The Big Flop - Watergate: Deep Throat, Deeper Trouble with Langston Kerman and Gareth Reynolds | 42

Episode Date: July 1, 2024

In 1972, five clumsy burglars broke into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Hotel. They were armed with tear gas pens, wads of cash, and enough surveillance equipment to make the NSA blush - and they were immediately caught. What could’ve been written off as the dumbest burglary in history swiftly unraveled through leaks from gossip queen Martha “Mouth of the South” Mitchell and an investigation by reporters Woodward and Bernstein. Suddenly it became clear that the bonkers attempt to cover up the crime went all the way to the top - and President Richard Nixon was going to pay for it. Langston Kerman (Bust Down, The Boys) and Gareth Reynolds (The Dollop, We're Here to Help) put on their bellbottoms and join Misha to untangle the web of lies, the paranoia, and the "Deep Throat” of it all. Follow The Big Flop on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to The Big Flop early and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to The Big Flop early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. When the phone rings at 2 a.m., most people groan and roll over. But not Helen Thomas, the White House reporter with an all-access pass to the juiciest gossip in town. The year is 1972, and she knows this late-night call can only mean one thing. Her favorite source has had one too many and is ready to spill the tea. On the other end of the line is Martha Mitchell,

the mouth of the South, AKA the wife of President Nixon's Attorney General. She's known for two things, eavesdropping on her husband's hush-hush conversations and having no problem blabbing about them all over town. But this time, Martha's got a real doozy. In the dead of night, five men were caught red-handed breaking into the Democratic National Committee offices at the Watergate Hotel.

They had enough surveillance gear to make the NSA jealous, tear gas guns straight out of a spy movie, and even wads of cash. Who brings money to a robbery? But here's the kicker. Martha recognizes one of the burglars. He works with her husband. Just as she's about to dish the dirt to Helen, the line goes dead.

This phone call will lead to Richard Nixon resigning from the presidency years later. He would personally blame Martha and her big mouth for toppling his presidency, but we're about to learn that he's the one who should have kept his tricky trap shut. The biggest White House scandal in a century, the Watergate scandal broke wide open today. And so there is tonight a real persistent and substantial question of whether the president can in fact carry out his responsibilities. Well, I voted for Nixon and unfortunately I think the whole thing has come up and his political credibility is just completely gone.

What did the president know and when did he know it? I welcome this kind of examination because people have got to know whether or not their president's a crook. Well, I'm not a crook. We are on a sinking ship. From Wondery and Atwill Media, this is The Big Flop, where we chronicle the greatest flubs, fails, and blunders of all time. I'm your host, Misha Brown, social media superstar, also known as the Throat Goat,

at Don't Cross a Gay Man, and today we're talking about the scandal gate that started the whole gate thing. Watergate. stuck into the most talked about cases. From the Idaho student killings, the Delphi murders and our recent rundown of the Murdock Saga. Last year, we also started a second weekly show, Shorthand, which is just an excuse for us to talk about anything we find interesting because it's our show and we can do what we like. We've covered the death of Princess Diana, an unholy Quran written in Saddam Hussein's

blood, the gruesome history of European witch hunting, and the very uncomfortable phenomenon of genetic sexual attraction. Whatever the case, we want to know what pushes people to the extremes of human behavior. Like, can someone give consent to be cannibalized? What drives a child to kill? And what's the psychology of a terrorist? Listen to Red Handed wherever you get your podcasts

and access our bonus shorthand episodes exclusively on Amazon Music, or by subscribing to Wondry Plus in Apple Podcasts or the Wondry app. On our show today, we have a comedian, actor and writer. He's a co-creator, writer and star of Bust Down on Peacock. And you stream his comedy album Light Skinned Feelings now. It's Langston Kerman. Welcome to the show. Yay. Thank you. And congratulations on the Throat Goat title. I had no idea. What an honor.

What an honor. Yeah. Self-appointed. Congratulations. I'm proud of you. Thank you. Well, I'm so excited. Also on the show today is an absolutely fantastic returning guest. You last heard him on our episode covering Howard Dean. You know him from his podcast, The Dollop, and we're here to help. Welcome back to Gareth Reynolds. Thank you, Misha. Hi, Langston. I actually had been calling myself the Throat Goat. So this is... Oh, this is hard news for you. You're finding out that the title has moved and you didn't realize. Brutal. It's brutal. We'll figure it out out there.

It's History Month at Wondery, so we're going to look at some flops of yesteryear. And today, we're about to get into our time machine and head back to 1972. Think polyester. Greece is on Broadway. ABBA, Ziggy Stardust, the video game Pong, and, of course, The Godfather. So are we there? Are we feeling it?

Yeah, of course. Yes. Well, before we dive into Watergate, let's just see how well you know your scandals. And let's play a game. So here are the rules. I'm going to name a gate scandal and you tell me what it was. Okay.

The first one, deflate gate. Oh, that's easy. Yeah. First one, deflate gate. Oh, that's easy. The Patriots were accused of taking the air out of footballs for Tom Brady's convenience so that he could throw them better and more efficiently. Yes, it was the New England Patriots allegedly deflating footballs, making them easier to grip and catch during the 2015 AFC Championship game against the Indianapolis Colts. Yeah. All right. Second one, Envelope Gate.

Ooh. Envelope Gate. That sounds like Gareth's problem to me. Come on, Lanks. You have to be serious. I really nailed the first one, so I think that's really... You really did. I would maybe guess that it's when they started mailing the Anthrax.

I don't know. Oh, good guess. I can tell by your reaction that I'm right. No, during the presentation of the Best Picture category at the 2017 Academy Awards, La La Land was announced as the winner. However, the announcement was a mistake and the actual winner was Moonlight.

Of course, of course. All right, one more. Donut Gate. Donut Gate. Oh, this is good. Come on, Langston, take it and run. Donut Gate, we all remember is when Ben Affleck found himself sprawled out after his fifth Dunkin' Donuts run of the day. And everybody was horrified about whether or not we needed to intervene

and help this poor man with his addiction. I got it right. No need to fact check it. Good. You are an actor. Yeah. Unfortunately, as great as that improv was, this is when singer Ariana Grande was observed on video licking unpurchased donuts and stating, I hate Americans, I hate America, that's disgusting. Whoa.

What? You've never heard of that? No. What? That legitimately is the worst of these gates. I think it's worse than Watergate. Lick unpurchased donuts. And put them back.

Didn't I keep them? Just lick them and put it right back on the shelf. Oh my Lord. All right. So to talk Watergate, we need to talk about the man behind it, Richard Nixon. And now you may be thinking, Nixon, this is a comedy podcast. That guy's not funny. Well, before you make that call, let's listen to an appearance on 1968's version of SNL called Laugh In. In this clip, his

only job is to deliver the show's signature line, Sock it to me. Let's watch. MBC, beautiful downtown Burbank. Oh, hello Governor Rockefeller. Oh no, I don't think we could get Mr. Nixon to stand still for a Sock it to me. Sock it to me? Wow. Suck it to me. Suck it to me?

Wow. That was pretty good. Oh my God. Yeah. A lot of added punctuation. Suck it to me? Suck to me? Now the question I guess I have is, do you think that he had never seen the show

and thus had no idea how to say it? Or was he putting a fun Nixon spin on that catchphrase? Well, funny you asked that question because fun fact, according to producers, it took six takes for Nixon to say the line without sounding angry. LAUGHS So that's like the heavily directed one where... And they were like, we got it, I guess. I don't know.

That's his version of gleeful and charming. We got to go to lunch. Yeah, I think, yeah, it's okay. We got it. We got it. Well, that socket to me must have worked on some level with voters because Nixon comes out of the 1968 presidential election with a decisive victory. And that, in theory, should leave him feeling confident that he has the country's support. But Nixon is a strange man at a strange time. By the time Nixon is elected,

there are 500,000 American troops in Vietnam and the country is restless. So he's paranoid and believes all sorts of people are out to get him. He makes an actual enemies list. Nice. Just in case there really are some people after him. Do you have an enemies list? Oh yeah. Yeah, not that I've written down, but certainly there's like a flow chart in my head that

is constantly working and unworking. Come on, share a name, what they do. I mean, I'll start alphabetical if you'd like, but... I would say most of my career is fueled by full-on spite. Oh, yeah. It's fueled by rejection that I'm trying to turn into fuel to shove down people's throats. So, there's a long list. That's a separate podcast. Well, Nixon's list is pretty extensive.

It includes obvious political enemies like Democrat Ted Kennedy, but also some puzzling ones like quarterback Joe Namath, actor Paul Newman, and even Barbara Streisand. Not Babs. Well, Babs, I mean, she's on everybody's list. She's a huge threat, obviously. Burned a lot of bridges there, Barbra Streisand. Imagine writing that list down for him. Like, when you get into like, I think we should probably take a break where he's like, also Barbra Streisand,

she's wronged me. Who else? Checkers, the dog. Who else? Checkers, the dog. Ha ha ha ha. What really makes Nixon go off the deep end in paranoia is the Pentagon Papers fiasco. I mean, now that could be a whole other episode of the big flop, but the long and short of it is a series of documents exposing government lies about Vietnam

that are released to the New York Times by a whistleblower. And Nixon goes ballistic. He never wants an embarrassment like this to happen again. So he decides to create a secret team to do his dirty work. They're known as the Plumbers. Okay. Any guess why they're called the Plumbers? Arm deep in shit. I think that's better. They're called the Plumbers because they fix leaks. Okay. Very diplomatic way of handling the wrong answer, by the way, Misha. Let's not sleep on that. Very... We both feel good and wrong.

Yeah. It's very flat. It sort of feels unimaginative in a way that, like, come on, man, you're president. You could do whatever you want. Dream bigger. You know what I mean? Dream bigger. It also shows you that they never thought they would get caught. Oh, just wait. The audacity of the plumbers and the delusion that they live in. So the plumbers operate out of a basement in a building next to the White House. I'm sure in a house that said, no plumbers here. These members include really bad dudes like Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy. Hunt, for example, was a former CIA officer involved in the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion. And Gordon Liddy liked to brag to White House secretaries how he could kill someone with

a pencil. Maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like killing someone with a pencil very difficult. Oh, I disagree. You think possible? Yeah, I actually think most of us could kill someone with a pencil and that's more why it's unimpressive. You mean that sharpened object? Spike?

I bet I could find some soft parts in you that could make this problem go away. Either way, it's a cool brag. It's a normal man brag. Yeah. While the Plumbers are brought together by a guy named Charles Colson, he claims he'd quote walk over his own grandmother to get Nixon reelected. Boy, these guys have some quotes, huh? They're really, it's like a locker room. It is the locker room talk. For sure. Coulson's also known as the White House Hatchet Man and Nixon's personal

dirty tricks artist. Now, the Plumbers' first task is to break into the psychiatrist's office of the guy who leaked the Pentagon Papers so they can discredit him. Oh, God. I didn't know it started this silly. That's fun. Yeah. That's a... Just you wait. Just you wait, Langston. The Plumbers are known for being idiotic and very sloppy.

They break into the office and Krobar open the drawers. They do find the guy's file, but unfortunately for Nixon, they don't find any good dirt. BLAIR LAUGHS Wait, so they broke in not knowing if there was gonna be anything in this psychiatrist's office, but just knew that he was seeing a psychiatrist and thus presumed that they were gonna be able to find like some nasty dirt on him. I mean, this is 1968. They're like, there's a man going and talking about his feelings.

He must be broken. He's sick. We've got to do something. I also, anytime I've been in therapy, I've always wondered what they're writing down. And I always kind of assumed it wasn't much. Like it was just like, you're not going to open that up and be like, we got him. His dad didn't love him. My name is Georgia King and I am thrilled to be the host of And Away We Go, a brand new travel podcast on Wondry Plus, where we'll be whisked away on immersive adventures all around the world. Where we go, what we do, what we eat, drink and listen to will all be up to my very special

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Follow the Spy Who on the Wandery app or wherever you listen to podcasts. Or you can binge the full season of the Spy Who betrayed Bin Laden early and ad-free with Wandery+. Well, back to Watergate, specifically what everyone refers to as the Watergate Hotel. It's a really big complex right on the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. that's always buzzing with activity. There are apartments, shops, restaurants, a hotel, offices, including at the time the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee, aka Nixon's rival party. On the night of June 17, 1972, Watergate security guard Frank Willis is working his normal midnight shift.

He does his rounds through the parking garage when, almost immediately, something strange catches his eye. There's a piece of masking tape covering the latch of a stairwell door, allowing it to close, but not to lock. Clever. What would you do in that moment? As the guard? Yeah.

I wouldn't be too worried because it's so bush leak. It feels so amateur that it feels like some rascals, maybe some teens had broken in more than adult men working for the most powerful man in the world. Yeah. Probably take it off. I'd probably just take it off. Yeah. I'd be like, okay, we're good.

This is what I'm supposed to... This is my level of security in this job. Yeah. How much is my paycheck? Yeah. I can take the tape off the door. Yes. Well, he thinks weird, and he does exactly that. He pulls the tape off and goes about his rounds.

But when he circles back around to the same spot later, the tape is back. That's a weird move from the Plumbers. That's just, that's bad. That point you gotta be like, all right, look, the tape thing, we can't do the tape thing twice. We're elite. We're an elite force. I do like the idea that one of them probably said, we can't do the tape thing twice.

And then another, the pencil guy was like, no, no, no, you don't get it. They'll never check the tape thing twice. He probably held the pencil up and was like, we're doing it another time. Fucking do it. This is the original Watergate tape. Yeah. So now we know something's up. He calls the police. The police arrive and find five people who have broken into room 214

with elaborate audio bugging devices. Let's take a look at some of the stuff they're caught with. Oh my God. Could you try to describe what we're looking at here? I'm seeing two chapsticks with cords. I presume this is like microphones hidden inside of chapstick containers. It looks like chapsticks with like computer chargers at the bottom of them. Yeah, it's like eye chaps is maybe the best way to describe it.

It's not impressive in any way. It certainly doesn't feel like it was made by the best. Well, the thing is that chapstick doesn't have a wire coming out of it. So that's a big problem with this covert chapstick. That's true. Also, I was thinking like, famously, Democrats don't have dry lips. So maybe they were onto something. They'll never pick up the chapstick. No, they're luby.

Yeah, pretty lubed. Concerningly though, the burglars are caught with lock picks. Even more concerningly, they're also carrying little pen-shaped tear gas guns, which that's actually iconic. And finally, they're holding $2,300 in crisp sequential $100 bills. Why? Which brings me to the question, who brings money into a robbery?

Why would you? What is that for? What? What is this? You got to pay to park. You got a tip. If you got laid, you got a tip. So what makes this terrifying espionage attempt more ridiculous is it turns out this wasn't

the first time the burglars had broken into these offices. That's awesome. The first time, the doors were locked and they didn't bring a locksmith. Hate when that happens. They were like, we should tape it. The second time, they bugged the wrong office. Oh my God.

And the third time, they couldn't install all the listening devices they wanted. So once they get arrested, the burglars are brought to court that same day, all dressed conspicuously in suits, where they claim to be professional, quote, anti-communists. One says he is ex-CIA, that raises some eyebrows. And uh-oh, one of them is the security coordinator for the Committee for the Re-election of the President, often referred to as CRP or if you're making fun of them like me, CREEP. The arrests kick off the Watergate scandal as we know it. Suddenly, this bungled small-scale break-in is now tied to the most powerful person in the United States. Can I get a dun dun dun?

Well, you know what's also great is that Nixon was already like a paranoid lunatic when there was probably nothing to be freaking. Now he has to be. What this has to do to his mental state is shocking. I bet he crossed Barbra Streisand off that list. Real quick. Or it got circled a lot. We need to kill Barbra Streisand. We start there. We go there. At the top, cut the head off the snake.

So now that things are starting to get spicy, I'd like to introduce you to Martha Mitchell. Martha's nicknamed the mouth of the South. I will pause for jokes. Good for her. How about this, Misha, you get throat coat, I'll take mouth of the South. Okay, perfect.

That's nice. Look, in this divided times, we have to be able to split the country up evenly but fairly. And if there's a throat goat in a mouth of the South, you choose who you serve. You choose. Could be a ticket. So she's married to Nixon's attorney general and director of Creep, John Mitchell. Whoa. Martha, herself, is a well-known public figure. Fiercely opinionated, she's always on TV giving interviews,

often on topics she overheard her husband or others discussing privately. I like that kind of confidence. Where you're like, I could blow up the world with the gossip that I've learned, and I'm willing to do it for 15 minutes of airtime. That's awesome. How is Barbara Streisand on the list and this woman isn't? Right. Well, after she hears about the Watergate break-in, Martha realizes she knows one of the burglars. He works with her husband. So she calls the reporter, Helen Thomas, to give her the scoop.

But just as she's starting to tell Helen about the connection, an ex-FBI agent rips the phone cord out of the wall and the line goes dead. Oh, no. Now, while Martha goes missing, Nixon's White House, and specifically Martha's husband, John, say they had nothing to do with the Watergate break-in. Of course, a few days later, Martha reappears. She calls the reporter back and says she was kidnapped. Oh, she didn't learn anything from that kidnapping.

Yeah. They must have like walked her through like the new, they're like, you need to shut the fuck up. It got even worse. They did it and then they almost killed me. Yeah. Sorry, Lorraine, we got disconnected anyway, as I was saying. My God, good for her.

She gets back on the horn and she claims President Nixon's administration doesn't want her to talk and that she had been forcibly sedated to keep her quiet. At the time, most people thought she was making it up, but later the kidnapping is verified. What did they find? I love nobody believing her too. Yeah. It's great. So while Martha isn't able to get a full blown investigation started, she does draw attention

to the unfolding story. And from there, the trail is picked up by two heroic nerds over at the Washington Post, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward. The two of them, they turn out to be the perfect team, reporting the hell out of the story. Days after the break-in, they publish their first piece, revealing a connection between the burglars and Nixon's re-election committee. And then Woodward gets contacted by a mysterious source. He becomes known only by his code name, Deep Throat.

Lot of throat stuff. Yeah, there's a lot of throat stuff. Lot of throat stuff. There's a lot of lube, chap, throat, you know, there's a lot going on. Absolutely. Well, if it sounds porny, that's because it is. The managing editor of the Washington Post decides to call Woodward's source, Deep Throat, in reference to a popular porn movie that came out the week of the break-in. Whoa.

So it was, in fact, a porn reference when they landed this. Okay. And the Washington Post decided to call him Deep Throat. Yes. I thought Deep Throat was decided to call him Deep Throat. Yes. I thought Deep Throat was like, I'm Deep Throat. People are like, buddy, you're coming in strong. Meet me at a parking lot. It's like, relax. They're like, Michael, is that you? Call me Deep Throat. Blow my cover. Deep Throat, the person, is extremely secretive. Woodward and Deepthroat have dramatic late night meetings in a parking garage and use little flags and flowerpots

to signal when to meet. The theatrics pay off because Deepthroat points the reporters in the right direction. And with his help, they uncover more and more people involved in the break-in that are definitely in Nixon's orbit. Sidebar, his true identity remained a secret for 30 years.

So he was a really good undercover source. What was his whole thing? Was he just a dude who knew stuff? How did he come to be Deep Throat? Well, he ends up being a guy named Mark Felt, an FBI official involved in the investigation to begin with. Much better name. Yes.

I'm Mark Felt. What everyone calls me Deep Throat. I'm Mark Felt. Mark Deep Throat Felt. Yeah, when they called him Deep Throat, he was like, yes, finally. Can I wear a cape? All right, Mark, relax. Mark, stop.

Stop it, Mark. So as the stories break, Nixon and the White House, of course, deny everything, but more evidence pops up every day. For instance, Congress uncovers the source of the plumber's money. Oh, no. In the office of Nixon's commerce secretary, there's a literal safe stuffed with $350,000. Oh my God. It's so sloppy.

So we're getting to November of 1972 and Nixon is up for reelection. All of this news must be pretty bad for him, right? Yes. No. Because he wins by a ridiculous landslide. He wins every state besides Massachusetts. That's the thing that is so shocking is that he won in a landslide. Like this did not need to go down. It was just, it's his Barbra Streisand paranoia that made him do all this shit that just starts to unravel.

I think America just really wants a funny president. And it sounds like he was being real funny and and America was like, I don't know, that's silly. That's fun. We were rooting for him. Well, I'll tell you what, it sounds like they eventually did socket to him. He shouldn't have asked for it. Sock it to me. That's a pretty good read. He may still be president, but Nixon, he's not in the clear yet.

Alongside the FBI's investigation and trial of the burglars, the Senate responds to growing concerns about the break in ties to the Senate responds to growing concerns about the break-in ties to the White House and unanimously votes to establish a committee to look into the Watergate scandal. So now regular people are starting to pay attention to this strange case. PBS broadcasts the hearings which outperform regular TV lineups, shows like All in the Family, Sanford & Son, Hawaii Five-O, and Gunsmoke? Right. The burning question is whether Nixon was involved or not.

Tennessee Republican Howard Baker famously asks the same question over and over. What did the president know and when did he know it? By the way, Nixon isn't the only one who's being investigated. Remember Martha Mitchell, the kidnapped politician's wife? Well, among many others, her husband, John Mitchell, falls under suspicion too. And Martha offers this loving defense of her spouse, quote, my husband is so stupid, he hasn't got sense enough to know whether it's raining or snowing outside. He couldn't have done all these things.

Whoa. I mean, it's remarkable how this could never happen today. Like this figure would not exist today. And it's amazing that it's just brutal honesty, because they were trying so hard to keep everything under wraps. And there's just a gossiper who is just old fashioned, just like, my husband's a moron. They had plumbers. They taped the door. Well, the Justice Department assigns a special prosecutor for the investigation. The man assigned to the job is Archibald Cox, a six-foot tall law professor known for a personality that is, quote, ramrod straight. Okay.

Let's go. This is a very strange episode, everybody. Yeah, we're going. Yeah. Not to mention the fact his name has bald Cox in it. Then the Senate hearings reveal a bombshell. Alexander Butterfield. He has the worst name, I would say.

Alexander Butterfield. So he's Nixon's appointments secretary. And he says that Nixon had installed secret recording devices in the Oval Office. As it turns out, Nixon secretly tapes almost every conversation that takes place in the Oval Office. This is it. Leaving aside how bizarre it is to tape

all of your conversations, especially when you're committing crimes, the tapes will settle this once and for all. I've never taped a conversation before, but I'd like to believe that if I did, it would be like extremely necessary. I'm not taping every single one and listening to those back. That's nuts. Yeah. Misha, you're not taping this, are you?

This is just a pang, right? Oh, did we not tell you? Oh. I actually see a microphone if I look closely. I actually see a microphone if I look closely. Well, special prosecutor Archibald Cox asks for them just in case. Nixon is not into this at all. Nixon says no. He claims executive privilege where a president can withhold information in the name of national security and offers

to write up a summary. But Cox insists, as they do. And when Nixon suggests a hard of hearing senator can listen, the prosecutor is fed up and demands to hear the tapes. So what do you think Nixon does? I think he's going to hear the tapes. So what do you think Nixon does? I think he's gonna burn those tapes. There's no way he's handing those bad boys over politely. He fires Cox. Nice.

That's the move. Yeah, you're making me nervous, my man. I'm gonna go ahead and eliminate you from your position. Can I fire you? Yeah, get out of here. You're done. This will come to be known as the Saturday Night Massacre. Over the course of a few hours on October 20, 1973, a lot goes down at the White House. First, Nixon wants to fire Archibald Cox, but because of a twisty attorney government structure, he technically can't.

He needs to tell the attorney general to do it. That guy refuses. So Nixon fires him. The best. So then the next guy comes in and Nixon is like, okay, now fire the special counsel. But that guy refuses. So then he also gets fired. That's cool.

Finally, in comes this guy named Robert Bork, who's like, I'll do it. And Nixon's like, finally, and gets rid of Archibald Cox. Whoa. Bork also goes on to become quite a figure in Roe v. Wade and all that stuff as well. He's known for a lot of stuff eventually. I bet he was on the right side of history in Roe v. Wade. Absolutely, without question. No, this guy ages great.

He ages like a fine vinegar. So do you think this solves all of Nixon's problems? Well considering that we're not doing a podcast about it, yes. So at this point, there is a very real chance that Nixon's presidency could collapse. He's losing support. The public is outraged by the Saturday Night Massacre. 75% of people polled think he was wrong to do it. And the House of Representatives receives 30,000 telegrams sent per day demanding Nixon's

impeachment. Most of them singing, by the way. Yeah, I was just gonna say, how quaint are telegrams? So cute. You there, sir. Well, while Nixon does everything to protect himself, people around him drop like flies. In the end, 40 government officials are indicted or jailed

as a result of the Senate Watergate investigation and various special prosecutors' task forces. So one of those people is John Mitchell, the husband of Martha Mitchell, the mouth of the South, if you will. Judge John Sareka rules Mitchell guilty of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and perjury, sentencing him to 19 months in prison. Damn, that's a long time. Yeah. But, he quips, quote, it could have been a hell of a lot worse.

They could have sentenced me to spend the rest of my life with Martha. Whoa. This marriage. When did divorce become legal? How are they still together? She's like, I don't even have my own bank account. This marriage. When did divorce become legal? How are they still together? She's like, I don't even have my own bank account. I like that they razz each other. I bet that house is cold, but they're committed to each other.

He's now going to jail. It's like, look, the razzing has to stop. So finally, the president gives in and hands over some tapes. Investigators quickly noticed that there's a suspicious 18-minute gap on a crucial tape. When asked why, Nixon's secretary, Rosemary Woods, claims she deleted the 18 minutes. That makes sense. It was a whoopsie. She was transcribing them when she got a phone call and accidentally erased that portion. Sure.

But with the way that these tape machines work, she would have had to keep her foot on a floor pedal the entire 18 minutes she was on the phone to actually erase the recordings. So she's asked to demonstrate how this could have happened while still sitting at her desk. Let's take a look at the photo that was snapped as part of this testimony.

Oh, wow. First of all, do you buy it? No. That outfit? No, I would never purchase that. Ah! No, that's silly. She didn't keep her foot there.

So for the listeners, could you describe her position? Well, she has to sort of stretch herself out like she's trying, she's kind of back to the future ring where she's got one hand stretched out on a phone and then her foot is stretched out in the other direction with it on the pedal. So it's like, it's a very uncomfortable position one would be in.

Dare I say impossible. Yeah, she looks like that sexy painting of Adam reaching out to touch God's finger. Yes. Good. I'm going to say no. No, that's not real. Well, skeptical journalists agree and they call this position the Rosemary stretch, which happens to be my favorite position. Now, no one believes this explanation, and the fight over the tapes goes to the Supreme Court. Nixon's looking pretty guilty, so he's gotta defend his image. And he does that by going on national television and gives this speech. Let's listen.

And in all of my years of public life, I have never obstructed justice. And I think too, that I can say that in my years of public life, that I welcome this kind of examination because people have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook. We're buying it? Nope. He doesn't look good. Not that that's what it should be. He looks stressed. You had to be stressed. It's also like knowing what we know about his enemies list and his paranoia. He had to be just losing his shit. Yeah. No, he wasn't sleeping great. And you can see it in his posture. There's a lot of sort of hunching and sort of scanning the room for anybody that might give him a warm nod,

just to reassure whatever he's saying is true. So by now, I'm sure his paranoia is going through the roof because the Supreme Court rules unanimously, you got to hand over those tapes. And boy, it turns out there are some interesting tidbits on those tapes, some of which are still being declassified even today. But at the time, there's one tape that's of interest to this investigation, and they call it the smoking gun. Let's listen to it. So if you listen real close, you can hear Nixon's advisors explaining his ties to Watergate and deciding how to impede the investigation, is what that was. Of course, Nixon had publicly claimed he had no knowledge of his ties to the break-in until

later and of course, he was not obstructing justice whatsoever. So, basically this tape, he's caught red-handed. Right. And these are tapes he made himself. He made them. What a silly guy. Smart, right? You didn't even have to record this.

You could have just left it alone. Yeah. Only three days after the tapes are handed over, the House Judiciary Committee passes articles of impeachment. So staring down the barrel of impeachment, Nixon appears on TV one more time to make an announcement. So let's watch as he makes a televised address to announce his resignation. To continue to fight through the months ahead for my personal vindication would almost totally absorb the time and attention of both the president

and the Congress in a period when our entire focus should be on the great issues of peace abroad and prosperity without inflation at home. Therefore, I shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow. It's crazy. What would it felt like to watch that then? Crazy. Well, it's also the people really wanted him to leave office. So it's like amazing that you actually see it.

It is. It's shocking. It's a shocking thing to watch the president quit his job. That's a crazy turnaround within a year and a half to go from every state except for one liking you to having to leave because people are so mad at you is crazy. And it's all like, it's like he won in a landslide. Like, he... So all the stuff that takes him down is just his paranoia. Didn't need to do the break-in, should not have been recording

all these conversations. No. You know, it's just shocking. Mm-hmm. Well, notably in that address, Nixon doesn't admit to doing anything wrong. But no matter how much he avoids responsibility, on August 9th, 1974, he

walks out of the White House to a nearby helicopter. Before getting in, he turns to the crowd, waves his arms around in a double peace sign, cracks a big goofy smile, and then flies away. To this day, Nixon is the only U.S. president to resign from office. I would have done the DX suck it. Yeah, I would have done the crotch spike. Yeah, you gotta suck it.

Cockatoo me. What if he said that right before he got on the helicopter? Like, suck it to me? It was like, sock it to me. It was like, go. Okay, all right. That show's not even on TV anymore, man. It's a callback. What, do you hate a callback?

Now people's reactions are mixed. Some believe Nixon's dirty dealings had finally caught up to him. Others feel the charges don't warrant a resignation. In fact, he still miraculously has a 62% approval rating from Republican voters at the time of his resignation. A month later, Gerald Ford, the new president, pardons Nixon. And there's public outcry with accusations of special treatment and a corrupt bargain. Can't imagine. Three years later, Nixon still has not given a significant interview until British journalist

David Frost gets him to agree to a series of talks on camera. Nixon gets $600,000 for the interviews, which is the equivalent of like $3 million in today's money. I didn't know he was getting like big paid off of those. I didn't either. During the 28 hours of interviews, Nixon drops some nice tidbits like, quote, I didn't think of it as a cover up.

I didn't intend it to cover up. Let me say if I intended to cover up, believe me, I'd have done it." You call that a cover up? I could have covered that up way better. Yeah. In a time-honored patriarchal tradition, Nixon blames a woman for all his problems. Nixon says, quote, if it hadn't been for Martha Mitchell, there would be no Watergate. Listen, I'm not a fan of blaming women for our problems. I think that there are a lot of other explanations for what happened here.

You're not wrong. Martha did fuck him pretty bad. Oh yeah. Well the strange thing is, Nixon is never actually implicated in the burglary at the Watergate. If he had told the truth about what he knew, he would never have had to resign. This is where the phrase, it's not the crime, it's the cover-up, comes from. Even today, there are many unanswered questions about the scandal. What exactly was the purpose of the break-in? Why didn't Nixon just destroy the tapes?

What was on that 18 minutes of tape that was deleted? Crazy. We'll never know. That's so crazy. What do you think was on the tape? It had to be horrible. I mean, it had to be just very clear criminal confessions. It just has to be that.

I bet he freestyle rapped for like a long time. Here's a pitch. It's the Soccatumi outtakes. So let's do a little Where Are They Now. For many years after his resignation, Nixon frequently polled as the worst president since World War II. But then George W. Bush took that title during his presidency. frequently polled as the worst president since World War II. But then George W. Bush took that title during his presidency and Obama during his presidency and Trump during his presidency. So basically these days, everyone is the worst.

But I bet Biden's doing fine. I bet nobody said anything negative about him. Rocking and rolling. Nixon died from a stroke in 1994. Martha Mitchell passed away two years after Nixon's resignation. At her funeral, an anonymous person sent a flower arrangement that said, Martha was right. Wow. Woodward and Bernstein wrote up their story of the investigation as a book called All

the President's Men, which was the inspiration for the movie starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman. The Watergate Hotel loves the publicity it got. You can stay in the Scandal Suite where the plumbers monitored the DNC break-in for about a thousand dollars a night. Keycards for the room say there's no need to break in. And lettering on hotel pencils read, I stole this from the Watergate Hotel. While the bathrobes bear the words, cover up. I feel like they're really missing an opportunity with the pencils to be like,

you could kill a guy with this. Yeah, I know. Murder device. So here on the Big Flap, we try to be positive people and end on a high. So are there any silver linings that you can think of that came from this silly little tale? It's honestly, he took himself down. I just don't think it'll happen again like that because there were so many problems with government. The fact that a Saturday night massacre was something we labeled politically versus something happening in Vietnam is very telling. And the Supreme Court being united, there would just not be this.

So my answer is no. I guess if I could, yes, I agree with you, but I do take, there is some optimism or at least a warmth that I take in seeing a country unite around sort of the absurd choices of a president and his men. There's something kind of nice of it being like, hey, but we all agree that was crazy, right? Let's go ahead and just nail this one shut and move forward. Yeah. Following the scandal, there were a lot of ethics and public disclosure reforms that were passed, whether they work or not, whether they're effective, we're all shaking our

head no, but they did pass. Now depending on your political leanings, this could be a silver lining or not, but the Presidential Records Act that seems to have tripped up former President Trump was established in 1978 as a result of Nixon's attempt to keep his secret recordings private. And it's working perfectly against Trump. The system works. He's not cruising at all.

So now that you both know the story of Watergate, would you consider this a baby flop, a big flop or a mega flop? I'm going to say that this was a mega flop largely in that Nixon did so much of it to himself. That like this all could have truly been avoided even after the stupidity of his plumbers. He could have just been like, I don't know them, I'm just going to keep on cruising. And instead he just kind of shot himself in the face, which is crazy. I agree. It is a mega flop own goal.

It just shows the level of paranoia this guy was going through. He did it all to himself. Recording every conversation as the president is inane. Recording every conversation and then hanging out with Martha afterwards. The two, the combination ruined his life. Well thank you so much to our unimpeachable guests, Gareth Reynolds and Langston Kerman for joining us here on The Big Flap.

And thanks to all of you for listening. We'll be back next week to take a deep dive into one of the wilder post-exoneration career changes, O.J. Simpson's short stint as an author and his book, If I Did It. Bye. Bye. Bye. If you like the big flop, you can listen early and ad free on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey.

The Big Flop is a production of Wondering and At Will Media, hosted by me, Misha Brown, produced by Sequoia Thomas, Harry Huggins, and Tina Turner. Written by Anna Rubinova. Engineered by Andrew Holtzberger, with support from Zach Grapone. Our story editor is Drew Beebe. Our managing producer is Molly Getman. Our executive producers are Kate Walsh and Will Malnati for At Will Media.

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