Video: 'WATERGATE AFFAIR BBC DOKUMENTATION 1994' ('Operation Gemstone' approved at 34:42)

(Thursday, March 30, 1972; during the Watergate scandal) — Former U.S. Attorney General John N. Mitchell, having assumed his new duties as head of the Committee to Re-elect the President on Mar. 1, 1972, allegedly approved “Operation Gemstone,” a proposed series of illegal activities to support the re-election of President Richard Nixon, including electronic surveillance (i.e. bugging telephones), during a meeting today in Key Biscayne, Florida.

“Operation Gemstone,” proposed by Nixon re-election aide G. Gordon Liddy, originally proposed numerous illegal activities to support the reelection of President Nixon including the use of prostitutes, kidnapping, and assaulting antiwar protestors.

Today’s meeting would be the subject of great dispute among its three participants, including Mitchell, his deputy, Jeb Magruder, and friend, Fred LaRue. According to Magruder, the three men approved the so-called “Operation Gemstone” and other aspects of a “dirty tricks” campaign against the Democratic Party.

LaRue and Mitchell, to their deaths, always denied this vehemently. In 2003, Magruder stated, for the first time, that it was at this meeting that President Nixon, speaking to Mitchell by telephone, voiced specific approval for the Watergate burglary. Mitchell and Nixon had both been dead for years, and Fred LaRue denied Magruder’s claim publicly.