Posted by:
anybody
(
)
Date: October 21, 2022 01:42PM
that was a *criminal* conspiracy because there were multiple people involved.
Only later on, as time passed, did people start concocting all sorts of imaginary events because of the absence of evidence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate_scandal#Cover-up_and_its_unravelingOn January 27, 1972, G. Gordon Liddy, Finance Counsel for the Committee for the Re-Election of the President (CRP) and former aide to John Ehrlichman, presented a campaign intelligence plan to CRP's acting chairman Jeb Stuart Magruder, Attorney General John Mitchell, and Presidential Counsel John Dean that involved extensive illegal activities against the Democratic Party. According to Dean, this marked "the opening scene of the worst political scandal of the twentieth century and the beginning of the end of the Nixon presidency".[21]
Mitchell viewed the plan as unrealistic. Two months later, Mitchell approved a reduced version of the plan, including burglarizing the Democratic National Committee's (DNC) headquarters at the Watergate Complex in Washington, D.C.—ostensibly to photograph campaign documents and install listening devices in telephones. Liddy was nominally in charge of the operation,[citation needed] but has since insisted that he was duped by both Dean and at least two of his subordinates, which included former CIA officers E. Howard Hunt and James McCord, the latter of whom was serving as then-CRP Security Coordinator after John Mitchell had by then resigned as attorney general to become the CRP chairman.[22][23]
In May, McCord assigned former FBI agent Alfred C. Baldwin III to carry out the wiretapping and monitor the telephone conversations afterward.[24] McCord testified that he selected Baldwin's name from a registry published by the FBI's Society of Former Special Agents to work for the Committee to Re-elect President Nixon.[citation needed] Baldwin first served as bodyguard to Martha Mitchell—John Mitchell's wife, who was living in Washington.[citation needed] Baldwin accompanied Martha Mitchell to Chicago.[citation needed] Eventually the committee replaced Baldwin with another security man.[citation needed]
On May 11, McCord arranged for Baldwin, whom investigative reporter Jim Hougan described as "somehow special and perhaps well known to McCord," to stay at the Howard Johnson's motel across the street from the Watergate complex.[25] Room 419 was booked in the name of McCord's company.[25] At the behest of Liddy and Hunt, McCord and his team of burglars prepared for their first Watergate break-in, which began on May 28.[26]
Two phones inside the DNC headquarters' offices were said to have been wiretapped.[27] One was Robert Spencer Oliver's phone. At the time, Oliver was working as the executive director of the Association of State Democratic Chairmen. The other phone belonged to DNC chairman Larry O'Brien. The FBI found no evidence that O'Brien's phone was bugged;[28] however, it was determined that an effective listening device was installed in Oliver's phone. While successful with installing the listening devices, the committee agents soon determined that they needed repairs. They plotted a second "burglary" in order to take care of the situation.[27]
Sometime after midnight on Saturday, June 17, 1972, 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.[29] When he returned a short time later and discovered that someone had retaped the locks, he called the police.[29] 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.[30] Alfred Baldwin, on "spotter" duty at the Howard Johnson's hotel across the street, was distracted watching the film Attack of the Puppet People on TV and failed to observe the arrival of the police car in front of the Watergate building.[30] 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.[30] The police apprehended five men, later identified as Virgilio Gonzalez, Bernard Barker, James McCord, Eugenio Martínez, and Frank Sturgis.[22] They were charged with attempted burglary and attempted interception of telephone and other communications. The Washington Post reported the day after 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".[31] The Post would later report that the actual amount of cash was "[a]bout 53 of these $100 bills were found on the five men after they were arrested at the Watergate."[32]
The following morning, Sunday, June 18, G. Gordon Liddy called Jeb 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 organization 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.[33]
On September 15, 1972, a grand jury indicted the five office burglars, as well as Hunt and Liddy,[34] for conspiracy, burglary, and violation of federal wiretapping laws. The burglars were tried by a jury, with Judge John Sirica officiating, and pled guilty or were convicted on January 30, 1973.[35]