Bob Woodward – The Intelligent Collector Magazine

‘Some stories are hard to see; other stories hit you in the face’

A collection of 10 typed letters related to Watergate and signed by Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, John Mitchell and Richard Kleindienst sold for $3,500 at a 2013 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

On Oct. 12, 2019, The New York Times ran an editorial titled “All the President’s Henchmen,” along with a cartoonish drawing depicting President Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Rick Perry and Pete Sessions. The article concluded, “The impeachment drama had taken on the feel of a telenovela crossed with a mob movie wrapped up in a true crime procedural and decorated with psychedelic TikTok clips. In a word: bananas. But with a cast of bumblers, grifters and self-promoters like those Mr. Trump seems to favor, one should expect nothing less.”

There was little doubt about the allusion to the 1976 Award-winning movie All the President’s Men. The film was almost exclusively based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book of the same name. It had been authored by two obscure reporters for The Washington Post: Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward (now almost household names and prolific political writers).

The movie is one of my favorites, with Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman playing the two reporters. Jason Robards won an Oscar for his portrayal of Ben Bradlee, editor of the Post, and Alan J. Pakula was an Oscar nominee for Best Director. Although the movie primarily covers only the first seven months of what would become the Watergate scandal, the clever use of typesetting bookends the start and finish of the entire event, beginning with the Watergate break-in to Richard Nixon’s resignation several years later.

The actual Watergate affair started in 1972 when a security guard, 24-year-old Frank Willis, was on routine patrol in the basement of the Watergate complex. He found strips of tape across the latches leading to the underground parking garage. He was not overly alarmed. High-priced hotel rooms, prestigious offices and elegant condominium apartments within the Watergate development had been targets of burglars and thieves for several years. Along with three former Cabinet members, and various Republican leaders, the tenants included the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Its offices had been surreptitiously entered at least twice in just the last six months.

However, Willis simply assumed maintenance men had temporarily immobilized door latches as part of a routine repair. Professional burglars typically used less conspicuous wooden matches to keep the doors from closing and locking. The guard naively removed the tape, allowed the two doors to lock, and resumed his regular post in the lobby.

Then fate intervened and, acting strictly on what he called a “hunch,” he returned to take another look at the basement doors. The same latches had been taped again! Additionally, he discovered that two other doors on another level had been taped, despite being unobstructed only minutes before. “Someone was taping the doors faster than I was taking it off,” Willis said in an interview later. “I called the police!” His call was logged at 1:52 a.m. on Saturday, June 17.

First to reach the Watergate were members of the tactical squad of the Washington metropolitan force, who went directly to the top floor. More tape was found on a stairway door. They started working their way down and found tape on a sixth-floor office. With guns drawn, they entered the darkened offices of the Democratic National Committee. Five unarmed men were found crouched down and they surrendered quietly.

John Barrett, one of the plain-clothed officers who handcuffed the burglars, said: “They were very polite, but they would not talk.” The five men were arrested on burglary charges and led to the District of Columbia jail. They all gave false names to the booking officer, but after a routine fingerprint check, all five were identified:

Bernard Barker, 55, a native of Cuba and president of a Miami real estate firm,
James McCord, 55, president of a private security agency,
Frank Sturgis, 48, ex-Castro Army, now at a Miami Salvage Company,
Eugenio Martínez, 51, notary-real estate employee of Barker in Miami, and
Virgilio Gonzalez, 45, a locksmith from Miami.

Four of the men had spent the night at the Watergate Hotel, which connected with the office building via an underground garage.

At the time of the arrests, police had seized all the equipment the men had. It was quite a haul: two 35mm cameras with close-up lens, 40 rolls of film, one roll of film for a Minox “spy” camera, and a high-intensity lamp. All were useful in copying documents. Additionally, there were three microphones and transmitters. Ceiling panels had been removed to allow access to an adjacent office belonging to DNC Chairman Larry O’Brien. In addition to lock-picks and burglary tools, there were two walkie-talkies and a few thousand dollars in $100 bills with consecutive serial numbers.

The White House was quick to deny that any of the men were working for them and Nixon Press Secretary Ron Ziegler famously shrugged it off as “a third-rate burglary attempt” and unworthy of comments. However, at their arraignment, Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward overheard one of the burglars (James McCord) whisper “CIA” when asked what kind of “retired government employee” he had been.

The finest journalists in the world could be forgiven for not realizing that those three little letters (CIA) would be the opening act of a scandalous political drama – unprecedented in American history. Bradlee would later write: “Some stories are hard to see because the clues are hidden or disguised. Other stories hit you in the face. Like Watergate, for instance. Five guys in business suits, speaking only Spanish, wearing dark glasses and surgical gloves, with crisp new hundred-dollar bills in their pockets, and carrying tear-gas fountain pens, flashlights, cameras and walkie-talkies, just after midnight in the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee. … You would have to be Richard Nixon himself to say this was not a story.”

Actually, this is what Richard Nixon did finally say on Aug. 9, 1974, to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger:

Dear Mr. Secretary,
I hereby resign the office of President of the United States.
Sincerely,
Richard Nixon

Intelligent Collector blogger JIM O’NEAL is an avid collector and history buff. He is president and CEO of Frito-Lay International [retired] and earlier served as chair and CEO of PepsiCo Restaurants International [KFC Pizza Hut and Taco Bell].

What would you do if you saw your obituary?

Francis H.C. Crick’s Nobel Prize Medal and Nobel Diploma, awarded in 1962 for his work related to DNA molecules, sold for $2.27 million at an April 2013 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

In 1888, a French newspaper published Alfred Nobel’s obituary with the following title: “Le marchand de la mort est mort” or “The merchant of death is dead.”

In reality, it was actually his brother Ludvig who had died, but Alfred was appalled that this kind of sendoff could tarnish his own professional legacy. One presumes that the only error was the mix-up in names since the sobriquet seemed apt given Alfred’s contributions to the effectiveness of substances that resulted in death.

In a complicated maneuver, the inventor of dynamite attempted to rectify future obits by posthumously donating the majority of his estate (94 percent) to the establishment of the Nobel Prizes, designed to expunge his reputation for all the deaths resulting from his explosive product. It was only partially successful since he was accused of treason against France for selling Ballistite (a smokeless propellant composed of two explosives) to Italy. The French forced him to leave Paris and he moved to Sanremo, Italy, where he died in 1896. There were five Nobel categories with an emphasis on “peace” … for obvious reasons.

A native of Stockholm, Nobel made a fortune when he invented dynamite in 1867 as a more reliable alternative to nitroglycerin. As a chemist and engineer, he basically revolutionized the field of explosives. Some accounts give him credit for 355 inventions. In 1895, a year before his death, he signed the final version of his will, which established the organization that would bear his name and “present prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit to mankind.”

Nobel’s family contested the will and the first prizes were not handed out until 1901. Among the first winners were German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, who discovered X-rays, and German microbiologist Emil Adolf von Behring, who developed a treatment for diphtheria. The Nobel Prizes were soon recognized as the most prestigious in the world. Except for war-related interruptions, prizes have been awarded virtually every year. The category of economics was added in 1969.

The first American to receive a Nobel was President Theodore Roosevelt, who garnered the prize in 1906 after he helped mediate an end to the Russian-Japanese war. The German-born American scientist Albert Michelson claimed the physics prize the next year. However, the peace and literature prizes would become the most familiar to Americans and are some of the most controversial. Critics voiced concerns over Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson (1919), George Marshall (1953) and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (1973). More recently, winners have included Al Gore (2007) for making an Oscar-winning documentary on climate change, and Barack Obama (2009) “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.” (for more, see Obama’s Wars by Bob Woodward).

William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck and Toni Morrison generally have escaped criticism, as have multiple winners like Marie Curie (the first woman in 1911, and in two separate categories), and Linus Pauling, among others. The Red Cross has snagged three. From a personal standpoint, the most obvious non-winner is Mahatma Gandhi, or as someone quipped, “Gandhi can do without a Nobel Prize, but can the Nobel Committee do without Gandhi?”

I think not.

Watergate Scandal Perhaps Permanently Eroded Public Trust in Government

A photo signed by each member of the Congressional Watergate Committee, which investigated whether sufficient grounds existed to impeach Richard M. Nixon, realized $5,497 at an October 2006 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

The Washington Post account of the break-in appeared on the front page of its Sunday edition. The New York Times carried 13 inches (inside) with the headline “Five Charged with Burglary at Democratic Headquarters.” Most other editors played it down even more. Still, it captured the attention of high officers of the U.S. government and the Republican Party. Among them: H.R. Haldeman, John Mitchell, Maurice Stans, Jeb Magruder, John Dean and probably the president of the United States.

A year later during the hearings of the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities (chaired by Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina), Magruder was asked when this glittering array of outlaws had decided to cover its tracks. He answered in a puzzled tone: “I don’t think there was ever any discussion that there would NOT be a cover-up.”

Among the other people who were in on the lies was Martha Mitchell, wife of Attorney General John Mitchell. She had tried to tell the truth, but a special bodyguard had yanked the phone wires out of the wall when she was telling a UPI reporter, “They don’t want me to talk.” She later said he held her down while another man injected a sedative into her buttocks. But there was no way to keep Martha Mitchell quiet and three days later she called the reporter again, saying, “I’m not going to stand for all these dirty things going on.” It made a good story, but Martha’s credibility was low and most Americans accepted the official line.

Ron Ziegler, the former ad man who served as President Nixon’s press secretary, spelled it out. In a scornful tone, he declined to even rebut Martha’s rants. “I am not going to comment from the White House on a third-rate burglary attempt,” Ziegler announced. However, when a few Post reporters continued to ask questions, Ziegler did comment from the WH: “I don’t respect the type of journalism, the shabby journalism, that is being practiced by The Washington Post.” (John Mitchell added, “[Washington Post publisher] Katie Graham is going to get her teat caught in a big fat wringer!”)

On Monday, July 16, via live TV, chief minority counsel Fred (Law & Order) Dalton Thompson got White House assistant Alexander Butterfield to disclose there was an automatic recording system in the White House. Apparently, all conversations in the Oval Office, the Cabinet Room and even President Nixon’s private office were taped.

Once this bombshell exploded, it was only a short trip to forcing the administration to turn over all recordings. This would inexorably lead to the indictment of 69 people (with 48 found guilty) and the first presidential resignation. When asked much later why he didn’t simply burn the tapes, Nixon calmly replied he wanted to preserve his legacy for posterity. (Mission accomplished!)

All of this was captured brilliantly 40 years ago in the film All the President’s Men with Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman in the roles of Washington Post reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward. The movie won four Oscars, with Jason Robards snagging best supporting actor for his portrayal of editor Ben Bradlee. It is a must-see movie and the Bernstein-Woodward book is equally entertaining.

Coming on top of the Pentagon Papers and the Vietnam War, the entire Watergate scandal eroded public trust in government, perhaps permanently. Even today, the cover-up is generally worse than the crime.

Intelligent Collector blogger JIM O’NEAL is an avid collector and history buff. He is president and CEO of Frito-Lay International [retired] and earlier served as chairman and CEO of PepsiCo Restaurants International [KFC Pizza Hut and Taco Bell].