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It is half past two in the morning, on the
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17th of June, 1972. A security guard named Frank Wills
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is doing his rounds at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C.
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He notices something odd. A door that should be locked
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has been taped open, so it cannot latch. He peels
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the tape off and calls the police. Minutes later, officers
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move quietly through the dark sixth-floor offices of the Democratic
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National Committee, and they find five men, in business suits,
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wearing surgical gloves, carrying lockpicks, a walkie-talkie, and thousands of
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dollars in hundred-dollar bills with the serial numbers in sequence.
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The police have no idea what they have just stumbled into.
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The men have no idea how far it will go.
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But that small piece of tape, on a door in
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the middle of the night, is about to bring down
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the President of the United States. How does a bungled
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burglary topple the most powerful man on earth? That is
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the story of this episode.
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This is the story of Watergate and the break-in that
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brought down a president.
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First, who were these men and what were they doing there?
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The five burglars were working for President Richard Nixon's re-election campaign.
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Their leaders were two former intelligence men. E. Howard Hunt
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and G. Gordon Liddy, who ran a secret White House
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unit nicknamed the Plumbers. The Plumbers had been created to
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stop leaks to the press, and in the spring of 1972,
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they turned their attention to the Democratic National Committee, the
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headquarters of the opposition party. On the 28th of May, 1972,
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they had already broken in once, planting listening devices on
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the telephones, but the bugs were not working properly. So
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on the night of the 17th of June, they went
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back to fix the bugs and photograph documents. That was
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the night Frank Wills found the tape on the door.
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At first, it looked like nothing. The White House press secretary,
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Ron Ziegler, dismissed it as a third-rate burglary. Nixon himself
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called it an isolated incident. And in November of 1972,
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Nixon was re-elected in one of the biggest landslides in
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American history— winning more than 60% of the vote against
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the Democratic candidate, George McGovern. But two young reporters at
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The Washington Post, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, refused to
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let the story go. They followed the money. A $ 25, 000 check,
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apparently meant for the Nixon campaign, had ended up in
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the bank account of one of the burglars. A secret
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source inside the government, a man they called Deep Throat,
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whose identity was only revealed three decades later as W.
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Mark Felt, the associate director of the FBI, met Woodward
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in a parking garage in the middle of the night
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and told him to follow the money. Piece by piece,
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the reporters connected the burglary to the White House.
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What they uncovered was not just a burglary. It was
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a campaign of political spying and sabotage. Nixon's re-election committee
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had run a dirty tricks operation against Democratic candidates— forged letters,
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spread false rumors, and spied on the opposition. And when
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the burglary was exposed, the White House tried to cover
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it up. On the 23rd of June, 1972, just six
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days after the break-in, Nixon and his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman,
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sat in the Oval Office and discussed how to stop
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the FBI's investigation. They agreed to ask the CIA to
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tell the FBI to back off, on the false grounds
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that the investigation threatened national security. Nixon did not know
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it at the time, but that conversation was being recorded.
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Because Nixon had secretly installed a voice-activated taping system in
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the Oval Office, recording every conversation, he thought the tapes
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would be useful for his memoirs. Instead, they became the
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evidence that destroyed him.
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The cover-up unraveled in stages. In January of 1973, the
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burglars went on trial. Hunt pleaded guilty. Four others pleaded guilty.
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Liddy and one more were convicted. But the burglars' silence
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was bought with money, and one of them, James McCord,
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wrote a letter to the judge saying that higher-ups were
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involved and that witnesses had lied under oath. In the
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spring of 1973, The Senate opened hearings, televised live across America.
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And in April, Nixon's top aides, Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, and
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John Dean, resigned. Dean, the White House counsel, turned against
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the president. In June of 1973, he told the Senate
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that Nixon had been involved in the cover-up from the beginning.
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And in July, a White House aide named Alexander Butterfield revealed,
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almost by accident, that Nixon had been secretly recording everything.
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The tapes existed. The Senate and the special prosecutor demanded them.
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Nixon refused. He claimed executive privilege, the right of a
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president to keep his conversations private. The case went to
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the Supreme Court.
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On the 24th of July, 1974, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously.
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United States versus Nixon. The president had to hand over
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the tapes. Nixon obeyed, and among the tapes was the
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conversation from the 23rd of June, 1972, The Smoking Gun.
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It proved, in Nixon's own voice, that he had ordered
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the cover-up just six days after the break-in. The tape
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was released on the 5th of August, 1974. Three days later,
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on the 8th of August, Nixon went on national television
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and announced that he would resign. He said, I have
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never been a quitter. To leave office before my term
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is completed is abhorrent to every instinct in my body.
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But as president, I must put the interest of America first. Therefore,
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I shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow. On
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the 9th of August, 1974, Richard Nixon became the first,
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and so far the only, President of the United States
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ever to resign. Vice President Gerald Ford took the oath
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of office the same day. A month later, on the
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8th of September, Ford pardoned Nixon for any
crimes he
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might have committed. It was one of the most controversial
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decisions in American history.
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The final tally was staggering. 69 people were charged in
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connection with Watergate, including two cabinet members. Many pleaded guilty
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or were convicted. The scandal did not end with Nixon's resignation.
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It changed how Americans saw their government. Before Watergate, most
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Americans trusted the presidency. After Watergate, trust in government fell sharply,
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and it has never fully recovered. The word Watergate itself
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became part of the language. Any political scandal, anywhere in
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the world, now gets a gate attached to its name.
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And the story gave the press a new status. Woodward
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and Bernstein became heroes. Investigative journalism became a career that
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young reporters dreamed of. The Washington Post won a Pulitzer Prize.
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And Deep Throat, the secret source... stayed secret until 2005,
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when W. Mark Felt, then 91 years old, finally admitted
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it was him.
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But the deeper lesson is about the tapes. Nixon recorded
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his own conversations because he wanted a perfect record for history.
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He even had a system that switched on automatically whenever
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anyone spoke in the Oval Office. He thought he was
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protecting his legacy. Instead, he created the most damning evidence
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ever assembled against a president. Without the tapes, the cover-up
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might have worked. With them, it collapsed in a single day.
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And the whole scandal began with something almost absurdly small.
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A piece of tape, holding a door open, noticed by
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a night security guard earning a few dollars an hour.
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Frank Wills did his job, and the most powerful man
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in the world lost his.
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A bungled burglary, a cover-up, a secret recording system, and
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a president who resigned rather than face impeachment. That is
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how five men in surgical gloves, caught in the dark
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at half past two in the morning, brought down the
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presidency of Richard Nixon. And it is why Watergate is still,
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more than 50 years later, the standard by which every
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political scandal in America is measured.
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This has been Turning Points World History. If this story
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surprised you, share it and join us next time for
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another moment that changed everything.