The Enduring Secrets of Watergate

[L. Coyote]

The Enduring Secrets of Watergate
May 22, 2012

Special Report: Forty years ago, burglars working for President Nixon planted bugs in the Democrats’ Watergate headquarters. Then, a month later, a follow-up break-in went awry, touching off America’s most notorious political scandal. But few understand what really happened, writes Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry

Three times in May 1972, burglars working for President Richard Nixon’s reelection committee tried to enter the Watergate complex, an elegant new building situated along the Potomac River. Their target was the Democratic National Committee.

For the Watergate burglars, the third try was the charm. Armed with an array of burglary tools, two of the Cuban-Americans on the team – Virgilio Gonzalez and Frank Sturgis – entered the building through the B-2 garage level. They climbed the stairs and taped open the doors behind them. Reaching the sixth floor where the DNC offices were located, Gonzalez made quick work of the door lock and the burglars were finally inside.

The Watergate complex in Washington, D.C., where the Democratic National Committee had its headquarters in 1972.

“The horse is in the house,” they reported over a walkie-talkie back to team leaders across Virginia Avenue at a Howard Johnson’s hotel. The leaders included G. Gordon Liddy, a former FBI agent who had devised the spying plan called Gemstone, and E. Howard Hunt, an ex-CIA officer and part-time spy novel writer.

At word that the break-in had finally succeeded, Liddy and Hunt embraced. From a balcony at the Howard Johnson’s, James McCord, another former CIA officer and the security chief for the Committee to Re-elect the President known as CREEP, could see the burglars’ pencil flashlights darting around the darkened offices.[1]

McCord, an electronics specialist, made his way over to the Watergate and was let in by one of the Cuban burglars. Upon reaching the DNC offices, McCord placed one tap on the phone of a secretary of Democratic National Chairman Larry O’Brien and a second .......

................

[grasswire]

1. Thank you for the reprise, Robert Parry.

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, children. Learn the lesson well.

[lovemydog]

2. I'm a watergate buff

and really enjoyed the article.

Thanks for sharing!