The Mysteries of Watergate
Watergate was a serious American political scandal resulting in the only forcible removal of a U.S. President, Richard Nixon. After seemingly exhaustive investigative reporting by the Washington Post and dozens of books and movies on the scandal since, there are many questions left unanswered. Through this podcast series, The Mysteries of Watergate, lawyer, author and historian John O’Connor methodically presents the lingering questions, central truths and inconvenient facts of the scandal so we can finally solve the mysteries of Watergate. Get the new "The Mysteries of Watergate: What Really Happened" book from Amazon here: https://tinyurl.com/2p9h8985
Episodes
36 episodes
Ep. 34: Watergate Journalism's Bitter Harvest
Prior episodes have shown that the Nixon Presidency, churlishly cynical though it may have been, was the victim of deceitful journalism by the Washington Post which cast it far more villainously than deserved.Was the harm of thi...
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24:15
Ep. 33: Watergate Journalism, The Seeds of Our Discontent
Clearly the full and correct Watergate story was not reported by the Washington Post. Often a journalist simply gets a story wrong while acting in good faith. But if the Post was willfully deceitful in its Watergate repo...
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Episode 33
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29:28
Ep. 32: A Lid on Liddy
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 hon...
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Episode 32
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30:24
Ep. 31: Baking Baker
As impeachment was closing in on President Nixon, the CIA could, it seemed breathe a sigh of relief, as it had skillfully and luckily, with the unstinting help of the Washington Post, navigated rocky shoals. The Mullen cover cont...
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Episode 31
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39:23
Ep. 30: Stranger Danger, Hiding Stevens and Russell
As of late March 1973, it looked like all the pieces were falling in place for the CIA to avoid exposure of its role in the Watergate scandal and to hide the salacious information actually targeted. If Watergate continued to be viewed as ...
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Episode 30
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26:52
Ep. 29: Misrepresenting McCord's Misconduct
James McCord is a highly intriguing character, if an opaque one. As we described earlier, John Mitchell had wanted a personal security officer, but Alfred Wong of the Secret Service, with thousands of retired agents in D.C., could only fi...
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Episode 29
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25:26
Ep. 28: Blacking Out Blackmail
If the Washington Post was not intentionally covering up the “CIA defense” which we discussed in the last episode, it would blare a headline about it when it was later documented that Howard Hunt, the Watergate burglary supervisor, had...
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23:56
Ep. 27: Covering Up the CIA Defense
In a trial of profound public significance, it is particularly important that the media informing the public of the prosecution cover all impactful claims and defenses. In the first of two episodes on the trial and prosecution of the Wate...
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20:55
Ep. 26: Burying Baldwin
History has paid little attention to Alfred Baldwin, the Watergate wiretap monitor, and his knowledge. That is most likely the result of the Washington Post feigning ignorance of his existence for the crucial first several months...
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Episode 26
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30:58
Ep. 25: Mullen and Company’s Covered Up Cover Contract
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...
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25:32
Ep. 24: Burglary Information Gone Missing
The Watergate burglary and arrests were noteworthy, but the scandal did not heat up or capture the public's attention for four months. So, why does it matter if the Washington Post's widely reprinted burglary arrest reporting was...
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27:21
Ep. 23: Big Questions About Big Journalism
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 p...
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Episode 23
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20:14
Ep. 22: The True Watergate Narrative, Part 2
This second part of our discussion of The Narrative explains how otherwise odd, idiosyncratic evidence from The Mysteries of Watergate fits snugly into the revisionist narrative. This evidence, to the extent disclosed and analyzed correctly,&nb...
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Episode 22
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16:12
Ep. 21: The True Watergate Narrative, Part 1
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 ...
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Episode 21
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24:38
Ep. 20: Deep Throat and the Garage Meetings
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. T...
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22:22
Ep. 19: Analyzing the Evidence
We have presented in the previous episodes solid evidence of hidden motives, veiled intentions and outright deceit, involving an intriguing cast of characters in the Watergate scandal. In this episode we will show how these strands ...
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Episode 19
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24:23
Ep. 18: Liddy, Watergate's Unguided Missile
G. Gordon Liddy’s salience comes from his unmatched centrality to all major factions participating in this odd drama. He worked with the White House, the CIA Plumbers, the Cuban Watergate burglars, John Dean and Jeb Magru...
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Episode 18
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28:23
Ep. 17: Pennington
If Martinez, Russell and Stevens form a triple play of CIA involvement in prostitute taping, Lee R. Pennington is a guilty plea to criminal coverup of deep CIA participation. This episode is packed with facts not contained in any major wo...
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Episode 17
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18:27
Ep. 16: Martinez and the Key
Watergate can only be explained by its target. Yet for the past 49 years the Washington Post and historians have not told us where in the office the burglars were, and what key evidence one burglar tried to get rid of. And who ex...
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Episode 16
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30:52
Ep. 15: Lou Russell, the Sixth Burglar?
Lou Russell is the most intriguing figure in a scandal full of intrigue. Perhaps much like Michael Stevens, his potential role could not have been spun by either the Washington Post or the Senate Watergate Committee in a way that av...
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Episode 15
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21:48
Ep. 14: Michael Stevens, Bug Fabricator
On the night of May 16-17, 1973, Bob Woodward had his most dramatic encounter with his normally cool source Deep Throat. Agitated, hurried, he warned the reporter that “Everyone’s life is in danger!” The dramatic scene is featured in the...
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Episode 14
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27:16
Ep. 13: James McCord, Cipher
While most Watergate histories do not focus on James McCord, except for his dramatic letter to Judge Sirica at sentencing, this enigmatic, “retired“ CIA agent is an important character for those who wish to deeply understand the scandal. ...
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Episode 13
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28:21
Ep. 12: John Dean's Historical Blunder
We know that the first wiretapping and burglary were fruitless. Why did the burglars go in a second time, against the wishes of both Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy? How does Richard Nixon's White House Counsel John Dean fit into this story?&nb...
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Episode 12
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15:39
Ep. 11: The Dog Who Did Not Bark; Jack Anderson and the CIA
One of the lingering mysteries of Watergate is the foreknowledge, or lack of same, of the country’s most famed “muckraker,” syndicated columnist Jack Anderson. Anderson was known as a man with incredibly wide and deep sources at all level...
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Episode 11
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19:37