Video: 'WATERGATE AFFAIR BBC DOKUMENTATION 1994' (June 17, 1972, Watergate break-in at 43:06)
(Saturday, June 17, 1972, around 2:30 a.m. EDT; during the Watergate scandal) — President Richard Nixon’s eventual downfall began early this morning when five burglars were arrested inside the the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Washington, D.C., Watergate Office Building.
Sometime after midnight, Watergate Complex security guard Frank Wills noticed tape covering the latches on some of the complex’s doors leading from the underground parking garage to several offices, which allowed the doors to close but stay unlocked. He removed the tape, believing it was nothing. When he returned a short time later and discovered that someone had retaped the locks, he called the police.
Video: 'Watergate Break-In'
Responding to the call was an unmarked police car with three plainclothes officers (Sgt. Paul W. Leeper, Officer John B. Barrett, and Officer Carl M. Shoffler) working the overnight “bum squad” — dressed as hippies and on the lookout for drug deals and other street crimes.
Alfred Baldwin, on “spotter” duty at the Howard Johnson’s hotel across the street, was distracted watching the 1958 film Attack of the Puppet People on TV and failed to observe the arrival of the police car in front of the Watergate building. Neither did he see the plainclothes officers investigating the DNC’s sixth-floor suite of 29 offices. By the time Baldwin finally noticed unusual activity on the sixth floor and radioed the burglars, it was already too late.
Video: 'PBS Nixon (1990)_2of3' (June 17, 1972, at 54:28)
The police apprehended five men, later identified as Virgilio Gonzalez, Bernard Barker, James McCord, Eugenio Martínez, and Frank Sturgis. They were charged with attempted burglary and attempted interception of telephone and other communications.
The Washington Post reported that “police found lock-picks and door jimmies, almost $2,300 in cash, most of it in $100 bills with the serial numbers in sequence … a short wave receiver that could pick up police calls, 40 rolls of unexposed film, two 35-millimeter cameras and three pen-sized tear gas guns.”
The burglary was organized by G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt and approved by former U.S. Attorney General John Mitchell, now chairman of Committee for the Re-Election of the President (CRP), and his deputy, Jeb Magruder.
Video: '"Watergate: The Secret Story" - 1992' (June 17, 1972, at 29:18)
The following morning, Sunday, June 18, Liddy called Magruder in Los Angeles and informed him that “the four men arrested with McCord were Cuban freedom fighters, whom Howard Hunt recruited.”
Initially, Nixon’s campaign and the White House quickly went to work to cover up the crime and any evidence that might have damaged the president and his reelection. But Nixon’s attempt to prevent the FBI from investigating the break-in would eventually unravel his presidency.
