. >> presidential press secretary ron ziegler called it a third-rate burglary attempt. >> ron ziegler 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. ehrlichman 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 hav

. >> presidential press secretary ron ziegler called it a third-rate burglary attempt. >> ron zieglerte 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. ehrlichman 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

and i got a call to go to ron ziegler's office. i go up to ron's office thinking it's something routine and ziegler is clearing his throat a lot and is kind of rattling his coffee cup and that is 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 1/2 minute gap in the tapes and all hell broke loose again. >> the conversation in question took place three days after the watergate burglars were caught and the watergate prosecutor thought it was important. >> we know the 18 1/2 minute gap was a conversation about watergate because it was with haldeman and the president and haldeman was a meticulous note taker and he took notes. >> the president's presidential secretary, rosemary woods, was recalled to explain how she accidentally erased 18 minutes of a haldeman conversation with the president three days after the watergate break in. >> it didn't happen by accident would have been our first suspicion. >> i was the lawyer who questioned rosema

and i got a call to go to ron ziegler's office. e thinking it's something routine and ziegler is clearing his throat a lot and is kind of 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 1/2-minute gap in the tapes and all hell broke loose again. >> the conversation in question took place three days after the watergate burglars were caught and the watergate prosecutor thought it was important. >> we know the 18 1/2-minute gap was a conversation about watergate because it was with haldeman and the president and haldeman was a meticulous note taker and he took notes. >> the president's personal secretary, rosemary woods, was recalled to explain how she accidentally erased 18 minutes of an h.r. haldeman conversation with the president three days after the watergate break-in. >> it didn't happen by accident would have been our first suspicion. >> i was the lawyer who questioned rosemary woods about the 18