Limited Hangout

Though it's widely agreed upon that DNC chairman Larry O'Brien was the de facto target of the Watergate burglary, it is not agreed upon why he was targeted or by whom. CRP deputy director Jeb Magruder and White House counsel John Dean both, at different times, have alleged that he was targeted because of his role in pushing the ITT scandal early in the spring of 1972, but as we shall see, their own timeline of events does not support this claim. And beyond that, though we are able to narrow down the list of culprits of who might be responsible, it remains unclear who exactly ordered the fateful burglary.

After John Mitchell turned down G Gordon Liddy's bonkers Gemstone proposal on January 27, 1972, John Dean passed the burden of getting the campaign intelligence program approved to Jeb Magruder. A second, more conservative proposal was then presented to Mitchell on February 4 but was once more deferred. Following these back-to-back failures to get Gemstone approved, Magruder found himself under intense pressure from both Liddy and multiple figures in the White House to get a decision on Gemstone. This of course proved increasingly difficult, as Mitchell found himself consumed by the emerging ITT scandal and showed almost no interest in campaign matters. This confusion, disorganization, and pressure for results set the stage of the third and final Gemstone proposal on March 30 in Key Biscayne, which resulted in the plan's disputed approval that ultimately set the dominoes in motion that would lead to the infamous Watergate burglary.

The Committee to Re-elect the President got off to a disorganized start as Attorney General John Mitchell dragged his feet on his slow march over from the Justice Department to once more manage Nixon's presidential campaign. Running the committee in his boss's absence, deputy director Jeb Magruder quickly found himself overwhelmed by his newfound role atop the CRP as he faced unrelenting pressure from the White House to get the ambivalent Mitchell's approval for a campaign intelligence program called Gemstone that had been initiated by White House counsel John Dean and masterminded by an eccentric former FBI agent named G Gordon Liddy. This pressure resulted in a memorable presentation in Mitchell's office that included descriptions of high-tech spy planes, kidnappings, and a houseboat full of hookers.

Nixon really flipped his lid in the summer of 1971. In response to the leak of the Pentagon Papers by Daniel Ellsberg, the increasingly paranoid president ranted about conspiracies and pushed for the development of an internal White House intelligence capability to deal with the leak problem. The first apparent development to result from this escalation was the proposed firebombing and burglary of the Brookings Institution by special counsel Chuck Colson that was called off once word of it reached the president’s inner circle. The second was the creation of the anti-leak Plumbers unit that would quickly be dissolved by the inner circle after the sloppy burglary of the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist –– by former intelligence agents G Gordon Liddy and Howard Hunt ––  that exceeded their project’s authorization. And third was the assigned task of the president’s counsel, John Dean, to develop a first-rate intelligence program for the upcoming 1972 campaign –– one that resulted in the transfer of Liddy and Hunt over to the newly formed Committee to Re-elect the President.

Refusal by the FBI and CIA to accommodate Nixon’s many demands for intel –– on both domestic terrorists and his political enemies –– prompted the initial development of White House intelligence capabilities, as well as an attempted overhaul of the intelligence community as a whole. But a conflict with J Edgar Hoover sunk the president’s plans and insured that the intelligence community would remain divided at a time when both the FBI and CIA were grappling with social unrest and a new round of public revelations about their illegal covert practices.

In response to foreign policy leaks and other concerns early in his presidency, Nixon pushed his intelligence agencies, much like his predecessor once did, to produce intel through warrantless surveillance. This episode, we meet the president's inner circle –– Henry Kissinger, John Mitchell, Bob Haldeman, and John Ehrlichman –– and we examine how then recent scandals involving the FBI and CIA had given rise to new laws on domestic surveillance that caused both agencies to impose limitations on how far they were willing to go in order to accommodate demands made by the Nixon team as they tried to grapple, first, with leaks and, then, with the growing number of bombings carried out by antiwar radical groups.

Richard Nixon was not the first president to make questionable demands for political intelligence. Rather than a bug of his administration, espionage was a feature of the postwar presidency. In this episode, we explore how past presidents –– particularly LBJ –– made personal use of the FBI and CIA, we examine how escalating social unrest prompted a push to expand domestic surveillance, and we consider the expectations that Nixon held of his intelligence agencies as he entered office.

Watergate is the most infamous scandal in American history; yet in spite of its high name recognition, there is still an awful lot that we don't know about the bungled burglary that started it all –– namely, why was the Democratic National Committee even targeted in the first place? It's a simple question with no easy answers. In this series overview, I lay out what's missing from the 'official story,' make my case for why it matters, and give a preview of what you can expect from future episodes that will critically examine theories that involve Howard Hughes, CIA plots to assassinate Fidel Castro, sexual blackmail, and much, much more.