![]() Not only were the burglars dressed in suits and ties, but they had bugging devices, tear gas pens, numerous rolls of film, locksmith tools, and thousands of dollars in hundred dollar bills, he said. The police soon realized that this "was not your normal, typical burglary," Barrett said. The 10 hands belonged to James McCord, Virgilio Gonzalez, Frank Sturgis, Eugenio Martinez and Bernard Barker. "In a very soft whisper, I heard a voice: They've got us," he said. "Ten hands went up, and they came out, and that's where the arrest occurred," Barrett said.Īcross the street, Baldwin had his ear to a walkie-talkie. "I scream something to the effect, 'Come out with your hands up or I'm gonna blow your head off.'" "It scared the living bejeezus out of me," he said. They found ransacked offices and suspected that the perpetrators were still present, and started to search for them room by room. "Our adrenaline is pumped," Leeper told ABC. Once inside the office, the two officers found tape on several doors, realizing that something fishy was going on. "He was glued to the TV set," and by the time he warned the others, "it was too late and they had to run and hide like rats," Barrett said.Ī burglary of the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate office complex in Washington in June 1972 grew into a wide-ranging political scandal that culminated in the resignation of President Richard Nixon two years later, in Aug His attention may have been focused on the movie "Attack of the Puppet People," which was being shown on TV. That worked in their favor, as Alfred Baldwin, the man who was supposed to be keeping watch during the break-in, did not seem to notice them right away. ![]() He and fellow officer Paul Leeper were dressed in plain clothes, and were even a little scruffy. Police officers arrived on the scene within "a minute, a minute and a half," one of them, John Barrett, told ABC News in 2017. ![]() Call police to make a inspection," he wrote in a building security officer's log, which has been preserved by the US National Archives. Wills - who plays himself for a few seconds at the beginning of the film "All the President's Men" that chronicles the saga - immediately called police. The tape, it turned out, was placed during a break-in by five men who had been tasked by officials with ties to the White House with placing microphones and taking pictures of documents to find compromising information on Nixon's opponents.įrank Wills, a 24-year-old security guard, was making the rounds at the Watergate building complex when he noticed the tape on a door that prevented it from locking.Īt first, he didn't worry, removing it and continuing working.īut when he returned, so had the tape, leading him to suspect a break-in had occurred. It all began 50 years ago, when a vigilant night watchman noticed a piece of tape on a door of the building where the Democratic National Committee's headquarters was located in Washington on June 17, 1972.Ĭalling the police, he triggered the Watergate scandal that would topple the presidency of Richard Nixon, the only U.S.
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