could easily win a national election. he had left the 1960 election which he lost narrowly to john f. kennedy with bitterness. and a sense the election had been stolen from him. this allowed the demon that is he always had within him to play during elections. it is about lust for power and absence of morality. it was all about holding on to power. no one can find out about this. whatever it takes. when the president does it it means that it is not illegal. i told the american people i did not trade hostages for arms. there will not be an abuse of power in this office. he develops weapons of mass destruction. we are in trouble. i just want to find 11,780 votes. and that s really when you reach a tipping point in a democracy. that s how dictators come to power. within hours of the arrests at the watergate, the nixon white house started covering up. i was the desk officer of the cover-up. i get the information and gather it and i share it and they were maki
the key to understanding richard nixon is that richard nixon was never self-confident that he could easily win a national election. he had left the 1960 election, which he lost narrowly to john f. kennedy, with bitterness. in a sense, the election had been stolen from him. this allowed the demons that he always had within him to play during elections. it s about lust for power and absence of morality. it was all about holding on to power. no one can find out about this, whatever it takes. when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal. i told the american people i did not trade arms for hostages. there will not be a cover-up. there will not be an abuse of power in this office. when you have a president who thinks he can do anything he develops weapons of mass destruction. i just want 11,780 votes. and that s really when you reach a tipping point in a democracy. that s how dictators come to power. within hours of the arrests at the waterg
national election. we had left the 1960 election, which he lost narrowly to john f. kennedy with bitterness. in a sense, the election had been stolen from him. this allowed the demons that he always had within him to play during elections. it s about lust for power and absence of morality. it was all about holding on to power. no one can find out about this, whatever it takes. when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal. i told the american people i did not trade arms for hostages. there will not be a cover-up. there will not be an abuse of power in this office. when you have a president who thinks he can do anything he develop weapons of mass destruction. i just want 11,780 votes. and that s really when you reach a tipping point in a democracy. that s how dictators come to power. . within hours of the arrests at the watergate, the nixon white house started covering up. i was the desk officer of the cover-up. i get the information and g
editor of the paper. bradley said to us, you know there has never been a story like this ever before. you re about to say that the attorney the former attorney general of the united states, the highest law enforcement officer in the country is a crook. and we said, yeah. but we re right. the washington post says it has been told that while mitchell was attorney general, he controlled a secret republican party fund used to finance clandestine political espionage operations. mitchell denied the allegations today with some intensity. and so mitchell and some of the others at the committee for the re-election of the president came up with the idea that they could put the washington post out of business. one day a subpoena server came to the washington post. i got a call from downstairs, and i said, don t let him upstairs to the newsroom. just hold him there. and i called bradlee, and i said, there is a subpoena server
we started at the bottom. we learned from this bookkeeper who worked at the committee for the re-election of the president that there had been a secret fund that paid for undercover operations against the democrats. there were five people who controlled the funds, and finally, we get to the point where we know that nixon s campaign manager john mitchell, former attorney general of the united states, had been among those five people who controlled the secret funds. so we decided we re going do a story on this. i had this number for mitchell, and i called him, and mitchell answered the phone. and i said, mr. attorney general, i have a story i d like to read to you that s in the next day s paper and get your response. i m starting to read, and i got as far as john n. mitchell, attorney general of the united states, controlled a secret fund. and mitchell said, jesus.