20th
March, 1971:
Frederick
LaRue
and Gordon
Liddy attend
a meeting of the Committee to
Re-Elect the President (CREEP) where
it was agreed to spend $250,000 "intelligence gathering" operation against
the Democratic
Party.
27th
June, 1971: Donald
Segretti attempts to persuade Alex Shipley to
join the espionage campaign against leading Democratic
Party candidates, Edward Kennedy and Edmund
Muskie.
7th
July, 1971: Charles
Colson and
John
Ehrlichman appoint
E. Howard
Hunt to the
White House staff. Hunt later becomes a key figure in the White House Special
Investigations Unit.
9th
September, 1971:
John
N. Mitchell
and Gordon
Liddy organizes
the break-in of a psychiatrist's office to find files on Daniel
Ellsberg.
24th
February, 1972:
William Loeb, the owner of the Manchester
Union Leader newspaper, publishes an article claiming that Edmund
Muskie
had made derogatory
comments about Americans of French-Canadian ancestry (the Canuck Letter).
25th
February, 1972:
William Loeb publishes an article attacking Muskie's wife. While defending his
wife he breaks down in tears and it is believed marks the end of his chances to
become the Democratic Party's presidential candidate.
20th
March, 1972:
John
N. Mitchell
and Jeb
Magruder discuss
the proposal made by Gordon
Liddy to
bug the telephone of the chairman of the national Democratic Party, Larry
O'Brien.
Magruder phones
H. R. Haldeman and
he confirms that Richard
Nixon wants
the operation carried out.
15th
April, 1972:
William Haddad, sends a letter to Jack
Anderson claiming
that agents of CREEP were intending to tap the telephones of Larry
O'Brien at the Democratic
National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Hotel.
Anderson ignores the message.
8th
May, 1972: Gordon
Liddy
and E. Howard Hunt arrange for the "Plumbers Unit"
to install bugging equipment in the office at the Democratic National Committee
headquarters at the Watergate Hotel.
15th
May, 1972. Arthur
Bremer attempts to assassinate George Wallace.
It was later claimed by Bob
Woodward that
an attorney told him that Charles
Colson ordered
E. Howard
Hunt to break
into Bremer's apartment to remove incriminating documents. According to Howard
Simons of The
Washington Post,
this could have been the "ultimate dirty trick".
28th
May, 1972. James
W. McCord and his men make their first break-in at the Watergate Hotel.
17th June,
1972: Frank
Sturgis, Virgilio Gonzalez, Eugenio
Martinez, Bernard L. Barker and James
W. McCord are arrested at 2.30 am during a break-in at the Watergate Hotel.
19th
June, 1972:
Richard Helms, Cord Meyer
and William Colby meet to discuss possible CIA
involvement in the Watergate break-in.
19th
June, 1972:
Bob Woodward has his first meeting with Deep
Throat.
20th
June, 1972:
Richard Nixon tells H. R.
Haldeman that the Watergate burglars "are going to need money".
21st
June, 1972:
Gordon
Liddy
tells Frederick
LaRue
and Robert
Mardian that
the Watergate burglars expect to receive money for bail, legal expenses and family
support. Mardian argues that this request is blackmail and should not be paid.
23rd
June, 1972:
H. R. Haldeman suggests to Richard
Helms that Richard Nixon has information on the
CIA involvement in the assassination of John
F. Kennedy.
25th
June, 1972:
Alfred Baldwin
agrees to cooperate with the government in order to escape going to prison.
26th
June, 1972:
John Dean
meets
Vernon Walters to ask him if the CIA
would provide financial assistance for the Watergate burglars.
28th
June, 1972:
Vernon Walters tells John Dean
that the CIA is unwilling to provide financial assistance
for the Watergate burglars. This information is
passed on to John
N. Mitchell,
Frederick
LaRue
and Robert
Mardian.
29th
June, 1972:
John Dean
meets
Herbert W. Kalmbach and tells him that H.
R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman and John
N. Mitchell
want him to
raise money for the Watergate burglars. Later that
day Maurice Stans gives Kalmbach $75,000. Of this
money, William Bittman receives $25,000. Dorothy
Hunt
asks for $450,000 and gets the first installment of $40,000.
6th
July, 1972:
Richard Helms informs the FBI
that the CIA will not be damaged by a full investigation
into the Watergate break-in.
19th
July, 1972:
Frederick
LaRue
gives $40,000
to Herbert W. Kalmbach. He then takes it to New
York and this money is given to Anthony
Ulasewicz.
22nd
July, 1972:
Newsday reports that Gordon
Liddy
had been sacked
by John
N. Mitchell
because he
refused to answer FBI questions about Watergate.
29th
July, 1972:
Frederick
LaRue
gives $30,000
to Herbert W. Kalmbach. This is transmitting to
Anthony
Ulasewicz.
1st
August , 1972:
The
Washington Post
reports that
a $25,000 cashier's check intended for the the
Committee to Reelect the President
(CREEP) has
been found in the bank account of a Watergate burglar.
30th
August, 1972:
Richard Nixon announces that John
Dean had conducted an investigation into the Watergate affair and found that
no-one from the White House was involved.
15th
September, 1972:
The first indictments in Watergate
are made against: Frank
Sturgis, Virgilio Gonzalez, Eugenio
Martinez, Bernard L. Barker, James
W. McCord, E.
Howard Hunt and Gordon
Liddy.
19th
September, 1972: Anthony
Ulasewicz
flies to Washington and delivers $53,000
to Dorothy
Hunt
and $29,000 to Frederick
LaRue.
29th September,
1972: Bob
Woodward and Carl Bernstein of the Washington
Post
report that John
N. Mitchell,
while serving as Attorney-General, controlled a secret Republican
fund used to finance widespread intelligence-gathering
operations against the Democrats (Operation Gemstone).
7th October,
1972: Deep
Throat tells Bob
Woodward that the "Canuck
Letter" that destroyed the presidential campaign of Edmund
Muskie
was a White House operation.
12th
October, 1972: Carl
Bernstein publishes a story
in the Washington Post about
the sabotage of the Edmund
Muskie
campaign.
15th
October, 1972: Bob
Woodward and Carl Bernstein of the Washington
Post report that Donald
Segretti
was being paid $20,000 a year to
run the White House operation to sabotage the Democratic
Party campaign.
18th
October, 1972: Seymour
Hersh of the New York Times publishes
details of Donald Segretti's phone calls to E. Howard Hunt.
26th October,
1972: Deep
Throat tells Bob
Woodward that H.
R. Haldeman is a key figure
in the cover-up.
27th
October, 1972: Time
Magazine publishes an article claiming that it had obtained information
from FBI files that Dwight Chaplin
had hired Donald
Segretti
to disrupt the Democratic campaign.
11th
November, 1972: Richard
Nixon is reelected as president
after defeating Democratic nominee, George
McGovern.
11th
November, 1972: Carl
Bernstein interviews Donald
Segretti
who admits that E. Howard Hunt and Gordon
Liddy
were behind the dirty tricks
campaign against the Democratic Party.
14th
November, 1972: E.
Howard Hunt phones Charles Colson and demands
extra money. He sets a deadline of 25th November.
15th
November, 1972: Richard
Nixon, Charles
Colson, H.
R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman
meet at Camp David to discuss Howard Hunt's latest blackmail threat.
20th
November, 1972: Richard
Nixon summons Richard
Helms to Camp David and demands
he resigns as Director of the CIA.
1st
December, 1972: John
N. Mitchell
told John
Dean to give a portion of
the $350,000 (taken from Hugh Sloan's office) to E. Howard
Hunt. This money is then delivered to Frederick
LaRue.
8th
December, 1972: Dorothy
Hunt,
the wife of E. Howard Hunt, is killed in a plane crash.
21st December, 1972: James W. McCord writes a letter to Jack Caulfield threatening to disclose details of Operation Sandwedge if Richard Helms loses his job as Director of the CIA.
6th January,
1972: Jack
Anderson reports that E. Howard Hunt had arranged
for fellow defendants to be paid up to $1000 for each month they spent in jail.
8th January,
1973: The trial of Frank
Sturgis, Virgilio Gonzalez, Eugenio
Martinez, Bernard L. Barker, James
W. McCord, E.
Howard Hunt and Gordon
Liddy
begins in Washington. It is presided
over by Judge John
J. Sirica.
10th
January, 1973: E.
Howard Hunt tells Frank
Sturgis, Virgilio Gonzalez, Eugenio
Martinez, Bernard L. Barker at
a meeting at the Arlington Towers Hotel where he tells them that the White House
would take care of their families while in prison if they pleaded guilty and kept
quiet about the Watergate operation.
11th
January, 1973: E.
Howard Hunt pleads guilty.
13th
January, 1973: James
W. McCord and Gordon
Liddy
are convicted of conspiracy, burglary
and wiretapping in the Watergate incident.
15th
January, 1973: Frank
Sturgis, Virgilio Gonzalez, Eugenio
Martinez and Bernard L. Barker, plead guilty.
23rd January,
1973: Jeb
Magruder claims that Gordon
Liddy
once threatened to kill him. Hugh
Sloan tells Judge
John J. Sirica
that he paid out about $199,000 in cash
to Liddy. He questioned John
N. Mitchell
about this but was told that Liddy should
be given the cash.
24th
January, 1973: Deep
Throat tells Bob
Woodward that Charles Colson and John
N. Mitchell
were
behind the Watergate operation.
7th
February, 1973: The Senate votes
to create a Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities. The Committee
is chaired by Sam
Ervin.
9th
February, 1973: John
Dean
phones James
Schlesinger and requests his help to extricate FBI
files on E. Howard Hunt.
10th
February, 1973: The Washington
Post reveals that E. Howard Hunt had been investigating
Edward
Kennedy during the summer
of 1972.
19th
March, 1973:
James W. McCord writes a letter to Judge John
J. Sirica claiming that the defendants had pleaded guilty under pressure (from
John Dean and John
N. Mitchell)
and that perjury had been committed during the trial.
20th
March, 1973:
E. Howard
Hunt receives
$75,000 from Frederick
LaRue.
21st
March, 1973:
John
Dean
tells Richard
Nixon that
the Watergate burglars "are going to cost
a million dollars over the next two years". Nixon replies that "I know
where it could be gotten".
28th
March, 1973:
James
W. McCord testifies that Gordon
Liddy
told him that
the Watergate operation had been approved by John
N. Mitchell
when he was still Attorney General.
6th
April, 1973: John
Dean,
the White House Counsel, agrees to co-operate with the Watergate prosecutors.
14th
April, 1973: Jeb
Magruder claims that John
Dean
and John
N. Mitchell
organized the "bugging plans and
the payoff scheme".
17th
April, 1973: Richard
Nixon releases an official statement
claiming that he had no prior knowledge of the Watergate affair.
26th
April, 1973:
The New York Daily News claims
that L. Patrick Gray had destroyed documents taken
from a safe in Howard Hunt's White House office. These documents included cables
fabricated by Hunt to implicate President John F. Kennedy
in the 1963 assassination of President Ngo Dinh Diem of
South Vietnam. Other documents were about Edward Kennedy.
Gray later admitted that these documents were destroyed at his home in December,
1972.
27th
April, 1973:
Deep Throat confirms the story about the documents
in Hunt's safe. He tells Bob Woodward that they
were "political dynamite" and on 28th June, 1972, John
Ehrlichman and John
Dean
told L.
Patrick Gray that the documents should "never see the light of day".
30th
April, 1973: Richard
Nixon announces that he has dismissed
John
Dean and accepted the resignations of
H.
R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, to resign.
5th
May, 1973:
Newsweek claims that John
Dean is
about to announce that Richard
Nixon knew
about the Watergate cover-up.
9th
May, 1973:
James
Schlesinger issues a directive to all CIA
employees calling on them to report
on "any activities now going on, or that have gone on in the past, which
might be construed to be outside the legislative charter of this Agency".
16th May,
1973: Bob
Woodward sends a memo to
Ben Bradlee that contains the latest information
received from Deep
Throat. This confirms that
Richard
Nixon, H.
R. Haldeman,
John
Ehrlichman,
John
Dean,
Frederick
LaRue
and John
N. Mitchell
are all involved in
the cover-up of the Watergate scandal. He also
points out that E.
Howard Hunt has
been blackmailing Nixon.
13th
June, 1973:
Watergate prosecutors find a memo addressed to John
Ehrlichman describing in detail the plans to burglarize the office of psychiatrist's
office to find files on Daniel
Ellsberg.
25th June,
1973: John
Dean
claims that
Richard Nixon participated in the cover-up. Dean also
suggests that Nixon might have been making recordings of conversations taking
place in the White House.
7th
July, 1973:
Richard Nixon
tells the Senate Committee that he will not testify before it and will not grant
access to Presidential documents.
13th
July, 1973: Alexander
P. Butterfield, a former presidential appointments secretary, informs the
Senate Committee of the White House taping system.
23rd
July, 1973: Archibald
Cox and Sam
Ervin demand that Richard
Nixon hand over a range of
White House tapes and documents.
25th
July, 1973:
Richard
Nixon refuses to surrender
any documents or tapes.
25th
July, 1973:
The Ervin Senate Committee
subpoenas several White House tapes.
15th
August, 1973: Archibald
Cox and Sam
Ervin request the Supreme
Court instruct Richard
Nixon to surrender his tapes.
10th
October, 1973: Vice-President
Spiro T. Agnew resigns after pleading no contest to
a charge of income tax evasion.
12th
October, 1973: Richard
Nixon nominates Gerald
Ford as vice-president.
20th
October, 1973: Richard
Nixon orders his Attorney-General,
Elliot Richardson, to fire Archibald
Cox. Richardson refuses and resigns in protest. Nixon orders the deputy Attorney-General,
William Ruckelshaus, to fire Cox. Ruckelshaus
refuses and is sacked. Robert Bork, the Sol
