How great is it that someone took his or her time to upload this and we get to watch it for free whenever we feel like it..
Easily the best documentary on the Watergate affair. Totally fascinating!
Outstanding historical documentary!! The past is indeed prologue!
Really glad to find this excellent BBC documentary on YouTube. Have watched it many times; always fascinating
This is still the best Watergate documentary ever made. Produced by the BBC and based on the excellent Watergate book by Fred Emery who is also the narrator and series consultant. First broadcast in the UK in May 1994, it was then reformatted and redubbed by Daniel Schorr when shown in the US months later.
A great documentary. I watched it from beginning to end a fitst time and will watch it again a second time. Thanks for uploading it.
Whoever uploaded this has done a signal service to all students of history. It is in amazing archive. I am so grateful to be able to view this.
“His high principles happily coinciding with self-interest”. Hillarious….and sadly true!!!
This is clearly the best program to learn everything about Watergate.
I found this for the first time about a week ago or so. I’ve watched it twice and am now in my third viewing. Thank you for uploading it.
I just binged this. Must be one of the greatest documentaries ever.
This is the best documentary on Watergate . . . excellent momentum; never a dull moment.
Back when the BBC did quality documentaries
No matter how many times I hear the story how this played out,it still amazes me that these highly educated men said ” yeah. That’s a good idea. ” We can do that”. Trump doesnt know enough about Washington to come close to pull something like this off. For todays Democrats to compare trump idiocies which I believe by the way,to Nixon’s crimes is ludicrous. Nixon was a political genius. Just personally flawed
This is real good stuff and it tells all that went on so I give it 1’000’000 out of 10
Will never forget the Saturday Night Massacre. 8 years old at the time and CBS preempted All In The Family for a special news bulletin. You knew this was big stuff. We were all scared as it looked like a coup at the time.
Yes thank you for posting this. Wonderful…what history. Unbelievable.
I was in my early teens and remember the story was all over the BBC (I’m English). I remember thinking Richard Nixon had Pinocchio’s lying nose.
Trust the BBC to do a brilliant job!! Many thanks 🙂
Seen this series a few times and it is always fascinating
“the worst political scandal in history” lol fun times
Great job BBC! At the time I didn’t notice the pattern, but it runs like a political “Fargo” style fiasco. Had Nixon acted immediately to fire, prosecute, and rid himself of all the scum around him he might sailed thought his 2nd term with a respectable reputation. This is a great life lesson – NEVER remain loyal to relationships if they show any sign of hurting you. Friends are far easier to find than repairing a ruined reputation.
I was back from Vietnam when this was taking place and it was astonishing to see so many people lying about so much. When you see someone like Wiggins abandon the Constitution in order to support his party it is enough to make one vomit. I watched this documentary three years ago and believe I enjoyed it even more this time. Maybe, just maybe, we have learned something? Uhmm?
5:13 student describes nixon hobnob 6:03 now let’s all walk back to the whitehouse! 7:28 nixon EO allows domestic bugging, opening mail, etc 8:55 nixon starts plumbers – finds tony ulasewicz down at the track 10:24 nixon’s daughter’s wedding, happiest day of nixon’s wh life. upstaged by pentagon papers in news (cia v nixon) 11:15 kissinger outburst – LEAKS! 12:16 ellsberg worked for kissinger, RAND, ISA 13:35 nixon tries to get docs back from brookings inst by any means necessary 13:45 send in tony ulasewicz! 14:38 john dean (double agent) colson wants to firebomb the brookings inst, ehrlichman maybe we should call it off 15:11 LEAK! #2 15:22 nixon reacts with hubris and hyperbole – polygraphs, names, telephone taps 16:07 nixon wants 1300 staff and cia polygraphed (nixon v cia) 17:11 but the FBI dragged its feet (fbi v nixon) 17:30 nixon hates ellsberg (sent by ISA, inside pentagon. fletcher prouty) 18:01 what about ellsberg? nixon forms plumbers, blocked by fbi 18:26 plumbers deal with ellsberg, the neutralization of ellsberg! 18:56 send in fbi clown liddy and cia clown hunt! 19:56 clowns must have makeup. liddy disguise #1 “bubbles” 20:31 liddy describes the sitch 20:51 their report to the WH concluded that they could break into ellsberg ofc and psychiatrist WOULD NEVER KNOW IT 21:35 NOT TRACEABLE 21:44 AGENT EL MUY MALOS EDUARDO recruits the plumbers from old bay of pigs vets 23:43 hunt: you can do no wrong! 23:55 plumbers first mission: get ellsberg files COVERTLY, NOT TRACEABLE. 24:27 footage of smashed filing cabinet… they left no trace 24:59 it mainlined right back to the president. NOT TRACEABLE 25:18 nixon: the problem here is we didnt have close enough control. (he let cia clown him) 25:42 moles fuck up and fall upstairs, liddy promoted 26:13 nixon in china 26:55 nixon ramps up political intelligence 28:18 liddy wants to kill jack anderson 29:27 liddy’s grandiose GEMSTONE plan. this is the cia in effect telling nixon you cant afford to play with us 30:50 liddy proposes democrats be kidnapped, drugged, taken below the mexican border,… 33:55 any time liddy starts talking about MY CAREER look out, something’s about to go down 40:17 liddy job #2, bug larry o’brien’s ofc at watergate 40:55 back to LIDDY’S CAREER, liddy recruits james mccord of cia and CREEP (NOT TRACEABLE) 41:15 nixon is as far away as possible, moscow summit. cia loves to fuck up arms reduction talks (see: u2 francis gary powers, paris salt talks) 41:50 mccord: frankly so much noise made… see: COVERT 42:33 bugs produced ONLY TRIVIA. another loud operation that accomplished fuckall 42:54 these are worthless we’re going to have to go in again 43:31 liddy job #3, tries to photograph the library of congress. 50 rolls of film, 36exposures ea 44:13 fun fact: rolando martinez gets divorced on the day of the big job… and the judge who divorced him died that night too. aint life weird? 45:50 first sign of discovery, tape on doors removed. abort? hell no, think of MY CAREER 46:56 second sign of discovery, lights on, 3 men inspecting
The big questions about this collosal event remain unanswered. 1): Did the CIA (most of the ‘plumbers’ were former CIA and FBI and had Bay of Pigs connections) deliberalty sabotage that break in and, if so, why? 2): What was so damaging to Nixon that lead to such drastic lenghts to retrieve (perhaps his near mutinous actions against LBJ in securing better peace terms in the event of him becoming President) or more? 3): Was there a multi pronged approach to remove Nixon from Office and who by and why? 4): Did the CIA blackmaill Nixon and If so, why? 5): What was the explosive information in that 4 and half minute deletion from one of his requested tapes and was there an indirect reference to the murder of President Kennedy (‘the whole Bay of Pigs thing’) and perhaps tied to some od the Watergate burglars? For me, Watergate is far from a moment of recent history that the public know all there is to know!
Wonderful documentary!!!!
Nixon’s comments on Agnew are very revealing. Paraphrasing, “even if he was framed, he was going to get it.” Truth meant nothing to him.
Very good doc, another is “Watergate plus 30.”
In a later interview with John Dean, he said that he didn’t think anyone involved in the Watergate affair was actually an evil person, except for one…Gordon Liddy.
E. Howard Hunt and G Gordon. Liddy. Legendary figures in DC politics.
Nobody paid the price , they can all talk casually about there crimes as if it were just some sort of game God KNOWS what other kind of shenanigans these fools were up too
If I had to choose any of these characters to sit down for a beer and a chat it would certainly be Gordon Liddy. The deer reference cracked me up!!
OOOOh – A 4 hour BBC documentary on Watergate!!! — said nobody ever … except for me…. thx for posting.
They say history repeats itself, you know? In my experience, it’s usually worse the second time around.
This is the best on watergate and I have seen them all
Frank Sturgis was one of the 5 burglars who broke into Watergate. Interestingly, Sturgis trained Cuban exiles for the CIA’ invasion of Cuba that resulted in the bay of Pigs. He was also implicated in the Kennedy assassination as was E. Howard Hunt. See Jim Mars’ book that formed the basis of Oliver Stone’s movie, JFK.
the trump administration looked at this scandal and went “HOLD MY MOTHER FUCKING BEER!”
For all of his faults and flaws, his therapist Dr. Huttschnecker, was extremely unprofessional and unethical by discussing his relationship with Nixon.
Thanks for the upload! I can’t belive why Hunt put his finger on this one, liddy i understand, he is a complet idiot like Bill Harvey.
All these years later John Dean is still a self serving crook.
Watergate is such a relaxing American story-
40+ years later… What were documents Nixon wanted? What information did they contain?
It’s so crazy that they went through all of this to face George McGovern.
If he didnt lose his damn mind,he probably would have been the or one of the best modern presidents
4:00:05 Quite a moment
Howard Hunt and Richard Helms knew where all the bodies were buried. Gordon Liddy was an ambitious clown who refused to scrub watergate when he was warned they were rumbled.
BBC does it best
I was in my late teens back then, and it was the peak of my trust in “our” institutions. That trust was finally killed soon afterwards, when Ford pardoned “him”.
Its good sometimes to have a loose cannon on your team like G Gordon Liddy.
Half way through watching this and then found it on the BBC last night, well part 2 anyway.
In a different dimension Nixon and Liddy were a comedic duo who performed together. Like Crosby and Kaye, minus the singing and dancing.
Watching All the President’s Men on TCM now….how the journalists uncover everything….
This is so uncanny. Howard Baker is Devin Nunes today. Investigating and at the same time involved in the coverup.
35:00 – This is the same Larry O’Brien that the NBA championship trophy is named for.
In a few movies the bank robbers use a mask of Richard Nixon, that lead me to do some research on him and now I know why the masks.
One by one Nixon gave his friends up. By doing that he was no longer convincing to serve any public interests – for nobody. Finally his impudence to bend the law makes him to the traitor of public interests he was supposed to serve. I find the description very lively picturing how all this happened and why they could happen.
The worst political crisis? What happened January 6th, 2021, the insurrection, beat that 49 year record.
it seems like James mcord really opened it up… I mean hunt is a criminal and acted how a criminal should, honestly. I would have asked for money 2! But this Mcord guy ️ unbelievable
This is the best documentary about Watergate
Had they WANTED to get caught, they couldn’t’ve come up with a better operation.
2:05:01 Funny how Nixon first words to describe Bob Halderman is “not a Germanic Nazi Storm Trooper”. A Freudian slip?
so it looks like the FBI and the CIA were told to back off this case and it looked like Nixon had know about this from the start of it all
H.R was an extension of Nixon himself fully believed they were exempt from prosecution but at least he was loyal to the president, Haig brought Nixon down, I often wonder how things wouldve been if Nixon stuck with his original choice to replace haldeman with john finally.
I just wanted to know why every single controversy gets called “___-gate” these days
I finally had to turn this off about the tenth time that creep Liddy showed up – who in the world would fall for that guy and give him money and authority? Really – talk about incompetence from the top on down!
I absolutely adore Martha Mitchell. What fun.
With Gordon Liddy so deeply involved, it’s no wonder Watergate blew up into such a shit show.
Anyone know of a dvd or digital location to get a higher rez version of this? Any leads appreciated!
Dean should have taken Liddy up on his offer to shoot him! He was bat shit crazy
Excellent upload!!
Liddy is a real card
I like this!
You know, if they’d have pretended to be high roller democrats engaged in a meeting or something, the cops would’ve left them alone. The eeerie music really highlights how truly dark and twisted this was.
32:13 – Way to make Baltimore look good G!
I could just see G Gordon Liddy in a Monty Python skit
Pandemic viewing. I was in the US during this time. I’ve shaken Nixon’s hand twice (not as a fan). I was at the ’72 Democratic Convention in Miami. I worked in DC. I’ve been to the Watergate. I’ve been in Whittier many times where Nixon lived and went to College. I am a life-long student of history. I’m not new to any of this, but this is the BEST documentary I’ve seen about this time period and these events. Much more informative, to the point, and factual than anything I’ve seen produced in the United States. Truthfulness isn’t something the US is good at. BBC got the criminals of the time reading from their notes. Good stuff! Nixon continued playing the victim until his death. Sad that nothing was learned by the country or it’s people from this about protecting democracy. Now a President can incite an insurrection that includes murder and plans to kill the Vice President, others and take hostages and it doesn’t even get a hearing.
35:34 Is there a copy of the memo about O’Brien and Hughes online somewhere?
In 1973 I was a college student working at Johns-Manville in Nashua NH making asbestos sheetrock and facing for building exteriors that started out looking like mud and when we were done with it looked like polished stone, basically a laminate.Most of the people there were what Nixon had labeled “the Silent Majority”. This documentary took me back to that time when my late afternoons, 3pm on were looking at the Nixon or Watergate hearings. They monopolized television.So when some of those co-workers started grumbling and saying the bums(Nixon) gotta go.. That was when I believed it was over for “Tricky Dicky”The biggest tragedy was LBJ dropping out of the race in 1968 and not seeing his peace plan thru. Nixon gave the world 5 additional yrars of war in S.E. Asia. What a shame.
The absence of any sense of irony at all is laughable in that Administration. Nixon told Richardson “ so you’ve decided to put personal interest over the public.” HAHAHA Then that noted idiot Hague called Bork a “great patriot, much more so than his two predecessors.” Jesus lord save us from fools like this. Has the Republican Party produced any honorable Presidents since Eisenhower? I guess Ford was ok, but he pardoned Nixon, which was pathetic cronyism.
But, since he did in 73,4. All we can do is wonder that had he won in 60 & JFK had won in 64 or 8 how Vietnam would have played out.
The similarities between 37 and 45 are amazing. Paranoid people making decisions without the interest of the country in mind.
G. Gordon Liddy is an inefficent, melodramatic lunatic. How anyone thought he should be involved in a covert mission is baffling.
I watched this because of all that’s happening in the USA today. I now understand why people keep drawing similarities between Trump and Nixon although I think Nixon was smarter than Trump. I wish you well America you deserve better leaders.
Lincoln couldn’t tell a lie — Nixon couldn’t tell the truth — Trump can’t tell the difference….
Helen Thomas looked like a scary old lady in my lifetime, but she actually looked like a normal lookin chick back then
Nixon was his own worst enemy. Such a remarkable man and president but sadly this is his legacy.
Bud Krogh “found himself” in the Secret Service command post. How does that happen?
Trump has demonstrated there needs to be a mental health test for Presidents.
liddy formed his own d.c. fighting ring while inside..a true badass.and a realist.made of shards of welded metal .. i would know..a great doc..
Liddy = psychopath
Elliott Richardson. Archibald cox. American heroes. Can’t wait for the next documentary on the Trump impeachment.
Very Good. The BBC aways makes the best documentaries
Deep into to video it’s revealing that Sam Dash was concerned that Nixon’s tapes might vindicate him and expose Dean, the star witness, as a liar. If an investigator is really looking for the truth, that is not a worry one would ever have. That’s only something an adversary would worry about. So, Dash reveals that his mission was to get Nixon and the others… not to sort out the truth.
That reporter really need to ask Nixon what he thought the protestors were trying to say? Idiotic question.
hard to believe any serious place would hire liddy
Its not supposed to be funny but is hilarious
Still astonished how people were astonished at Nixon given previous 4 Presidents. Did he do something novel?
Watergate seems absolutely quaint considering Trump’s illegal and unethical activities, and those of his campaign staff.
John Dean is the worst kind of lawyer to have. Snitch!
Nixon is not the worst example of abuse or power in history anymore. Trump makes Nixon look like a Quaker choirboy.
All this happened or snowballed out complete control because ole’ Gordo recruited McCord.
The Gerald Ford Museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan, has that file cabinet that was vandalized. HAHA, what a stupid thing to try to do.
Bork was a shameless stooge.
Most powerful country. The most powerful lies.
Nixon 2021 ..
So pentagon papers=wikileaks. Interesting.
american justice Hahahaha A joke
Why are they publicly confessing all this stuff–especially Ulasewicz?
Do they talk about killing hunt’s wife dorothy in the plane crash in this one? Those thugs killed like 200 people just to shut her up
Conspiracys don’t happen in America they said, were free they said
Liddys about as right as conservatives get. Im conservative. Wow. Talk about goofy
Hoover did not do Nixon’s dirty work?
Liddy’s elevator didn’t go all the way to the top.
51:08, “The Cover Up”
He is runnin the GOP and runnin in 2024 in the ditch
Nixon”s “gesture of conciliation??????” He went down there and talked about football and surfing. These were serious young people who were pissed off that he had promised to stop the war, and then escalated it. “Conciliation,” my hairy white ass.
What? Kleindienst could have shoveled dung directly into the fan and did not?
The same actors as in the Kennedy assassination
Fast forward to 2018.
What a crook
I’m willing to bet that all of the guys who broke into watergate, were in Dallas on Nov.22 1963!!!!
I think they all played to the history books, ie! bulshiters,fame-seekers all of them.
These people sound like 5 year olds playing a game of Sherlock Holmes. Can’t wait to get some serious adults running our country. I am sick of THE IDIOTIC GAMES.
1:15:37 ” I plucked all that cabbage” :DDDD
Liddy sounds like a real lunatic
What the fuck is with the Woodward, Bernstein, & Deepthroat erasure? They were completely left out of the documentary.
First hand accounts from all of the major players
Hey with all the stories around Clinton and Biden now where is that in depth journalism now
I just love all Haig…!!!
era of smarter ppl or what
Liddy is a complete nutcase. Out of his frickin’ mind…..
I can’t wait until I see a similar programme on Trumpygate……I just hope that l do not die before it is made….
Back again! Haig and Wiggens are such pitiful creatures that one tends to feel sorry for them!
Nixon was the KING of Sleaze.
Just a little advice here, but maybe don’t use arguably the most boring looking human ever as the thumbnail for a 4 hour documentary.
this a an American documentary titeled: The Watergate Scandal. with the voice and coments of Daniel Schorr. edited by Discovery channel
I still don’t understand just exactly what this water gate scandal really was.
When Nixon said that when the president wants it done it is not illegal was a misunderstanding that when the president wants something done and their is no decent from the American people or system then it is not illegal. But Nixon made decisions that were merely for personal interest rather than national interest and of course he lost in the process. Politicians need to be able to wheel and deal but that wheeling and dealing in order to be honorable really should not be for personal interest but national interest–of the interest to everyone but the president. That way the “benefit” is to everyone but the person that champions the effort. What Nixon did was only for the benefit of himself–to save his buttox. He was a fool. From that everyone else involved in the process went downhill so they could not be doing anything but acts against the American nation. “Internal threat”? Give me a break. The real test is can you walk over a frozen lake. If the ice cracks and you fall in then you took too much of a risk for the wrong purpose.
And I would have gotten away with it too if it weren’t for those meddling journalists
thanks 240p
Liddy. WTF?
I suggest to have three drinks and maybe some weed, then watch this. It’s hilarious.
did you know that E Howard Hunt was in the big event the killing of Kennedy i bet you did not know that did you
“Dokumentation”. Russians?
Oil tools. Water tools. Rideshare S. AFRICA HAS PIGGY PEARLS.
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This should be a lesson to all politicians who break the law… Don’t lie… When u lie u become untrustworthy….. It is better to have done wrong and admit that than be tagged a liar
QUESTION : how do you take a dump backwards when you have chikenpox ?
Why did all these seemingly intelligent, normal people go along with this crap?
Bring back Ron Paul for President!
Hello from 2017.
how much electronic surv his happening to you? ..right now? think..then take a drink..
Amazing how much history repeats itself too. Trump made Nixon look like Roosevelt. Either one
COMPARED TO TRUMP.NIXON WAS AN ANGEL.
This was hosted/narrated by Daniel Schorr here in the US.
Watergate sounds much worse than Trumpgate. I simply can’t believe something so grand yet harebrained would happen again. But who knows…
Worst scandal until now!
But when Trump does it, it is not illegal.
You CANT TELL ME . That a president knowingly had a tape recording system. And said these things that would get him in trouble. NO DAMN WAY the president was that stupid. Makes no sense. There is something missing here.
the history channel called..they want their documentary back..hacks..
that’s who Trump needs…al haig
So this is the original U.S. Documentary w/ Daniel Schorr, but with a Brit voice over.
This same documentary is available with Daniel Shore narrating. However, the English guy isn’t bad.
Just like trump
Trump makes Nixon look like a boy scout.
Dawn Kennedy
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