"A clip of duct tape" .. This is how the resounding "Watergate" scandal was revealed
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 revelation of the Watergate scandal that caused the resignation of President Richard Nixon, after he informed the police on June 17, 1972.
It turned out that behind the failed "theft" he had just discovered was a high-caliber scandal.
White House officials 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.
On the night of June 16-17, 1972, guard Frank Wells, 24, was on his regular tour of the corridors of the prestigious Watergate Building in the American capital when he noticed a clip of duct tape on the underground door lock that prevented it from being locked.
He was not worried at first, so he removed the tape and put it in his pocket and continued his tour,
but on his return he noticed another scrap and suspected an attempt to steal.
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 preserved 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 likely worked to their advantage, as Alfred Baldwin, who was supposed to be on guard duty during the five-man incursion, did not see them immediately.
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.”
When they entered the building, the two policemen noticed clips of duct tape on several doors.
They realized that something was suspicious.
"The epinephrine went up all of a sudden," Paul Lieber said on ABC, and they discovered offices that had been randomly searched and suspected that the men were still inside the building.
Farha looking for them hall after another.
Suddenly John Paris spotted an arm.
He said, “I felt very scared.
I might have shouted, 'Get out with your hands up, or I'll hit you in the head.'"
"Ten hands rose and they came out," he said.
On the other side of the street, Baldwin was holding his walkie-talkie. "I heard a whisper of a voice saying, 'They arrested us,'" he said.
The five standbys are James McCord, Virgilio Gonzalez, Frank Sturgis, Eugenio Martins and Bernard Parker.
The two policemen 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.
It was signed by Alfred E. Lewis, a journalist who covers police cases.
But Bob Woodward and Karl Bernstein are on the list of his collaborators.
The two young reporters took up the case after that, investigated the details of the file, and won the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for the newspaper through this scandal that toppled Richard Nixon and his presidency.
Follow our latest local and sports news and the latest political and economic developments via Google news