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00:11F.B.I. Chief J. Edgar Hoover's death had a hidden side effect,
00:16unleashing Nixon's impulse to gather intelligence on his enemies illegally.
00:21And six weeks later, the Watergate break-in occurred.
00:26Congressman Wright Patman launched an investigation into the burglary.
00:30But the Nixon White House used blackmail and political pressure to thwart him.
00:35One more opponent sidelined.
00:48Okay.
00:49Put yourself back in time to the year 1972.
00:53Like a lot of people, you're watching Watergate unfold and trying to make sense of it.
00:58When do you think it would have hit you?
01:00That the whole thing could be a massive conspiracy.
01:07If you had a dark hunch that you were not being told the full story,
01:13I think December 8th, 1972 would have been a day when your ears perked up a little bit.
01:20Good evening.
01:21There's been a bad plane crash in Chicago near Midway Airport.
01:32On that snowy afternoon, United Airlines Flight 553 was a minute away from landing at Midway Airport in Chicago
01:40when it crashed on a residential street on the city's south side.
01:44We heard this jet and I looked and I saw the plane hit the garage and go through it.
01:52And then I saw it go up in flames and I ran over there and I could hear people screaming
01:57and people were trying to get in.
02:01I'm telling you about this plane crash because it happened about six months after the Watergate break-in.
02:07Because among the dead was Dorothy Hunt, the wife of E. Howard Hunt, one of the burglary's masterminds.
02:15Because when they found her body, she was carrying $10,000 in cash,
02:19which, seeing as Hunt was about to testify about his involvement in the burglary,
02:24looked like it may have been hush money.
02:26There was a lot of screaming and we opened that hatch to crawl out, but we're already inside somebody's house.
02:34And because an abnormally large number of FBI agents, around 50 or so, arrived at the site directly after the
02:41crash.
02:41You'll leave the investigation up to the federal authorities?
02:44Well, the men are doing everything they can.
02:47And finally, because the day after, Richard Nixon nominated the head of his infamous plumbers unit
02:54to the position of Undersecretary of Transportation,
02:57giving him direct control over the agency that would be investigating the crash.
03:02Any indication why the plane was there, Loser?
03:04No, but the investigating team will start its work tonight when they arrive.
03:12Now, do I think Nixon orchestrated a plane crash to eliminate Hunt's wife so that she wouldn't squeal?
03:18No. That's insane.
03:23But at the time of the crash, if you had said that Nixon was involved in Watergate,
03:28most Americans would have called you insane, too.
03:32If you want to know what it was like to try to understand Watergate as it was happening,
03:36to try to figure out what was actually true and what was a crackpot theory,
03:41I think the crash illustrates a tension that you would have felt back then,
03:45a tension that delayed Watergate in becoming a massive story.
03:49I think the people in this country have a right to know if the United Airlines is being used to
03:54get rid of a witness.
03:55Because Watergate was such uncharted territory, it presented a unique challenge for anyone trying to make sense of it.
04:04How do you tell the difference between a coincidence and a conspiracy?
04:09We shall try tonight to pull together the threads of this amazing story,
04:14quite unlike any in our modern American history.
04:17...responsibility to defend this great office against false charges.
04:23What was it like to live through Watergate without knowing how it was all going to end?
04:28...causing this nation to neglect matters of far greater importance.
04:35One way to find out is to look at that moment of American history
04:40as seen through the eyes of the people who lived it,
04:43back when they had no idea what was coming.
04:46If we learn the important lessons of Watergate,
04:48we can emerge from this experience a better and a stronger nation.
04:54I'm Leon Nafok.
04:56This is Slow Burn.
05:00Slow Burn
05:14The crash of United Airlines Flight 553 got a lot of coverage on both television and in the papers.
05:20And while most of the press focused on the death toll and what may have gone wrong with the plane,
05:24there was someone, a much less mainstream voice,
05:28who covered the crash from a very different angle.
05:32Her name was May Brussel.
05:38This is Dialogue Conspiracy,
05:41a public affairs presentation of KLRB News.
05:45Hello, and we'll get right into the events of the week, Dialogue Conspiracy.
05:50And we're going to start right off with the Watergate affair.
05:54Brussel's radio show was broadcast out of KLRB,
05:58a small left-wing FM rock station in California.
06:02She had been following the Watergate story closely from the beginning.
06:06But when Howard Hunt's wife Dorothy died,
06:09Brussel did not think it was just a coincidence.
06:11I just want to mention something which was shocking.
06:14If you've been following the Watergate story and listening to my program,
06:18we talk about Howard Hunt,
06:20and Mrs. Howard Hunt died on that plane crash in Chicago December the 8th,
06:25carrying money.
06:26She also had some ideas about the cash that Dorothy Hunt was carrying at the time of the incident.
06:31The money came from El Paso gas.
06:33It had something to do with John Mitchell.
06:35There were cyanide traces in the bloodstream of the pilot.
06:39I think you could kind of see where she was going with all this.
06:42The people in this country have a right to know
06:44if the United Airlines is being used
06:46to get rid of a witness of a conspiracy trial like the Watergate.
06:51For May Brussel,
06:53United Flight 553 was another dot that she could connect
06:56in the ever-expanding conspiracy of Watergate.
07:00And while she had some pretty far-fetched ideas about it,
07:03she was one of the only people at the time
07:05to really pay attention to Martha Mitchell.
07:07Martha Mitchell got on the telephone on Thursday from out in California.
07:11She said that if you could see me, you wouldn't believe me.
07:14I'm black and blue.
07:15I'm a political prisoner.
07:17They left me in California with absolutely no information,
07:21and they don't want me to talk.
07:23She's preparing for a show.
07:24Is anyone editing her?
07:26No.
07:28No.
07:29Yeah, editing.
07:29That's a good question about May Brussel.
07:31A lot of us suggested,
07:34May, talk slower.
07:35May, stop and explain a little bit about this.
07:40My name is David Bean,
07:41and I was program director at KLRB FM Radio
07:45while May Brussel was broadcasting her program.
07:48May felt an affinity with Martha Mitchell.
07:52And you can place all the blame right on the White House.
07:55Because she felt Martha Mitchell was being muzzled,
07:59and May knew she was right.
08:03And it wasn't just Martha.
08:05May Brussel was one of the first public voices to assert,
08:08as it was happening,
08:09that Watergate was a government cover-up.
08:11The way the government covers up things when they're caught
08:14and show the parallel to the way they covered up
08:16being caught in the office of the Democratic Party this week.
08:21May sourced her information from newspapers, primarily.
08:26She was cutting out clippings.
08:27She was filing the clippings in boxes.
08:31She'd say, you know,
08:32this newspaper just reported this,
08:34and this guy did this,
08:35and that means this guy,
08:37and they don't even know about the relationship
08:39to another guy that I've discovered.
08:42You know, I just filed up the newspaper articles
08:44when I cut the paper,
08:45even because I take eight papers a day
08:46and I have a section of things to read right away,
08:48and then things I can read later.
08:50And then the right-of-way I separate
08:52into whether I want to copy them and cross-file them
08:54or put them in particular categories.
08:57Her whole life became this research.
09:02Now, I feel compelled to say here
09:04that Brussel covered a lot of ground.
09:06And she espoused many theories
09:08that I just don't believe in.
09:10She thought the government
09:11was using chemical weapons as mind control.
09:14The CIA has a laboratory
09:15and facilities to spread germ warfare
09:18inside the USA,
09:19and I don't have any doubt
09:20that they will be doing this.
09:22Also, she was really fixated
09:24on dune buggies.
09:26Brussel believed that they were essential
09:28to the military-industrial complex
09:30and were being used to carry out
09:32all kinds of covert operations.
09:34He gave a lot of warning
09:36about the dune buggy scene
09:37in the last few months
09:38with plans in mind
09:40that one is to plow into the hippie communes
09:43and the other is to kill 63 million minority people.
09:46That's right, dune buggies.
09:49But for someone who hosted a show
09:51called Dialogue Conspiracy,
09:53her background was pretty conventional.
09:56My heart is always looking round.
10:01May Brussel grew up
10:03in a wealthy Los Angeles family
10:04descended from a California department store owner.
10:07It was a pretty comfortable upbringing
10:09with dinner parties and vacations.
10:12She studied philosophy at Stanford.
10:15Afterwards, she got married
10:17and settled into a quiet life
10:18as a stay-at-home mother in L.A.
10:20She said that during this period,
10:22she was just a housewife,
10:24interested in tennis courts,
10:25dancing lessons,
10:27and orthodonture for her children.
10:30That life ended
10:31on November 22, 1963.
10:42Put me on, Phil.
10:43Put me on.
10:45Phil, am I on?
10:47We understand there is a bit of shooting.
10:49We know it's the presidential car.
10:51You can see Mrs. Kennedy's pink suit.
10:52There's a secret service man
10:53spread eagle over the top of the car.
10:56Just a moment.
10:57Just a moment.
10:57We have a bulletin coming in.
10:59President Kennedy has been assassinated.
11:02It's official now.
11:03The president is dead.
11:07JFK's assassination transformed
11:09how May Brussel saw the world.
11:11And she no longer felt
11:12the government could be trusted.
11:14At the time that John Kennedy was killed,
11:16the answers were so pat in the news media.
11:18I wanted to know what kind of a world
11:20I was going to raise my family in.
11:22She disputed the Warren Commission's conclusion
11:25that Kennedy's killer, Lee Harvey Oswald,
11:27had acted alone.
11:28The trajectory of the bullet has been questioned.
11:30We want the undeveloped x-rays of the body.
11:34We want the names of the people involved.
11:36And to better understand what she suspected
11:38was a cover-up,
11:39for Christmas,
11:40she bought herself all 26 volumes
11:42of the Commission's findings.
11:43I really wanted to know
11:45if Oswald was a patsy.
11:47And your findings?
11:50Are Oswald was a patsy?
11:53It became a splitting point
11:55with her husband
11:56that he didn't like her
11:57doing this Kennedy research.
12:01But May was an incredibly strong,
12:04unique woman.
12:06She went out on her own.
12:08She took her life,
12:10her thoughts,
12:11her beliefs,
12:11and her research,
12:12moved to Carmel, California
12:14with her kids,
12:17and did what she was meant to do.
12:20She started to give lectures.
12:22And by 1971,
12:23she had a whole Sunday afternoon radio show
12:26on KLRB,
12:27devoted to her theories
12:28on the JFK assassination.
12:30Just like they tried to say
12:31that Oswald was a communist
12:35and killed John Kennedy
12:36when actually the anti-Castric Cubans
12:39were involved.
12:39Which meant that when Watergate
12:41happened the following year,
12:43May Brussels was primed
12:44and ready for it.
12:45History will prove
12:47that my research is accurate
12:48right down to the last sentence.
12:51Seven years,
12:52and now it's all coming to...
12:54It's all coming home.
12:55I never thought it was...
12:55On her first show
12:56after the break-in,
12:57she latched onto something
12:59that she firmly believed
13:00was not a coincidence.
13:01But it's interesting
13:02that the anti-Castro Cubans
13:04were in this office,
13:06and I wonder who they were
13:07because I have it all here
13:08and time's running out.
13:10As her research
13:11into the JFK assassination
13:12expanded,
13:13she began to notice
13:14a recurring subplot
13:15playing in the background,
13:17Cubans doing secret work
13:19for the American government.
13:20The cast of characters,
13:21all those people
13:22were involved
13:23with the Bay of Pigs invasion.
13:25It was a curious thread to pull,
13:27but she was right to.
13:29Because once you start
13:30putting together
13:31all the reasons
13:32those four Cuban expats
13:33were there that night,
13:35you start going
13:36to some pretty interesting places.
13:39Open up!
13:40Open up!
14:08the children of the underground
14:10who were fighting against the Castro regime
14:13to the United States while their parents were fighting.
14:17Over 14,000 miners came that way.
14:21I was one of them.
14:24My name is Maria de los Ángeles Torres.
14:26I'm a political scientist,
14:27and I study and write about Cuban exiles.
14:30Cuba was a country that aspired
14:32to have its own independent government
14:33for democratic institutions.
14:36This is only the beginning.
14:38The last battle will be fought in the capital.
14:41You can be sure.
14:45I remember when Fidel came into Havana,
14:48my father picked me up, took me,
14:50and, you know, we went and greeted the rebels,
14:52and finally we're going to get a government
14:55that responds to the people.
15:01Fidel had promised elections,
15:03and he decided not to hold them.
15:07All of a sudden, everything that you were doing
15:10was subject to somebody listening
15:13and somebody reporting on you.
15:16So when Fidel starts using firing squads
15:20and killing some 17, 18, 19-year-olds
15:25who had just been supporters of him,
15:28but now we're demanding that he bring democracy
15:31in elections,
15:33that's where I think a lot of people turned.
15:43turned and fled to America,
15:45where many landed in Miami.
15:49These newly arrived exiles left their homeland
15:52because they had been living in fear,
15:54because in some cases,
15:55they'd seen loved ones killed in the streets,
15:57all because of a communist dictator.
16:00So in the early 1960s,
16:02all of a sudden,
16:03there was a growing army of very motivated men
16:05looking to do all they could to fight communism,
16:09this time on American soil.
16:11It created a geopolitical match made in heaven,
16:15or so it seemed at the time.
16:20On April 17th, 1961,
16:22a newly formed military group of Cuban exiles,
16:25trained and funded by the CIA,
16:28invaded Cuba and tried to overthrow Fidel Castro.
16:31Here on the beaches around the Bay of Pigs,
16:33the invasion floundered.
16:35Those able to move beyond the beaches
16:37were trapped in swamp for high growth,
16:39which was burned off.
16:40Communication disappeared
16:41with the sinking of a liberty ship,
16:43which carried all the signal equipment
16:45and much ammunition.
16:46The Bay of Pigs invasion failed miserably,
16:49and most of the hundreds of Cubans who fought
16:51were either killed or taken prisoner.
16:54It is not the first time
16:55that communist tanks
16:57have rolled over gallant men and women
16:59fighting to redeem the independence of their homeland.
17:05Right after the failure of Bay of Pigs,
17:08there are people who continue
17:10to have an aspiration of overthrowing the government,
17:13and indeed,
17:14the Kennedy administration continues with its plans
17:18to overthrow the government.
17:19This time it's more covert.
17:22It is entitled Operation Mongoose.
17:25From its headquarters in Miami,
17:28Operation Mongoose launched hundreds of covert CIA operations
17:31deploying Cuban exiles.
17:41Bay of Pigs veteran and future Watergate burglar Eugenio Martinez.
17:47I was recruited by a member of the CIA.
17:53I did not know what CIA really, what it means.
17:57They said that they were rich men with some other money,
18:02and they want to help us to fight castles.
18:07They were killing people,
18:09and we were against those
18:11who were killing our people.
18:14We were taking weapons to our people in Cuba,
18:19and we were establishing connections, you know,
18:23so we could contact the people inside.
18:27That was a very dangerous work.
18:37One of the jobs that I did was to sunk
18:42a pity vote that was given to Castro
18:47as a present.
18:49This went on all throughout the 1960s.
18:53Hundreds of little jobs like this,
18:55denting communist Cuba whenever possible
18:57with the backdrop of the Cold War
18:58providing just cause.
19:09One of the grim realities of American foreign policy
19:12was a communist state 90 miles off the coast of Florida.
19:15The rhetorics of anti-communism
19:17were alive and well in the United States
19:20and maybe felt a little bit more personally
19:23in the Cuban exile community.
19:26These are soldiers, freedom fighters,
19:28who take very seriously their tasks
19:31of combating communism.
19:34I think there's a certain vulnerability
19:36that allows for the CIA
19:40and people like Howard Hunt
19:42to then prey on their sentiments.
19:46It was Hunt who employed a handful of Cubans,
19:49Martinez among them,
19:50to provide extra security
19:51for J. Edgar Hoover's memorial service.
19:54We came and served to protect
19:58the death of Hoover.
20:01We protected the corpse of him that was there.
20:06And we were prepared to break
20:09the groups that were there
20:10to create problems.
20:12It was an unusual service in several ways.
20:16For one thing,
20:16security was unusually heavy
20:18around the National Presbyterian Center,
20:20apparently on the theory
20:22that someone might try to disrupt
20:23today's solemn ceremony,
20:25but no one did.
20:26By June of 1972,
20:28the Cubans had built a reputation
20:29for pulling off a unique brand
20:31of not exactly official political work.
20:33If you were invited
20:35by the President of the United States
20:37for a job,
20:38it's very difficult
20:39that you don't accept it.
20:41I mean,
20:42it was an honor
20:43and it was a pleasure.
20:45We were trying
20:47to be a good citizen
20:49by giving
20:51a good job
20:53for the American government.
20:56That was all.
21:00I can imagine
21:01all the Watergate burglars
21:03looking back on that night
21:04felt the same way.
21:05It was technically wrong,
21:07but they were the good guys
21:08fighting the good fight.
21:12But I think
21:12if there's one guy
21:13in this whole story
21:14who took that most to heart,
21:16it was the one
21:16who designed the break-in.
21:25Howard Hunt
21:26certainly styled himself
21:27as this sort of
21:28James Bond figure.
21:29He was a CIA operative
21:31who had been one
21:32of the people in charge
21:33of the Bay of Pigs operation.
21:35Eduardo,
21:37he was a strange individual.
21:39By the way,
21:41Martinez knew Howard Hunt
21:42by his Bay of Pigs
21:43known to Gare.
21:44Eduardo.
21:46He did not impress me
21:47as an agent
21:48of the CIA
21:49or whatever.
21:50He was dedicated
21:51to make movies.
21:54Rolling.
21:56Action.
22:05Yes, one of the architects
22:07of the Watergate break-in
22:08also wrote spy novels.
22:12The Violent Ones,
22:14Where Murder Waits,
22:15The Venus Probe.
22:17These are just a few
22:18that he wrote
22:18under various pseudonyms.
22:20And if you read
22:21my personal favorite,
22:22The Coven,
22:23published the very same year
22:24that Hunt orchestrated Watergate,
22:26you might come away
22:27with a better idea
22:28for why this whole thing happened.
22:30The plot was basically
22:32our indefatigable
22:34sort of stalwart investigator,
22:37who's clearly a doppelganger
22:39for the real Howard Hunt,
22:42discovers that a figure
22:44who very closely resembles
22:45Edward Kennedy,
22:47Senator Kennedy,
22:49was actually running
22:51a literal,
22:53satanic death cult.
22:56I am free.
22:59I am supposed to require this.
23:02You almost see an allegory
23:04of that way
23:05of seeing the world.
23:06I am free.
23:08I am free.
23:09People who believed
23:10to the core of their being
23:12that politics was a battle
23:13between the forces of good
23:15and the forces of evil,
23:17and therefore,
23:18basically,
23:19the ends justified any means.
23:45There were actually a few attempts
23:47made before June 17th
23:48to break into the DNC headquarters
23:50at Watergate.
23:54That was a banquet
23:55that gave us
23:56to say
23:58that it was Ameritas,
23:59a company
24:00that we had
24:01with our friend
24:03in Miami,
24:08in a food
24:09there
24:10in the
24:10restaurant
24:11of Watergate.
24:13But we did it
24:15to enter
24:15in Watergate
24:16and look
24:16the documents
24:17because they said
24:19that the
24:19Mógrida
24:21was helping
24:23Castro
24:24and the governors.
24:26Know
24:27that they're going to
24:28fight
24:28with men.
24:32But on that particular night,
24:34the DNC staffers
24:35worked late,
24:36preventing any opportunity
24:37to break into their office.
24:48A few weeks later,
24:49though,
24:50after another failed attempt,
24:52they got their chance.
24:53The operation
24:54was late.
24:57And I went
24:58and I got it
24:58and I got it
24:58late.
25:01Figures
25:01that we were
25:02well dressed
25:03and all
25:03with clothes
25:04and all that
25:05stuff.
25:07Eduardo
25:07had some
25:08very rare pants
25:10and Gordon
25:11Lee
25:11sent him
25:12to the house
25:13to change
25:13clothes.
25:16He sent
25:17to change
25:19clothes
25:19and
25:20to get
25:20more
25:21available.
25:48I'm making
25:49security check.
25:51I found
25:52that the
25:52latch
25:53on the basement
25:54door had
25:54been taped.
25:56I turned
25:56later to
25:57found that
25:57the same
25:58door
25:59had been
26:00retaped
26:00again,
26:01the latch.
26:02At that time,
26:03I proceeded
26:04upstairs
26:04to make
26:05a call
26:05to the police
26:06police.
26:10go to the
26:10were
26:11there,
26:11we had
26:11a look
26:12out
26:13in the
26:13Howard
26:14Johnson,
26:15but they
26:16left us
26:17alone and
26:17the police
26:18came and
26:19we
26:19took
26:19and they were not there that could have solved the problem.
26:24No Gordon Liddy, no Howard Dojón.
26:29I removed the sack and put it on the shoulder.
26:31So I said to the boys,
26:33this goes for long.
26:35I had the experience that it would be complicated.
26:44We didn't have to go there that night.
26:51On that same night, just a few blocks away,
26:54Roger Stone was house-sitting for creep scheduling director Bart Porter
26:59when he heard the telephone ring.
27:04Jim McCord was on the line.
27:07And he said, this is Jim McCord. Is Porter there?
27:10I said, no, sir, he's away from the weekend.
27:12Could I take a message?
27:14And he said, damn.
27:17All right.
27:17You expect to hear from him?
27:19I said, well, I really don't.
27:20But if I do, I'll be happy to relay a message.
27:23He said, no, never mind.
27:25And he hung up.
27:29About an hour later, Gordon Liddy called.
27:34I'm looking for Porter.
27:35I said, he's not here.
27:36Where is he?
27:37He said, he's on the West Coast.
27:38I'm just house-sitting.
27:40He said, do you expect to hear from him?
27:41I said, no.
27:42He said, well, if you do, tell him Liddy's looking for him.
27:45I said, yes, sir.
27:47The next morning, of course, I saw the Washington Post headlines
27:51that men had broken into the Watergate.
27:57A spokesman for the committee to re-elect the president said
28:00that this had no connection to the committee,
28:03and they knew nothing about it.
28:05I immediately began to suspect, because of those two calls,
28:08that was not the case.
28:10Five men were arrested early Saturday
28:12while trying to install eavesdropping equipment
28:15at the Democratic National Committee.
28:17And it turns out that one of them has an office
28:20in the headquarters of the committee
28:22for the re-election of the president.
28:27This is a very big story just breaking at the Watergate.
28:30Another man that was arrested was Eugene Martinez.
28:33He was listed as a real estate agent
28:36and a soldier of fortune.
28:38When the first Washington Post stories
28:40about what happened at the Watergate
28:42landed in American living rooms,
28:43they barely registered as a blip.
28:45Snow detergent gets out everything.
28:47Cotton? How, Sheila?
28:49Punched with never clean as cotton.
28:55It was the height of the primary season
28:57for the 72 Nixon re-election campaign.
29:01So most of the bureau was assigned
29:03to different candidates out there.
29:06So the bureau was pretty empty.
29:07They had very little choice but to send me.
29:11I'm Leslie Stahl.
29:12First story I covered for CBS was Watergate.
29:16I was just sent to cover the arraignment of the burglars.
29:21There was only one other reporter in the whole courtroom.
29:25And it just so happened that it was Bob Woodward,
29:28who was the other reporter,
29:30covering for the Metro page of the Washington Post,
29:33not even for their main section.
29:36That's how insignificant all the news outlets thought it was.
29:41Hello, sir. How come you're all here today?
29:44The deposition is being taken.
29:46How come all these people are here to take the deposition?
29:50But with each tick, it got a little more and a little more suspicious.
29:55Bob particularly had the feeling almost immediately.
30:00We knew we were on to quite a story that very first day.
30:05My name is Barry Sussman.
30:07I was the editor in charge of Watergate coverage for the Washington Post.
30:11Our police reporter was told in advance
30:14that he might be allowed to look at some of the belongings of the arrested men.
30:21And he sought address books.
30:23One of them had in it the name, Howard Hunt, WH.
30:28They also found a check for $6.36
30:33that Howard Hunt had left behind in one of their hotel rooms.
30:40Woodward called the White House, asked to speak to Howard Hunt.
30:47Hunt answered the phone and Woodward said,
30:50Do you mind telling me why was your name
30:53and the address of these men who were arrested at the Watergate?
30:58And Hunt said something like,
31:01Oh, shit.
31:03Saying this matter is under adjudication and I can't speak to you.
31:08The break-in was Saturday.
31:10This is now Monday afternoon and we had the links to the White House,
31:15the links to the re-election committee down cold.
31:19This set the stage for the most consequential cat-and-mouse game
31:22probably ever played in American politics.
31:25On one side were the journalists tasked with uncovering what really happened.
31:29And on the other was the White House,
31:31where the staff was doing all they could to make sure they failed.
31:35It was really just the company line.
31:36We don't know anything about this.
31:38We're not involved in this.
31:40Go back to your surrogate scheduling and don't worry about it.
31:43Neither the president, obviously, or anybody in the White House,
31:46or anybody in authority in any of the committees working for the re-election of the president
31:51have any responsibility for it and therefore there's no reason why it should be
31:55a matter of concern to the American public.
31:58The White House today simply refused to comment.
32:01Presidential Press Secretary Ronald Ziegler refused comment a total of 23 times.
32:06The president's press secretary said of this incident,
32:08I'm not going to comment from the White House on a third-rate burglary attempt.
32:13When Ron Ziegler said it was just a third-rate burglary,
32:17it became one of those great Watergate phrases.
32:20A third-rate burglary. That's all it was.
32:24I'm Connie Chung. I covered Watergate for CBS News.
32:28It's sort of like no collusion.
32:30It kept getting repeated and repeated and repeated, and that was the White House line.
32:36Presidential Press Secretary Ronald Ziegler called the bugging a third-rate burglary attempt.
32:41I think the American public has a better perspective on the relative insignificance of the Watergate matter.
32:47The Post said the Republicans had a secret fund to pay for political spying and sabotage. The White House denied
32:53it.
32:53The Post has maliciously sought to give the appearance of a direct connection between the White House and the Watergate.
32:59The administration fought it, tried to come down hard on the Washington Post, make it seem like we were an
33:05instrument of the Democratic campaign.
33:08I don't respect the type of journalism, the shabby journalism that is being practiced by the Washington Post.
33:16Spokesman for the committee to re-elect the president called the Washington Post story fiction and absurdities.
33:22These stories have been based on hearsay and unidentifiable people who say they heard someone say or say that someone
33:29said something that's just gone too far.
33:33It was a deft media strategy that paid off, especially since, if you were wondering just how far up the
33:39chain Watergate went, the man at the top was doing all he could to keep his distance.
33:44The reporters couldn't get to Nixon, but one day I walked into the West Gate and all of a sudden
33:52I see Nixon standing there.
33:56And he's been in the bunker.
33:57You have not been able to either see or hear from him at all.
34:01And here he was standing in his normal, you know, sort of position.
34:06And Secret Service around, they swarmed around me, but I kept walking directly up to him and they didn't rustle
34:13me down or anything.
34:14So I began to talk to him and I began asking him questions.
34:19I was afraid to take out my notebook because I was afraid he wouldn't talk to me if I wrote
34:25things down.
34:26So I was trying to remember what he was saying.
34:29Well, he didn't really say very much.
34:31I was asking him all kinds of Watergate questions and he would dance around.
34:36And finally he said to me,
34:38How much money do you make?
34:42And I said,
34:44What?
34:44And he said,
34:46How much money do you make?
34:48Well, I make $27,000 a year, but if I do a Cronkite news report, I get an extra $35.
34:56So if I turn the radio spots out, I can get my salary up to maybe $29,000 a year,
35:03almost $30,000 a year.
35:05And he listened to this ridiculous rendition of how much I made.
35:09And he said, You know what? You have to make more money.
35:18And then he walked away.
35:21With an election coming up, Nixon was working hard to beat back the story of Watergate.
35:26And it was working.
35:27I think Nixon has done a good job with us so far.
35:31What about the Watergate incident?
35:34I don't know what that means.
35:36What was frustrating mainly was that the public interest in this wasn't heightened.
35:43What were those men after at the Watergate?
35:45Who sent them? How were they paid?
35:47And I guess we were more curious than frustrated.
35:52Why aren't the American people as upset and affected by this as we are?
36:01We do live in a little fishbowl in Washington.
36:04And what was going on right outside the environs frustrated us.
36:11Or what wasn't going on.
36:17One evening, there was a knock on my door.
36:21And it was Carl Bernstein.
36:23He literally put his foot in the door so I couldn't close it.
36:27And he said, I want to ask you about the committee to reelect the president.
36:31And I said, I have nothing to say.
36:33I then realized that Watergate was not over and that they were going to continue to dig.
36:42Carl Bernstein called John Mitchell to question Mitchell's involvement.
36:48And he apparently woke Mitchell up.
36:50Mitchell said, what time is it?
36:53And Bernstein said, it's 11 o'clock.
36:57Bernstein told him then why he was calling.
37:00And Mitchell said, you guys are doing some story on us, huh?
37:03Well, we're going to do one story on you when all this is over.
37:07He said, Katie Graham is going to get her tit corner to ring her.
37:18Hello.
37:18Mr. Ziegler, sir.
37:20Hi.
37:20Hi, Ron.
37:21Yes, Mr. President.
37:23I want it clearly understood that from now on, ever, no reporter from the Washington Post is ever to be
37:31in the White House.
37:32Is that clear?
37:32Absolutely.
37:33Unless it's a press conference.
37:34Yes, sir.
37:35Never.
37:36Never in the White House.
37:37No church service and no photographer either.
37:40Mm-hmm.
37:40No photographer.
37:41Is that clear?
37:42Yes, sir.
37:42None.
37:43That is a total order.
37:45And if necessary, I'll fire you.
37:48You understand?
37:48I do understand.
37:50Okay.
37:50All right.
37:51Good.
37:55It was around that time that I remember looking back and saying, uh-oh, we're way out on a limb,
38:04aren't we?
38:04And we'll never get back.
38:06And from that period on, I began to think of the story as not a story about a break-in,
38:13about campaign contributions, but about Nixon.
38:21We're way out on a limb is a great way to understand the stakes.
38:25Because at that time, the idea that the president could be involved in a criminal conspiracy was just unimaginable.
38:32In two centuries, only 36 tenants have occupied the White House, on temporary lease from that most demanding and generous
38:39of landlords, the people of the United States.
38:42The man who occupies this historic office must fulfill many roles, statesman, strategist, ceremonial leader, guardian of the nation's spirit
38:51and honor.
38:52This compulsion to believe that we are led by honorable men, that our nation is honorable, very much drove an
39:00almost willful inability for Americans to accept that this might have had anything to do with Richard Nixon.
39:10Now, that might sound like a lofty interpretation of Nixon, but that's because we think of him through the lens
39:16of Watergate and everything that it revealed.
39:18When he was first elected, Americans saw him in a much different light.
39:23The night is long and it is still dark, as far as civilization goes, but we will never be perfect,
39:31for man is not perfect.
39:34But we are on the way.
39:36On the day Nixon was sworn into office in January of 1969, a rabbi named Edgar F. Magnin offered this
39:44blessing.
39:45Our Father's God, to thee, author of liberty, to thee we sing. Long may our land be bright with freedom's
39:52holy light. Protect us by thy might.
39:56I think it's a good window into the expectations that people had for Nixon as an American president.
40:01There are few faint streets of pink in the sky. We await the dawn. Almighty God bless our country and
40:10him who will be our leader and our guide in the coming years. Amen.
40:16By the way, this rabbi who offered the stirring prayer for Nixon was actually May Brussels' father.
40:27Now, if on that day, Brussels shared her father's hopes for the president, four years later, they had been thoroughly
40:34dashed.
40:35Mr. Nixon, President Nixon, I call him Mr. because I do not recognize him as my president. He may be
40:42yours, but I call him Mr. Nixon.
40:44Mr. Nixon, I call him Mr. Nixon, I call him Mr. Nixon.
40:48Despite her insistence that a conspiracy was afoot, there was every indication that Richard Nixon would stand on that same
40:54podium and be sworn in for a second term.
40:57But there was someone else, someone with a much bigger audience than May Brussels, who was also trying to get
41:03in the way.
41:04Mr. Nixon, I call him Mr. Nixon.
41:06At first it was called the Watergate Caper.
41:09Five men, apparently caught in the act of burglarizing and bugging Democratic headquarters in Washington.
41:16But the episode grew steadily more sinister.
41:19No longer a caper, but the Watergate affair.
41:22At first it was called the Watergate Caper.
41:26Five men, apparently caught in the act of burglarizing and bugging Democratic headquarters in Washington.
41:33Cronkite was the man that everybody watched on television.
41:37My family used to sit around and watch Walter Cronkite.
41:41We were CBS News devotees.
41:43We gathered together and watched Uncle Walter every night.
41:47Good evening, this is Walter Cronkite at CBS News headquarters in New York.
41:52And at the end he would say, and that's the way it is.
41:54And that's the way it is.
41:56Monday, September 11, 1972.
41:59He was incredible.
42:00We loved Walter.
42:02America loved Walter Cronkite.
42:06As weeks and months passed and television had no coverage of Watergate, Walter Cronkite kind of got fed up.
42:14Most of what is known of the Watergate affair has emerged in puzzling bits and pieces through digging by the
42:20nation's press and television newsmen.
42:22And on a Friday night, not long before the election, Walter Cronkite spent maybe 20 minutes of his half hour
42:29show reporting Watergate.
42:31Watergate was only part of, in the Washington Post words, a broad campaign of political espionage and sabotage against the
42:39Democratic Party.
42:40There were individuals with 20 years experience in the CIA and several years with the FBI, and we were working
42:47for the former attorney general.
42:49So I couldn't question the legality of what was going on.
42:51I just took my orders and did what I was instructed to do.
42:54There was no news in it.
42:55It was all stuff that we had in the Washington Post.
42:58But to many of the viewers nationwide, it was news.
43:02In our next report, the money behind the Watergate affair.
43:06Cronkite announced on that Friday night that he was going to have a follow-up story on Monday.
43:12Cronkite's first report on Watergate terrified Nixon.
43:17This was a man, after all, who once said,
43:20the American people don't believe anything's real until they see it on television.
43:24Shadows, as usual.
43:26And I think he really bent that.
43:29Yeah, but it is.
43:31It's hard to see it.
43:32I see the page as well.
43:35I'm moving around.
43:38See, the shadow comes directly on the page.
43:42See what I mean?
43:43If you just knock it off the page, I can read a little bit easier.
43:47Nixon was very much like our current president in that respect.
43:51He understood the impact of television.
43:54And so does our current president.
43:59Well, I'll just put it...
44:00I'll move it over to the side here a little.
44:01That's all right.
44:03I'll sit and read it from this way.
44:04That's all right.
44:05You can get a good picture, can't you?
44:06The thing that's really striking about Richard Nixon's relationship to the medium of television
44:11is that it really created him as a national hero during the Checker speech in 1952.
44:18Ladies and gentlemen, Senator Richard Nixon.
44:21When she looked the American people in the eye and convinced them that he had not committed financial improprieties.
44:28We did get something, a gift, after the election.
44:32It was a little cocker spaniel dog.
44:35And our little girl, Tricia, the six-year-old, named it Checkers.
44:39And I just want to say this right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we're going to
44:44keep him.
44:44It probably undid his presidential campaign in 1960.
44:49I costed out the cost of the democratic platform.
44:52His infamous debate in which he kind of broke out in a sweat and was kind of stammering compared to
44:58this confident, handsome, young John F. Kennedy.
45:02This was the week that changed the world.
45:05It made him a hero again when he was in China.
45:09And people saw these glorious, sumptuous images of him, you know, making peace with America's ancient enemy.
45:16The president departs for home after his historic week in China.
45:20He thought very deliberately and very consciously and very obsessively about how he came across on television.
45:30Okay.
45:33All right.
45:34All right.
45:34All set.
45:37And so, with the prospect of another Cronkite report on Watergate, Nixon launched a behind-the-scenes counterattack that, at
45:45the time, I think only a conspiracy theorist could have conjured.
46:08The second part was ready to air.
46:11Walter Honkite was ready to deliver it.
46:14All of a sudden, the White House apparently called William Paley, the owner of CBS.
46:22We got a call saying, we need to cut it down for time.
46:27It was very suspicious.
46:31Why did Paley stop him?
46:34I don't know why Paley stopped him.
46:35I think if Paley were alive today and somebody asked him, why did you stop him?
46:39He would most likely say, I made a mistake.
46:45And that was it.
46:46That was the extent of the television coverage of Watergate before the election.
46:53It was so smoothly handled, no one really noticed.
46:56Not even May Brussel.
46:58Walter Cronkite did 15 minutes this week on the funding of the Watergate.
47:02And I think one or two years from now, people are going to be sorry that they didn't take those
47:08allegations seriously.
47:10And just a few weeks later, Richard Nixon was re-elected president in one of the biggest landslides in American
47:16history.
47:17I simply want to say from the bottom of my heart, thanks for making our last campaign the very best
47:26one of all.
47:29When Nixon was re-elected after all this, it was hard to believe.
47:35Yeah, it was frustrating to those people who saw that he was involved with a lot of this.
47:43How about that? The election's over and we made it.
47:46We've survived a couple of days, almost a week.
47:49For May, she never felt like she was finished.
47:53It wasn't over. She still needed to do more.
47:56It was almost business as usual the day after at the White House, but not quite.
48:02News Secretary Ron Ziegler described the mood here as one of satisfaction.
48:06For anyone who believed that Nixon had something to do with Watergate,
48:10his re-election made the burden of proof that much heavier.
48:14And as 1972 turned to 1973, most people just seemed to move on.
48:21Rousing America from its national indifference to Watergate was going to require a serious jolt.
48:29Seven men went on trial today in a Washington federal court charged with the break-in and burglary
48:34of Democratic National Headquarters in the Watergate building last June.
48:38Two are former White House aides. The other five were not free.
48:43In January of 1973, the grand jury trial for the Watergate burglary began.
48:49The five men caught breaking in, plus the two men who orchestrated it, Gordon Liddy and Howard Hunt,
48:55were all charged with burglary and conspiracy.
48:58But seeing as no one higher up was brought to trial, interest in the story continued to lag.
49:06If you watch the Watergate trial, they call 60 witnesses here,
49:10but they're calling 60 people that had nothing to do with the case.
49:14They're not calling Martha Mitchell, they're not calling John Mitchell.
49:17In these early court hearings, each time a new bit of information would come out,
49:22I would run to a payphone. This is the way we did our reporting in those days.
49:28I would run to a payphone and put a dime in
49:35and do my radio report on the phone.
49:38And by the time I got to the payphone on the third floor of the courthouse,
49:43I was out of breath, so all my reports sounded as if it was a five-alarm fire, like that.
49:53And I learned that not one of those reports was ever put on radio.
49:59They would take them in and not use them.
50:03After 16 days and more than 100 pieces of evidence,
50:07the seven men charged were convicted of conspiracy, burglary,
50:11and wiretapping the Democratic Party's Watergate headquarters.
50:14I think when the record in this case becomes known,
50:19anybody who has a fair mind about it and is looking at it objectively
50:24would be able to conclude that this has been the most comprehensive,
50:29deep, thorough investigation that the FBI has ever made.
50:34And were it not for Judge John Sirica, that story might have stuck.
50:39Judge John Sirica indicated he was going to be tough to avoid any accusations of whitewash.
50:45When Hunt's lawyers objected, he said,
50:47I don't want to hear you. You can argue till doomsday.
50:50He set a sentencing date for March 23rd.
50:52And given his demeanor throughout the trial,
50:55it seemed to be a safe bet that he was going to throw the book at them.
50:59He was known as a hard-nosed judge who liked to take the big ones on his own.
51:15He was basically chastising the prosecutor for not asking more pointed questions
51:21and continuing to ask these burglars.
51:24I remember this, who were the higher-ups?
51:27You weren't the top of this pyramid.
51:29Who were the higher-ups?
51:31And it was as if Sirica knew it went into the White House.
51:37And he was insistent.
51:38And I thought, this is inappropriate.
51:40A judge shouldn't be doing that.
51:43I was kind of appalled at it, but it did the trick.
51:47Up until the trial, Howard Hunt had been willing to keep quiet for Nixon.
51:52But facing what could be extended jail time, the cost of his silence skyrocketed.
51:58Hunt sent a threat to me directly through one of the re-election committee lawyers.
52:05He said, you just tell Dean this.
52:07If he isn't paid $120,000, like yesterday,
52:13he's going to have seamy things to say about what he did for John Ehrlichman.
52:20We don't know exactly what happened, but Hunt did not break.
52:25Believer in the law, I understood then and understand now the consequences of breaking it.
52:48Another one of the men on trial, James McCord, who had been in charge of the bugging portion of the
52:53job, likely received a similar offer.
52:55He had been sort of an electronics janitor at the CIA, where he was responsible that nobody was bugging the
53:05Langley headquarters.
53:07When he retired, he was going to set up a private consulting and security firm.
53:15Those plans were in jeopardy now that he'd been found guilty of a federal crime.
53:19Although he was hoping for the best, he as well as I was not shocked at the verdict.
53:26And with a full two months before the sentencing date,
53:29McCord had ample time to remember how he got there in the first place.
53:32All he knew was what Liddy told him, and a lot of it was false.
53:38Liddy needed a wire man, as he called it, somebody who knew how to conduct electronic surveillance.
53:46And it appears he got McCord to do it by, in essence, lying to him about, you know, what the
53:52authority was,
53:53and paying him, paying him a lot of money.
53:57McCord needed the extra money because he had a handicapped child.
54:04And so I think that's how McCord got sucked into it.
54:18Everything came to a head on the day of sentencing.
54:21March 23rd, 1973.
54:24Judge Sirica was ill that day.
54:27The court started late.
54:28The judge was going into his offices to take Pepto-Bismol or something.
54:33His stomach was really bothering him.
54:35And he said, I'm going to have something for you in 10 minutes.
54:39So we had no idea what it was.
54:45What would happen transformed Watergate from something history probably would have remembered as a third-rate burglary
54:51and turned it into the rich political epic that we now know it to be?
54:56Good morning, Mr. McCord.
55:01Judge Sirica revealed that one of the defendants, James McCord, had written him a letter.
55:08Judge John Sirica opened by saying he had received the letter from McCord.
55:13McCord wrote that several members of his family expressed fear for his life for disclosing what he knows.
55:19Then came the bombshells.
55:20There was political pressure on the defendants to plead guilty and to remain silent, wrote McCord.
55:26Perjury occurred during the trial.
55:28Others involved in the Watergate operation were not identified during the trial.
55:33When he read James McCord's letter, it was, um, it broke a big dam.
55:38There was a sensational development in the Watergate trial today.
55:42One of the key defendants says there was political pressure and perjury involved in the trial.
55:48Reporters were stunned.
55:49Nobody knew this was coming.
55:50And they ran out of the courtroom to make phone calls.
55:53This was supposed to be the finale for the seven Watergate defendants the day of sentencing.
55:58But instead, the case broke wide open again.
56:01Mr. McCord, you, you did say in your letter that your family had been afraid for your life
56:06and that you too had feared retaliation.
56:08What did you mean by that?
56:10Sorry, I'll have no further comment.
56:11The man who had a special Senate investigation, North Carolina's Sam Irvin, said he hopes the White House will now
56:17be more cooperative in bringing out all the facts.
56:20The McCord letter was the tipping point of the Watergate saga.
56:24But apart from lighting the fuse that would eventually burn down Nixon's administration,
56:29it did something else pretty extraordinary.
56:31At least for one day, it aligned the May Brussels of the world with the Woodwards and Bernsteins.
56:37It was a very important day for the Watergate group because now we're in a different ballgame.
56:42The McCord letter made Watergate a conspiracy, officially.
56:46This has caused shockwaves in Washington and will have detailed coverage.
56:50And all of a sudden, everyone who disregarded the odd coincidences of the Flight 553 crash in Chicago,
56:57and in the end, that's all they proved to be, mere coincidences,
57:00they had to now start paying closer attention to the widening scope of this story.
57:06Because Watergate now had legs.
57:08We're right in the middle of a very important time in American history.
57:12And I tried to turn people on to the history of their times.
57:15That's what this is all about.
57:20I have mixed feelings about May Brussels.
57:22I think she was looking for answers to better understand a world that she didn't trust.
57:27Answers that she believed would protect her children.
57:29But that effort led her and her listeners to some dark and unlikely conclusions.
57:35In this instance, though, Watergate proved her right.
57:39The government really did lie and cheat and steal.
57:43And it abandoned its people to maintain power.
57:48I want to tell you, it's not easy, you know.
57:53The situation that was hard.
57:57I've always been a honoured man.
58:00The same man.
58:02As they always loved me, I've treated quite well.
58:08And considering.
58:13The stage was now set for the next chapter of Watergate.
58:17And, much to the horror of Richard Nixon, it would all play out on live television.
58:23The Senate Watergate hearings, just weeks away, were about to become the greatest show on Earth.
58:32Programs regularly scheduled for this time will not be seen today in order that we might bring you the following
58:37NBC News special report.
58:44Good morning.
58:45This is the Senate caucus room in Washington, D.C.
58:48And it's jammed this morning, jammed with spectators, newsmen, senators and their aides.
58:53And the scene adds to the sense of drama as the Senate opens what is likely to become the most
58:58serious investigation it has ever made.
59:01An investigation of the American political system and the presidency itself.
59:05This is the first military to East Nevada.
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