Video: 'WATERGATE AFFAIR BBC DOKUMENTATION 1994' (Sept. 3, 1971, at 23:52)

(Friday, September 3, 1971, approximately 11:00 p.m. PDT; during the Watergate scandal and the Vietnam War, part of the Indochina Wars and the Cold War) — Under the authorization of U.S. presidential adviser John Ehrlichman, the Beverly Hills, California, office of Lewis Fielding, a psychiatrist treating Daniel Ellsberg (who had leaked the Pentagon Papers to the press, exposing systematic lies to the nation about U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War), was broken into late tonight by a team of burglars.

Video: '"Watergate: The Secret Story" - 1992' (Sept. 3, 1971, at 18:37)

The burglars included G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt (both of the White House Plumbers unit), Eugenio Martínez, Felipe de Diego and Bernard Barker (the latter three were, or had been, recruited CIA agents).

Video: 'PBS Nixon (1990)_2of3' (Sept. 3, 1971, at 45:11)

The burglars found Ellsberg’s file, but it apparently did not contain the potentially embarrassing information they sought to discredit Ellsberg, as they left it discarded on the floor of Fielding’s office.

Hunt and Liddy subsequently planned to break into Fielding’s home, but Ehrlichman did not approve the second burglary.