so when nixon learned that these two men, g gordon liddy and e howard hunt were involved in watergatehe realized that in order to protect himself he had to engage in a cover-up. so behind the scenes, he starts thatmmit very illegal acts two-and-a-half years down the line will cost him the presidency. host: initially there was a reticence among national media to even touch the story, right? guest: they did not want to make too much of it. it seemed to be a caper that had gone wrong and the watergate break-in was a pretty silly thing. it was under motivated and over bungled, as a journalist named gary wells put it. there was not much defined in the democratic national committee. it seemed like this was, started out more as a farce than a tragedy. the washington post smelled a rat and bradley and katharine , the publisher and managing editor decided to put two young journalists in their 20's, bob woodward and carl bernstein on that story and not to give up on it. that sort of kept it at least in the local headlines in washington, and eventually they were able to uncover through their jou

gordon liddy goes to the department of justice.ral's office and gordon liddy present operation jump stone under which they'll break into the dnc offices in the water gate complex but they'll hire a houseboat to place outside of the fountain blue hotel in miami during the democratic convention. they'll put prostitutes on this houseboat with cameras. they'll lure democratic delegates on to the houseboat and photograph them. >> this was the man who was going to okay or not this collection of crimes. >> they asked for one million dollars and john mitchell didn't say are you guys crazy get out of here. that's all illegal. that's crazy. no he said it's too expensive. please come back with a lower budget. >> there was pressure from the white house from me and the president to the exit tee to get their campaign intelligence activity going. to me it was a throw away project. give liddy the quarter million dollars and satisfy the white house. mitchell said let's go with it. i have remember at the beginning there was a sense of the master min

gordon liddi, ex-fbi agent hired by president nixon's campaign to run covert operations. he recruited james mccord, security chief of the committee to re-elect the president. >> the plan was to get negative information about the potential nominee of the democratic party. how are you going to get the negative information? a lot of people would say, breaking into the democratic national committee was way out, off the charts. yes, but not that far off. >> mccord would go into the watergate building and put in tapes in the door. >> it was taped so it would not lock. >> the hero of that night was a man named frank wills. frank wills was the security guard at the watergate office building. >> you found the door taped once and you took the tape off, then you found it taped the second time. >> it was something that told me that, you should check, not only check the door, but call the police. >> about 1:52 in the morning the call comes out for alleged burglary at the watergate hotel. i just kind of blinked my eyes, yeah, we'll take the call. >> i had on an old fogey golf cap, like

gordon liddy, that was on abc friday night, it seems like they have an audience of one that they're trying to direct this to. host: fair enough, john. thanks for the call. let's go to brian from illinois. good morning, brian. caller: hi, good morning. i think watergate demonstrates that the best and brightest do not go into politics. i've heard that many places. both parties are infested with power-hungry people that only care about winning, and they will lie, cheat and steal to get the power, the attention, the adulation they want. that's all they care about is themselves. they're sociopaths, many of them. we should examine all the political corruption that's gone on in the last 100 years. i could go on and on, but the clintons are another family that did a lot of very slimy, crument things. hillary with her private email server and classified material on it that she said was ok. and our current president, all he cares about is himself and winning. if he lies, cheats and steals to win, he'll do it. that's i'm he cares about. he's a very dishonorable person. and it's a shame that he's in t

gordon liddi, ex-fbi agent hired by president nixon's campaign to run covert operations.et negative information about the potential nominee of the democratic party. how are you going to get the negative information? a lot of people would say, breaking into the democratic national committee was way out, off the charts. yes, but not that far off. >> mccord would go into the watergate building and put in tapes in the door. >> it was taped so it would not lock. >> the hero of that night was a man named frank wills. frank wills was the security guard at the watergate office building. >> you found the door taped once and you took the tape off, then you found it taped the second time. >> it was something that told me that, you should check, not only check the door, but call the police. >> about 1:52 in the morning the call comes out for alleged burglary at the watergate hotel. i just kind of blinked my eyes, yeah, we'll take the call. >> i had on an old fogey golf cap, like a t-shirt underneath, trying to give me the image i wasn't a police officer. >> if a uniformed car had ans

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