My "Clandestine" Entry into the Watergate
The Watergate break in fascinated me. I had been a Treasury agent and had learned lock picking, bugging, etc., those skills that were so ineptly applied in the Watergate break in June of 1972. I polished many of those skills while with the CIA. Also, in my CIA days I had either met or knew of two of the men involved in the covert operation at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) offices in the Watergate Office Building. I decided to write a magazine article exposing the complete ineptness of the operation, from the choosing by the White House of persons not suited to the operation, to the bungled lock picking jobs, and so on. The night they got caught, the Watergate burglars were back for a second time to repair one or more listening devices that did not work (initial entry was May 28, 1972). Another indication that they were not the clandestine-entry and bugging professionals they claimed to be.
As it turned out, my editor and I decided that there would be too much of a censorship hassle from the CIA with the piece, since I had to submit to the CIA any writings dealing with intelligence work - intended for commercial publication. The article would have described that from personal knowledge and experience, the whole affair was probably doomed from the start. It is a shame, too, that the piece was never published. It would have added some substance to the huge amount of speculation and conjecture by the media, most of whom would not know a rake from a pick from a tension bar (picking tools) or a phone bug from a cockroach. Clandestine lock picking, bugging, and covert photography are composite skills possessed by a relatively small cadre of people. The Watergate burglars were not in that elite cadre.
Here are just a few of the hundreds of observations that would have been included in that article. James McCord, who was charged with planting listening devices in the Watergate had been a security type at the CIA. His contact with bugging devices was to find them in official US installations. As far as I knew, he had no real-life experience in making covert entries to place bugs. I read all of the Watergate Hearing transcripts. In there, McCord's background was amply covered.
I met James McCord only once. We ran a joint training exercise with Technical Services Division (whose job it was to pick locks, plant bugs, tap phones, etc.) and the department within CIA's Division of Security charged with searching for illegal listening devices. We planted some devices and McCord and his associates tried to find them. It should be obvious that planting listening devices and trying to find them are completely different skills.
James McCord was no more qualified to attempt to plant bugs or tap phones at the DNC than an NFL cornerback is qualified to play quarterback. That is unless during his earlier days with the FBI he had been involved in bugging operations, which I have not seen documented. He later wrote a book entitled "A Piece of Tape," which was a reference to the tape used to tape over the bolt on the downstairs door at Watergate, so the team could slip in the back way. McCord was not employed by the CIA at the time of the Watergate break in. He had retired and worked as chief of security for the Committee to Re-elect the President (CREEP).
G. Gordon Liddy, the former FBI man, was quite simply not playing with a full deck. Yes, it takes one to know one. Read his book "Will" (autobiography) if you have any doubt about his grasp of reality. Did you ever listen to any of his talk shows? Case closed. He was retired from the FBI when the Watergate operation was mounted.
E. Howard Hunt had been an operations officer, or case officer, and had retired from the CIA before he became part of the White House "Plumbers." I had occasion to work in South America in a city where he was the CIA Station Chief, although he was out of the country during my sojourn there. He had a reputation of being a loose cannon. He certainly had no direct experience in making covert entries to photograph documents or plant bugs - as far as can be determined. There were specialized units in the CIA to do those jobs. Mr. Hunt had played a key role in the planning for the CIA's Cuban "Bay of Pigs" invasion, and some of the Plumbers were Cuban-Americans whom he had earlier recruited for the Bay of Pigs fiasco.
Hunt and Liddy were not on the team that got caught inside the DNC HQ at Watergate.
Virgilio R. Gonzales, a locksmith, was recruited to do the lock picking. At one point in the break in attempts, Gonzales had to return to Miami to get additional lock-picking equipment. I picked locks for many years and was later the manager of a lock wholesale company where I sold all types of lock-picking gear to locksmiths. The front door lock on the glass doors in the hallway just off the elevators was a garden-variety pin-tumbler lock, one that a competent picker should be able to open within less than a minute, possibly as quickly as 10 seconds if he had scouted the lock type in advance. The team decided, as I recall, to attempt their entry via a door leading to a back stairwell, where there would be less chance of discovery while "picking."
The lock on that stairwell door had a good grade, key-in-knob lock, but it was by no means a high-security lock. This is apparently the lock that Gonzales could not pick and had to fly to Miami for more tools - apparently before the first entry. Any competent locksmith or one experienced in lock picking should have been able to pick that lock with simple, easily-available tools. Although I have met scores of locksmiths who did not come close to having the skill at lock picking that I did, because of my intense training. And locksmiths can use tools that make a lot of noise, such as the so-called "lock-pick gun," because they are normally not trying to hide from anyone. At 2 a.m. in a deathly-quiet building, even dropping a pick on the hard floor sounds like a gong being stuck - to the person who dropped it!
(Update - July 6, 2005: On NBC's "Dateline," where Tom Brokaw went back over some of the Watergate ground with Bob Woodward, there was some footage of lock picks seized from the Watergate burglars. I froze the frame with my DVR and my recollection was refreshed. The lock-picking tools were of the very cheap type sold to locksmiths, generally in a small leather pouch. They were stamped from low-grade steel with rough edges and very little tensile strength. The pick handles were two crude slabs of aluminum riveted to the pick. The tension bars, the part you wedge in the keyway to hold tension on the cylinder as you "pick" the tumblers in the lock, were made from cheap spring steel and bent into an "L" shape. Later, in Dallas, as manager of a wholesale lock company, I sold thousands of these "pick sets" to locksmiths.
Contrast those instruments of the trade with what I and other like me in the clandestine-entry group(s) in CIA used. Our picks were first ground to a rough shape from high-grade steel. Then, the final form was made by hand filing carefully to the desired profile. Finally, the picks were smoothed with Emory cloth, Crocus cloth, and then polished with Jeweler's Rouge. Some picks were of a special design, the likes of which no commercial locksmith ever saw. The handles were often covered in heat-shrink tubing. The tension bars were made from a variety of steels, and again some were like none ever supplied in a conventional commercial locksmith set. Using these finely polished and handcrafted tools, and literally thousands of hours of practice over several years, you could manipulate the inside of a lock with the feel of a concert violinist. We used to sit around the office discussing operations while resting a board in our laps which might contain a dozen different door locks from various countries. We would pick absentmindedly as we talked. Eventually, you developed the "muscle memory" so that you knew exactly how much sideways tension to put on the lock, and when to ease up a bit, possibly when you felt like you had "picked" one pin to its proper height. This gives you some idea of why I hold the locksmith on the Watergate entry team in such contempt.)
Then, there was the matter of the tape placed over the spring bolt on the basement door leading to the back stairwell. This was so amateurish as to be almost not worthy of comment. It was the tape, discovered by a guard, that led to the arrest of the "burglars" inside the DNC office. In summary, the job was mounted by people without the proper skills. Just because you were in the FBI, or the CIA, or had done some locksmith work, did not mean that you could make a successful clandestine entry into a very sensitive office complex. This was the first mistake made by the White House. They hired people with apparently "good law enforcement and intelligence backgrounds." But, they did not necessarily know anything about making covert entries.
The Plumbers were long on B.S. and short on skills. This they proved at least twice. You may remember that the Plumbers also mounted an entry in Los Angeles, California, on September 3, 1971, into the office of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist, Lewis Fielding (Ellsberg had leaked the "Pentagon Papers" to the New York Times). In that so-called entry, they broke a window to get in. They pried open standard file cabinets, which apparently had inexpensive and easily-picked locks, like they were cans of Tuna. As I recall, this was another E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy masterwork of tradecraft. Somewhere I read that they later said that they did not find what they were looking for, so, they trashed the place as a coverup for the break in. If the entry had been truly clandestine, there would have been no need for a diversion. "Clandestine" was a concept foreign to the Plumbers.
The Plumbers outdid themselves in taping the lock and getting caught in Watergate. For those who may not have been adults at that time (or even born yet), the "Plumbers" got their name because Nixon's people hired them to find the source of the many "leaks" to the press during the Nixon administration. Later, they branched out.
My "Break In"
It turned out that shortly after the DNC moved out of their Watergate office suite, I had to be in Washington, D.C. on business. So, I decided to stay at the Watergate Hotel, which adjoins the Watergate Office Building. In fact, G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt holed up in a room at the Watergate Hotel during the break-ins of the DNC offices. As an aside, if you are ever asked to recruit a team of burglars, be suspicious of men who use only their first initial, instead of their given name (G. Gordon and E. Howard!).
For those not familiar with the buildings, there is a Watergate Hotel and adjoining buildings that house offices and apartments (condos)- six structures in all known as the "Watergate Complex." Three of the structures are apartments (condos), and there is shopping, several swimming pools, and a health club. Bob and Elizabeth Dole live there. A Supreme Court justice lives there. Monica Lewinsky once lived there. Nixon's Attorney General James Mitchell (who went to prison as a result of the Watergate coverup) lived there. The list of tenants, past and present, is an incredible list of who's-who in Washington. Bob Dole recently said (July 2003) that he had a "bachelor pad" at the Watergate. After he and Elizabeth got married, he bought the unit formerly occupied by Moninca Lewinsky and her mother, knocked out a wall, and that is where he and Sen. Elizabeth Dole reside today. If you live at the Watergate Complex, there is virtually no need to leave the area with all its amenities, unless you work. Or want to attend a program at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, which is just across the street.
(If you want to see photos of the inside of one of the lavish condos at the Watergate, go to: www.winstonandwinstonrealestate.com. Maybe put in a bid for one of the two Penthouse suites that are available as of June, 2005. And please invite me for a visit.)
In the morning, I went over to the Watergate Office Building and took the elevator to the 6th floor. At the end of floor was the glass wall and glass door to the DNC office suite 600. The offices were apparently empty. I leaned over and looked at the lock in the door. It was a simple pin-tumbler mortise cylinder, the type you screw into the lock mechanism. Ironically, at the time I was an executive in a company that made a majority of these type locks, most of them private-labeled for various lock companies. There was a good probability that my company had made the lock cylinder then on the front door of the now-vacant DNC offices! I probably could have picked it in 10 seconds, one minute tops.
(It is not bragging if you can do it. Not long ago, after picking only a couple of locks in recent years, a friend asked me to get her back into her house, after she had locked her key inside. It took less than one minute. First, I picked the upside-down cylinder in the wrong direction and had to start over - so that is why it took so long.)
I tugged at the door and it opened! The former DNC offices were unlocked. First rule of entry. Never try to pick a lock that is already unlocked. I went in and made a quick tour, making sketches and taking notes. Back to the right was the office of Larry O'Brien, and so on. Around a corner to the left I found a door that obviously led to a stairwell. I opened it and found what was apparently the door the Plumbers entry team had used to make the entry, on at least one of the occasions. It was then that I noted the type and make of lock. (All of my notes are in a box in storage. With several hours of work, I might find them.)
Update: June 23, 2005. I just discovered a Web auction site where it is said that the original key-in-knob lock for the door to the back stairwell at the DNC offices, the one picked by the Plumber's lockman during the entry, is up for auction with a starting bid of $100,000 (www.bid4assets.com/WatergateLock). After the burglars were caught, a locksmith changed the lock on the stairwell door and the lock up for auction is claimed to be the original one he removed from the door. Whatever. It is similar to the type of lock that I saw during my visit on that back stairwell door, the stairwell I used to make my hasty retreat. I have downloaded photos of the lock up for auction. I offer 100 bucks. $100,000? Some idiot will buy it. Maybe, since I found a 1997 article in the Maine Antique Digest about an auction for the same or a similar lock from Watergate. It did not sell on auction day, but a bit later sold for "significantly more that $13,000." Now, the same lock has an opening bid of $100,000. Sounds like California real-estate price escalation. (As of 7-11-05 the auction for the Watergate lock noted above was closed. Reserve not met.)
Just inside the main entry door, and to the left, was a door marked "Library." It was a bare room with plain board shelves rather crudely mounted on the walls. Along the edge of the shelves was a Dymo label and other notations. On the wall, a newspaper cartoon by Herblock still was fastened with transparent tape, with what appeared to be rubber cement at the top. I took out my pocket knife and carefully removed the cartoon. A scanned image of that cartoon is shown later in this piece. There was also a small typewritten note entitled: "The number of delegates at the past seven Democratic National Conventions follow:" The first entry was: 1948- 1234 delegates." The note went up through the year 1972. I carefully removed it. There was also a printed note, like today you can easily do on a laserjet. It said: "Mr. NIXON: THE BUCK STOPS HERE." I removed it. Looking at it today, it was apparently attached with rubber cement, as there is residue only on the back, not along the front edges - as was the case with the other two pieces.
Perhaps the most interesting to me was a yellow Dymo label which said "John F. Kennedy." It was stuck on one of the crude bookshelves where it was obvious books and reports on JFK were kept. It is shown below.
As I came out of the Library, I saw two men in business suits getting off the elevator and heading toward me. They seemed surprised to see me in the former DNC suite. I walked casually to the corner of the interior hall where I knew the back door was located. I turned the corner, opened the door, and ran like hell down the six flights of stairs (I was much younger then). The stairwell door at street level opened into the lobby of the Watergate Hotel. I went to my room and stayed put for a long time.
In looking back, two things simply amaze me. One, that the DNC office, even though it had been vacated, was left unlocked. More amazing were the items I found still attached to the shelves and walls in the DNC Library. By now, everyone knew that this location would become one of the most famous in American history. To leave "souvenirs" on the wall was beyond my comprehension. Now that I have scanned them into a file, I will frame the items I have and maybe include a copy of most of the piece I have written here. An interesting legacy for my children and grandchildren.
Also looking back, I cannot fathom why I did not take a camera with me into the DNC offices. I was a skilled photographer. What I would give now for a photo layout of the office complex, and in particular of the objects on the shelves and walls of the Library - before I removed them. Oh, well, nobody's perfect. Upon reflection, I may not have owned a camera at that time.
Cartoon removed from wall of Watergate DNC Office. Copyright date is 1970 by Herblock. The DNC break ins were in 1972. Presumably clipped from the Washington Post. A newswire release on the opposite side is dated May 4.
Stickers From Watergate DNC Office
John F. Kennedy Dymo label from bookshelf in Watergate DNC Office
While staying at the Watergate Hotel, I called the Washington Post and asked for Bob Woodward or Carl Bernstein. I forget which one came to the phone. I did not give my name and made the call from a phone booth. I said, as I recall, that I had gotten a tip from a Washington law enforcement/intelligence insider who told me of a visit by an attorney to the Watergate burglars in jail. The attorney (whose name I provided) had ties to the White House. The visit was shortly after the arrest and had some obvious bearing on who might be connected with the break in. Thus ended my tiny contribution to that part of history.
That night I was sitting on a stool in a cocktail lounge in the Watergate Hotel portion. I kept looking around the room, obviously making mental notes, and scribbling a few thoughts now and then about my "little adventure" into the DNC offices. A couple sat near me. The lady spoke to me and said that she and her husband had been watching me. She thought that I was a writer, that I might be gathering impressions for something that I was going to write. Was she right? I said, yes. And we all smiled. With a couple of more drinks under my belt, I might have said "do you wanna see the stuff I lifted off the walls in the now vacant offices of the Democratic National Committee?" With about five drinks, I might have told her my name was Bob Woodward, because in those days not many people knew what he looked like. Temperance is a virtue.
Postscript:
Of course, there are components of the Federal government, other than the CIA, who have capable "clandestine entry teams," such as the those at the FBI. You may remember that much of the evidence gained to convict many of the Mafia big shots was obtained by clandestine entries by the FBI to plant listening devices. I found an interesting report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations, April 23, 1976, entitled "Warrantless Surreptitious Entries: FBI 'Black Bag' Break-Ins and Microphone Installations." In the years from 1960 to 1968, there were 394 "Black Bag" operations. From 1969 to 1975, there were 491 entries conducted pursuant to judicial warrants.
In testimony before the committee, one FBI agent, who served on a special squad responsible for installing electronic surveillance devices, stated that in the majority of cases he was able to obtain a key to the target's premises, either from a landlord, hotel manager, or neighbor. In other cases, he simply entered through unlocked doors. He stated that only in a small number of the cases to which he was assigned was it necessary to pick a lock. Things are not so easy when you operate overseas. For example, Europeans are fond of deadbolts with long bars that slide into a keeper. On many of these, the key is rotated perhaps five complete revolutions to drive the bolt deeper. To pick the lock, you have to do it five times for each entry - and pick it closed five times on the way out.
The Chairman of the Senate Watergate Committee was Sen. Sam Ervin of North Carolina. Sometime after the hearings concluded, I wrote him a letter. In that letter I suggested that he consider me as a ghost writer when he wrote his memoirs. I noted that I had attended law school, had been a Federal agent, a CIA agent, a writer and editor. And that I had served twice in North Carolina, once while in the Marines and once as a Federal agent. I enclosed some samples of my writing.
Sen. Ervin wrote me a personal letter in which he said that he would keep my offer in mind. I have not re-read his letter in years, (I am trying to find it in my mess), but as I recall, he said something like he was not sure his life was so exciting that anybody would want to read his memoirs. He was, after all, "just a country lawyer from North Carolina." Among the several books he later wrote was one called "Humor of a Country Lawyer." I regret that after he retired, I did not make a trip to North Carolina and sit on the front porch with the good senator, sip a cool one and trade some tall tales. I know that he was the kind of fellow who would have offered me the hospitality of his front porch. Sen. Ervin died in 1985 at the age of 88.
The Robert Vesco connection:
One report alleged that Frank Sturgis, one of the Watergate burglars, had said that the hush money used to pay off the various people involved in Watergate had come from Robert Vesco, who was on the lam from the U.S. in connection with pending charges of securities fraud. Among other things, Vesco had donated $200,000 to the Nixon campaign coffers. It was alleged that this was a "bribe" to make his problems with the Securities & Exchange Commission go away. In May of 1973, John Mitchell and Maurice Stans were indicted on charges of obstructing an investigation of Vesco after he made a $200,000 contribution to the Nixon campaign. Both men were acquitted of the charges. And you wonder why campaign finance reform is such a hot issue? The argument that giving money to politicians is an exercise of "free speech" is a load of crap. Read our political history.
On December 8, 1972, one of the passengers on United Airlines Flight 553 that crashed was Dorothy Hunt, wife of Watergate conspirator, E. Howard Hunt. It is alleged that she was carrying over $2 million in cash and negotiables she had obtained from The Committee to Re-elect the President (CREEP). And further that she had intended to go to Costa Rica and possibly link up with Robert Vesco. That may be a bit of hyperbole and another example of the wild claims made in all of the "conspiracy theories" surrounding Watergate, the assassination of President Kennedy, etc. Another report stated that Mrs. Hunt was carrying $10,000 in $100 bills in hush money she was taking to someone in Chicago. That seems more reasonable. There is a persistent theory that the airliner, which carried several others who had Watergate connections, was sabotaged.
In the early 1980's, I visited in Costa Rica. One of my ham-radio friends, a prominent man, had much earlier been at the house of Robert Vesco. Somehow the conversation got around to the fact that my friend was a ham-radio operator. He told me that Vesco took him to a shed (or guest house) at the back of his property and showed him a vintage ham-radio transmitter and receiver combination. He offered it as a gift to my friend. It was subsequently restored by another ham-radio friend and it was on that vintage Collins radio that I made many contacts around the world during my several-week stay in Costa Rica.
Vesco was arrested in 1995 in Cuba. The charges are not important, as Castro does not need any justification to arrest anyone. Vesco is apparently still a guest in the Gray Bar Hotel in Havana and is scheduled to be released in 2009 at the age of 74. His Cuban wife, Lidia, was scheduled for release in 2005. I did find a real-estate listing for his old house in San Jose, Costa Rica, which was offered for $1.2 million. Heck of a deal. You should see the place. In the strange bedfellows category. Also swooped up in the raid at Vesco's residence in Cuba was Donald Nixon, Jr., a nephew of President Richard Nixon - through whom Vesco had funneled illegal campaign contributions to Richard Nixon.
Update June 3, 2005:
With the revelation of "Deep Throat," interest in the Watergate break in seems to have been revived. As you look at the scanned images posted above, which I contend I took from the "Library" at the DNC in Watergate, after it was vacated by the DNC, you have only my word for the assertions I make. If you were employed at the DNC in Watergate, or had occasion to visit the "Library" in the DNC, and can remember seeing some or all of the scanned items I presented above, please e-mail me to add your verification that they did exist in the place I said they did. The "Library" was on the left, after you passed through the main door to the DNC suite. The crude bookshelves were mounted on the wall opposite the door of the "Library," and the scanned items shown above were on the wall, or on the edge of one of the bookshelves, which was the case with the JFK Dymo label - for sure. Please mention your job title at the DNC, or as a visitor how you remember the items I scanned and presented above. My grandkids thank you. rcrhotx at yahoo dot com
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Richard C. Rhodes
02/20/97 rev 7/30/2003 rev 6/05/05