Woodward: It was like the oracle had come down.īrokaw: At any point do you say to yourself, Woodward, "What the hell have I got myself into here?" Woodward had never disclosed the exact location and never taken anyone there - until now. He ordered Woodward to change cabs on his way there, to walk the last several blocks, and to make sure he wasn't being tailed. in a parking garage in Rosslyn, Va., just across the Potomac River from Washington. “Deep Throat” began insisting on meeting at 2 a.m. If “Deep Throat” wanted to meet, he would draw a clock on page 20 of The New York Times delivered each day to Woodward's apartment. If Woodward wanted a meeting, he needed to move a flower pot with a red flag on the balcony of his apartment. And "Deep Throat" proposed an elaborate, clandestine scheme for their face-to-face meetings. The reporters could feel the pressure building, and so could "Deep Throat." He told Woodward they both had to be extremely cautious, that they should never talk on the telephone. And Nixon loyalists denied every story, furiously attacking the Post day in and day out. Federal prosecutors on the case didn't seem to be finding any larger conspiracy. This was high stakes journalism, going after the White House and Woodward and Bernstein were relatively low-level staffers. The Post editors were anxious about the Watergate stories. “Deep Throat” was the title of a very popular and very pornographic film released in 1972. Kind of by accident, it just kind of came out because it was on deep background. Woodward: At this point the managing editor had given him that very unfortunate name. In his notes on his secret source, Woodward referred to him as “X,” or "M.F." or “my friend.” But Howard Simons- one of Bob's bosses- came up with a more colorful name: "Deep Throat." There is a lot here.” Clearly, this has gone from two or three on the Richter scale to 100. Nixon ordered to tell the FBI, which was investigating, to back off.īut Woodward's secret source encouraged the young reporter to press on. It would be learned only later from the Nixon White House tapes that the president himself ordered his chief of staff, Bob Haldeman, to cover up the reasons for the Watergate burglary. And we were very concerned about that, that the investigation be very limited," says then-White House counsel John Dean. "One of the first things we did after the Watergate break-in, and one of our concerns was, was where this investigation would go. What they didn't know was that the White House was trying to limit that investigation. They knew the FBI was also investigating. It gave us a special sense of responsibility. And obviously we were a little awestruck. They both quickly realized that the White House connection was a major development.Ĭarl Bernstein: It was unprecedented. From the beginning, his partner was another young reporter - Carl Bernstein. Woodward wasn't working this story alone. And this is serious.” It was the first White House connection. What does it mean?” And he gave me the first key piece of information saying, “Don't worry. I said, “You know, anyone can have your name in their address book. Woodward: At first, he seemed very nervous, oddly enough. Woodward turned to a trusted source in a high place - a source he had been cultivating for two years, who demanded that he never be quoted or named. Why did two of the burglars carry address books bearing the name of Howard Hunt, a former CIA man who worked in the White House? Liddy went to prison for supervising the Watergate burglary.įor reporters covering the Watergate burglary, there were a lot of questions, but not many answers. Gordon Liddy who worked for the president's re-election committee. "The Nixon administration said, 'OK, we've got sort of a civil war going on here, and we're either going to win this war or lose this war.' And we had no intention of losing that war," says G. All had been targeted for dirty tricks, wiretaps, and break-ins. But at the beginning, Woodward couldn't know that this burglary was part of a much larger scheme, organized in the White House itself: to destroy President Richard Nixon's enemies, real and imagined - the protesters against the Vietnam War, the press, not to mention the Democrats who opposed his re-election.
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