All language subtitles for WATERGATE S01E01 LQ ENGLISH

- 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...

male narrator: 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 antiwar movement

wouldn't let Humphrey
off the hook

and at the 1968
Democratic Convention,

police beatings
of antiwar 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 savior

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 honorable 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 Shepards"
or the "Berlin Wall."

As soon as he took office,
Nixon began alienating

both the media
and the antiwar 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 antiwar
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
antiwar organization.

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 antiwar 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 antiwar 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."

- 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 advise
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.

And 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 installments.

- 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
which Nixon just gobbles up.

- It started as
the Ellsberg story.

Front page, big black type.

- Curse that son of a bitch.
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 antiwar 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.

male narrator: 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, womanizing,
Ivy league graduates

who symbolize 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 polarized 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 speech writer
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 antiwar, 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 son of a bitch
like Huston,

who will work his butt off

and do it dishonorably.

And we'll know what he's doing.

I'll direct him myself.

I know how to play this game.

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 sons of bitches
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.

male narrator: 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 okay.

"I recognize 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 favorite 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 antiwar 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.

"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 offense

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, Counselor?"

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 anyway...

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
organization

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

to 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 realize
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.

narrator: CREEP,
which stood for

the Committee to RE-Elect
the President,

was the organization
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 antiwar 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 antiwar 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 complimentary

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

anI 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...
"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.

narrator: 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 all right.

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 authorized
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 libeling 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 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.

- All right, 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.
- Okay, then we'll do that.

- Just say,
it was aomedy 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.