The curiosity of a vigilant night watchman A clip of duct tape on a door in a building housing the Democratic Party headquarters in Washington contributed to the exposure of the Watergate scandal that caused the resignation of President Richard Nixon, following he reported to the police on June 17, 1972.
It turned out that behind the failed “theft” that he had just discovered was a high-caliber scandal. White House officials have tasked five men with planting spyware and taking photos of internal documents in search of information implicating opponents of Nixon.
Two years later, and for the only time in the country’s history, the Republican president, accused of trying to whitewash the case, was forced to resign to avoid the humiliation of his firing.
– «A condition that is glued to the door»
On the night of June 16-17, 1972, 24-year-old guard Frank Wells was on his regular tour of the corridors of the stately Watergate Building in the American capital, when he noticed a clip of duct tape on a door lock in an underground floor that prevented it from being locked.
It didn’t make him anxious at first, so he removed the tape, put it in his pocket, and went on his way.
On his return, however, he noticed another scrap and suspected him of attempted robbery. Immediately call the police. Welles played his role for a few seconds in the early part of “All the President Men,” starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman.
“I found a scrap of duct tape on a door and called the police for a search,” he wrote in the Watergate Register in the National Archives.
The police came to the scene “within a minute or a minute and a half,” police officer John Barrett told ABC News in a 2017 interview.
He was with his colleague Paul Lieber in civilian clothes.
This probably worked to their advantage; Alfred Baldwin, who was supposed to be on guard duty during the five-man incursion, did not immediately see them. Perhaps he was interested in watching a horror movie on TV.
“He was staring at the television set,” Barrett said. It was too late when he told the others, so they ran away and hid like mice.”
– Adrenaline
When they entered the building, the two policemen noticed clips of duct tape on several doors. They realized that something was suspicious.
“The adrenaline has gone up all of a sudden,” Paul Lieber said on ABC.
They discovered offices that were randomly searched and suspected that the men were still inside the building. Farha looking for them hall following another.
Suddenly John Paris spotted an arm. He said: “I felt very afraid. I might have screamed (Get out with your hands up, or I’ll hit you in the head). “Ten hands rose and they came out,” he said.
Across the street, individual Baldwin was holding his walkie-talkie.
And he narrated: “I heard a voice whisper saying: They arrested us.”
– tear gas
The five are: James McCord, Virgilio Gonzalez, Frank Sturgis, Eugenio Martins and Bernard Parker.
The two officers quickly realized that this was not an “ordinary event”, as John Barrett asserted.
He explained that the five men were wearing uniforms and ties “with listening devices, tear pens, a lot of film reels, equipment used to repair doors and locks, and thousands of dollars in $100 bills.”
On June 18, 1972, The Washington Post published its first article on the subject.