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Jun 3, 2022 · Five men were arrested early that morning after a break-in at the headquarters, which was inside the Watergate office building. Ken Feil/The Washington Post/Getty Images. The five burglary ...
- The Burglars
- The Organizers
- The White House Insiders
- The Special Prosecutor
- The Axe Man
- The Whistleblower
- The Senators
- The Journalists
James McCord
HIS ROLE: A former CIA officer and FBI agent, McCord was one of the five burglars arrested at the Watergate complex, and the “chief wiretapper” of the operation. During the burglary, McCord, then security director of the Committee to Reelect the President (or CREEP), left a piece of tape on the latch of a stairwell door, inadvertently alerting a security guardto the burglary in progress. THE UPSHOT: McCord was convicted on charges of conspiracy, burglary and wiretapping, but only served four...
Virgilio Gonzalez
HIS ROLE:A Cuban refugee and locksmith by trade, Gonzalez was one of the five burglars arrested at the Watergate complex on June 17, 1972. He had been recruited in Miami by E. Howard Hunt, who had played a key role in the CIA’s disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion. THE UPSHOT: Gonzalez, an anti-Fidel Castro activist, insisted during his trial that he had been told the Watergate operation would advance Cuban liberation. “I keep feeling about my country and the way people suffer over there,” Gonzale...
E. Howard Hunt
HIS ROLE:A former CIA operative, Hunt was a member of the so-called “Plumbers,” an informal White House team tasked with preventing and repairing information “leaks” such as the 1971 release of the top-secret Pentagon Papers. After investigators found his phone number in address books belonging to the Watergate burglars, they connected the dots between the burglary, President Nixon and his re-election campaign. THE UPSHOT: As Hunt toldthe Senate Watergate committee during the investigation in...
G. Gordon Liddy
HIS ROLE: Liddy, a former FBI agent who served as general counsel for the Committee to Re-elect the President—a campaign that eventually led to the unraveling of the Nixon administration—was responsible for planning and supervising the Watergate break-in. According to testimony heard in the trial, he receivedabout $332,000 in campaign funds, which he used to carry out a number of intelligence-gathering operations. THE UPSHOT:He was convicted of conspiracy, burglary and bugging the Democratic...
Charles ‘Chuck’ Colson
HIS ROLE: As special advisor to the president, Colson was the mastermind behind many of the “dirty tricks” and political maneuvers—including spying on political opponents—that brought down the Nixon administration. As Colson toldE. Howard Hunt in a recorded telephone conversation, he would write in his memoirs that “Watergate was brilliantly conceived as an escapade that would divert the Democrats’ attention from the real issues, and therefore permit us to win a landslide that we probably wou...
John Ehrlichman
HIS ROLE: Ehrlichman, Nixon’s advisor for domestic affairs, also served as head of the “Plumbers.” He attempted to cover up the botched Watergate break-in. THE UPSHOT: In 1973, amid the unfolding scandal, Ehrlichman resigned. He was later tried and convictedof perjury and conspiracy to obstruct justice for his involvement in Watergate, serving 18 months in prison. POST-SCANDAL: After his release, Ehrlichman, who had been disbarred, divorced his wife and moved to New Mexico, where he focused o...
John Dean
HIS ROLE: Serving as White House counsel from 1970 to 1973, Dean helped cover up the Nixon administration’s involvement in the Watergate break-in and illegal intelligence-gathering. But as the investigation was closing in, he had warnedfellow staffers, “The jig is up. It’s over,” and reportedly said to Nixon, “We have a cancer within, close to, the presidency, that is growing.” Nixon fired him shortly thereafter. THE UPSHOT: Dean became one of the first administration officials to reveal the...
H.R. Haldeman
HIS ROLE: The Nixon administration White House chief of staff—known as the gatekeeper” to the Oval Office who once called himself "the president's son-of-a-bitch"—became a key figure in the Watergate probe as investigators zeroed in on tape-recorded conversations of White House meetings. One of the tapes included a now-famous 18-and-a-half-minute gap, which was later revealed to include a conversation between Haldeman and Nixon. Haldeman was also implicatedin the so-called “smoking gun” tape,...
Archibald Cox
HIS ROLE: Assigned in May of 1973 as special prosecutor to investigate the Watergate scandal, Archibald Cox was firedfrom his post by President Nixon just five months later in what became known as the “Saturday Night Massacre”—a White House shake-up that led to the resignation of two other Justice Department staffers. Cox was fired after insisting President Nixon give him unrestricted access to tapes of conversations leading up to the break-in at the Democratic National Committee Headquarters...
Robert Bork
HIS ROLE:Bork, a conservative judge, solicitor general and acting attorney general in the Nixon administration, carried out President Nixon’s orders to fire special counsel Archibald Cox, who had subpoenaed conversations taped in the Oval Office. Cox’s dismissal, on Oct. 1973, became known as the “Saturday Night Massacre.” THE UPSHOT:Despite Bork’s firing of Cox, the Supreme Court eventually ordered Nixon to turn over the tapes. POST-SCANDAL: In addition to his involvement in Watergate, Bork...
Mark Felt
HIS ROLE: Known for decades only as “Deep Throat,” the mysterious government source who helped Washington Post reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward untangle the Watergate conspiracy, Mark Felt revealed his identity in 2005. A senior FBI official during the Watergate years, Mark Felt met from time to time with Woodward—always in deserted parking garages, and always taking extreme precautions to ensure they had not been followed—providing clues that guided the journalist’s reporting. The N...
Sam Ervin
HIS ROLE: As chairman of the Senate Watergate committee that investigated the affair in televised hearings, Ervin became a national hero for serving as a moral compass. The purpose of the hearings, he saidat the outset, was to "probe into assertions that the very system has been subverted." The hearings showcased Ervin’s folksy demeanor and direct speech. When criticized for being too harsh on the witnesses, he countered, "I'm just an old country lawyer, and I don't know the finer ways to do...
Howard Baker
HIS ROLE: A Republican senator from Tennessee, Baker was vice chairman of the Senate Watergate committee that investigated the scandal, and is famously rememberedfor asking former White House counsel John Dean on June 29, 1973: “What did the President know, and when did he know it?” THE UPSHOT: Though Baker’s initial goal was to prove the accusations against Nixon were unfounded, testimony he heard and evidence he reviewed during the hearings changed his views. As he told The Associated Press...
Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein
THEIR ROLE: Young reporters at The Washington Post, Woodward and Bernstein (or “Woodstein” as they were known in the newsroom) teamed up to cover the burglary at the Watergate complex, and the ensuing scandal. Piecing together the story from dozens of sources, many of them anonymous, they leaned primarily on tips from a mysterious government operative nicknamed “Deep Throat,” who revealed himself in 2005 as FBI agent Mark Felt. THE UPSHOT: Woodward and Bernstein’s coverage of Watergate earned...
Benjamin Bradlee
HIS ROLE: As executive editor of The Washington Post from 1965 to 1991, Bradlee oversaw the paper’s Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the Watergate scandal—despite facing fierce criticism for the aggressive investigation. A year earlier, Bradlee had defied the Nixon administration in his decision to publish stories based on the Pentagon Papers, a series of top-secret files detailing the U.S. government’s activities in Vietnam. THE UPSHOT: The Post’s relentless reporting on Watergate ultimate...
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The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Richard Nixon which ultimately led to Nixon's resignation.
- January 1969. Richard Nixon is inaugurated as the 37th president of the United States.
- February 1971. Richard Nixon orders the installation of a secret taping system that records all conversations in the Oval Office, his Executive Office Building office, and his Camp David office and on selected telephones in these locations.
- June 13, 1971. The New York Times begins publishing the Pentagon Papers, the Defense Department's secret history of the Vietnam War. The Washington Post will begin publishing the papers later in the week.
- 1971. Nixon and his staff recruit a team of ex-FBI and CIA operatives, later referred to as “the Plumbers” to investigate the leaked publication of the Pentagon Papers.
Apr 20, 2022 · The National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Watergate break-in with an exhibition of 25 objects featuring prominent people involved in the...
Oct 29, 2009 · June 17, 1972 The break-in. June 20, 1972 First ‘Deep Throat’ meeting. July 23, 1973 Nixon refuses to turn over tapes. October 20, 1973 Saturday Night Massacre. November 17, 1973 Nixon: 'I'm ...
Mar 25, 2022 · Watergate: Portraiture and Intrigue. March 25, 2022 - September 5, 2022. The break-in at the Democratic National Committee offices at the Watergate Complex on June 17, 1972, quickly escalated to become a political and legal crisis that reached the highest levels of the United States government.
