The Watergate Story

Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, The Watergate StoryThe Washington Post, 18 June 1972 – 9 August 1974.

“”Five Held in Plot to Bug Democratic Offices Here,” said the headline at the bottom of page one in the Washington Post on Sunday, June 18, 1972. The story reported that a team of burglars had been arrested inside the offices of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate office complex in Washington. So began the chain of events that would convulse Washington for two years, lead to the first resignation of a U.S. president and change American politics forever.”

Excerpt from story:

While Nixon cruised toward reelection in the fall of 1972, Woodward and Bernstein scored a string of scoops, reporting that:

• Attorney General John Mitchell controlled a secret fund that paid for a campaign to gather information on the Democrats.

• Nixon’s aides had run “a massive campaign of political spying and sabotage” on behalf of Nixon’s reelection effort.

But while other newspapers ignored the story and voters gave Nixon a huge majority in November 1972, the White House continued to denounce The Post’s coverage as biased and misleading. Post publisher Katharine Graham worried about the administration’s “unveiled threats and harassment.”…