The Mysteries of Watergate

In this series we have shown solid proof solving specific, discrete Mysteries of Watergate. But humans understand morality through narratives: there is always a moral to the story. In this episode we will add to our series by showing how our specific proofs cohere in a satisfying overall Narrative, explaining what really happened in our country’s most important political scandal.
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Thank you for listening! For more information such as a hyperlinked Cast of Characters, visit themysteriesofwatergate.com. And if you like what you've heard, please leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcast and pick up a copy of the new book, "The Mysteries of Watergate: What Really Happened" on Amazon.

The character Deep Throat, who we now know was Mark Felt, the Associate Director of the FBI at the time of Watergate, is the most intriguing of Watergate characters regarding the journalism so crucial to understanding the scandal. This episode explores the motive and intent of this source when he meets with Woodward in their first all-night parking garage meeting, and thereafter. Why did he do it? Was he out to “get” Nixon or some other end. And did the Washington Post and Bob Woodward capture the essence of this most misunderstood man? Analyzing the work of Mark Felt, this clever, principled man helps us begin our unpacking of the journalism so integral to the scandal, and in so doing gets us started on a journey of understanding what is good for our democracy, and what is not, about today’s “investigative” journalism.
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Thank you for listening! For more information such as a hyperlinked Cast of Characters, visit themysteriesofwatergate.com. And if you like what you've heard, please leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcast and pick up a copy of the new book, "The Mysteries of Watergate: What Really Happened" on Amazon.

All five burglars were involved in the ill-fated CIA-planned fiasco, the Bay of Pigs, and one supervisor, Howard Hunt, was a leader in that abortive Cuban invasion. Since at the time of Watergate, he worked not only part-time at the White House but also full-time at Mullen and Company, a D.C. public relations firm with known CIA ties, an important issue for journalists to examine would have been whether Hunt was an active CIA agent working undercover during the Watergate burglary. Do we have proof that the Washington Post knew of Mullen and Company’s role? And if it did, was that merely a minor failing in its Pulitzer prize-winning work? Or could this omission have potentially world-changing effect?
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Thank you for listening! For more information such as a hyperlinked Cast of Characters, visit themysteriesofwatergate.com. And if you like what you've heard, please leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcast and pick up a copy of the new book, "The Mysteries of Watergate: What Really Happened" on Amazon.

It is not an overstatement to say that American history's most lauded reporting is the Washington Post's Watergate journalism. There is also no doubt as to its earthshaking impact, both impelling the country's only removal of a president, and also inspiring a new brand of journalism and journalists. How is it explained, then, that so many salient facts of the Watergate story were missed, and an opposite impression consistently given? There are big questions for the Washington Post to answer in this podcast series, questions posed in this episode and expounded upon in future episodes as we continue our deep dive into the Mysteries of Watergate.

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Thank you for listening! For more information such as a hyperlinked Cast of Characters, visit themysteriesofwatergate.com. And if you like what you've heard, please leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcast and pick up a copy of the new book, "The Mysteries of Watergate: What Really Happened" on Amazon.

G. Gordon Liddy, a lawyer, former FBI agent and chief operative in the White House Plumbers unit at the time, was a central focus for Watergate activity, even though he is correctly, and admittedly, seen as a dupe. But he was an honest man, incapable of insincerity, such that his 1980 memoir, Will, is know to be the most candid and honest of the Watergate confessionals. Liddy, stoutly refusing to seem a “rat,” said nothing about the scandal until this book, and therefore it was not until 1980 that the public could learn many behind-the-scenes facts, implications of which required detailed Watergate knowledge to understand. These implications were, properly presented, explosive. The perceived expert on all things Watergate, Bob Woodward, did a full book review, the public’s last best chance to truly understand Watergate. Would this famed reporter truthfully inform the world of these earthshaking facts, and more importantly, explain to the uninformed why these facts are so significant? As news was proceeding to become history, would Woodward and the Washington Post be an aid to truthful history or would they put in historical concrete a false narrative for generations to consume? Tune in to this most enlightening evidence of how our democracy is dying in darkness.
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Thank you for listening! For more information such as a hyperlinked Cast of Characters, visit themysteriesofwatergate.com. And if you like what you've heard, please leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcast and pick up a copy of the new book, "The Mysteries of Watergate: What Really Happened" on Amazon.