Huston and his plan were stopped
by federal officials,

but Nixon wanted to go even further,

including breaking into
the Brookings Institute,

a moderate think tank in Washington.

Now you remember Huston's plan?

Implement it.

I want it implemented
on a thievery basis.

Goddammit, get in
and get those files.

Blow the safe and get it.

Richard Nixon's angry cutthroat edge
came from his background.

His family was poor,
his father was harsh,

and two of his brothers
died in childhood.

When Harvard invited Nixon to apply,

his parents told him
they couldn't afford it,

forcing him to attend
Whittier College,

a small local school, instead.

Nixon emerged from this
with a burning ambition.

And in six years, he went
from nobody to congressman,

senator, and then Vice President.

But Nixon also developed
a deep, lifelong resentment

of smooth, privileged,
Ivy league elites.

And then he started losing to them.

Nixon runs for the presidency in 1960

against Nelson Rockefeller
and Jack Kennedy,

two wealthy, womanising,
Ivy league graduates

who symbolise everything
that Nixon is not.

That first big defeat
to Jack Kennedy -

he believes that the election
was stolen from him.

You see for the first time
this resolution by Nixon

that he's never gonna be
out-cheated again.

Two years after losing
the presidency to Kennedy,

Nixon attempted a comeback,
running for Governor of California.

He lost again
and he blamed the media.

But as I leave you,
I want you to know...

..just think how much
you're gonna be missing.

You don't have Nixon
to kick around anymore.

And now, seven years later
as president,

Richard Nixon finds the same
liberal media blocking his path.

I have chosen a plan for peace.

I believe it will succeed.

If it does not succeed, what
the critics say now won't matter.

Or if it does succeed, what
the critics say now won't matter.

There was, in this speech,
no new initiative, no new proposal,

no announcement
of any more troop withdrawals,

and, in short, Mr Nixon
has taken a hard line

not only against
the North Vietnamese,

but also against those in this
country who oppose his policy.

The president tonight perhaps has
polarised attitude in the country

more than it ever has been

into groups who are either
for him or who are against him.

The media's response
infuriated the Nixon White House

and so Patrick Buchanan,
Nixon's populist speechwriter

and strategist, persuaded Nixon
to go on the offensive.

And so that's when I wrote him
a memo saying,

"You know, we're gonna have to
counterattack the media

"and I'll write a speech for Agnew

"which goes directly after
the networks the first time."

That is the beginning
of the wars against the media

that exists to this day.

Tonight I want to discuss
the importance

of the television medium
to the American people.

Nowhere in our system are there
fewer checks on such vast power.

Perhaps the place to start looking
for a credibility gap

is not in the offices
of the government in Washington

but in the studios
of the networks in New York.

In private, but only in private,

Nixon was more specific
about who he blamed.

'Newsweek' is owned by Jews,
and dominated by them.

'New York Times,' 'The Washington
Post,' totally Jewish.

All three networks,
except for the front men,

Brinkley or Cronkite,
but the writers are Jewish.

Does this mean all Jews are bad?

No.

It does mean most Jews are left-wing.

And they're for peace at any price,
except where Israel is concerned.

Now, however, in the media,
we confront a solid block.

It doesn't have anything
to do with anti-Semitism.

It happens though.

And they're the ones putting out
the pornographic stuff.

This stranglehold
has got to be broken

or this country's gonna
go down the drain.

- You believe that?
- Oh, yes, sir.

So do I.

I could never say it, though.

No, but if you're elected
a second time

you might be able to do something.

The Pentagon Papers had
everything to infuriate Nixon.

They were published a year before
Nixon faced re-election

and they were the result

of an anti-war, Harvard-educated,
East-Coast Jew leaking secrets

to 'The New York Times'
and 'The Washington Post.'

And then the Supreme Court
let them get away with it.

The United States Supreme Court,
today, ruled against the government

and gave 'The New York Times'
and 'The Washington Post' the right

to resume publishing
the secret Pentagon study

on United States involvement
in the war in Vietnam.

You see Richard Nixon
getting more and more angry

and more and more upset,
and he cracks.

I need a sonofabitch like Huston,

who will work his butt off
and do it dishonourably.

And we'll know what he's doing.

And I'll direct him myself.

I know how to play this game.

And we're gonna start playing it.

I want someone as tough
as I am for a change.

Do you think, for Christ's sakes,
'The New York Times' is worried

about all the legal niceties?

Those sonsofbitches
are killing me.

We're up against...an enemy.

A conspiracy.

They're using any means.

We are going to use any means.

Did you get the Brookings Institute
raided last night?

- No.
- No? Get it done.

I want the Brookings safe
cleaned out.

Nixon often vented
his frustrations to his staff,

as Morton Halperin had seen
while working for Kissinger.

I was--often worked very late,
and I would be in Kissinger's office

and Haig would be there, who was
Kissinger's then military assistant,

and almost always the phone would
ring and Kissinger would answer it

and Haig would get on another line
and it would be the president

calling and ranting and raving
about something or somebody

and it would go on for
a very long period of time,

and Haig would then announce that the
president was out of control again

and often suggest that he had,
once again, been drinking.

Fine. How many
if we take out the dikes?

Will that drown people?

- About 200,000 people.
- No, no, no.

I'd rather use a nuclear bomb.

That, I think,
would just be too much.

I just want you to think big, Henry.

For Christ's sakes.

Nixon was prone to these explosions.

He sends a memo to Haldeman
and Ehrlichman and he says,

"I'm gonna be issuing orders
sometimes

"that you guys are not
gonna think are wise

"and you're gonna decide
that you don't want to obey them.

"That's OK.

"I recognise this in me.

"Just tell me, so I know
which of the orders are carried out

"and which ones are not."

When you're talking about
the President of the United States

this is incredibly dangerous
because eventually

you're gonna get somebody,
like Charles Colson,

who joins the administration
in the fall of 1969

and wants to worm his way
into Nixon's good graces.

I've never walked over my grandmother
if that's what you're asking.

Chuck Colson was a ruthless,
ambitious young lawyer

who quickly became Nixon's
favourite hatchet man,

in part because Colson was willing
to do just about anything.

And one of the first to learn that

was another young lawyer
named John Dean.

In 1969, Dean had joined
the Justice Department,

dealing with the anti-war movement

and John Mitchell's
hard-line drug policies

including making possession
of marijuana a felony.

But in 1970, after John Ehrlichman
became domestic policy advisor,

John Dean joined
the White House staff

as the new counsel to the president

and Chuck Colson soon gave him
a taste of things to come.

First time I get something
that's really serious

is when Jack Caulfield
walks in my office, wide-eyed,

and said that, "I have just come
from Chuck Colson's office

"who's ordered me to firebomb
the Brookings Institute."

I said, "What?"

He said, "He wants me to firebomb
the Brookings Institute.

"And when the fire department
responds,

"he wants me to send a team
of burglars in to break the safe."

I got on the next courier flight
to California

and went to visit Ehrlichman
in San Clemente,

'cause I wasn't gonna
let him off on this one.

I had opened the code before I left.

I saw that it was probably
a capital offence

if anybody died as a result of arson
in the District of Columbia.

And so I was not gonna have a phone
call where he would brush me off.

I was going out there
for an eyeball-to-eyeball

to tell him this was insane,
it was criminal,

and it was certainly not conduct

that should be even contemplated
in the White House.

And he heard me out.

He picked up the phone,
got Colson on the line,

said, "Chuck, young counsel Dean
is out here with me.

"He's learned about
the Brookings operation,

"does not think it's a good idea.

"Cancel it."

Puts down the phone. Hangs it up.
"Anything else, Counsellor?"

I said, "No, John.
Thank you," and left.

So, Ehrlichman already
knew about it?

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

It was war, and it should be fought
any way that you can fight it.

I talked to Nixon enough.

He believed his phone was tapped,
his wife was followed--

all of these things--
which were not true.

Infuriated by leaks to the media,

Nixon orders Ehrlichman to create
a secret White House organisation

to identify leakers and attack them,
starting with Daniel Ellsberg.

Nixon calls this team
that he sets up

'The Special Investigations Unit.'

They call themselves the 'Plumbers.'

Break-in, plant bugs,
rifle files, infiltrate.

Gordon Liddy is part
of the 'Plumbers' Unit.

He's a screwball. He's a nutcase.

He's a bumbler. He's a romantic.

He is somebody who thought
he was James Bond.

He'd come up with a plan

to break in Daniel Ellsberg's
psychiatrist's office.

Liddy and these Cuban Americans
he's been able to arrange to help him

through another White House aide,
Howard Hunt, they broke in.

They find nothing in the files.

They trash the place.

We had one little operation--
it's been aborted--in Los Angeles,

which I think it's better
you don't know about.

They realise they gotta get Liddy
and Hunt out of the White House.

And in classic Washington
bureaucratic fashion

they're promoted
to be somebody else's problem,

and they're sent over to the
Committee to Re-elect the President,

to CREEP.

CREEP, which stood for the Committee
to Re-elect the President,

was the organisation created
to manage

Nixon's 1972 re-election campaign.

And Gordon Liddy wanted to control
CREEP's intelligence operation.

And so, in January, 1972,
John Dean gets a call

from Jeb Magruder,
the Acting Director of CREEP,

inviting Dean to a meeting
at John Mitchell's office.

Officially, Mitchell
is still Attorney General,

but he's actually already managing
Nixon's re-election campaign.

Magruder calls me--would I
come over to the meeting

where Liddy presents
his intelligence plans.

And it's one of the more
amazing meetings

I was ever in, in government.

Liddy started talking about
kidnapping anti-war leaders.

He said, "I have some men who will
take these people off the street,

"take them below the Mexican border,
drug them,

"and put them out of commission
during the campaign."

Mitchell ended it and he said,

"Gordon, I'm more interested
in a plan

"where we can track
the anti-war movement."

A week or so later, I get a call
from Magruder and said,

"Liddy is presenting his revised
intelligence plan."

I just went right up
to Mitchell's office

and they were talking
about wiretapping.

So I said, very loudly, just to
throw cold water on the meeting,

that I didn't think
these were the sort of things

that should ever be discussed
in the office

of the Attorney General
of the United States.

Dean's comment ended the meeting,
but not Liddy's planning.

And soon afterwards, Mitchell
resigned as Attorney General

in order to run Nixon's
re-election campaign full time.

Liddy doesn't give up.

And that's what Magruder
will later tell me

got him to go down
with the plan in hand

and get Mitchell to approve it.

One of Liddy's first actions

was to bug the Democratic
National Committee,

but the results weren't impressive,
so he went back in

and he blew it.

Five people have been arrested
and charged with breaking into

the headquarters of the
Democratic National Committee

in the middle of the night.

The Democratic National Committee

is housed in the fashionable
Watergate complex.

The break-in apparently
planned well in advance.

Police confiscated
extensive photographic

and electronic eavesdropping gear

as well as several thousand dollars
in consecutively numbered bills.

Each had several aliases.

Four said they were from Miami.

The fifth said he lived in
the metropolitan Washington area.

Three were originally from Cuba.

The story attracted the interest
of two young, ambitious reporters.

I had come in to the office

and I saw this commotion
over on the city desk

and it was about
this break-in that occurred

at the Democratic National
Headquarters at the Watergate.

So I said to the city editor,

"Hey, I know some people
over at the Watergate.

"Maybe I'll make some phone checks."

The morning of June 17th

was one of those glorious,
beautiful days in Washington.

Saturday.

The editors said,

"Well, we've got this burglary
at the Democratic headquarters.

"Who would be dumb enough to come
in on such a beautiful day?"

And they immediately thought of me.

In 1972, I was 28

and I'd been working for 12 years
in the business.

I actually was, I think,
the first reporter to be hired

without a college degree.

I was a Republican.
Registered Republican.

I was in the Navy in '68
and I voted for Nixon,

because I believed he would get us
out of the Vietnam War.

I saw some of it from a ship
off the coast of Vietnam

and I felt the Vietnam War
was a giant mistake and waste.

I'd been at 'The Post' nine months
and was the night police reporter,

which meant working from 6:30
at night to 2:30 in the morning.

I didn't know Woodward well at all.

Didn't really take very well to him

from what I had seen of him
at the paper.

- Oh, how come?
- He was, uh--

Well, there were
a group of us actually

that sort of thought that Woodward
had come in and moved very fast

by kind of brown-nosing
the management a little bit.

It was tense.

But we were very complementary,

because we had this kind of
good cop/bad cop routine

that Woodward and I would do
every day.

I was a young journalist
and I was hired by CBS and put

in the Washington bureau.

So, there was this break-in
at the Watergate

at the Democratic National Committee,
but no-one thought--no-one thought--

it was anything more than
a local burglary.

And I walked into the courtroom,

there was only one other reporter
there, and it was Bob Woodward.

They had sent me to the court house.

I sat in the front row when the five
Watergate burglars were arraigned

and the judge asked the lead burglar,
James McCord, "Where did you work?"

and James McCord said...
(WHISPERS) "CIA."

Judge said, "Speak up."

And McCord finally said, "CIA."

And my reaction was, "Holy shit."

The story went on page one,
and that was the beginning.

My aide, Ken Khachigian,
called me

and he said, "they caught five guys
in the Watergate office complex."

And my heart sank.

Because I knew,
not with hard knowledge

but just the way you know,
our guys were involved.

But that's not what Mr Buchanan
said in public.

There is no White House knowledge
of the Watergate incident.

There's been no White House
connection with it.

Secondly, the American people have
a relatively high tolerance level

for the kind of bizarre political
episodes, of which this is one.

CREEP and the White House pretended

they didn't care
about the Watergate arrests

but actually they were terrified.

Hugh Sloan
was the Treasurer of CREEP.

I came to work on June 17th.

Evidently, the burglary had happened
in the early morning,

and Mr Liddy passed me in the hall,
rather frantic, and said to me that,

"I made a terrible mistake.
I'm gonna lose my job.

"I used someone from here,
which I told them I wouldn't do."

This is a police photograph
of James W. McCord.

McCord is a former CIA employee.

And guess what else he is--

a consultant to
President Richard Nixon's

re-election campaign committee.

Paul Magallanes, a young,
Spanish-speaking FBI agent,

was assigned
to interview the burglars.

I went there and
I interviewed the Cubans.

You know, "What happened here?"

And they kept responding to me,
in Spanish, this was all in Spanish,

"Paul, you know."

He says, "We're working
for the same man."

I said, "What are you talking
about, working for the same man?"

He says, "Yeah." He says,
"We're working for the president.

"You're working for the president."

And he says,
"Everything will be alright.

"You know, we're gonna be
taken care of."

The burglars WERE taken care of,

as part of a huge cover-up operation
run by CREEP and the White House,

involving payoffs, political
pressure, destruction of evidence,

and lying to the FBI.

It was all coordinated by John Dean.

Although Dean had initially opposed
the White House's crazier schemes,

managing the Watergate cover-up
was both a job requirement

and a major career opportunity.

Liddy tells me, "I need money
to get these guys out of jail

"because of their earlier exploits."

But he said, "John,
something you should know

"and take back to your superiors

"is that two of the men I used
in the Watergate operation,

"I used earlier in an operation

"that was authorised
by the White House."

And this had to do with the break-in
at Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office,

which was an eye-opener to me--
I didn't know about this.

So this thing suddenly brings
these two events together.

There were these entries in the
address books of two of the burglars.

'W House--H. Hunt," or Howard Hunt.

Just called the White House
and asked for Howard Hunt.

The operator said, "I think he's
in Mr Colson's office."

I eventually got Hunt on the phone
and asked why his name

was in the address books
of two of the people arrested

at the Democratic headquarters

and he shouted out, "Good God,"

slammed down the phone and left town.

I was worried that
we might be libelling Hunt

because I didn't know what he did.

So I called Mark Felt,
who was at the FBI.

I had met him when I worked
as courier for the Pentagon

going to the White House.

And Felt said, "Don't worry--
Hunt's deeply involved."

Carl and myself called Mark Felt
'Deep Throat'.

The reason Deep Throat is important,
one, is we knew we were right.

He confirmed information
that we had obtained elsewhere,

so we knew we were right.

Deep Throat happened to be
the number two man at the FBI,

Mark Felt, and one of
his primary motivations,

if not THE primary motivation,

was that he had been passed over
by Nixon and Haldeman

when they picked Patrick Gray
to be Director of the FBI.

And so here was a classic case
of a Washington bureaucrat leaking

to damage the guy above him
who'd got the job he wanted.

'The Washington Post' reported today

that Hunt's name was found
in the address books

of two of the five men
arrested in the incident.

Hunt's immediate supervisor,

White House Special Counsel
Charles Colson,

denies any knowledge of the incident.

A few weeks later,
the FBI arrested Hunt and Liddy,

but they stopped there.

The cover-up prevented
further arrests

and FBI Director L. Patrick Gray
didn't like leaks either.

We're called at home
on a Friday night--

'Be in the Washington field office
at 8:00, 8:15 Saturday morning.

"Be in your best suit.
Be ready to see the director."

And as we go into the meeting room,

out comes Gray, and he launches
into a bizarre rant.

"I want the agent or agents
who leaked this information

"to take one step forward."

And now we're all,
"Whoa! What is this?!"

You could forgive Gray
for being tense.

He knew he was sitting
on a powder keg

and that the Nixon White House
wanted him to play nice.

Only a week after the burglary,
Nixon and Haldeman had tried

using the CIA to shut down
the FBI investigation.

Nixon chose Vernon Walters,
the Deputy Director of the CIA,

to deliver a message to Gray.

Now, on the Democratic break-in,
we're back in the problem area.

Because the FBI
is not under control,

because Gray doesn't exactly know
how to control them.

John Dean concurs now
with Mitchell's recommendation

that the only way to solve this
is to have Walters call Gray

and just say,
"Stay the hell out of this.

"We don't want you to go
any further on it."

And that's not unusual.

Pat Gray doesn't want
to control them?

Pat does want to.

He doesn't know how to

and he doesn't have any basis
for doing it.

And that will fit rather well

because the agents working the case
feel that this is CIA.

But they've traced the money.

They've traced a name, but they
haven't gotten to the guy yet.

Now, it's directly traceable.

And there's more.

We're relying on more and more
people all the time.

That's a problem.

They'll stop if we take
this other way.

Right. Fine.

And they say the only way to do that
is from White House instructions.

It's gotta be Helms and, uh,
what's his name?

Walters.

The proposal would be that
Ehrlichman and I call him.

Alright, fine.

How do you--well, we protected Helms
from one hell of a lot of things.

Well, that's what Ehrlichman says.

The FBI interviewed Colson yesterday.

The FBI guys working the case
had concluded

it was either a White House
operation or it was--

- Cuban thing.
- Cubans and the CIA.

And after their interrogation
of Colson yesterday, they concluded

it was not the White House,
but are now convinced it's the CIA.

- So the CIA turn off would--
- Good. Play it tough.

That's the way they play it,
that's the way we're gonna play it.

OK, then we'll do that.

Just say, it was a comedy of errors,
and they should call the FBI in

and say that, for the country,
don't go any further into this one.

Period.

Tell them, lay off.

Yeah, that's the basis we do it on.

I don't want them to get any ideas

that we're doing it because
our concern is political.