How long did it take America to find out the DOJ, FBI etc were investigating Watergate?

[uponit7771]

How long did it take America to find out the DOJ, FBI etc were investigating Watergate?

I'm thinking it took a while to lock up the top folk who were involved in Watergate but did it take a while for reports letting America know the alphabet crew was going all in investigating the Watergate case?

I'm reading the Wikipedia time line here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Watergate_scandal

I also looks like congress (senate) back then didn't start "hearings" until 11 months after the "plumbers" were arrested (June 17, 1972).

QUESTION: Was there a lot of stories in the early 70s with what federal agents etc were doing with the top guys (not the people who broke in Watergate) before the senate hearings started?

Thx in advance

[bucolic_frolic]

1. It was a different media landscape back then

Citizens got their news from the wire services which fed radio and newspapers. And there were the 3 networks evening news. No Nightline. No late night news.

I don't think the public was paying attention to Watergate until the House hearings began. A couple guys were detained for a break-in at a business complex in Washington, local police and FBI are investigating. At least that's what I remember. I think there was more spotlight on the Vietnam War and those protests than on any thought of the higher Watergate food chain.

[ms liberty]

2. This is a good question, and I was too young at the time to have any confidence in my memory of it

I was 12-14 when it was all happening, and it was suddenly just this huge news story. I will be interested in seeing the replies here.

[Pas-de-Calais]

3. We only had

ABC
NBC
CBS

Period

[electric_blue68]

6. Plus PBS

[former9thward]

4. Three days after the break in.

The FBI began meeting with Bob Woodward of the Washington Post three days after the break in and leaking investigation details to him. He started writing articles in the Post about it and then other papers followed.

To try and compare the two situations is bad history analogy. During Watergate the DOJ and POTUS were of the same party as the break in defendants. And the White House was actively trying to cover the whole thing up. It was in their interest to go as slow as possible.

Now we have a situation where the DOJ and POTUS are of the opposite party. It should not be in their interest to go slow or cover up anything.

[Poiuyt]

5. One point to remember was that the hearings were televised live

At the beginning, all three networks broadcast the hearings - there was no other programming. We were a captive audience, and people watched them as if it were a soap opera. My grandmother was mesmerized , and I remember her talking about how beautiful John Dean's wife was.

[Autumn]

7. I think it was a few days after the burglary Woodward and Bernstein started getting info from

"Deep Throat" who later turned out to be one of the directors of the FBI. It seemed like a steady drip in the news about the burglary and it grew from there. I think the burglary happened in summer and by fall it was connected to Nixon's people. I still have my book All the Presidents Men. It was a fascinating time watching it all unfold.

[electric_blue68]

9. The movie "All The President's Men" 👍

[Autumn]

10. The movie was based on their book.

[electric_blue68]

11. I missed that you mentioned the original book...

I don't think I knew that this was a movie adaptation.

[Autumn]

13. We watched the movie at the drive in but I fell asleep.

Didn't have to watch it again. I knew how the story turned out.

[electric_blue68]

14. Heh...

My dad and I went to see it.👍

He started me on politics when I was 12 or so, taking me along while he slipped local election flyers under our neighbors apt doors.

[electric_blue68]

8. I was in college so didn't have live TV access...

catch the 11pm.news for recaps.

From Wapo - John Dean implying -

The implication of this testimony: Nixon had a taping system.

The implication of a taping system: The entire coverup was on tape.

A month later, Alexander Butterfield, Nixon’s deputy chief of staff, testified before the committee. He was asked point blank: Was there a recording system in the White House? Yes, he said. And the phones? Yes, he said. And this recording took place all the time? Yes, he said.

“One last question,” Dash said. “To reconstruct the conversations at any particular day, what would be the best way to reconstruct those conversations, Mr. Butterfield, in the President’s Oval Office?”

“Well,” Butterfield said, “in the obvious manner, Mr. Dash, to obtain the tape and play it.”

Things ratcheted up!

The fight to get the tapes, then the x minutes gap!

[blogslug]

12. Not that long

John Mitchell was Nixon's first US Attorney General. As you know, the AG is in charge of the FBI. John Mitchell went to prison.

The AG during the scandal was Richard Kleindienst. From Wikipedia:

On February 15, 1972, US Atty. Gen. John N. Mitchell (R) resigned effective March 1 to work in the Nixon re-election campaign and President Richard Nixon nominated Kleindienst to succeed Mitchell. After having served as Acting Attorney General for a little under three and a half months, his appointment was approved by the Senate on June 12 after an attempt to block the nomination by Ted Kennedy on the grounds of his involvement with ITT, failed.

Unknown to Kleindienst, leaders of the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CRP) had tasked Gordon Liddy with arranging various covert operations, one of which was to be a burglary of the Democratic Party National Headquarters in Washington, DC. Before dawn on a Saturday, five days after Kleindienst was sworn in, James McCord and four other burglars operating on Liddy's instructions were arrested at Watergate complex. Later in the morning Kleindienst was officially notified of the arrests. Liddy, after a phone consultation about the arrests with CREEP Deputy Director Jeb Magruder (who had managed CREEP up until March of that year, and had the most direct organizational authority over Liddy's activities), personally approached Kleindienst the same day at a private golf club in Bethesda, Maryland. Liddy told him that the break-in had originated within CRP, and that Kleindienst should arrange the release of the burglars, to reduce the risk of exposure of CRP's involvement. But Kleindienst refused and ordered that the Watergate burglary investigation proceed like any other case.

He resigned in the midst of the Watergate scandal nearly a year later, on April 30, 1973. This was the same day that John Dean was fired and H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman quit.

[electric_blue68]

15. And don't forget...

The Saturday Night Massacre was a series of events that took place in the United States on the evening of Saturday, October 20, 1973, during the Watergate scandal.[1] U.S. President Richard Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox; Richardson refused and resigned effective immediately. Nixon then ordered Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus to fire Cox; Ruckelshaus refused, and also resigned. Nixon then ordered the third-most-senior official at the Justice Department, Solicitor General Robert Bork, to fire Cox. Bork carried out the dismissal as Nixon asked.[2] Bork stated that he intended to resign afterward, but was persuaded by Richardson and Ruckelshaus to stay on for the good of the Justice Department.[3][4]

The political and public reactions to Nixon's actions were negative and highly damaging to the president. The impeachment process against Nixon began ten days later, on October 30, 1973. Leon Jaworski was appointed as the new special prosecutor on November 1, 1973,[5] and on November 14, 1973, United States District Judge Gerhard Gesell ruled that the dismissal had been illegal.

Hooo, boy - it was like mental "whiplash" with all the breaking news that night!!! 😮

[uponit7771]

17. Hmmm, looks like the feds were on it from beginning and Woodward was reporting on it with

... Bernstein.

Did they report any fed actions against the large fish though ?

I can't tell ... man, I wish I could have known the media was saying back then

[UTUSN]

16. K&R