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On June 17, 1972, a seemingly minor burglary at a Washington, D.C. office building set off a chain of events that would shake the American political system to its core.
What began with five arrests soon revealed secret campaign operations, illegal surveillance, hush money, destroyed evidence, and an expanding effort to conceal the truth.
The investigation would consume the country and ultimately bring down a president.
Learn more about Watergate and the scandal that forever changed American politics on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
In 1968, former vice president Richard Nixon was elected the 37th president of the United States.
When Nixon took office, the United States was deep into the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement was underway, and the country had just experienced the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy.
In this backdrop of unrest, Nixon promised to restore law and order. Nixon won the popular vote and had an electoral landslide victory against the Democratic nominee, Vice President Hubert Humphrey.
After he was elected, many people saw Nixon as ambitious but practical. He was especially respected for his foreign policy. During the Cold War, he helped reduce tensions between the United States, China, and the Soviet Union.
His foreign policy strategy was to decrease direct involvement in the Vietnam War. He took measures to withdraw American troops and shift the burden of combat to the government of South Vietnam.
At home, Nixon signed laws to protect the environment, expand civil rights, and help the economy. He created the Environmental Protection Agency, pushed for desegregation in southern schools, and took the U.S. dollar off the gold standard and ended the Bretton Woods Agreement.
Nixon’s public accomplishments were only part of the story. Even though he promised to end the Vietnam War, he secretly increased bombing in Cambodia to try to force a diplomatic resolution.
The New York Times exposed his secret bombings in May 1969. After that, Nixon started using unusual and illegal methods to deal with his political opponents and critics. That month the FBI placed wiretaps on National Security Council staff members, other government officials, and journalists.
Even with these efforts, classified information still reached the public. In June 1971, the New York Times published documents known as the Pentagon Papers. When the report came out, people learned that the U.S. government had repeatedly misled both the public and Congress about the true extent of the war.
Because these documents were produced during the Johnson administration, Nixon wasn’t too worried about how it would affect his popularity. But National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger used his position to pressure Nixon and other White House staff to prevent the papers from being published. They filed a restraining order against the New York Times, which halted the paper’s publication.
But while they focused on the New York Times, the Washington Post got hold of the papers and started publishing them too.
The New York Times challenged the restraining order and the Supreme Court ruled against Nixon, saying the New York Times had the right to publish.
After losing in the Supreme Court, Nixon took even more drastic steps to stop leaks. He was especially worried about files on the Chennault Affair. The Chennault Affair was the Nixon campaign’s alleged 1968 effort, through intermediary Anna Chennault, to persuade South Vietnam to delay peace talks with North Vietnam until after the U.S. presidential election.
Nixon told his aide Chuck Colson to get the files. But “getting the files” really meant breaking into the Brookings Institution and stealing them. The team included agent G. Gordon Liddy and aides Egil Krogh and David Young.
Their plan to break into the Brookings Institution didn’t work, but the group was repurposed to stop leaks. They became known as the “White House Plumbers,” a secret team meant to prevent leaks like the Pentagon Papers.
One of their first missions was to break into the office of Dr. Lewis Fielding, a psychiatrist. The mission was to steal the medical files of Daniel Ellsberg, the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers. Nixon hoped the psychiatrist’s files would have something damaging that could discredit Ellsberg.
The plumbers broke into the office but found nothing useful. To hide what they had done, they made it look like someone with an addiction had broken in.
Even though they found nothing incriminating in Ellsberg’s records, they still wanted to ruin his reputation. Their next idea was to drug him with LSD at a Washington event, but the White House approved it too late for it to happen.
The plumbers did other things too, like investigations, assessments, and even forging documents. They also discovered that someone at the Pentagon was leaking information about the National Security Council, which made Nixon even more paranoid.
As the 1972 election got closer, Nixon and his team feared losing. Early polls showed him behind the Democrats. He had good reasons to worry. The Vietnam War was still going on, and people wanted it to end. Inflation and unemployment were high.
Nixon also had a history of close political losses, like losing the 1960 Presidental election to President John Kennedy.
As Nixon became more paranoid, he took bigger steps to protect himself. He had the Secret Service put microphones in the White House to record conversations.
The group was officially called the Committee for the Reelection of the President, or CRP, but after the Watergate story broke, people started calling them “Creep.”
They planned to break into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate Office Complex on Memorial Day weekend. The team included James W. McCord Jr., Bernard Barker, Virgilio González, Eugenio Martínez, and Frank Sturgis.
The break-in was supposed to happen on the night of May 26. Organized by E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy, the group dressed up as executives and waited in a banquet room connected to the office’s stairwell. The break-in didn’t happen, and they got stuck in the banquet room the entire night.
The next night, they tried to break into the DNC again, but González didn’t have the right tool to get in the door, so they had to abort, and he flew to Miami to get his tools.
On May 28, the team tried a third time to break into the DNC office, this time through the garage. They got in, photographed files, and bugged the phones of a secretary and a staff member. But one of the wiretaps didn’t work.
This led them to try another break-in on June 17. During the break-in, the team put tape over the door latches so the door wouldn’t lock. Security guard Frank Willis noticed the tape and called the police.
Undercover police officers arrived just three minutes later. Because they were dressed as hippies, the lookout didn’t notice them and didn’t warn the team. When the lookout saw lights on the 8th floor, they warned the team that someone else was there.
The police saw the taped locks and caught the burglars. They were arrested after giving fake names. When the police found their listening devices, they called in the FBI for a federal communications violation.
Federal prosecutors investigated the burglars’ hotel rooms and found spy gear, money, papers, address books, and a telephone directory. Investigators also found that the burglars used aliases and that one of the suspects they arrested worked for the Committee to Reelect the President.
While the FBI investigated the case, the White House destroyed incriminating material linking it to the burglary. On June 22, Nixon publicly denied White House involvement in the Watergate break-in.
The Washington Post reported the break-in, but other papers like The New York Times gave it little coverage. The Post investigation was led by two young reporters, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. They learned that Hunt was once involved with the CIA. They began publishing articles about the White House’s suspicious behavior and accused it of spying.
Fearful of the investigation, the White House wanted the CIA to pressure the FBI to stop investigating Watergate, claiming it was a national security issue. Nixon approved this plan on June 23. This conversation was recorded and later became known as the “Smoking Gun Tape.”
The CIA complied with Nixon’s request and agreed to help pressure the FBI to end its investigation. However, the FBI refused to end the investigation unless the CIA put the request in writing, something which they refused to do.
As an attempt to cover their bases, the CRP fired Liddy and used him as a scapegoat. To ensure Liddy complied, he was promised that the plumbers would be financially compensated.
The questionable actions of the CRP and the Nixon administration began to catch up with them. Investigators discovered that $89,000 in Nixon campaign contributions had been routed through a Mexican bank account, helping obscure the money’s source before some of it ended up with the Watergate burglars.
These reports made Nixon even more fearful, and he tried to stop the probe.
Liddy and five burglars were indicted on eight counts on September 15. Despite a gag order, The Times printed a story linking the burglary to the White House.
To help keep the scandal private, Liddy was further bribed. His legal fees were paid, and he was promised a future presidential pardon, which was enough to make him take the blame. All the burglars claimed they were rogue agents acting on Liddy’s behalf, and on January 30, 1973, all five defendants were found guilty.
At this point, Nixon’s cover-up was largely effective. Many Americans knew of the DNC break-in but did not connect it to Nixon. Nixon had been reelected in November 1972 in an electoral landslide, winning 49 of 50 states.
Not everyone was satisfied. An inquiry led by Senator Ted Kennedy resulted in a Senate committee to investigate the issue.
The committee found more suspicious information on Nixon and the Plumbers. Most notably, during sentencing, some of the Plumbers confessed that they were told to plead guilty and commit perjury. This information was then leaked to the LA Times.
The press then turned its full attention to Watergate, and the scandal exploded. Suspicion of White House involvement grew despite Nixon’s denials.
Although Nixon consistently rejected the allegations, live broadcasts of the plumbers’ testimony before a congressional committee aired in May 1973, drawing an audience of three out of four American households. Although Congress subpoenaed the White House recordings, Nixon initially refused to relinquish them until judicial rulings ultimately compelled him to comply.
Desperate to prevent the tapes from leaking, Nixon executed an event dubbed the Saturday Night Massacre. On October 20, 1973, Nixon ordered the firing of Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox, prompting the resignations of Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus.
The public condemned Nixon and his approval rating fell to 24%. Many members of congress, on both sides of the aisle, launched an impeachment inquiry.
Investigations into Nixon Continued While he attempted to find loopholes to prevent documentation of his legal activities from getting out. Meanwhile, he continued to be interviewed and denied wrongdoing. He famously stated that he was not a crook.
Despite his denials, investigations continued. One tape made on June 20, 1972, involving Nixon and Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman, three days after the Watergate arrests, had a highly suspicious 18.5-minute gap.
Impeachment hearings against Nixon began. Over the span of weeks, accounts of the Watergate break-in and cover-up appeared. In addition, the smoking gun tape was released.
Nixon, facing the inevitability of impeachment and removal from office, announced his resignation on August 8, 1974, and his vice president, Gerald Ford, assumed the presidency the following day.
Just a month after taking office, President Ford issued a presidential pardon to Nixon. Despite Nixon getting away scot-free, 69 people were charged with crimes related to Watergate. Almost all were convicted or pleaded guilty.
Watergate ultimately became far more than a failed burglary. It exposed abuses of presidential power, illegal political operations, and an extensive effort to obstruct investigations and conceal wrongdoing.
The scandal led to criminal convictions, major reforms, and the only resignation of a U.S. president in history. It also left a lasting mark on American political culture, deepening public skepticism toward government and making “Watergate” shorthand for political scandal.