Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In: 'Martha Mitchell- Isn't Overstepping Cocktail Party'

Source:Rowan & Martin's Laugh In- Actress portrayal of Martha Mitchell on LaughIn. 

Source:The New Democrat 

“Hosted by Dan Rowan and Dick Martin, this ground-breaking variety show was a fast moving barrage of jokes, one-liners, running skits, musical numbers and made fun of the social and political issues of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

A group of regulars, Gary Owens, Lily Tomlin, Judy Carne, Arte Johnson, Ruth Buzzi, Alan Sues, Goldie Hawn, Chelsea Brown, Henry Gibson and JoAnne Worley left a lasting impression on America.”

From Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In 

“I’m so damned mad!” fumed Martha Mitchell to a United Press International reporter at the other end of the line. It was 3 a.m., Sunday the 26th of August 1973, and once again she was bouncing off the walls of her Fifth Ave. apartment. “I asked them to let me speak to the President. They told me, Tell it to UPI.”

White House operators knew Martha Mitchell all too well. And in the summer of 1973, amid the nation’s long national Watergate nightmare, so did most other Americans. “Outspoken wife of Attorney General John Mitchell,” the papers usually called her. They could say that again. There was practically no getting away from the woman.” 

Source:World News- Watergate motormouth Martha Mitchell 

From the New York Daily News

I said this on my Google+ and Twitter pages last night, but could you imagine Martha Mitchell with a Twitter page back during Watergate? She was like a gossip columnist with inside accounts of what was going on during Watergate simply because she was married to the Attorney General of the United States John Mitchell. Not that I believed he was filling in her chatty wife who was basically the motormouth of Washington during the early and mid 1970s. Who would share any little dirty secret that she could come up with regardless of who it might help or hurt.

The best gossip columnists are the gossip columnists not just with inside sources, but credible inside sources so what they write and say in public doesn't sound like fiction or a like a good soap opera, but there's real truth to what they're revealing about someone or some people, or some situation. Hollywood actress Shelley Winters, was a gossip columnist, as well as an author, with a great sense of humor who was very bright in general, but with her humor as well in-between acting parts. Martha Mitchell who just happened to be the wife of the Chief Law Enforcement Officer of the United States in Attorney General John Mitchell, fit that bill as well. 

Victor D. Hanson: 'Rethinking Watergate'

Source:Hoover Institution- where the Watergate scandal all started.

Source:The New Democrat

“The Watergate break-in is now 45 years old. The scandal is as distant from our own time as it was once from 1928. The median age of Americans is about 38 years old. Half of all Americans were likely born after the break-in. But Watergate is hardly ancient history.

The fumes of Watergate waft around the current FISA-gate scandal. The now septuagenarians Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, of All the President’s Men fame, are back in the news. As seasoned crusading reporters, they currently offer admonitions that Donald Trump is replaying the role of a supposedly paranoid and imperious Richard Nixon.

But is he? The two investigative journalists who first brought Watergate to public attention are certainly not wrong about parallels—but not in the way they imagine. FISA-gate is becoming Watergate turned upside down. The respective roles of the government, liberal Democrats, civil libertarians, and the White House are now reversed—and this turnaround is, in a strange way, redefining Watergate itself.”

From Victor D. Hanson 

“60 Minutes political correspondent Lesley Stahl covered Watergate 45 years ago. She visits CBSN to detail her experience and draws some parallels to the political scandals surrounding the White House today.” 

Source:CBS News- President Richard M. Nixon (Republican, California) I'm not a crook. LOL

From CBS News

I look at Watergate now more than 45 years after the 1972 break in and almost 45 years after Congress starts to look into the the Watergate break in and the 1972 presidential election with the Senate Watergate Select Committee, in a couple of ways.

First, just the pure stupidity of it from several vantage points and perhaps the biggest being how unnecessary it was. We know that President Richard Nixon didn’t personally order the Watergate break in. Why, because he was already ahead of Senator George McGovern ( the 1972 Democratic nominee for president ) by 20 points or more at this point during the summer of 1972.

Not so much because breaking and entering into private property is morally wrong and illegal. That is probably not the reason why President Nixon didn’t order the break in, but because it would’ve been politically stupid for him to do that. Especially with a Democratic Congress with clear majorities in both the House and Senate. With network news media and the print media being such huge forces.

The risks of these bunglers, I mean burglars screwing up the break in and perhaps not even finding anything that President Nixon could use against Senator McGovern. Unfortunately Richard Nixon tended to operate from purely partisan political calculations, instead of morality and doing what’s morally right and so-forth. Which is one of the reasons for his downfall, along with his paranoia and lack of self-confidence.

The other thing that makes Watergate so stupid and even laughable now at this point, but perhaps by 1973 or so, is that the crew that was put together and how they were put together and actually did the Watergate operation. ( If you want to call it that ) If you’re going to order a break in of private property and you’re not personally involved in physically committing the crime yourself, you would think that you would hire professional burglars to do the operation. You could learn that just from watching any half-decent caper movie.

Watergate goes to show you: 

you don’t hire auto mechanics to perform brain surgery. 

you don’t hire dentists to represent you in court when you’re being charged with murder. 

You hire brain surgeons to perform brain surgery, criminal defense lawyers to defend you and when you’re being charged with crimes, and you hire professional burglars to pull off break ins.

The Watergate break in team were former CIA officers who were accustomed to working in other countries and getting information for the U.S. Government. They weren’t professional burglars or criminals of any background.

The Watergate break in was Amateur Night at the Watergate and when these guys knew they were a helluva lot of trouble and looking at doing 20 years or more in prison, they decided to talk to the prosecutors and that is where President Nixon freaks out or perhaps before that and decides to try to cover it up.

The Nixon reelection effort, looks like a bunch of guys in high school who decide to run for class president and pick one guy to run with his friends helping him out with the campaign, With this of course being the first time that any of them are ever involved in any political campaign ever. Not that different from the Donald Trump presidential campaign of 2016.

You have a long list of 10-15 men who worked for President Nixon during the early 1970s either for the Administration or reelection campaign, who ended up in prison. Who pre-Nixon and perhaps post-Nixon were by en-large good, intelligent, moral, productive people, but who got in way over their heads during this presidential campaign and simply made a lot of horrible decisions that put them all in prison. Watergate is a tragedy because of how stupid and unnecessary it was and the damage that these people did to themselves.

ABC News: 'Dark Days at The White House'

Source:ABC News- Dark Days at The White House documentary.

Source:The New Democrat

"Part of the ABC News Great TV News Stories series. From the VHS Tape - "The story of the President at the center of the Watergate Maelstrom, his near impeachment, his last dark days at the White House, and his sudden resignation in disgrace."

From ABC News

ABC News, wasn’t number three on the network news battles back in the early 1970s. But they were buried in last place which just happened to be third back then. Well behind CBS News and NBC News.

ABC would have been what the CW is today behind CBS, NBC, ABC and even FOX. They simply didn’t have the viewership of the other networks, because they didn’t have the affiliates and perhaps just barely qualified as a national broadcast network back then.

But ABC News was able to cover Watergate and did have their own nightly newscast and did have very good people working for them. Like Howard Smith, Frank Reynolds, Harry Reasoner, Sam Donaldson, Peter Jennings and a young Ted Koppel.

Watergate, was nothing more than a local Washington city burglary in the summer of 1972. At least that’s how it was portrayed early on. With some real differences even early on. 1972 was a presidential election year. It wasn’t the Watergate Hotel itself that was burglarized, but the Democratic National Headquarters that had their office at the Watergate that was burglarized.

The burglars had both CIA and White House connections with the Nixon Reelection Committee. The White House under President Nixon, involved themselves early on in this story in the summer of 72 when the President told his Chief of Staff Bob Haldeman to tell the FBI to get out of the story. Which wasn’t learned until the summer of 73 with the Senate Watergate investigation.

Without The Washington Post and a certain extent Walter Cronkite at CBS News, all of those stories that broke in the spring and summer of 73 about Watergate, do not come out. Because The Post was hammering away and digging into Watergate from day one. Because Watergate happened in their city and they had all the connections including in the Federal Government, but the local City Government as well to investigate this story.

And that is when you see organizations like The New York Times, CBS News, NBC News, ABC News, and others, starting to not just look into Watergate, but what else the White House might have been involved in and their other illegal operations back then.

CKDTA: PBS Summer of Judgment: The Watergate Hearings

Source:PBS Summer of Judgment.

Source:The New Democrat

I believe the Senate Watergate hearings which brought Congress into this investigation starting in the Senate, was critical in this investigation. White House Chief Counsel John Dean, who was running the Watergate coverup for President Nixon, becomes famous in these hearings. We find out about White House taping system, which is what brought down President Nixon. Because everything he said and did about the Watergate coverup at least in the White House was on tape. The smoking gun where President Nixon tells his Chief of Staff Bob Haldeman to instruct the FBI to drop their investigation was on the tapes. So the Senate Watergate hearings were critical in this investigation.

PBS, which was less than ten years old at this point, was critical in these hearings as well. And this was really the start of PBS becoming a major player in the broadcast news business and with them starting their PBS News division. With their nightly newscast, The NewsHour, their newsmagazine show Frontline, their weekly political talk show Washington Week and all of their documentaries. They were the C-SPAN of the 1970s at least during these Congressional hearings in the Senate. They broadcasted these hearings gavel to gavel live and then replaying these hearings in prime time later that night. Jim Lehrer and Robert MacNeil, became media stars during these hearings. And other news divisions, CBS News, NBC News and ABC News, covered these hearings as well.

I believe that a lot of the people who worked for President Nixon were by in large good productive people. Bud Krogh and John Dean, are good examples of that, but they believed in Richard Nixon so much that they would do anything for him and were simply too loyal to this man. And got in over their heads and ending up doing things that they probably wouldn't have done had they not have met Richard Nixon, or some with those personality traits. And I think you see a lot of that with these people who essentially ended up testifying against their former boss. Of course they did that as part for their plea agreements, but these weren't career criminals, but people who did bad and illegal things while working for Richard Nixon.

CBS News: Special On Watergate (June, 1992)

Source:CBS News anchorman Walter Cronkite.

Source:The New Democrat

The story of Watergate is so tragic. This idea that President Richard Nixon would be worried about losing the presidency to George McGovern, who was the Bernie Sanders Democratic Socialist of his time. In an era when Socialists were looked down upon as Marxists and Communists, is so laughable I almost want to feel sorry for President Nixon and his White House. With or without Watergate, President Nixon was in cruise control and headed for the landslide reelection that he got in 1972. The Democratic Party, was divided between mainstream Progressives and New-Left Socialists, the Green Party of their time that wanted to move America in a new radical direction.

Watergate, was not a shot in the foot, but a grenade at someone's foot that takes both feet off in one blow. And that is it is a really weak grenade. It never had to happen and what made this story even more tragic is that President Nixon wasn't behind Watergate itself, but the cover up that came after. Had he and his Chief of Staff Bob Haldeman, stayed out of the story and let the Washington PD and the FBI do their jobs, the Nixon Campaign might have taken a little hit in the polls. Because the burglars were connected to their campaign. But they would have gotten that back plus a lot more because of their convention and the Democratic convention later that summer.

But that is not the worst part of Watergate. Watergate, destroyed what otherwise would have been a promising presidency where President Nixon was putting together a foreign policy record that was perhaps second to none compared with any president before him. With ending the Vietnam War, opening up Russia and China to negotiations and diplomatic relations, Middle East talks involving Egypt, Israel and what would become Palestine. Plus his domestic agenda that would become what is called Welfare to Work today, health care reform that is the Affordable Care Act today, a national energy policy, to move America off of foreign oil. All of these policies that the Nixon Administration were working on in their second term. That went away because of Watergate.

CBS News Special Report: Archibald Cox Pre-Saturday Night Massacre

Source:CBS News- Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox.

Source:The New Democrat

I believe President Richard Nixon’s firing of Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald, was essentially an admission of guilt. That whatever credibility that President Nixon had left in this affair was now gone. Because the President was essentially telling the country that Cox and his staff are on to something and they better stop him before the Cox team finds out what happened here. The Cox office was put together by President Nixon’s Attorney General Elliot Richardson to find out what happened in Watergate.

The Cox Special Prosecutor’s offices, was not put together to bring down President Nixon and his administration. Richard Nixon and his team with their behavior and that Nixon recorded what he did and who he talked to, brought himself down. The Cox office was responsible to investigate crimes that President Nixon originally had nothing to do with. The break in of Democratic Headquarters in Washington in 1972. But if Watergate breaks, then so would other criminal activities that the White House was also involved in. Because people would have talked to save themselves.

The Nixon White House knew that the people who actually did the Watergate burglary, had real evidence and information that could be used against the White House in other matters to save themselves. That they had connections with people who were involved in other criminal activities of the Nixon White House as they had to do with other break ins. That is the main reason that Nixon wanted Cox shut down. I believe the White House knew that Cox and his team would not just find out about what happened during Watergate, but perhaps about the other activities like the plumbers unit.

The plumbers did other break ins to find out information about Nixon opponents. Like Daniel Elsberg and people in the national media. The Watergate break in, really was a third-rate burglary by high school drunks who couldn’t find anything better to do on a Saturday night. And decided to break in to the Watergate Hotel. (Or so it seems) But if Watergate broke, then so would other illegal activities that the Nixon White House was also involved in. And the White House couldn’t afford that.

The Associated Press: ‘Opening of The Senate Watergate Committee (1973)’

Source:The Associated Press- U.S. Senator Sam Ervin: Democrat, North Carolina: Chairman of the Senate Watergate Committee (93rd U.S. Congress)

Source:The New Democrat

“(17 May 1973) Scenes from the United States Senate hearing into the Watergate Affair. Senate Watergate Committee chairman, Sam Ervin makes a statement…

Source:The New Democrat- U.S. Senator Sam Ervin: Democrat, North Carolina: Chairman of the Senate Watergate Committee (93rd U.S. Congress)

From The Associated Press

Without the Senate Watergate Committee, President Nixon doesn’t get impeached at least in that Congress and when he did in 1974. Because of how they and the special prosecutors office were able to get people in the Nixon White House and the Nixon reelection campaign to talk about what they knew about Watergate and the coverup, that is how all of this information came out. To the point that Congressional Republicans both in the House and Senate could no longer support President Nixon.

John Dean, in great detail laid out for the committee under threat of prosecution of course, exactly how the Watergate coverup was conducted. Since he was essentially in charge of managing the coverup.

White House Chief of Staff Bob Haldeman, also played a big role in that. But Dean, was essentially the desk sergeant of this case. And managed all the information that came in, as well as what to do with the information. And what people involved in the Watergate break in either needed to keep quiet, or what kind of legal defense that they needed.

But the disclosure of the taping system, is really what ended the Nixon Administration. Without that disclosure, President Nixon probably survives Watergate. He would’ve been a lot weaker and had a hard time dealing with a Democratic Congress that would’ve expanded their majorities in the House and Senate in 1974 whether he was still President, or not. But he still would’ve been President of the United States for the last two and a half years of his presidency.

And perhaps President Nixon would’ve achieved a few other foreign policy success’. But the taping system is what nailed the President. Where he’s caught on tape ordering the coverup. And the Senate Watergate Committee brought that to the public.

Bill Boggs TV: John Dean Interview With Bill Boggs

Source:Bill Boggs TV.

Source:The New Democrat

You could perhaps blame John Dean for a lot of things, but you can also give give him credit for turning his life around. Here’s a young man, who becomes Chief Counsel of the Richard Nixon White House, at the age of thirty. Who becomes the head of the White House Watergate coverup at 33-34 and ends up becoming the chief witness for the prosecution and the Senate Watergate Committee in 1973. And ends up going to jail for his role in the Watergate coverup. Who gets disbarred from being a lawyer and who now is a very successful writer and offer post-Watergate and prison.

John Dean, who considers Mr. Conservative, or Mr. Conservative Libertarian Barry Goldwater, as one his heros. Has now become one of the chief critics of the Republican Party. And was also one of President George W. Bush’s chief critics and Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief critics. A chief critic of the Republican Party and how they’ve become dominated by the Christian-Right and Far-Right in general. Who was a Republican, at least up to the point he got out of prison. And again, who considers Barry Goldwater to be one his heros and even wrote a book about him.

Similar to Chuck Colson, John Dean, is an example of how people can change. That they can be good solid productive people at their core and then perhaps go through a rough period, perhaps meet and work with the wrong people and end up doing some really bad things. Like covering up one of the biggest political scandals in American history, that leads to a President resigning from office. To avoid being impeached, convicted and removed by Congress. Who pays the price for the bad actions and regroups and moves on with their life. And lives a good productive life as a result. And that to large extent is the story of John Dean.

Caerdsp Roabano: Dick Cavett's Watergate - Secrets of The Dead

Source:The New Democrat

At best I can gather, God that sounds lame, but as best as I know it, President Richard Nixon made the decision to coverup the Watergate investigation the day his Chief of Staff Bob Haldeman gave him his first intelligence briefing about it. The day after the story broke or something close to that. The decision might have been made by President Nixon to coverup the investigation the day the President found out that people from his reelection campaign were involved in the break in. But the Nixon White House made the decision to coverup the story fairly early on in this story. So Dick Nixon sealed his fate and presidency early on in this story because he’s on tape officially deciding to coverup the story. Without the taping system we wouldn’t have known that.

Random Acts of Knowledge: Watergate: The Conspiracy Crumbles (1994)

Source:Random Acts of Knowledge- Senate Watergate Committee Democratic Counsel Sam Dash.

Source:The New Democrat

President Nixon killed his presidency, at least his second term the day he decided to tell his Chief of Staff Bob Haldeman to order the FBI to drop their Watergate investigation. Once Dick Nixon learned that members of his own campaign team and people who also worked for his White House were involved in Watergate, he decided that the way to handle this investigation was to cover up. But covering up Watergate is like trying to stop a river that is flooding, with a mop. You know, good luck and I hope you don’t drown trying to mop your own floor.

Again Watergate by itself, minor league baseball perhaps even rookie ball for players who just graduated high school and looking for a job in the summer. A typical job done by, quite frankly assholes who don’t know what the hell they’re doing. Perhaps are high on Red Bull or something and looking for something to do at around 3AM. But Watergate was a coverup in its own, because it covered up the real scandals in the Nixon White House. The organized crime operation done at the expense of Nixon political opponents.

If Watergate broke and people know the truth behind Watergate, the Nixon presidency goes down as well. That was President Nixon’s calculation. Not something that a politician of Dick Nixon’s talent, skills and intelligence would assume. They would say, “look we’re not involved here, let the Washington PD and FBI needed do their jobs and let’s get back to national affairs”. And that would be the cynical attitude. The good public servant would’ve said, “this is a Washington police story, let them do their jobs and we’ll do ours”.

One of the sad things about Watergate, is that a lot of the men involved were good moral men. Gordon Liddy, a conscience short of being a good person and a case of beer short of being a sane person would be an exception. But most of these men were career lawyers and good family men with wives and kids. And had they never of worked for Dick Nixon, they never end up in a scandal like this. Hell, had Dick Nixon not of become President, he probably ends up running his own New York law firm, or a college professor. A very talented man.

Warner Vod: All the President's Men (1976)

Source:The Daily Post

If you like movies based on true stories, then All The President's Men is a great movie if you like movies with great writing, then All The President's Men is a great movie. If you like movies with great casts, then All The Presidents Men is a great movie. If you like movies with clever quick-witted humor, then All The President's Men is a great movie. If you're interested in current affairs, politics and American history, or you're a junky about those things like myself, then All The Presidents Men is a great movie. There are so many reasons to see this great movie, this movie being the best movie at least as far as I'm concern in Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman's career. And I would add Jason Robards, Jack Warden and Ned Beatty, Jane Alexander to that list all great actors. 


All The President's Men is about the Watergate scandal that happened in 1972 when people working for the Nixon campaign broke into the Watergate building in Washington where just so happens where the Democratic National Committee Headquarters is located. They did that I'm guessing to dig up dirt on Sen. George McGovern President Nixon's opponent in 1972. I doubt they were there to steal wooden pencils or use the bathroom (call it a hunch). And how President Nixon covered up a story that he had no involvement in as far as the operations. But he did cover it up which is an Obstruction of Justice and how two basically no name reporters covered this story for the Washington Post.

Bob Woodward played by Robert Redford and Carl Bernstein played by Dusty Hoffman and If you're a fan of mystery's, then All The President's Men is a great movie. Even though Woodward and Bernstein aren't cops or private detectives, they are newspaper reporters covering a story that fell into their lap basically. The Watergate scandal was probably the dumbest political scandal that ever happened in the Federal Government. And there are plenty to choose from, because first of all it was illegal, it wasn't done by professional criminals. President Nixon got reelected in a landslide winning forty-nine states and around sixty-percent  of the popular vote despite Watergate.

So naturally what does Dick Nixon try to do. Being the great politician and brilliant man that he was, not trying to be funny here, he covers it up, he covers up a scandal that he had nothing to do with and had he just released everything that the White House had and let the FBI do their jobs, Watergate is nothing more than another Washington crime story handled by the Washington Police, President Nixon completes his second term and probably goes down as a great president depending on how he dealt with a weakening economy and the movie All The President's Men is never made. 

I saw All The Presidents Men for the first time when I was in junior high seventh or eighth Grade and didn't have much of an interest in politics at the age of thirteen or fourteen. Which may seem shocking considering how much of a political junky I am now. But I knew I really liked this movie by then and have seen probably twenty times since twenty plus years later because by the time I was eighteen, I was already a political junky keeping up with Congress and the Clinton Administration. I already new I was a Liberal Democrat by then. And this is one of those movies for me, thats worth seeing twenty plus times for the reasons I just laid out.

Carla Anthony Online: ‘Martha Mitchell- The Loud Belle of Watergate’

Source:Carl Anthony Online- Washington insider & gossip queen Martha Mitchell.

Source:The Daily Post

“Martha Mitchell: The Loud Belle of Watergate. For further information, to ask questions or to leave comments, please go to:Carl Anthony Online." 

From Carl Anthony Online

According to Martha Mitchell, the wife of John Mitchell, the scandal that was dubbed Watergate in 1972 by the American media, was planned by the Richard Nixon presidential campaign in 1968. That they were planning to break in to Democratic headquarters before even coming to office. We now know, or at least of heard that John Mitchell is a logical source and suspect as far as who was the person who ordered the 1972 Watergate break in.

Keep in mind a couple of things: John Mitchell was the Attorney General of the United States, the Chief Law Enforcement Officer of the United States and he could’ve if not most likely was the person who ordered the Watergate scandal. And perhaps even hired the crew who did the botched burglary. Mitchell was also the head of the Richard Nixon Reelection Campaign Committee For President in 1972 and a very accomplished lawyer himself, like Dick Nixon.

I mean, these were the people working for Dick Nixon the President of the United States, criminals who would break the law to do what they believed was right. And not just breaking the law, but violating constitutional rights of American citizens as well. And you can see how the President of the United States who came to office with high hopes and having a country behind him and expecting him to good things. And leaving office disgraced and viewed as a criminal.

C-SPAN: Senate Watergate Hearings: John Dean’s Opening Statement

Source:C-SPAN- President Richard Nixon White House Counsel John Dean, testifying in from of the Senate Watergate Committee in 1973.

Source:The FreeState

"Watergate Hearings: John Dean's Opening Statement (1973)"

From C-SPAN

It seems to me anyway and I believe either Bob Woodward, or Carl Bernstein and perhaps both of them have said this, but that John Dean was not only deeply involved in the Watergate coverup, but it’s not until he finds out that President Nixon was going to hang him out to dry on it and have Dean take the wrap for it, that Dean decided: “you know what, I could get in a lot of trouble here. Its time to take my losses and not make this any worst for me and my family and talk to the investigators and prosecutors now. Before I get blamed for the whole damn conspiracy.” And perhaps Dean wasn’t even as diplomatic as that.

Sam Dash, who was the Senate Democratic Counsel on the Watergate Committee, essentially has said the same things. And if all of this true, then Dean isn’t hero in this story, but someone who saved his ass. And if anything got off fairly easy from his involvement in this scandal. Especially since he was White House Chief Counsel and pretty high up in the White House. And as an accomplished lawyer, knew what we was doing was illegal. Paying for the silence of the Watergate burglars. Just to use as an example.

C-SPAN: ‘James McCord Testimony – 1973 U.S. Senate Watergate Committee

Source:C-SPAN- 1972 Watergate burglar James McCord.

Source:The FreeState

“Program Airs May 18, 2013 7:30pm ET:C-SPAN" 

From C-SPAN

This was extremely important the Senate Watergate Committee hearings in 1973. Because it gave Americans an inside look through their TV’s at how their Congress operates. At least on the Senate side of the U.S. Capitol. No cable TV back in 73 and no C-SPAN which came around in 1979. TV cameras weren’t allowed in Congress at all until the U.S. House passed a bill in 1979 to allow networks to film the House of Representatives, the House floor and committee hearings. The Senate did that in 1986. And this just happened to be one of the most important Congressional committee hearings of all-time in the Watergate Committee.

As far as James McCord, how someone with his professional background in the CIA as an electronics expert and the intelligence and education that he must of had, ever get involved in a third-rate burglary where they were caught the night of the failed operation by Washington Police, I may never know. You would have to think someone with his intelligence and education and hopefully character to work for the CIA the way he did must have known better. But that unfortunately can be said about most of the people involved in the Watergate burglary. Good, productive, educated, people, who did something really stupid.

James McCord being one of the failed rookie burglars in this operation. You would think that someone who would order a break in like this would hire people who actually have experience doing operations like this. And not just as spies oversees, but perhaps hiring professional burglars. People who aren’t killers, but people who have long track records of successfully pulling off operations like this to steal things of value. But instead the person who ordered this operation, who I believe was Attorney General John Mitchell, who just happened to be the Chief Law Enforce Officer in the United States, turns to people without any experience in this line of work.

National Geographic: 'The Final Report: Watergate'

Source:National Geographic- The Watergate Hotel and Office Complex in Washington.

"The Final Report: Watergate (National Geographic)" 

From Michael L. Clark

It's hard to imagine a dumber political scandal in American political history (and that's saying a mountain's worth) than the Watergate break-in by President Richard Nixon's reelection committee in 1972. I mean this was the equivalent of robbing a loaf of bread at a local convenient store and taking nothing else. 

But Richard Nixon was so paranoid and his people were so loyal to him and they believed the more political information that you have on your opponents, the better and they believed that President Nixon would've approved of this operation, that they did it for him. But there's no evidence to suggest that President Nixon either gave the approval of the operation, or knew about it before it happened.