and thank you for watching this msnbc special. i'll see you weeknights on "the beat" at 6:00 p.m. eastern. these next few weeks will be extraordinary and, we think, historic. leaks. secret tapes. special prosecutors and presidential paranoia. when i hear those words today, they have a familiar echo to me. 40 years ago i made the movie "all the president's men" about how "washington post" reporters bob woodward and carl bernstein chased the watergate story from break-in to cover-up to the first president to resign his office. the story of the scandal stayed with me. and a few years ago i produced a documentary about woodward and bernstein's detective story to uncover the truth. and it struck me as prophetic and worth repeating today. we thought watergate changed america and our political process.

but did it? ♪ good evening. president nixon reportedly will announce his resignation tonight. vice president ford will become the nation's 38th president tomorrow. that word comes unofficially from aides and associates -- >> the president has been part of politics for 28 years now. part of the national political scene for about 24 of those years. and this appears to be the final day of his administration. >> tonight at 9:00 eastern daylight time the president of the united states will address the nation concerning developments today and over the last few days. this has of course been a difficult time. >> this is indeed an historic day.

the only time a president has ever resigned from office in our nearly 200 years of history. you see the white house there. in just a few moments now president nixon will be appearing before the people perhaps for the last time as president of the united states. >> have you got an extra camera in case the lights go out? >> 15 seconds to air. >> i know. >> this was much worse than we thought. nixon was worse than we thought. what happened was worse than we thought. >> he violated the law. he compromised the office. and he left a deep and wide black mark in american presidential history. >> no, there will be no picture. just take it right now. this is right after the broadcast. you got it? come on. okay. that's enough. my friend ollie always wants to

take a lot of pictures. i'm afraid he'll catch me picking my nose. >> i can't believe that guy was president of the united states because he is just branded in our national memory as a crook. and i think it's really important to understand the wrong approach to executive power that led nixon to those crimes. >> you want a level, don't you? yes, yes. good evening. this is the 37th time i have spoken to you from this office, where so many decisions have been made that shaped the history of our nation. need any more? >> there was good in him. he had been a good vice president. but he was a fatally flawed man and a fatally flawed president. >> richard nixon, a guy who had been a hero to millions of americans, here's a guy who received more votes than anybody else in the history of this country. but the richard nixon that they

supported through the years was not the richard nixon that they thought they knew. >> every generation has to lose their virginity, and it was just the day that my generation did. but to think that we're the only generation that had that experience is probably the mistake that a lot of generations make. >> he is already before the cameras now. president richard milhous nixon, 37th president of the united states. >> throughout the long and difficult period of watergate i have felt it was my duty to persevere. >> watergate doesn't go away because it was so extraordinary, it was so hidden. >> we act like it can't happen again. and it did a lot of stuff after. there was a lot of hoo-haing and passing laws, giving speeches. but if you ask me do i think we learned anything from it, no. >> i have never been a quitter. to leave office before my term is completed is abhorrent to every instinct in my body.

but as president i must put the interests of america first. >> the president had been driven from office because the american people had learned the truth about richard nixon. but how we learned the truth, that fascinated me. nixon's downfall had begun two years earlier when five men were caught spying and wiretapping at the democratic national headquarters at an office complex called watergate. over at "the washington post" two rookie reporters, bob woodward and carl bernstein, picked up the story. their investigation would unfold like a political thriller. and so i thought that the part that they played in exposing the scandal would make a movie, maybe even a good movie. >> action.

>> in hollywood terms woodward and bernstein were the good guys. and their weapon was the written word. >> did he confirm it? >> absolutely. >> we've got to tell bradlee. >> i played bob woodward in the film. carl bernstein was played by dustin hoffman. >> one of the things i had observed with carl is that he smoked so incessantly, and carl was always -- always had ashes on his tie and his shirt. and i said, that's got to be in the movie. >> is there any place you don't smoke? >> 40 years later the two investigative reporters are back in "the washington post" newsroom. i joined them for a reunion with ben bradlee. >> i'm glad to see you. >> their former editor. >> like a working reporter. >> it's the first time in decades we've all been together. >> hello, robert. >> how are you?

>> it's tempting to think that watergate could never happen again. but these two reporters and their editor know better. >> come on. i look pretty damn good considering. >> yes. it's only 40 years ago. >> is it? >> i wanted to dig deeper into their story and to see what if any impact it had on our culture today. >> let me get these guys out of the newsroom. >> "vanity fair" photographer annie leibovitz is here to document the three men who took on our president. for bob woodward watergate started much the same way most stories do, with a phone call from his editor. >> the moment, the time i got the call about 9:00 a.m. on saturday morning june 17th. >> that's good. >> no one flashed a message to me this is going to be one of the most important days of your life. >> i was in the office that day. and i saw all this commotion around the city desk on this saturday morning.

went to find out what it was. and there was this moment in history that became known as watergate. ♪ >> woodward and bernstein, for those of us who were in the profession, i think we were quickly in awe of what they were doing. >> i became truly inspired by both their incredible investigative reporting and their storytelling. >> i remember thinking when i first read the woodward and bernstein articles where's this going. especially coming in the midst of all the turmoil that was playing out in the streets around the country. >> president nixon's first term in office had been marred by loud, frequent, and sometimes

violent protests. largely against the vietnam war. >> it really did seem like the world was unraveling, growing up in a suburban existence with parents who saw chicago in 1968 erupt into flames, saw people burning their draft cards, saw a sexual revolution, saw a drug revolution, saw woodstock come into their homes. >> when i joined the nixon white house, there were a lot of demonstrations against the war. it probably was some of the most intense times i think our country had ever faced. i mean, often we were feeling like we were in a state of siege. you felt it physically. [ crowd chanting ] and we knew that we were going to have to protect the white

house. there was a lot of discussion about using troops, directly facing the demonstrators, which i felt could lead to direct confrontations and conflicts. and so it came to me, why don't we do what john wayne did, let's just circle the white house. with buses. not wagons but with buses. which is what we did. >> so did you want to be on the side of jane fonda or john wayne? my parents chose john wayne. and therefore, they were for nixon and nixon was on the side of law and order. ♪ nixon now ♪ more than ever ♪ nixon now ♪ more than ever ♪ more than ever we need nixon now ♪ ♪ nixon now ♪ more than ever >> nixon's law and order platform was very popular. in the coming election he seemed a shoo-in for a second term. >> i again proudly accept your

nomination for president of the united states. >> by the summer of 1972 nixon's campaign machine was in full force. but amidst the hoopla his re-election committee would suddenly become entangled with a mysterious illegal break-in. >> five men were arrested early saturday while trying to install eavesdropping equipment at the democratic national committee. >> well, it was the sunday after the burglary. we were the only two who showed up in the office. >> i was in the office that day. i was writing a profile. and i said, this is a better story than the one i'm working on. and i think i'd like to work on this. >> and it turns out that one of the men has an office in the headquarters of the committee for the re-election of the president. >> james mccord, the lead burglar, had been in the cia in the security business for decades and now was the head of security at the nixon campaign.

and we thought wait a minute, what's going on here? >> woodward and bernstein never imagined that answering that question would lead them smack into the oval office. 's an honoro tell you that liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. i love you! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ (employee) half a millionar sales preowned vehicles,er most with tech features like blind spot detection, back up camera... [kristen gasps] (employee) because you never know what might be behind you. (kristen bell) does the sloth come standard? (kristen bell vo) looking to buy? enterprise makes it easy. yeah. only pay for what you need with liberty mutual.

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♪ on august 1st, 1972 i picked up woodward and bernstein's third article on watergate. it said that one of the watergate burglars had gotten money from the nixon campaign. what the reporters would soon

discover was that nixon's re-election committee was engaging in a campaign of espionage and sabotage against the democrats. woodward and bernstein were beginning to pull back the curtains on a strange and shadowy world. and i wanted to know how they were doing it. i got really intrigued with the idea of making a film about woodward and bernstein because one was a jew, the other was a wasp, one was a radical liberal and the other was a republican. what interested me was beyond that was the hard work they did together to get at the story. so i gave woodward a call. he was pretty chilly on the phone. i said hi, this is bob redford calling. he said, yeah. and i said, i wanted to know if i could meet and you your partner because i have this idea i want to share with you. >> woodward came to me and said that redford had called. and i put together who redford was. and was interested in talking to us or whatever. i said we're busy, we've got to

do this story. >> for woodward and bernstein it wasn't only that the break-in seemed fishy. there was something just as odd about the white house response. >> presidential press secretary ron ziegler called it a third-rate burglary attempt. >> ron ziegler calling it a third-rate burglary, that was the tipoff to us. there seemed to be nothing third-rate about it except they got caught. >> they raised the stakes so high. with this third-rate burglary nonsense. it was apparent that something here was really rotten. nixon assigned his top lieutenants the president's men the task of managing the fallout from the break-in. among them chief of staff bob haldeman and presidential adviser john ehrlichman would become the guardians of the clandestine activities.

watergate begins to monopolize more and more of their time. we know that because nixon had a secret tape recording system in the oval office. >> what's the dope on the watergate incident? >> there's nothing new. >> because i think the country doesn't give much of a [ bleep ] about it. and most people around the country think that this is routine, everybody's trying to bug everybody else. it's politics. >> the great thing about this is it is so totally [ bleep ] up and so badly done that nobody believes that we could have done it. that's right. it's just beyond comprehension. >> well, it sounds like a comic opera. it would make a funny [ bleep ] damn movie. it really is like a comic opera. >> it would make one hell of a movie. but not very funny. >> haldeman and ehrlichman knew what they had to do, cover all the tracks leading to the white house. they started by enlisting another of the president's men, legal adviser john dean, to monitor day-to-day changes.

>> after the watergate break-in i really very quickly become the desk officer at the white house on watergate. i'm the person who others below me report and i in turn report up to haldeman and ehrlichman. >> any further developments on watergate? >> john dean is watching on an almost full-time basis and reporting to ehrlichman and me on a continuing basis. and no one else. there's no one else in the white house that has any knowledge at all. >> so they're deeply involved. it is a classic criminal conspiracy. >> as woodward and bernstein had suspected, the first clue to that conspiracy would be found at the republican committee to re-elect the president. the treasurer was hugh sloan. >> we'd raised $60 million, which was the most successful fund-raising to that point in history of any presidential campaign. >> but some of the committee's practices were starting to make sloan uneasy. >> hugh sloan, he was right out

of republican central casting. clean cut, seemed to always have a shirt and tie on. but he was troubled. because he was the one who was giving out the money. >> i was fine with everything up to the point i was directed to give cash to specific individuals. >> sloan would soon learn that some of the campaign money raised by the re-election committee had found its way into the hands of the watergate burglars. >> the key was the money and finding these people who controlled these funds and figuring out what they did with the money. >> by now woodward and bernstein weren't the only ones following the money. the fbi was on the trail. and more importantly, a grand jury had begun its own investigation. and everyone wanted to talk to hugh sloan. >> the cash that financed the watergate break-in, five men had control of the fund. >> bernstein and woodward recommended the right thing to

do was tell the whole story so they can print it. >> we're not asking you to be our source. all we're asking you to do is confirm it. >> i'm not your source on haldeman. >> a little bit of the good guy bad guy routine. >> let's say we wrote a story that haldeman was the fifth guy to control the fund. would we be in trouble? >> would we be wrong? >> they established through conversations and other means that i would have acknowledged basically five people as having the authority to tell me to dispense funds. and one of them was bob haldeman. >> let me put it this way. i would have no problems if you wrote a story like that. >> you wouldn't? >> no. >> okay. yeah. >> if you are looking for a phrase that defined what the execution of watergate was, it was a haldeman operation. it was driven by nixon. but operationally it was haldeman doing that.

>> on october 25th, two weeks before the election, the "post's" front-page headline pointed the finger at the number one man in the president's inner circle, bob haldeman. woodward and bernstein reported that under questioning by the grand jury sloan had testified that haldeman controlled the campaign's secret fund. it was a journalistic coup. but they were wrong. >> i'd never been asked a question about bob haldeman. >> sloan in fact had not named haldeman in his testimony. the white house pounced. >> i don't respect the type of journalism, the shabby journalism that is being practiced by "the washington post." i use the term shoddy journalism, shabby journalism. i've used the term character assassination. >> this was their opportunity to discredit "the post," woodward, and bernstein and bury the story. >> they came after us. ziegler, the press secretary. so we knew that at that point

the stakes were very high and we were the targets. >> all i know is that the story that ran this morning is incorrect -- >> we made a mistake. we [ bleep ] up. we had an intellectual understanding of the facts of the story and haldeman's role in waterga watergate, but what was in "the washington post" was untrue. we should not have allowed that to happen. >> i was angry at myself and carl and how we got it wrong. and we thought maybe we are going to have to resign, maybe we should resign. i mean, we were kind of at the end of our rope. >> for woodward and bernstein the path to the truth had just gotten longer and harder. wayfair's biggest black friday blowout ever is now on. yes! score unbelievable savings. like living room up to 70% off.

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[ cheers and applause ] but now with 496 electoral votes to his credit on the verge of a landslide win -- >> we can see the dimensions of mr. nixon's landslide tonight. >> according to our cbs news estimate, president nixon has been re-elected. and let's go now to the

republican headquarters at the shoreham hotel in washington. >> i've never known a national election when i would be able to go to bed earlier than tonight. [ cheers and applause ] >> and please repeat after me. i, richard nixon, do solemnly swear. >> i, richard nixon, do solemnly swear. >> that i will faithfully execute the office of president of the united states. >> looking back at the early watergate reports, it's hard to believe that nixon was completely unscathed. >> to the best of my ability. >> and will to the best of my ability. >> imagine a president getting away with that unfolding scandal in today's political environment. >> preserve and protect the constitution of the united states. >> so help me god. >> so help me god. >> woodward and bernstein went back to their desks, put their heads down, and continued to grind away at the story. >> i knew that i was going to be judged, the paper was going to be judged on this story. and therefore, you know, i think you could get away with not

being 100% accurate on day one. but you had to be as close as you could get and you had to be closer the next day and then closer the day after that. >> they knew that haldeman was controlling the campaign's secret fund. the question was who was controlling haldeman? i was amazed by woodward and bernstein's resolve. there's nothing glamorous about what they were doing. but i thought it was important to portray the tedium, the hard work, and the feelings about the film from a studio standpoint was, "noncommercial." newspapers, typewriters, phones. mm-mm. washington, uh-uh. >> and bob did something which was brilliant. he said these guys, even though they're from separate -- you know, diverse backgrounds, think of them as one. particularly when they're interviewing people. he said let's learn not only our own lines but let's memorize the

other guy's lines. >> what's this? what are you -- sloan. >> sloan was treasurer of the committee -- >> his wife did what? >> his wife is pregnant and she made sloan quit because apparently he no longer wanted to be part of it. >> we've got to go see sloan. >> make a note of it. what have we got? where is that -- >> each of us would come in at any time. we would take one half of a sentence, we'd finish it -- >> how do you know that? >> because she said it. right here. she said at the time of the break-in there was so much money floating around that i know that he got part of it. >> i thought it was one of the most exciting and most successful things that we did in that film. >> like woodward and bernstein dustin and i couldn't have been more opposite. >> mr. redford. how are you? >> i'm good. >> it's been too long. >> one of the things i remember you telling me was that you had trouble, even you at that time, had trouble getting a studio to say yes because they all said we know the ending, so why should we do "all the president's men"? >> they said why do we do 24

this when we know what the outcome is? i said that's not what the story about, it's about the two guys. >> that's right. >> and what they did that nobody knew about. >> and you said it was a detective story. >> detective story that -- but the main thing, and i think you felt the same way, was the alchemy of the two guys, considering their differences. and one of the tough story points for me was how to deal with nixon. how do you portray someone so twisted on the inside and so straight-laced on the outside? ♪ >> richard nixon is now the guy who when you see photos of him even at his prime you cannot believe he was ever president of the united states. >> he seemed to me to be the kid in the schoolyard whom all the other kids picked on, and i identified with that. >> who was nixon? nixon. nixon was a party guy, an animal.

you know, to me nixon was a caricature, unfortunately. and man, i had my nixon down. you know, 10 years old, walking around the house, you know, just -- b-b-b-b-b, i am not a crook. now i have a much more complex view of the man and his presidency. >> president nixon created a brand new federal department, the environmental protection agency. >> the question who is richard nixon is almost imponderable. i looked at him as one of really the great minds that has ever really been in the presidency. he had achieved some extraordinary breakthroughs. i mean, his opening to china. detente with the soviet union. >> the sad truth is i think nixon would by today's standards be considered maybe a conservative democrat. maybe at some levels a radical leftist. [ phone ringing ] >> hello?

>> here's one of the men around the president we don't hear much about. alex butterfield, deputy assistant, who handles much of the paperwork. >> my first meeting, i can't tell it without acting it. >> today butterfield and the president -- >> nixon came out from behind his desk and looked very tentative. he had no idea what to do. so he began to gesture. >> okay. >> no words came out. no discernible words. it's just this deep guttural rrrrr. this is the president. i couldn't believe it. >> alexander butterfield would play a crucial role in the watergate investigation. he had direct knowledge of the secret taping system in the office. >> haldeman came to me and he said the president wants a tape recording system. the secret service has a technical security division, electronics guys and communications guys. so that's who i went to.

the first thing he indicated, he intimated that they had done this before. he didn't say we did it for johnson, yes we did it for this president or that. and he also indicated these things usually don't work out very well. >> get those files. are we going to go after some of these democrats or not? bob, please get me the names of the jews. can we please investigate some of the [ bleep ]? >> he was a paranoid man. he was sure that people were out to get him. i'm sure some people were out to get him. but he gave them a lot to get him with. >> he wasn't glamorous. he wasn't social. this kind of awkward and very smart, but it's hard to get past the tapes. and what you hear on the tapes and the rambling and the paranoia. and just the insanity.

>> conspiracy. using it by any means. we are going to use any means. >> i really didn't know richard nixon when i went into the house. i had a public image of him. and as he gets more comfortable with me, i start to see a rather dark side to this man. and i realize very quickly he's a man who harbored tremendous animosity toward his enemies literally. he doesn't forgive. he doesn't forget. and he wants to get even. >> this is war. i wouldn't want to be on the other side right now. >> the real nixon is on those tapes. it is a road map of his mind. it is a road map of his presidency. >> for woodward and bernstein the road map would lead to an eerie underground parking garage and their next big break. there woodward met with a highly

placed government official who had a deep understanding of what was going on in the white house. he would become known as deep throat. >> just follow the money. as a struggling actor, i need all the breaks that i can get. at liberty butchumal- cut. liberty biberty- cut. we'll dub it. liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ you have fast-acting power over pain, so the whole world looks different. the unbeatable strength and speed of advil liqui-gels. what pain?

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only pay for what you need with liberty mutual. con liberty mutual solo pagas lo que necesitas. only pay for what you need... only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ when i, i'm richard lui with your hour's top stories. a powerful holiday storm leaves travelers a problem getting home, causing problems for drivers and hundreds of flight cancellations nationwide. the white house is declining an invitation from house judiciary committee chairman jerry nadler to participate in the first impeachment hearing. now back to "all the president's men revisited."

deep throat would become the most memorable figure in the watergate scandal. when woodward and bernstein's book "all the president's men" came out guessing deep throat's identity turned into a cottage industry. >> i have to do this my way. you tell me what you know, and i'll confirm. i'll keep you in the right direction if i can, but that's all. just follow the money. >> deep throat was a blessing that i didn't want to mess with. >> in my day it was simply known as the double cross. in our present context it means infiltration of the democrats. >> i just felt it was a wonderful piece of drama. >> i want to talk about watergate. >> we're not supposed to talk about that subject. >> sometimes he just was not very forthcoming. and a couple of key times he was. >> clear from the book and i

hope from the movie that it's somebody who was conscience-stricken. somebody who crossed lines that somebody in that sort of responsible position rarely crosses and crossed for the best of reasons. >> he gave us a solidity in what others were telling us that might have sounded unbelievable given how crazy some of it was. >> i didn't know what deep throat even looked like. didn't know if it was a man or a woman or a dog. >> the deep throat mystique. right? i mean, a, it's embarrassing. it's deep throat. like it's named after a porn movie, right? the nickname deep throat was prurient and dirty from the beginning. and yet because it was so important to the story everybody talks about deep throat this and deep throat that in this very casual way. >> the term "deep throat," everything was on deep background, meaning you could use it but not with any kind of attribution at all that would indicate where it came from.

>> i wouldn't quote you even as an anonymous source. you'd be on deep background. >> the fascination with that one source i think was driven in part by the anonymity, right? that we knew what happened in the administration. we knew through "all the president's men" how woodward and bernstein ferreted out the story. we knew all these other things. and the one thing we didn't know is the identity of this one source. >> i tend to think that no deep throat no movie. i think there is something so incredibly bond-ish about it that without that i'm not sure we get the hollywoodization of the story. because he to me was probably a crucial element in, you know, "follow the money." >> deep throat was woodward's contact, and it took him a while to let bernstein in on the secret. >> he said i have somebody who works at the justice department who's in a very advantageous

position. he told me a bit about him, didn't tell me exactly who he was or where he worked. >> he didn't want to talk on the phone because he knew about what was going on with wiretaps and how they would go after journalists. so he said we have to meet. it struck me at the time as kind of odd. but again, i was just beginning this process of washington reporting. it sounded reasonable to me. let's meet at 2:00 a.m. in this underground garage. >> in this garage under the cover of night deep throat began to allude to a far-reaching conspiracy deep in the heart of the white house. >> it involves the entire u.s. intelligence community. fbi, cia, and justice. it's incredible. >> deep throat was a great help in that he confirmed information that we had obtained elsewhere for the most part, and it gave

us a better idea of how big the conspiracy was. >> deep throat was out there and we began to hear about it from the ground up that bob had this special source. >> when will the rest of the world know who is deep throat? >> when that source passes away or releases us from our agreement and pledge of confidentiality. >> the inevitable question, who is deep throat? >> we've said deep throat is a man. >> you can rule out some suspects like diane sawyer, a former nixon press aide, now network anchor. woodward says deep throat was a man. >> you've built a fairly strong case for the identity of alexander haig. >> do you have any idea who deep throat is? >> deep throat is in my opinion a collection of people. >> people ask how the secret of deep throat lasts for so long and the answer is neither of us told our ex-wives. >> during our filming woodward casually mentioned that the actor hal holbrook's portrayal of deep throat was pretty close to the whole thing. so when i asked him who the man was, he just smiled.

>> other guesses over the years -- nixon campaign aide john sears and fbi official mark felt. >> i never leaked any information. i didn't give anybody any documents. and i'm getting pretty fed up with the whole thing. >> mark felt certainly caught some people's attention. he was the number 2 man in the fbi. and he looked the part. >> no. no. i am not deep throat. and the only thing i can say is that i wouldn't be ashamed to be. >> three decades later bob woodward went to visit mark felt. the elderly man was living with his daughter on a quiet street in a suburb of san francisco. coincidentally named redford place. >> i was talking to a friend of mine, and for some reason we started talking about watergate and he asked me about my father, and i started telling him about all the reporters calling and i said, you know, as a matter of fact, one reporter i think he said his name was bob woodward from "the washington post," came

to the house to try and get an interview with dad and try to find out if dad is deep throat. and my friend said, joan, bob woodward knows who deep throat is. and that's when i started thinking, oh, my gosh, maybe dad could be deep throat. but dad denied it. he said that he wasn't deep throat. and i said, dad, you've got to tell me the truth. please tell me the truth. i need to know. tell me. and so he did. he looked me in the eyes and said all right, if that's the way it's going to be. he said all right. i am. i was. that person. >> i got a call from "vanity fair" where i'm a contributing editor and told that in the next few hours they were going to break a story saying that felt was deep throat and would i confirm it.

>> carl came down to washington, and we talked about this, should we reveal it, should we confirm it. what's the obligation now? then ben bradlee stepped in and said it's out, it's over, you need to confirm it. and so we did. >> felt was the number two man at the fbi when he says he became the source to help reveal watergate, the scandal that helped bring down richard nixon. >> my dad, i know him so well, and he's a great man. he's so kind. he's so attentive to other people and loving. and we're all so proud of him. not only for his role in history but for that, for the character that he has, the person that he is. >> clearly there was an element of the conflicted man, the divided man. but then when i saw him on the doorstep, the video of mark felt in his pajamas and walker with the smile on his face, the smile i've never seen him smile.

he was not a happy person in all the years i've dealt with him. >> it turns out to have been liberating for us, for the truth, for felt because now you know, there was an awful lot of speculation in those 30 years including by many of our peers and colleagues that we made this up. >> this was an element of clarity and closure, answering a question that had persisted for a long time. >> deep throat begins to guide woodward and bernstein through an elaborate maze of covert activities. gradually, the reporters begin to connect watergate to many more of the president's men. by the beginning of 1973 congress could no longer ignore the scandal. their investigation would boil down to one simple question. >> what did the president know, and when did he know it? your ha. granted.

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[ typewriter sounds ] the senate tonight voted 77-0 to establish a select committee to investigate the watergate bugging case. the committee will be headed by -- >> barely eight months after woodward and bernstein. published their first article, the senate created a committee to investigate the scandal. >> the story started with a reporters nosing around a suspicious break in. it has grown into a full-fledged examination of the nixon white house. >> i know we are obstructing justice. i told haldeman that. i told ehrlichman that. they didn't want to hear that. ehrlichman said, john, there's something putrid in your house. he said, john, there's something putrid in your drinking water out there where you live and i

said no, john, i said i'm just a realist. we got problems. on march 21st john dean walked into the oval office to give an assessment of what watergate was doing to his presidency. >> you don't know everything that i know and it is for you to make judgments that only you can make. >> and after that remark, his feet were solidly on the floor. i'm warning him. he has problems. this was not good news i was about to share, that there was a cancer on his presidency. >> we have a cancer close to the presidency that is growing. it's growing daily.

he just absorbs that for a minute and thinks about it and as the conversation goes on and i say mr. president, i don't know where this will end. it's just going to keep going up. >> the senate investigation was closing in on the president. to distance himself from the cover up, nixon needed scapegoats. >> one of the most difficult decisions in my presidency i accepted the resignations of two of my closest associates in the white house. two of the finest public servants it's been my privilege to know. >> when he gets rid of them he is also planning his defense. >> the two closest men to the president have re-signed. >> he thinks this will protect him and he will claim that he

had known nothing about a cover up until i told him on march 21st. so he's sorting this out until the end of the month when he decides he just has to let everybody go and then of course he fires me. >> on may 17th, the senate held it's first public hearing. one by one, the president's men were summoned to the senate chamber. under cross examination, each was asked, had the president of the united states broken the law. >> what did the president snow and when did he know it? i don't think there's ever been a moment as rif vetting as the watergate hearings was. >> i didn't grow up with a memory in having seeing it but it was this thing in the way my mom talked about my childhood. she was a young mother, home with a baby on the hip and what he did for my infancy was feed

me and watch watergate. >> i was sitting in a dressing room making the film the great gatsby and to keep yourself from going mad you would watch the hearings and that was fine because the hearings were so interesting you couldn't stop. and what was interesting was the drama and the tension and the mystery. what's going to happen? >> do i understand that you are testi testifying -- >> the watergate hearings were an absolute unifying television experience for the entire country. i can remember watching it and thinking they're interrupting soap operas? wow. you just figure this must be something enormously fundamental to our democracy. >> most of us thought the most dramatic testimony would come

from them but in the end it was john dean that would transfix the country. >> we did have an option. we could, at that point, drag the wagons around a giant lie that would protect everybody that was willing to lie. >> i didn't run around trying to bribe anybody. i didn't run around trying to shred documents. as a matter of fact we preserved the documents. >> we made no attempt to take over the watergate case. the view of all three of us was that the truth must be told and quickly although we did not know what the truth was. >> so when i testified -- >> council will call the first witness. >> mr. john w. dean iii. >> i nuclearly was i in or out was the question and i decided i could not play that game. i have made mistakes. we have got ourselves in a deep problem and further lying and living that lie, even if i could

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>> do you swear the evidence that you will give will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. >> i too was riveted by john dean's testimony. >> i remember being truck by how methodically he presented nixon's pattern of deception. >> when the president called me and we had a discussion i told him at the conclusion of the conversation that evening that i wanted to talk with him as soon as possible about the watergate matter because i did not think he fully realized all the facts and the implications of those facts for the people at the

white house as well as himself. >> you're the president's counselor. people forget he was the president's lawyer. you can't have anything worse happen to you than your own lawyer turning against you. >> i began by telling the president that there was a cancer growing on the presidency and if he was not careful it would be effected by it. it was growing more deadly every day. >> his testimony was on for four days. it was mesmerizing. watching the plate glad windows in the television. >> i told him that cash at the white house had been funneled back to the re-election committee for the purpose of paying the 7 individuals to remain silent. >> and dean wasn't pulling any punches. >> he had been a recipient of wiretap information and also

received some information. >> and i said to myself, wow, everything john dean is saying to that committee, i hope they know it is true. >> the counsel was retained at that time. >> when was that? >> that was on the 25th as i recall. >> we believed what he was saying and the more evidence we got the more it confirmed what he was saying. >> meeting of march 21st, as i have indicated my purpose in requesting this meeting, particularly with the president was that i felt it necessary that i give him a full report of all the facts that i knew and explained to him what i believed to be the implications of those facts. >> we had white house logs of meetings. so when he said i met with the president on march 21st, we could look at the log and see well he certainly did. >> how do you expect us to resolve the truth in this matter

when you state one story, you testified here and made yourself subject to cross examination and the president states another story and he does not appear before this committee. can you give us any information as to how we might resolve this? >> mr. chairman, i think this, i strongly believe that the truth always emerges. i don't know if it will be during these hearings. i don't know if it will be through the processes of history, but the truth will out some day. >> it's very hard to think about the president not being believed and john dean being believed. so if it came down to he said, he said, the president was going to win. >> president nixon and his counsel john dean now appear to be at odds over the watergate scandal. >> one nixon aid knew how to

prove who was lying and no one asked him. >> while in the barbershop, i'm watching the hearings. this one everyone, every place. it's the morning of monday 16th of july. i was really quite relaxed until i got that phone call. we're going to want you to come up here and testify. senator wants you to testify at 2:00. i said well you can just tell him i'm not coming. so on the tube i see this guy go in behind the senators and whisper in his ear. and those big eyebrows of his went -- you could see them going up and down. and he wasn't pleased. you could tell that. and he tells this young man something and the guy leaves. predictably right away, the phone rings. and he said i just told the senator what you said and he said if you're not in his office at 1:00, he will have several

marshals pick you up on the street. that's exactly what he said. >> he is outside the senate caucus room and maybe he can tell us more about what he is expected to tell this committee. >> well, there was a lot of speculation. honestly something was cooking as far as what he was going to say because we were deviating from the schedule. >> that room was full of people. boyfriends with girls standing on their shoulders. people in the window ledges. cameras all over the place. >> i'd like to change the usual routine of questioning and ask the council to begin the questioning. >> thank you. >> the old caucus room was packed full of famous names and celebrities and whatnot. kind of a circuit atmosphere, frankly. >> you were previously employed

by the white house, is that correct? >> that's correct. >> during what period of time were you employed by the white house? >> i would like to preface my remarks if i may, mr. thompson with -- >> i'm sorry -- go right ahead. >> although i do not have a statement as such, i would simply like to remind the committee membership that where as i appear voluntarily this afternoon, i appear with only some three hours notice. >> i wanted them to know i was enjoying a hair cut at 11:00 today. >> are you aware of the installation of any listening devices in the oval office of the president? >> i tried to think is that direct? yeah, that's direct. that's a very direct question. i'm not trying to sound dramatic here but i knew then that the jig was up. >> i was aware of listening

devices, yes, sir. >> i was under the assumption that this tape recording system was still deep dark secret over at the white house. that secret was well kept and when you stop and think rosemary woods the secretary never knew about the tape. henry never knew about the tapes. john never knew about the tapes. >> two people told me about it before it became public. i called bradley at home at 9:00 on a saturday night i believe and said nixon taped himself. what should we do? and he said oh, i wouldn't bust one on it. it's kind of a b plus story. and i thought okay. the boss says b plus. i won't work on it and i took sunday off and monday they called butterfield and i remember ben came by and knocked on my desk and said okay it's better than a b plus. >> from that point on, of course it's a fight for the tapes because they answer the questions. am i telling the truth? is the president telling the truth? what else happened, you know? the prosecutors immediately

subpoena the tapes. the senate subpoenas them so nixon is early advised to destroy the tapes. enas them so nixon is early advised to destroy the tapes. i'll get that later. dylan! but the one thing we could both agree on was getting geico to help with homeowners insurance. what? switching and saving was really easy! i love you! what? sweetie! hands off the glass. ugh!! call geico and see how easy saving on homeowners and condo insurance can be. i love her! i looitaly!avel. yaaaaass. with the united explorer card, i get rewarded wherever i go. going out for a bite. rewarded! going new places. rewarded! anytime. rewarded! getting more for getting away. rewarded! learn more at the explorer card dot com.

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the discovery of the nixon tapes would ignite a new battleground in the watergate drama. it went something like this. nixon's attorney general had appointed a special prosecutor to investigate watergate. the special prosecutor then demanded that nixon hand over 8 of the tapes. >> 8 specific tapes of

conversations either in the president's office or on his telephone. >> nixon not only refused but on a saturday night in october, 1973, he also ordered his attorney general to fire the special prosecutor. he said no and re-signed. then he told his assistant to call the deputy attorney general. >> he said he wanted me to fire cox. i said i'm not going to do it. >> he refused in a moment of constitutional drama to obey a presidential order to fire the special watergate prosecutor. >> first the attorney general to his great credit just saying i'm not going to do that and re-signed and then the next person who was the deputy attorney general, one of the great people in the nixon administration, one of the most ethical men i have ever known, he too was not willing to do it. >> so the deputy attorney general also re-signed.

>> well, there will be an announcement out of the white house later on. >> there will be. >> it has to do with the resignation of the attorney general? >> well, it might, but you'll have to get it from them. >> well, your commander in chief has ordered you to do this. i don't know what that added to the discussion. and he said well, who else is around? i said well bob is here. he was the number three guy in the department. and he was the last one that was really eligible to do it. >> the commander in chief finally found someone willing to carry out his orders. he fired cox. >> i have asked all the personnel in the department to stay and help keep the department going in this extraordinarily difficult time. >> so ended what would become known as the saturday night massacre. >> one white house source said the president's motive was solely to remove the possibility of a constitutional as soon as possible. >> he violated the law, he compromised the office and violated the compact that we thought we had with him.

>> before he did all of this he must have considered the probable reaction in congress, including the possibility of impeachment. >> there were some of us that felt that the imperial presidency was getting out of hand. the saturday night massacre was a signal to the american people that a president was putting himself above the rule of law and they demanded action. >> and the public outcry to the saturday night massacre was so significant. >> just the insanity of the saturday night massacre, like, who does that? how could you think you could get away with that? it's just not -- it's not stable. >> people tend to want to get power to themselves and they tend to want to keep it. power still tends to corrupt. >> presidents by the nature of the job are just unlikely to ever shed any of the executive power that their predecessors

have accrued to the office. every president since jimmy carter has expanded the powers of the presidency. and when president obama ran for office, he had as part of his pitch as a candidate, what was wrong with the expanded executive power that was asserted by the george w. bush administration, especially on national security issues, things like torture and rendition and secret prisons and all of that stuff after 9/11 but he hasn't given that power back now that he is president. >> tonight i would like to give my answer to those that have suggested that i re-sign. i have no intention whatever of walking away from the job i was elected to do. >> after four months of legal squabbling, the presidential tape recordings were finally delivered today. you won't hear them however until all the discrepancies have been accounted for and today that situation grew worse and not better. >> much worse. nixon had handed over the tapes

but there was a catch. >> i was in the white house, things were fairly quite and i got a call to go to ron zeigler a 's office. go up thinking it's something routine and he's clearing his throat a lot and rattling his coffee cup and that's when we learned about the gap in the tapes. we had been told just about three days earlier that the worst is behind us and suddenly there was an 18.5 minute gap in the tapes. >> the conversation in question took place just three days after the watergate burglars were caught and the watergate prosecutor thought it was important. >> we know that the gap was a conversation about watergate because it was with them and he was a meticulous note taker and he took notenotes. >> the president's personal secretary was recalled to explain how she accidentally erased 18 minutes of a

conversation with the president three days after the watergate break in. >> it doesn't happen by accident would have been our first suspicion. >> i was the lawyer who questioned rosemary woods about the 18.5 minute gap. >> are you discussing testimony tomorrow. >> i don't want to comment. >> that was my name. pictures of me were always head to toe. my male colleagues are shoulder up. that's just how it was. rosemary woods represents really the majority of women at that time. you could be a nurse, you could be a teacher, you could be a secretary, or you could be a housewife. those are your choices. i was a very early professional and there we were head to head combat basically. >> it was a mistake. a record button hit accidentally while she took a phone call. >> she described she had pushed the wrong button instead of pushing stop, she had pushed

record. she also had to keep her foot on the pedal. >> she used the machine to show how it happened. when i asked her to demonstrate she pushed the button and kept her foot on and supposedly reached back about six feet to get the telephone. her foot came off the pedal just with the mere movement and there was just no way it was believable. >> the white house contention that the talk between the president and halderman will give more ammunition to the president's critics. >> to hear something so obviously untrue changed a lot of the american public's true of the whole situation. >> rosemary woods would stand by her story. bob woodward would later write it became a symbol for nixon's entire watergate problem. the truth had been deleted. the truth was missing. the truth was missing. as a struggling actor, i need all the breaks that i can get. at liberty butchumal- cut.

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watergate was becoming a bloody mess. nixon was a wounded president. all the president's men was a very violent movie. it was violent in a different sense. you didn't see anybody shot or blown up, or poisoned, but people were out to kill each other. >> get out your notebook, there's more. >> and the weapons were telephones, typewriters, and pens. >> your lives are in danger. >> so as a result, we would accentuate the volume of all of those instruments. i loved the scene when redford

playing the part of bob woodward sees carl reworking his story. >> how's it going. >> what are you doing? >> polishing it. >> what's wrong with it? >> nothing. it's good. >> then what are you doing with it? >> i'm just helping. it's a little fuzzy. >> i don't think you're saying what you mean. >> i know exactly what you mean. >> not here. i can't tell whether hunt works for coalson or he works for hunt. >> may i have it. >> i'm not looking for a fight. >> i'm not looking for a fight. >> having known both of them, that was so true and that's what goes on in newsrooms. >> if you're going to do it, do it right. heres my notes. if you're going to hype it, hype it with the facts. i don't mind what you did. i find the way you did it. >> what you captured so well was his assuredness about how right he was and at the same time,

totally intuitive and distinctive where he pushed woodward, you're rewriting me because you're a better writer and you do it without even thinking how bruised it's going to be. >> woodward is didactic. he would go a, b, c, d in his investigative work and bernstein would go a, b, h. >> we had the luxury of a fat dynamic institution, the washington post. it was right at its peak. >> you're always going to have some underhanded dealings, but nothing comparable to this. >> it ended up that woodward and bernstein ushered in a new era of journalism that opened up the white house in a way that would have made lbj and jfk and fdr very uncomfortable. >> everyone asks the question could the post do a story like watergate or do watergate now. what's your -- >> you know, in today's world,

that story would catch fire much faster. the minute the break in occurred, you know, you would tweet it and both sides would seize on it. it's an election campaign. it would be, you know, they would be using it immediately for both sides in the battle. everybody would chase. i mean, there would be bloggers, and as a result it would be much harder to do what you did probably because there would be such -- they would clamp down much faster. >> it's a great question, how watergate might unfold in the current news environment. you could look at the sort of glass half full argument and say, my goodness, with all of these people on twitter and all of these reporters, the 24 hour news cycle, a big story began to emerge, it would never be two lonely guys pursuing it because the entire pack of the cyber universe would be like wolves after the white house until after it happened.

>> they used to say a reporter was only good as his phone numbers. we can hunt and stalk sources so many different ways. the tool box i have available to me as a reporter, digital voice recording, e-mail. social media, we can truth tell them in real time when they say something we can be googling what they're saying, playing back to them. we have access to all known thought, one click away. ability to surround and outsource in a way that woodward and bernstein only dreamed of. the internet is a tool. just like a typewriter is a tool. a telephone is a tool. at the end of the day, journalism requires incredibly dogged persistence on the part of journalists who are seeking the truth. >> we worked over here. >> i'm here. >> you're here and i'm here. >> yeah. >> and it with was the noise of

typewriters and it was the smoke of people smoking 38 years ago. why did things have to change. >> every day bob and i would go have a cup of coffee together in the morning at a little vending machine room off the newsroom. >> it sure is quite in here. >> and on this particular day, not that long after the break in, i put a dime in the coffee machine which is what it cost then and i literally felt this chill go down my neck. i mean, literally. it made my hair stick up i think and i turned to woodward and i said oh my god, this president is going to be impeached and he looked at me and he said oh my god, you're right. >> you're watching msnbc. >> you're watching msnbc

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it crashed into a busy stretch of road killing all three on board. and john kennedy is doubling down on bedunked claims that the ukrainian government interfered in the 2016 election. kennedy also claims without evidence that a former ukrainian president actively worked for hillary clinton. now back to all the president's men revisited. i would like to add a personal word with regard to an issue that's been of great concern to all americans over the past year. i refer of course to the investigation of the so-called watergate affair. i believe the time has come to bring that investigation and the

other investigations of this matter to an end. one year of watergate is enough. >> but as hard as nixon tried, watergate would not go away. >> the meeting will come to order. the committee and the judiciary is authorized and directed to investigate fully and completely whether sufficient grounds exist to impeach richard m. nixon, president of the united states of america. >> it took the american people to force congress into action. this was not like what happened with president clinton where a special prosecutor said you should do an impeachment. there were those of us in congress that wanted to take action but the powers that be refused. it was only when the american people broke down that wall of resistant and said you have to do what you can do what you can do under the constitution to

reign in the imperial president. >> the american people were losing patience and the congressional committee was furious. they knew they had only scratched the surface. there were thousands of hours of recordings but nixon was refusing to release any of them. >> president nixon today defied subpoenas demanding that he produced tapes and papers in his possession and the country moved closer to a clash between the white house and the congress and the courts which will be unprecedented in american history. >> he wasn't going to produce them voluntarily but there's a reason why he's drawing the line. there must be some danieling things on there. i was concerned. we were concerned that he might dispose of the tapes. that in and of itself could be a criminal offense. burning of the tapes or destroying of the tapes. >> nixon never thought the tapes that he was making secretly would ever surface publicly. they would always be for his private use. >> it was never designed that

they would come out so there's a kind of spontaneity and free flow of people talking about their authentic conclusions and it's horrifying. >> you made it perfectly clear you don't intend to release those tapes. perfectly clear. >> it would be up to the supreme court to make the decision. on july 24th, 1974, the court issued it's ruling. >> good morning, the supreme court has just ruled on the tapes controversy and he has that ruling. >> it's the unanimous decision, 8-0. ordering the president of the united states to turnover the tapes. [ cheers ] >> the court voted unanimously. unanimously to require the tapes to be released. some of those members of the court had been appointed by richard nixon himself. so you had the court system acting in a non-partisan way.

in a credible way. regardless of politics. imagine that in the politicized supreme court we have had in our recent history. >> while nixon tried to put on the pretend act that operations were going on as normal, they weren't. they were dissent grating every day. >> they took the step most dreaded by the president. impeachment. nixon's fate now rested in the hands of the committee. >> today i am an inquizitor and hyperbole would not overstate the solemness that i feel right now. my faith in the constitution is whole and complete and total. i am not going to sit here and be a spectator to the

destruction of the constitution. >> aye. >> aye. >> some republicans who voted for the impeachment. some democrats that voted for impeachment. they were putting their political lives on the line and all of us were putting our reputations on the line. >> aye. >> we voted on the impeachment. it was one of the most sober and solemn moments in my life and i think in the life of everybody on that committee. everybody understood the stakes for the country. that's what this was all about. it was above party. it was what was good for america and what our democracy required. >> aye. >> it was the republicans that ultimately provided a real

measure of putting country ahead of party. >> nixon held his ground. he insisted he knew nothing of the cover up but among the thousands of hours of tapes one conversation recorded shortly after the break-in would destroy what was left of his credibility and his presidency. >> the break-in thing. >> we're about to enter a problem area because the fbi is not under control and their investigation is now leading into productive areas. >> what finally catches him is when the tapes are released, the smoking gun tape puts the lie to the statement that he had no advanced knowledge. >> on the tape you hear nixon telling him to direct the cia to stop an fbi investigation. >> without going into details don't lie to them but just say this is sort of they should call

the fbi and don't go any further into this case, period. those words clearly lead to an obstruction of justice. >> i was always amazed at the president's nonchalance. he didn't seem to care. i wanted to say to him, my god, man, do you know what you just said. do you know those tapes are rolling? >> after the smoking gun tape came out, the president lost all support, republican as well as democrat. republicans went to him and said you have to re-sign. we cannot support you anymore. >> it was republicans, finally, who made sure that nixon had to leave office. barry goldwater marching down to the white house. >> we sat there in the oval room and the president acted like he just played golf and just had a hole in one. you'd never think this guy's

tail was in a crack. >> nixon said how many votes if i'm impeached in the house, how many votes in the senate? about 20? and goldwater said very few and not mine. >> the 37th president of the united states was facing the ultimate disgrace. for a man that craved power, the question was, would nixon continue to fight. wer, the question was, would nixon continue to fight. liberty biberty- cut. we'll dub it. liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ ithere's my career...'s more to me than hiv. my cause... and creating my dream home. i'm a work in progress. so much goes into who i am. hiv medicine is one part of it. prescription dovato is for adults who are starting hiv-1 treatment and who aren't resistant to either of the medicines dolutegravir or lamivudine. dovato has 2 medicines in 1 pill to help you reach and then stay undetectable.

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blondes they say photograph better than brunettes. >> we are standing by now for president richard millhouse nixon, 37th president of the united states. >> have you got an extra camera in case the lights go out. nbc? did you get these lights proper? that's enough. thanks. >> in just a moment now, the president of the united states will begin his speech, perhaps his last speech from the white house. >> good evening. >> we watched it sitting on the floorthe floor eating bologna sandwiches and having a sense of unreality quite frankly. >> from the discussions i have had with congressi leaders i have concluded that was of the watergate matter, i might not have the support of the congress that i would

consider necessary to back the very difficult decision to carry out the duties of this office in the way the interest of the nation would require. >> i was just awe struck at the whole thing. no gloating. very little sense of self. it was really about the magnificence of what had occurred in terms of the right thing. >> therefore, i shall re-sign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow. he will be sworn in as president at that hour in this house. our first reaction is he's not the president anymore. he's a citizen. now we can indict him. honestly that's what we thought. >> the morning he re-signed i remember i bought down the street and bought a bottle of scotch. >> earlier today the east room of the white house was the scene of an emotional meeting between

the president, his cabinet and the aids who have stayed with him during all of these years of mr. nixon's tenure in the white house. >> you have this president who is bitterly resentful of what had happened to him in his political career overlayed with shakespearean level of paranoia and he was willing to engage in extraordinary acts to preserve hists power. >> all presidents are human beings. i assume they all have faults and flaws. i assume they will make mistakes. i assume that once they're caught in their mistakes, because of who they are and the kind of people they are, they will try to cover up those mistakes. >> i was in the east room of the white house when he made that very bittersweet, very poingant speech with so many around him. >> i look around here and i see so many on this staff that i

should have been by your offices and shaken hands and would have loved to have talked to you and found out how to run the world. everybody wants to tell the president what to do. and boy, he needs to be told many times. but i just haven't had the time. >> he's not looking into the camera. he's kind of staring off and going into s this stream of consciousness about his mother who was a saint. i guess all of you would say this about your mother, my mother was a saint. >> and that's the most honest speech i've ever heard any politician give, and i'm standing there, much, much thinner, younger version of myself, crying. >> we think when we lose an election, we think that when we suffer a defeat that all has

ended. >> really sad. really sad. i don't think any president has been more wrongly persecuted than nixon ever. i just think he was a saint. >> always remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself. >> ultimately what comes through on the tapes and what comes through in nixon's actions is his hate, his vengeful hate. and in that last fairwell, he gives that self-revealing line that hate will destroy you. >> that this piston of hate, this all encompassing desire to get the opposition to wiretap,

to spy, to destroy, to sabotage the ugliness of warfare was brought to american politics by richard nixon and the day he re-signedda he kind of seemed t get it. he seemed to say yeah, i destroyed myself. >> there were no tanks in the street. there were no armed men around the white house. we had this exceptionally peaceful transition of power in a veryra traumatic time in our lives. the presidency was secured by the gerald ford and the extraordinary strength of the constitutional law that defines what l the presidency is.

>> there was relief that somehow the system had worked and then the aftermath, there were a lot of reforms that were put in place. theof media changed, investigate journalism had been an incidental situation prewatergate. post watergate. it almost becomes a standard. >> presidents before watergate had by most reporters been given a presumption of innocence. in the aftermath, they're almost presumed guilty. it dramatically changes the relationship of the news media with the president. >> the system had worked including the role of the press. but really, the idea that the systemea had worked in this amazing way that a criminal president had been forced to

leave office. the principle that nobody in this country is above the law including the president of the united states. >> for nixon and the nation, one question remained unanswered, would the president now be hauled into court? uld the presie hauled into court? thousands of women with metastatic breast cancer, which is breast cancer that has spread to other parts of the body, are living in the moment and taking ibrance. ibrance with an aromatase inhibitor is for postmenopausal women or for men with hr+/her2- metastatic breast cancer, as the first hormonal based therapy. ibrance plus letrozole significantly delayed disease progression versus letrozole, and shrank tumors in over half of patients. patients taking ibrance can develop low white blood cell counts which may cause serious infections that can lead to death. ibrance may cause severe inflammation of the lungs that can lead to death. tell your doctor right away if you have new or worsening symptoms, including trouble breathing, shortness of breath, cough, or chest pain. before taking ibrance,

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elliott. you came back! ♪ after nixon left office, we learned that the watergate break-in, that third-rate burglary was not an anomaly, the nixon administration was involved in a whole range of questionable activities. >> breaking and entering, wiretapping, destruction of document forgery of state

department documents and letters. secret slush funds, auditing tax returns for retaliation. conspiracy to obstruct justice, all of this by the law and order administration of richard nixon. it sound bad when you say something like that. >> in the end, some 40 people pled guilty. >> to this day i'm not quite sure when i entered the conspiracy to obstruct justice. that's one of the things i'm actually trying to figure out. when did it cross the line? when did i enter that illegal conspiracy, no question i went across it. >> there was a real breakdown in personal integrity and organizational integrity on those given those assignments. i'm not sure where i will be for the next few months. i'm gentleman to miss you all. >> it also requires you to ask the ethical questions, is this right? is it respectful?

sit responsible? is it fair? we didn't ask any of those questions. we should have started what isn't legal. we were so caught up in trying to serve the president's needs or desires that we did not ask those questions. >> i, gerald r. dpord, do grant a full, free and absolute pardon unto richard nixon for all offenses against the united states. >> president ford's pardon ovp of richard nixon stunned the nation. nixon's legal problems were now over. >> when the president does it, that means it is not illegal. >> by definition? >> exactly. >> the former president was still not accepting responsibility. three years of resigning, nixon was paid to participate in a historic interview with the british television journalist david frost. at the very end, the inevitable question came up. >> do you feel that you ever

obstructed justice over part of the conspiracy to obstruct justice? >> he would not, he wouldn't really admit anything, not even mistakes or whatever. he was really stonewalling completely. and he was beginning to look like the haunted nixon of the actual watergate hearings rather than the californian ex-president. so finally i said won't you go further than the word mistake? >> what word would you express? >> and that was a real gob stopping, gob smacking moment. >> my goodness. >> i threw aside my clipboard and i said, well, i think there are three things you ought to say. the first is that you did go to the very verge of criminality. secondly that you led down your oath of office and, thirdly, i put the american people through two years of needless agony and

i apologize for that i never had difficulties for anyone, most of all you, but i think that people need to hear it and i think unless you say it, you are going to be haunted for the rest of your life. >> you are wanting me to say that i am participated in an illegal coverup? >> no. . >> the key to nixon really is his dislocations relationships with truth. >> if true, the greatest word ever written in journalism, what is the truth? what is the truth? what really happened? >> you probably retired. you should be. go on home, get a nice hot bath, rest up. 15 minutes and get your -- back in gear. we're under a lot of pressure

you know and you put us there. nothing is riding on this except the first amendment of the constitution. freedom of the press and maybe the future of the country. not that any of that matters. >> arguably maybe the best movie on reporting made. >> what i didn't expect was the echo of the movie to last that long. to this day, i keep hearing about it. >> one thing about watergate, it was going to change the culture of washington. it did no such thing. of course, this kind of thing is going to happen again. and it's going to happen in a much, much bigger scale. >> whether you talk about fdr or whether you talk about nixon and whether you talk about kennedy or whether you talk about clinton, we have presidents that seem to be in politics for the right reason but presidents that also have the fatal flaw. richard nixon's fatal flaw brought him down. >> people in my office did not

want to lay themselves opened to their enemies and acknowledge embarrassing things or mistakes that they have made and they tend to want to lie when they feel they can get away with it. all those things have been around long before water gate. >> it was an age-old story of an abuse of power and forgetting that you are accountable to the people that put you there. and there will be more and we'll survive. >> what pulses through the nixon story is the question why? >> he was elected. >> the good will of the nation and the world, it was his. that's the sadness of the nixon preside presidency of what could have been. >> wilbur and bernstein are the most famous journalists of our age.

their names will always be associated with the downfall of the president. 40 years later, it's a moment to ask what the greatest political scandal in modern history means to us. >> it's an evolutionary tale and we've evolved and we're older. bob and i brought very different baggage to the story and it meshed. >> so this was when you were 29/30-years-old. will you never see a story this good again? >> oh, who knows? >> no. >> who knows? >> it's the tale to maybe inspire a whole new generation. >> maybe. again racing who are now learning at watergate for the very first time.

>> i got a phone call. "somethin' is wrong with brandy. she's not movin, car's running." emergency vehicles, officers -- that's as far as i could go. there's my baby and i can't do nothin' about it. >> reporter: she was a hard-working young wife and mom. >> sweetest girl you could ever ask to meet. >> reporter: just minutes from home when she saw the headlights. >> somebody was tailin' her. >> my sister is in the driveway and her head is bloody. >> reporter: so you bury your