Watergate: Timeline of the Investigation, June 1972 to August 1974
A phase-by-phase chronology of how the scandal unfolded, with notes on where press reporting moved the story.
Phase 1: The Burglary and First Reports (June to Aug 1972)
- June 17 (early hours): Five men are arrested inside the DNC headquarters in the Watergate complex: Bernard Barker, Virgilio Gonzalez, Eugenio Martinez, Frank Sturgis and James McCord. A guard noticed tape holding a door latch open at about 12:30 a.m., removed it, found it freshly retaped on his next round and called police. They wore business suits and surgical gloves, which struck early reporters as odd for common burglars. They carried bugging gear, lock picks, two 35mm cameras, dozens of rolls of film, pen-style tear-gas devices and about $2,300 in crisp $100 bills with consecutive serial numbers. The sequence mattered: bills in sequence can be traced to one source, and investigators later followed them to a Florida bank account belonging to Barker. The tracing was done by Martin Dardis, an investigator for the Dade County state attorney, not by the Post.
- June 17 (arraignment and bail hearing): Asked his occupation, McCord says he is a former CIA employee. The CIA link comes out here, and Bob Woodward, under a year into his job at the Post, is in court.
- June 18: Press: The Washington Post front-page story reports the arrests, McCord’s CIA past and that he is CRP’s security coordinator. CRP chair John Mitchell says McCord is not operating on the campaign’s behalf. Woodward, called in by city editor Barry Sussman, covers the court hearing, and Bernstein also works the story.
- June 19: Press: Reporters connect the burglars to E. Howard Hunt, a former CIA officer and White House consultant, after his name and a White House phone number turn up in the burglars’ address books, the first documentary thread from the burglars toward the White House. Woodward telephones Hunt, who ends the call abruptly, and Bernstein confirms the burglars’ calls to Hunt through telephone records. Press Secretary Ron Ziegler calls it a “third-rate burglary attempt.” In April 1973 he will describe earlier White House statements as “inoperative,” which becomes a byword for evasive language.
- June 20: A recorded Nixon-Haldeman conversation from this day is later found to contain an erased stretch of 18½ minutes.
- June 23: Nixon and Haldeman discuss having the CIA tell the FBI to curtail its investigation on “national security” grounds. This is the later “smoking gun” tape.
- July 1: Mitchell resigns as CRP head.
- Aug 1: Press: The Post traces a $25,000 campaign cashier’s check into a Watergate burglar’s bank account, linking the money to CRP. The check came from Kenneth Dahlberg, a Midwest finance chair for the campaign, and had been deposited in Bernard Barker’s account at a Florida bank. Bernstein goes to Miami and persuades Dardis to let him see Barker’s bank records, where the check stands out. Woodward then phones Dahlberg, who admits the check and says he gave it to campaign finance chairman Maurice Stans. Both reporters later describe this story as the point where their rivalry turned into real teamwork.
- Aug 29: Nixon publicly says White House counsel John Dean investigated and that no one presently employed in the White House was involved.
Phase 2: Denial and the Election (Sept to Dec 1972)
- Sept 15: A grand jury indicts seven: the five burglars plus Hunt and Liddy.
- Sept 29: Press: The Post reports Mitchell controlled a secret fund for intelligence-gathering on Democrats. Before publication, Mitchell tells Carl Bernstein that publisher Katharine Graham is going to get her tit caught in a big fat wringer.
- Oct 10: Press: The Post reports the FBI found Watergate was part of a wide campaign of political spying and sabotage run from the White House and CRP, including Donald Segretti’s “dirty tricks.” Woodward’s confidential source, later revealed as Mark Felt, helped confirm that the burglary was part of a larger campaign, while Bernstein ran down the Segretti trail.
- Oct 25: Press: The Post wrongly attributes grand jury testimony to Hugh Sloan implicating Haldeman. The White House attacks the paper’s credibility. This is a useful case study in sourcing errors: executive editor Ben Bradlee had pushed the reporters to confirm key claims with more than one source, and here that discipline slipped. Both reporters had visited Sloan, the former CRP treasurer, but they did not ask him directly what he had told the grand jury. He would have named Haldeman if asked, but he was never asked.
- Nov 7: Nixon wins re-election in a landslide, carrying 49 states.
- Dec 8: Dorothy Hunt, Howard Hunt’s wife, dies in a plane crash carrying about $10,000 in cash.
Phase 3: The Cover-up Cracks (Jan to April 1973)
- Jan 8 to 30: The burglary trial before Judge John Sirica, nicknamed Maximum John for his heavy sentences, who uses the threat of long sentences to push the defendants to talk. Hunt and the four Miami men plead guilty. McCord and Liddy are convicted. In the same weeks, challenges are filed against the licences of Post-owned television stations in Florida.
- Feb 7: The Senate votes 77-0 to create the Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, chaired by Sam Ervin.
- Feb to Apr: FBI director nominee L. Patrick Gray’s confirmation hearings reveal he gave Dean FBI files. He later withdraws and resigns.
- Mar 21: Dean tells Nixon the cover-up is “a cancer on the presidency” and discusses hush-money demands. This is known only later, from the tapes.
- Mar 23: Sirica reads out a letter from McCord. It says witnesses perjured themselves, defendants were pressured to plead guilty and stay silent, and others were involved.
- April 6: Dean begins cooperating with prosecutors.
- April 30: Haldeman, Ehrlichman and Dean leave, and Attorney General Kleindienst resigns. Nixon gives a televised address accepting responsibility but denying knowledge.
Phase 4: Hearings and the Tapes (May to Dec 1973)
- May 11: The Ellsberg prosecution is dismissed after the Plumbers’ break-in comes to light.
- May 17: The Senate Watergate hearings begin on live TV.
- May 18 to 25: Attorney General Elliot Richardson appoints Archibald Cox as special prosecutor.
- June 25 to 29: Dean testifies that Nixon knew of the cover-up, a claim that is his word against the President’s. His testimony also brings out the White House list of political opponents, the enemies list, which turns the hearings from a story about a crime into a story about the use of power. Throughout, Senator Howard Baker presses one question: what did the President know, and when did he know it?
- July 13 to 16: Aide Alexander Butterfield reveals the White House taping system. Committee staff had asked him about the Oval Office in a routine interview, and on July 16 he tells the televised hearing, in reply to Fred Thompson, that he was aware of listening devices. This is the pivot of the whole affair.
- July 23: Cox subpoenas tapes. Nixon refuses, citing executive privilege.
- Aug 29: Sirica orders the tapes handed to him. Appeals follow.
- Oct 10: VP Spiro Agnew resigns in an unrelated corruption case. Gerald Ford is nominated and takes office Dec 6.
- Oct 20: Saturday Night Massacre. Nixon orders Cox fired. Richardson resigns, Deputy AG William Ruckelshaus is fired, and Solicitor General Robert Bork carries out the firing. Public outrage follows and impeachment talk begins in earnest.
- Nov 1: Leon Jaworski becomes the new special prosecutor.
- Nov 17: Nixon says “I am not a crook,” about his finances.
- Nov 21: The 18½-minute gap is disclosed. Nixon’s secretary Rose Mary Woods says she accidentally erased part of the tape, and photographs of her stretching to reach a foot pedal while holding a telephone draw public ridicule.
Phase 5: Impeachment and Resignation (Jan to Aug 1974)
- Feb 6: The House authorizes the Judiciary Committee’s impeachment inquiry.
- Mar 1: A grand jury indicts seven former aides (the “Watergate Seven”). Nixon is named an unindicted co-conspirator, which becomes public later.
- April 30: Nixon releases edited transcripts, full of “[expletive deleted].” Prosecutors and the committee say they are insufficient.
- July 24: In United States v. Nixon, the Supreme Court rules 8-0 that he must hand over the tapes.
- July 27 to 30: The House Judiciary Committee approves articles of impeachment on obstruction of justice, abuse of power and contempt of Congress.
- Aug 5: The June 23, 1972 “smoking gun” tape is released. Nixon’s remaining Republican support collapses.
- Aug 8: Nixon announces his resignation in a televised address.
- Aug 9: Nixon resigns and Ford is sworn in, declaring that our long national nightmare is over. The suffix -gate, born from the Watergate complex’s name, soon becomes a standard label for scandal around the world.
Aftermath
- Sept 8, 1974: Ford pardons Nixon.
- Jan 1, 1975: Mitchell, Haldeman and Ehrlichman are convicted in the cover-up trial.
- 2005: Mark Felt, the FBI’s second-in-command, is revealed as “Deep Throat.” In Woodward’s telling, he alone dealt with the source and signalled for meetings by moving a flowerpot with a red flag on his balcony, the two met in a Rosslyn, Virginia parking garage, and the source marked a page of Woodward’s newspaper to reply. The line “follow the money” comes from the 1976 film, not the book.
The Escalation Chain in Brief
Burglary → CIA link in court → Money trail to CRP → Dirty-tricks revelations → Denials and election win → Trial and McCord letter → Dean cooperates → Senate hearings → Butterfield reveals taping → Tape fight and Saturday Night Massacre → Impeachment inquiry → Supreme Court ruling → Smoking-gun tape → Resignation