FIVE ARRESTED FOR BREAK-IN OF DNC HQ AT WATERGATE HOTEL
Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) On June 17, 1971, the Democratic National Committee Headquarters in the Watergate Hotel was burglarized here in the Nation's Capital. Five intruders were arrested. They included...
James McCord*, Frank Sturgis, Bernard Barker, Virgilio Gonzalez, and
Eugenio Martinez. Three of the five burglars were Cuban exiles and one was a Cuban-American.
The Constitution Daily writes...
"The burglars used tape to hold open the latches on door locks at the DNC office. A sharp-eyed guard, Frank Wills, saw the tape and called police."
The reason for the break-in was to assure President Nixon's re-election in 1972 by collecting information to sabotage the Democratic presidential campaign.
Ron Zeigler, President Nixon's press secretary, referred to the incident on June 19, 1972 as a "third-rate burglary."
As a result of the investigation by the Senate Select Committee on Watergate, President Nixon was forced to resign on August 9, 1974.
JFK+50 UPDATE
Keith Sharon of the L.A. Daily News shares a surprising story about the break-in. The burglars might not have been caught but for the tenacity of a DNC intern named Bruce Givner** who stayed late Friday night, June 16, 1971 making long-distance phone calls.
The break-in was scheduled for 9 p.m. and the burglars were awaiting the GO signal from a man stationed in the Howard Johnson Motor Lodge across the street from the Watergate Hotel. The signal did not come until after midnight when the intern finally left. The long delay contributed to the operation's failure.
*James Walter McCord, Jr. was born in 1924 in Waurika, Oklahoma & educated at Baylor, the University of Texas & George Washington University. JWM served in the USAF Reserve and CIA where he directed, in 1961, a counter-intelligence program against the Fair Play for Cuba Committee of which Lee Harvey Oswald was a member.
**Bruce Givner lives in Bel Air but grew up in Lorain, Ohio. He studied history at UCLA where he enrolled in a summer internship program. BG did not get a "prize" assignment, but was put with the DNC in Washington, D.C.
SOURCES
"10 fascinating facts about Watergate 42 years later," The Constitution Daily, www.blog.constitutioncenter.org/
"The man who stayed late: The Watergate story you've never heard," by Keith Sharon, June 14, 2019, Los Angeles Daily News, www.dailynews.com/
Watergate Security Guard's Notes
June 17, 1962
