WEBVTT - The Fall of Nixon: When the Smoking Gun Goes Blam! 0:00:00.560 --> 0:00:02.760 Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:03.720 --> 0:00:08.000 Elizabeth Dutz Saron Burnett over there just hanging out. 0:00:08.080 --> 0:00:10.320 I don't really want to know what you know, what's ridiculous? 0:00:10.800 --> 0:00:12.160 I do what I want? 0:00:12.200 --> 0:00:14.200 You sit down? Can you listen to this? 0:00:14.280 --> 0:00:14.880 I'm seated. 0:00:15.000 --> 0:00:19.200 It has to do with cocaine. One of your favorite topics, Uh, 0:00:19.560 --> 0:00:21.640 Brazil and sharks. 0:00:21.840 --> 0:00:22.680 Oh, we got this. 0:00:22.680 --> 0:00:25.120 From like a ton of people sent us these articles. 0:00:25.120 --> 0:00:28.240 Apparently researchers in Brazil. They went out and they caught 0:00:28.720 --> 0:00:31.840 thirteen sharks. That's not a big sample set, but whatever. 0:00:32.360 --> 0:00:37.879 All of them had high concentrations of unfiltered cocaine in 0:00:37.920 --> 0:00:42.600 their systems. The level of cocaine. The level of cocaine 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:44.800 found in these sharks were reported to be as much 0:00:44.840 --> 0:00:47.800 as one hundred times higher than in previously observed marine. 0:00:47.479 --> 0:00:48.960 Life Sharknado four. 0:00:49.120 --> 0:00:51.640 Yeah, there's all these Brazilian sharks and it's like off 0:00:51.680 --> 0:00:54.200 the coast of Rheo Dejanio and apparently it's like in 0:00:54.240 --> 0:00:57.680 their watershed there. So what it tells me is a 0:00:57.720 --> 0:01:00.800 lot a lot of police busts were people are like, oh, 0:01:00.800 --> 0:01:01.600 we gotta flush it. 0:01:01.720 --> 0:01:02.639 That's what that tells you. 0:01:02.680 --> 0:01:04.000 And then it goes out into the water. 0:01:05.240 --> 0:01:06.840 It could work. Yeah, I'm into that. 0:01:06.880 --> 0:01:09.280 And it hasn't like metabolized or someone's system. 0:01:09.360 --> 0:01:11.880 That's true. That is true. 0:01:12.080 --> 0:01:14.120 So it's like the stuff that people flush because the 0:01:14.120 --> 0:01:17.440 cops are at the door. I'm with that, okay. And 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:18.920 you know what, that's ridiculous. 0:01:18.920 --> 0:01:22.840 That is totally ridiculous. It is cocaine Bear. Four. Yes, 0:01:23.280 --> 0:01:25.000 Sharknado meets cocaine Bear. 0:01:25.200 --> 0:01:27.720 And then they fall in love with a hippo. 0:01:28.120 --> 0:01:30.840 With one of the cocaine. It's like, can't we all 0:01:30.880 --> 0:01:32.360 just be in love? And I was like, we all 0:01:32.360 --> 0:01:34.000 have coke, you know, so let's do this. 0:01:34.240 --> 0:01:37.319 It's just like a crazy coke fueled interspecies. 0:01:40.520 --> 0:01:44.679 Elizabeth, Yes, did you know this week is? Yes, not today, 0:01:44.720 --> 0:01:47.560 but this some point later this week will be August eighth. 0:01:47.640 --> 0:01:48.720 Sure you ad August eight? 0:01:48.800 --> 0:01:51.160 This it is the eighth day of August. 0:01:51.320 --> 0:01:55.720 Good job. It's also the fiftieth anniversary of the resignation 0:01:55.840 --> 0:02:01.000 of President Richard Nixon. Oh, which is the climax of 0:02:01.040 --> 0:02:04.920 one of my favorite crimes of all time. Well, Elizabeth, 0:02:04.920 --> 0:02:07.720 you're ready to hear the story of Richard Nixon and Watergate? 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:08.480 Oh? 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:09.640 Am, I buckle up. 0:02:09.639 --> 0:02:35.440 Buttercum This is Ridiculous Crime, A podcast about absurd and 0:02:35.600 --> 0:02:37.000 outrageous capers. 0:02:37.160 --> 0:02:42.480 Heiss and cons. It's always ninety percent motor three and 0:02:42.600 --> 0:02:49.520 one percent ridiculous Nixon. Elizabeth, I imagine you know the basics 0:02:49.560 --> 0:02:50.760 about the Watergates Cammel. 0:02:51.000 --> 0:02:51.240 Yeah. 0:02:51.320 --> 0:02:53.520 Yeah. Maybe most folks know that there was a break 0:02:53.560 --> 0:02:56.079 in at the Watergate Hotel. They know I had something 0:02:56.120 --> 0:02:58.400 to do with Richard Nixon and like either his re 0:02:58.480 --> 0:03:00.440 election campaign or if you know what bit more of 0:03:00.440 --> 0:03:04.239 the committee to re elect the president aka creep. Most 0:03:04.320 --> 0:03:08.040 folks have heard of Woodward and Bernstein, right, do you imagine? 0:03:08.200 --> 0:03:09.760 Do you think people know deep Throat? 0:03:10.440 --> 0:03:14.959 Yeah? I think probably more than would know Woodward in Bernstein. 0:03:14.560 --> 0:03:16.560 You think, well, I mean, yeah, I don't know. That's 0:03:16.600 --> 0:03:19.680 why I'm asking you. I don't so, but I just 0:03:19.680 --> 0:03:22.680 want to tell you, Elizabeth, this story goes so much further, 0:03:22.880 --> 0:03:25.240 and it's so damn ridiculous. So I'm just gonna tell 0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:28.520 you all the highlights of Watergate Crime. Excellent, Okay, Now 0:03:28.600 --> 0:03:31.240 for research, I watched All the President's Men. That's all 0:03:31.280 --> 0:03:33.919 I did. Great, I watched it, and I'm kidding. I 0:03:33.919 --> 0:03:36.480 also watched that Oliver Stone movie Nixon. Okay, no, I 0:03:36.480 --> 0:03:40.960 didn't watch that one actually, but whatever thrill I know, right, 0:03:41.480 --> 0:03:43.760 I'm lying like my man Nixon, just right out the gate. 0:03:44.000 --> 0:03:47.040 So let's get into some American history. Yes on the 0:03:47.080 --> 0:03:50.600 morning of June eighteenth, nineteen seventy two, inside the Sunday 0:03:50.640 --> 0:03:53.160 morning edition of the Washington Post, there's this news story 0:03:53.520 --> 0:03:56.560 written by veteran crime reporter Alfred E. Lewis. The story 0:03:56.640 --> 0:03:58.600 runs on the front page. A little story, though, runs 0:03:58.600 --> 0:04:00.960 on the front page, and it says, quote, five men, 0:04:01.040 --> 0:04:02.920 one of whom said he is a former employee of 0:04:02.920 --> 0:04:06.320 the Central Intelligence Agency, were arrested at two thirty am 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:09.160 yesterday and what authorities described as an elaborate plot to 0:04:09.240 --> 0:04:12.560 bug the officers of the Democratic National Committee here here 0:04:12.600 --> 0:04:15.640 being Washington DC. Yeah, that's not all, Elizabeth Old Vett 0:04:15.640 --> 0:04:20.400 reporter Alfred E. Lewis. He included particularly interesting revelations such 0:04:20.440 --> 0:04:22.960 as and I quote, police said the men had with 0:04:23.040 --> 0:04:25.920 them at least two sophisticated devices capable of picking up 0:04:25.960 --> 0:04:30.000 and transmitting oral and telephone conversations. In addition, police found 0:04:30.040 --> 0:04:33.200 lock picks and door Jimmy's also twenty three hundred dollars 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:36.000 in cash, most of it in one hundred dollars bills 0:04:36.000 --> 0:04:38.840 with the serial numbers in sequence. The men also had 0:04:38.839 --> 0:04:41.880 with them one walkie tucky, a short wave receiver, forty 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:45.560 rolls of unexposed film, and two thirty five millimeter cameras. 0:04:46.160 --> 0:04:48.360 And one of the guys is like, look, it's cool, 0:04:48.360 --> 0:04:50.480 I'm in the CIA. I thought they didn't go around 0:04:50.480 --> 0:04:51.440 telling people they were. 0:04:51.480 --> 0:04:52.560 One would think that, right. 0:04:52.640 --> 0:04:53.080 Yeah. 0:04:53.120 --> 0:04:54.600 The men they all get a rando in court that 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:59.600 same Saturday night, right down out, total down. 0:04:59.760 --> 0:05:00.000 Yeah. 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:01.960 So when asked what they do for a living, one 0:05:02.000 --> 0:05:04.679 of the five burglars he tells the judge that they are, quote, 0:05:04.880 --> 0:05:06.159 we're all anti communists. 0:05:07.120 --> 0:05:07.280 Oh. 0:05:07.360 --> 0:05:09.760 Judge's like, okay, Now, it turns out it's pretty much 0:05:09.760 --> 0:05:11.680 exactly true. It's one of the few times people are like, no, 0:05:11.760 --> 0:05:13.040 that's what I do for a living. I am an 0:05:13.040 --> 0:05:16.120 anti communist. Yeah. The five men were Edward Martin of 0:05:16.160 --> 0:05:19.599 New York. He was the recently retired CIA agent who 0:05:19.640 --> 0:05:21.880 is now a security consultant, and that was not his 0:05:21.920 --> 0:05:25.360 real name. His real name was James McCord. So there 0:05:25.480 --> 0:05:29.680 was also Frank Sturgis of Miami. He is a man 0:05:29.720 --> 0:05:32.560 who shows up in all sorts of things, like allegations 0:05:32.560 --> 0:05:36.400 about the GfK assassination anyway, former Cuban military intelligence officer. 0:05:37.040 --> 0:05:40.520 There is Uhennio R. Martinez of Miami, a licensed real 0:05:40.600 --> 0:05:42.880 estate agent and notary public in Florida. 0:05:42.960 --> 0:05:43.520 That's handy. 0:05:44.000 --> 0:05:47.320 There's Verhelio R. Gonzalez of Miami, described as quote a 0:05:47.360 --> 0:05:54.000 pro American anti Castro locksmith. And lastly there was Bernard L. Barker, 0:05:54.160 --> 0:05:56.640 also of Miami, whose wife set her husband told her 0:05:56.640 --> 0:05:59.160 to call his lawyer quote if he hadn't called her 0:05:59.160 --> 0:06:01.240 by three am, that it might mean he was in 0:06:01.279 --> 0:06:05.159 trouble Elizabeth. He was one hundred percent in trouble. So 0:06:05.200 --> 0:06:08.839 what happens next is this is the Watergate break in Elizabeth. 0:06:08.880 --> 0:06:11.320 Do you know the name G. Gordon Liddy? 0:06:11.480 --> 0:06:11.680 Yes? 0:06:11.760 --> 0:06:13.800 I do? Yeah, right, I figured you do. He's a 0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:16.440 wild figure. And just to run through some of his 0:06:17.240 --> 0:06:20.160 bona fides if he will, as a spy guy. When 0:06:20.200 --> 0:06:22.240 he was just twenty nine years old, G. Gordon Lady 0:06:22.240 --> 0:06:25.920 became the youngest bureau chief for the FBI headquarters at Washington, DC. 0:06:26.080 --> 0:06:26.599 How old was he? 0:06:26.720 --> 0:06:30.640 Twenty nine? This brings him into Jay Hoover's whole realm. Right, 0:06:30.920 --> 0:06:33.760 he gets brought into the Hoover Inner Circle. He gets 0:06:33.800 --> 0:06:37.000 so close to Hoover he becomes his ghost rider ghost 0:06:37.120 --> 0:06:37.760 Ride the Whip. 0:06:37.839 --> 0:06:38.080 Yeah. 0:06:38.360 --> 0:06:41.960 Now sixty two g Gordon Liddy. He leaves the FBI 0:06:42.800 --> 0:06:46.000 becomes a patent attorney for his father. Why it seems 0:06:46.000 --> 0:06:48.159 like there's a story there, like the FBI to go 0:06:48.200 --> 0:06:50.160 become a patent attorney. It's kind of like, Man, I'm 0:06:50.160 --> 0:06:52.000 not in a lawyer, but I think people they see 0:06:52.040 --> 0:06:53.920 that as like, oh, you just do the business of law. 0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:55.960 It's an interesting change of. 0:06:56.200 --> 0:06:58.520 It's not a challenging We'll just put it that way. 0:06:58.440 --> 0:07:01.800 Even challenger. No, it's it's just like a pretty big shift. 0:07:01.800 --> 0:07:04.360 That's what I'm saying. Yeah. Anyway, So in nineteen sixty 0:07:04.400 --> 0:07:06.560 six he gets back into the business to fighting in 0:07:06.560 --> 0:07:10.000 the law, becomes a prosecutor in New York. That same year, 0:07:10.040 --> 0:07:12.760 he busts Timothy Leary in a drug raid. Then he 0:07:12.800 --> 0:07:15.240 goes and he busts Donald Fagan and Walter Becker in 0:07:15.280 --> 0:07:17.680 another drug raid. The two were students at the time 0:07:17.720 --> 0:07:20.360 at Bard College. Now the two would later form, obviously 0:07:20.360 --> 0:07:22.760 the band Steely Dan. Did you know they wrote a 0:07:22.760 --> 0:07:24.640 song about getting busted by G. Gordon Liddy? 0:07:24.760 --> 0:07:29.160 Oh, yeah, I make sure to not familiarize myself with 0:07:29.240 --> 0:07:29.760 the catalog. 0:07:29.840 --> 0:07:30.000 Yeah. 0:07:30.000 --> 0:07:31.520 I won't even tell you the song though, but they 0:07:31.520 --> 0:07:34.840 call him Daddy G and the lyrics. Anyways, all this 0:07:34.960 --> 0:07:36.320 busting dirty hippies. 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:38.000 I'm with the late Steve Albini. 0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:40.520 I know you are, Yeah, Fan, I just threw it 0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:44.400 out there because I know you aren't. Anyway, the busting 0:07:44.400 --> 0:07:47.400 dirty hippies. It qualifies G. Gordon Liddy to help out 0:07:47.480 --> 0:07:50.760 Richard Nixon's nineteen sixty eight presidential campaign. I don't know, 0:07:50.800 --> 0:07:53.520 but that's how it goes. So Nixon wins in sixty eight, 0:07:53.560 --> 0:07:55.880 and this carries G. Gordon Liddy into the White House. 0:07:56.280 --> 0:07:58.400 So now he's put in charge of Well, we got 0:07:58.480 --> 0:07:59.880 to put him in charge of something. So what should 0:07:59.880 --> 0:08:01.560 we him in charge of? Well, we got that new 0:08:01.600 --> 0:08:05.000 sky Marshall program they have. G. Gordon Lyddy established the 0:08:05.040 --> 0:08:06.120 sky Marshall program. 0:08:06.160 --> 0:08:07.640 Oh well, well that's you know, because we had all 0:08:07.680 --> 0:08:08.880 those crazy talk about. 0:08:08.720 --> 0:08:11.240 The skyjacking, right, yeah, so he's the one they put 0:08:11.280 --> 0:08:13.560 in charge of fighting the whole trend of skyjacks. 0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:16.080 Well, you know, when you need to fight skyjackers, get 0:08:16.080 --> 0:08:17.880 a former patent line exactly. 0:08:17.960 --> 0:08:21.440 That's who everyone sees that. So at this point, now 0:08:21.880 --> 0:08:24.400 seventy one, right, G. Gordon Liddy, who is a lawyer, 0:08:24.400 --> 0:08:26.640 as I pointed out, he becomes the general counsel for 0:08:26.680 --> 0:08:29.320 the finance Committee for the group called the Committee to 0:08:29.320 --> 0:08:32.960 re elect the President. Okay, and that's the president being Nixon. 0:08:33.120 --> 0:08:36.000 Now on January twenty seventh, nineteen seventy two, G. Gordon 0:08:36.040 --> 0:08:38.680 Liddy has a big idea, Elizabeth. He tells his colleague 0:08:38.760 --> 0:08:42.600 John Erlickman, the chief aid to the President. That guy, 0:08:42.640 --> 0:08:45.080 he loves it. Oh, it's a great idea, Gordon. Now 0:08:45.080 --> 0:08:47.160 together they go on. They sell this big idea to 0:08:47.240 --> 0:08:50.720 the re election Committee's acting chairman, who is Jeb Stewart McGruder. 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:53.560 Then they also tell this other guy who's the Attorney 0:08:53.600 --> 0:08:56.120 General of the United States, John Mitchell. Then they tell 0:08:56.160 --> 0:08:59.480 this other guy, the President's counsel, his personal lawyer, John Deane. 0:08:59.640 --> 0:09:01.920 They all love it, kind of right, someone like no, no, no, 0:09:01.920 --> 0:09:03.679 should we do this? But they're like, I don't know. 0:09:03.760 --> 0:09:06.800 They think about it. Now, what's the big idea, Elizabeth. 0:09:07.280 --> 0:09:09.720 Oh, tell me the big idea that was. 0:09:09.880 --> 0:09:12.880 Let's play spy games like we used to remember Cold 0:09:12.920 --> 0:09:15.679 War when we were young. Let's break into the Democratic 0:09:15.800 --> 0:09:19.640 National Committee's office. We'll bug their offices, take some spy photos, 0:09:19.679 --> 0:09:22.040 look for dirt secrets, we sneak out. It'll be great. 0:09:22.240 --> 0:09:25.640 I love that. They're like, hmmm, I don't know, Okay, yeah. 0:09:25.480 --> 0:09:27.160 Yeah, you think about it for half a second. They're like, 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:29.960 we should totally do this one hundred percent on pro crimes. 0:09:30.040 --> 0:09:32.400 Let's do this, y yeah. So, according to White House 0:09:32.440 --> 0:09:35.800 counsel John Deane, he says this was quote the opening 0:09:35.840 --> 0:09:38.440 scene of the worst political scandal of the twentieth century 0:09:38.440 --> 0:09:40.559 and the beginning of the end of the Nixon presidency. 0:09:40.920 --> 0:09:42.800 Wait to go, g Gordon, lady. There it is so 0:09:42.880 --> 0:09:45.840 First that Attorney General John Mitchell he resigns his Attorney 0:09:45.880 --> 0:09:47.640 General of the US. Why why would he do this 0:09:47.760 --> 0:09:50.120 so that he can run the committee to re elect 0:09:50.120 --> 0:09:53.560 the president. Oh God, I don't get it myself, but 0:09:53.679 --> 0:09:55.880 that's what he did, right, g Gordon, Lady, he gets. 0:09:55.920 --> 0:09:58.120 But in charge of the off the books operation to 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:01.400 do like you know, hijinks. Now, the other security experts 0:10:01.440 --> 0:10:04.880 they're also broad in. We have one James McCord, we 0:10:04.880 --> 0:10:07.440 mentioned him earlier. Then another one who's brought in is E. 0:10:07.559 --> 0:10:12.040 Howard Hunt. Okay, like we gotta talk about E. Howard Elizabeth. 0:10:12.120 --> 0:10:13.960 Let's see Gordon Howard. 0:10:14.200 --> 0:10:16.280 Yes, do you remember Howard down? I'm sure you've heard 0:10:16.280 --> 0:10:16.559 of him. 0:10:16.679 --> 0:10:17.359 Yeah. 0:10:17.480 --> 0:10:21.560 He was the old school Cold War spies spy. Right. 0:10:21.920 --> 0:10:24.520 This guy served as an officer of the CIA from 0:10:24.559 --> 0:10:28.120 forty nine to seventy like Mexico City Bureau Chief when 0:10:28.160 --> 0:10:31.840 like Lee Harvey Oswald was allegedly around there. He's also 0:10:31.920 --> 0:10:35.040 there for the Coon Guatemala in fifty four. He's involved 0:10:35.080 --> 0:10:37.920 in the failed they have Pigs invasion in sixty one. 0:10:37.960 --> 0:10:40.679 The guy, he's just a highlight reel CIA stuff. 0:10:40.800 --> 0:10:40.959 Right. 0:10:41.360 --> 0:10:44.080 If you dig into the assassination of JK, you'll find E. 0:10:44.200 --> 0:10:46.079 Howard hunt all over the place. 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:47.040 Oh really, Oh. 0:10:46.880 --> 0:10:48.839 My goodness, Yes, I think I've told you about it. 0:10:48.840 --> 0:10:50.880 There's people who say they spotted him in a hotel 0:10:51.240 --> 0:10:54.160 room with Lee Harvey Oswald just days before the shooting 0:10:54.200 --> 0:10:56.440 in Dallas. Right, it was like, what was E. Howard 0:10:56.559 --> 0:10:59.839 how doing in Dallas? And you know, anyway, so people 0:10:59.840 --> 0:11:02.200 talk about the deep state, they are thinking of E. 0:11:02.320 --> 0:11:05.160 Howard Hunting, right, and also G Gordon Lady, these are 0:11:05.200 --> 0:11:08.640 the guys Nixon gave us the deep state. Yeah, now, 0:11:08.760 --> 0:11:10.880 at this point when they're busted for their involvement in 0:11:10.920 --> 0:11:13.480 the Watergate break in E. Howard Hunting, G. Gordon Liddy, 0:11:13.520 --> 0:11:16.080 they were working together on a secondary assignment to kill 0:11:16.080 --> 0:11:18.560 a US journalist for one of Nixon's thatchetmen. 0:11:18.720 --> 0:11:22.000 Oh god, oh yeah, so we were in the bonesaw business. 0:11:22.000 --> 0:11:24.720 Like literally, yes, Watergate literally saved the life of an 0:11:24.720 --> 0:11:25.640 American journalist. 0:11:25.720 --> 0:11:26.240 Oh my god. 0:11:26.400 --> 0:11:28.280 The guy's name was Jack Anderson. Right, He was a 0:11:28.320 --> 0:11:31.400 syndicated columnist. He'd written a story just before the nineteen 0:11:31.520 --> 0:11:35.080 sixty Nixon Kennedy election, and in his story he cites 0:11:35.080 --> 0:11:38.240 this secret loan from Howard Hughes, friend of the show. 0:11:38.120 --> 0:11:40.199 Right to we talked about that totally. 0:11:40.000 --> 0:11:43.600 To Donald Nixon, the president's brother. Nixon is convinced that 0:11:43.640 --> 0:11:46.280 this story is why he lost to Kennedy. So once 0:11:46.280 --> 0:11:48.840 he's back in power, re elected in a landslide in 0:11:48.880 --> 0:11:52.400 seventy two, now feeling untouchable, Nixon orders his Deep State 0:11:52.440 --> 0:11:54.280 boys to assassinate Jack Anderson. 0:11:55.080 --> 0:11:58.800 Yeah, totally, and then after that irma bomb back. 0:11:58.840 --> 0:12:01.360 Now they're like, we can't shoot, that'll be suspicious. So G. 0:12:01.480 --> 0:12:03.280 Gordon Lady and I Howard Hunt they come up with 0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:05.240 a hell of a plan. So they're going to douse 0:12:05.240 --> 0:12:08.760 his steering wheel of his car with LSD. He'll be driving. 0:12:08.800 --> 0:12:11.400 Oh man, he'll start tripping. Then he'll crash his car 0:12:11.480 --> 0:12:14.160 and he'll be a fatal accident. People are like, are 0:12:14.200 --> 0:12:15.480 you guaranteest thing? 0:12:15.760 --> 0:12:16.240 Ever? 0:12:16.440 --> 0:12:19.439 Their plan right? Their other plan was to poison his aspirin. 0:12:19.640 --> 0:12:21.480 They're like, wait, they probably don't take enough aspirin. So 0:12:21.480 --> 0:12:23.320 they're like, okay, if that doesn't work, we could just 0:12:23.360 --> 0:12:26.000 break into his house, stage a robbery and then just 0:12:26.040 --> 0:12:28.160 he just went fatal. Oops, And they're like that was 0:12:28.240 --> 0:12:28.800 planned three. 0:12:29.000 --> 0:12:31.800 But like the first one, Oh my god, the LSD car, 0:12:32.200 --> 0:12:34.800 I'm all lay down a banana on the sidewalk with 0:12:34.920 --> 0:12:37.560 the banana peel and then a pile of razor blades 0:12:37.720 --> 0:12:39.160 block away, you know, like. 0:12:39.200 --> 0:12:40.960 You're like hung out with like old hippies. And they 0:12:40.960 --> 0:12:43.160 would tell you something like, man, the government used to 0:12:43.200 --> 0:12:45.160 try to do this stuff. You're like, come on, man, 0:12:45.200 --> 0:12:47.040 and then you hear the government You're like, yeah, I 0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:50.360 take it back. They really were trying to put LSD 0:12:50.440 --> 0:12:54.000 on car steering wheels to kill people would. 0:12:53.920 --> 0:12:55.920 Be afraid to get in the car and drive. What 0:12:56.040 --> 0:12:59.000 if I am dosed with LSD by the government drive slowly, 0:12:59.080 --> 0:13:00.320 they want they want to get me. 0:13:00.440 --> 0:13:02.839 Yeah, there after you, Lilizabeth, and you're like number seven 0:13:02.880 --> 0:13:05.959 on the list. So luckily for this dude, this journalist Anderson, 0:13:05.960 --> 0:13:08.920 the assassination attempt never happens because in seventy two, these 0:13:08.960 --> 0:13:11.480 two cold warriors get locked up in conjunction with the 0:13:11.559 --> 0:13:14.680 Watergate break in. Because the burglars who get busted roll 0:13:14.720 --> 0:13:17.520 over on their bosses, who are I Howard Hunt and 0:13:17.640 --> 0:13:21.000 g Ordon Letty. So there's another key figure, Jim McCord, right, 0:13:21.160 --> 0:13:25.000 the former FBI agent and later CI agent. By seventy 0:13:25.000 --> 0:13:27.280 two he was the head of security for the Committee 0:13:27.320 --> 0:13:29.600 to re elect the President. Now he was also allegedly 0:13:29.640 --> 0:13:34.720 a spy for the Soviet Union. Oh, he's the head 0:13:34.720 --> 0:13:37.599 of security for the committee to re elect Nixon. Was 0:13:37.720 --> 0:13:41.640 apparently allegedly a spy for the Soviet Union. He'd been 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:45.800 compromised in a honey trap. Oh by this really known 0:13:46.240 --> 0:13:49.520 famous psych Soviet honey trapper. So it was going around 0:13:49.600 --> 0:13:52.240 Washington honey trapping people. And then so he would then 0:13:52.280 --> 0:13:54.360 had to help this guy to keep other moles from 0:13:54.440 --> 0:13:56.320 being discovered. So he'd find out was like oh yeah, 0:13:56.480 --> 0:13:58.120 and being the head of security, he was able to 0:13:58.160 --> 0:14:01.000 like work his stuff in the White House. Like anyway, 0:14:01.200 --> 0:14:04.640 these cats were all kinds of deep state, and you say, Elizabeth, 0:14:04.760 --> 0:14:08.600 they were. So here we go. We have G. Gordon 0:14:08.640 --> 0:14:11.040 Liddy's plan to put the Big Idea into play. It 0:14:11.080 --> 0:14:15.800 goes terribly. Now we've met the you know, the cold warriors. 0:14:15.880 --> 0:14:17.920 So let's take a little break, Elizabeth, and when we 0:14:17.960 --> 0:14:20.440 get back, we will break into the Watergate literally and 0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:43.000 see how it went down so poorly. All right, Elizabeth, 0:14:43.000 --> 0:14:43.480 we're back. 0:14:43.560 --> 0:14:44.000 I'm back. 0:14:44.880 --> 0:14:47.840 You you're ready to break into the Watergate hotel. I've 0:14:47.840 --> 0:14:50.880 waited all my life to do this. Okay, we've met 0:14:50.920 --> 0:14:53.760 former Attorney General John Mitchell, White House Counsel John Deane, 0:14:53.800 --> 0:14:56.720 deep state batties G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard him. Well, 0:14:56.720 --> 0:14:59.280 with the Watergate break in, it just wasn't just one 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:03.200 bungled bird. It was actually two break ins. Yeah, because 0:15:03.240 --> 0:15:06.040 turns out this crack team of deep state spies and 0:15:06.080 --> 0:15:09.080 so forth, they required two attempts to bug the Democrats. 0:15:09.480 --> 0:15:12.160 For the first attempt, Jim mccoord, he consults a special 0:15:12.240 --> 0:15:15.840 registry of old spies. It's called apparently the FBI Society 0:15:15.840 --> 0:15:20.840 of Former Special Agents. There's literally a registry like a 0:15:20.880 --> 0:15:24.160 book of old former spies. Magazine, there's there's a movie 0:15:24.160 --> 0:15:26.640 for you, Hollywood, just waiting to be made, the FBI 0:15:26.760 --> 0:15:29.840 Society of Former Special Agents. It's an actual book. Just 0:15:29.920 --> 0:15:33.640 open the book. The movie starts anyway. McCord finds himself 0:15:33.680 --> 0:15:35.200 an old spy in this book, calls him up and 0:15:35.200 --> 0:15:36.600 he goes, hey, you want some side work. I got 0:15:36.600 --> 0:15:38.040 a little piece work for you. And he's like, is 0:15:38.080 --> 0:15:40.400 it wet work? No, man, it's cool. So the former spy, 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:43.280 this guy's name is Alfred C. Baldwin, no relation to 0:15:43.320 --> 0:15:45.640 Alec or Danny Baldwin. The dude used to be a 0:15:45.640 --> 0:15:48.960 bodyguard for the Attorney General John Mitchell's wife, which is 0:15:48.960 --> 0:15:50.160 why they felt they could trust him. 0:15:50.320 --> 0:15:50.480 Right. 0:15:50.560 --> 0:15:52.240 They're like, he's one of our people. He knows how 0:15:52.240 --> 0:15:53.000 we would do stuff. 0:15:53.120 --> 0:15:53.400 Yeah. 0:15:53.400 --> 0:15:55.800 So May twenty eighth, Baldwin and the first crew of 0:15:55.840 --> 0:15:58.640 Watergate burglars they break into the Watergate Hotel. They go 0:15:58.720 --> 0:16:00.360 up to the sixth floor. They plan a bunch of 0:16:00.440 --> 0:16:04.880 illegal wire taps. They sneak back out. Guys, they're high 0:16:04.960 --> 0:16:07.560 five and in the parking lot except for the wire 0:16:07.560 --> 0:16:10.520 taps they places don't work, so they're like, oh man, 0:16:10.600 --> 0:16:12.720 the MIC's done works. They have to go back, break 0:16:12.800 --> 0:16:15.800 back into the DNC office and repair their wire taps. 0:16:16.280 --> 0:16:18.960 What would the other Deep state guys say, I'm telling you, 0:16:19.040 --> 0:16:20.600 what are you gonna say at the conventions? Like, how's 0:16:20.600 --> 0:16:22.880 it going, Bob? Well, let me tell you a story. 0:16:23.040 --> 0:16:25.800 Keep to yourself, I'm telling you, right. So a couple 0:16:25.800 --> 0:16:29.320 weeks later, on a Saturday night, June seventeenth, nineteen seventy two, 0:16:29.440 --> 0:16:32.280 the spy guys break back into the Watergate complex where 0:16:32.320 --> 0:16:35.040 the second time, except things don't go as smoothly the 0:16:35.080 --> 0:16:39.320 second time. You see Elizabeth, their security protocols were pretty 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:42.240 amateurish for a bunch of former spies. Yeah, because okay, 0:16:42.400 --> 0:16:45.200 this is how they get caught. Security guard working late 0:16:45.240 --> 0:16:47.200 at night, he notices one of the doors in the 0:16:47.280 --> 0:16:50.200 underground parking lot is taped open, like at the lock 0:16:50.280 --> 0:16:52.520 part that would come to the It's taped over so 0:16:52.520 --> 0:16:55.040 it'll stay open, all right. He's like, well, I have's 0:16:55.040 --> 0:16:57.320 messed up. You can't have that. He takes it off 0:16:57.360 --> 0:16:59.120 and he goes back on his rounds. Yeah, when he 0:16:59.160 --> 0:17:02.760 comes back, the tape back, he's like, wait, a minute, 0:17:02.760 --> 0:17:05.080 I thought I took this off. He realizes, wait a minute, nope, 0:17:05.080 --> 0:17:07.720 and he calls the cops. He's like, there's hanky stuff afoot. 0:17:07.440 --> 0:17:09.440 Cop, I would have thought that from the jump, oh. 0:17:09.440 --> 0:17:11.200 Yeah, but not him. He thought maybe somebody was trying 0:17:11.200 --> 0:17:13.520 to hold up on the door. But he knows now 0:17:14.080 --> 0:17:16.320 this is somebody who prepaired this. They are currently hope 0:17:16.359 --> 0:17:18.440 but holding open the door at to thirty am yeh. 0:17:18.520 --> 0:17:20.560 So he calls the cops. The cops who answer the 0:17:20.600 --> 0:17:24.320 call are not uniformed cops. Instead, it's three plain clothes 0:17:24.400 --> 0:17:27.720 cops dressed like hippies because they're out busting kids on 0:17:27.720 --> 0:17:30.040 pop possession charges. They're called the bum squad. So the 0:17:30.040 --> 0:17:33.399 bum squad cops show up. These three undercover hippies go 0:17:33.520 --> 0:17:36.720 rushing into the water gate. Meanwhile, on the sixth floor 0:17:36.720 --> 0:17:39.640 there are five men breaking into the DNC. Now these 0:17:39.680 --> 0:17:42.080 guys are spy guys. They have a lookout, right. They 0:17:42.080 --> 0:17:43.960 have this old spy they picked up from the spy 0:17:44.040 --> 0:17:47.159 Yellow Pages. Baldwin, he's watching their six so to speak. 0:17:47.440 --> 0:17:51.000 Where is he? He's across the street at Howard Johnson's 0:17:51.040 --> 0:17:53.200 right in like a hotel. He's on the sixth floor. 0:17:53.240 --> 0:17:55.239 He's watching from a window, just like he told them. 0:17:55.280 --> 0:17:57.520 He's supposed to alert them, but you see, Elizabeth, he 0:17:57.640 --> 0:18:00.040 gets bored. It's two thirty in the morning. There's no 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:03.160 nobody on the streets. There's the streets slows, nothing's going down. 0:18:03.200 --> 0:18:05.399 So the Lookout what does he do? Turns the TV on, 0:18:05.720 --> 0:18:08.919 starts to watch this late night creature feature. It's called 0:18:09.000 --> 0:18:12.119 The Attack of the Puppet People. Now, this was a 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:14.320 nineteen fifty eight black and white horror film. I went, 0:18:14.400 --> 0:18:16.320 I looked it up, and so knock off from the 0:18:16.359 --> 0:18:19.400 previous year's big hit horror film, The Incredible Shrinking Man. 0:18:19.600 --> 0:18:22.439 Oh okay, this flagrant money grab, The Attack of the 0:18:22.480 --> 0:18:25.320 Puppet People, it flips it. This is about a woman 0:18:25.359 --> 0:18:28.000 who takes a job working as a secretary for the scientist. 0:18:28.080 --> 0:18:30.600