the Plumbers as protecting national security. However, the motivating factor for these illegal actions was actually to protect Nixon’s public image as well as his political survival.In 1972, the Committee to Re-Elect the President was formed and Jeb Stuart Magruder became the Director. In December of 1972, Nixon appointed G. Gordon Liddy as general counsel to CREEP. The Committee played “dirty tricks” on Nixon’s opponents and in one instance, single-handedly ruined the Democratic frontrunner Edmund Muskie’s presidential campaign by making damaging charges again Muskie and his wife in 1971. (Bernstein and Woodward 114) Liddy was behind most of CREEP’s political tricks and illegal activities and in 1972 he proposed a huge intelligence operation against the Democrats, illegally funded by CREEP’s campaign funds. This operation included plans for a small-scale burglary of the Democratic National Headquarters, located in the Watergate office complex. Magruder, who had been given the authority by John Mitchell, reluctantly gave Liddy the approval to perform the break-in. (Westerfeld 35)On June 17, 1972, five burglars under the orders of CREEP broke into the Democratic National Headquarters. At about 2:30 a.m., security guard Frank Willis noticed tape over locks of the doors and called the police. The five burglars were arrested, four of which were anti-Castro Cuban exiles who believed they were furthering the anti-Communist cause by performing the break-in. (Bernstein and Woodward 34-35) The fifth burglar was James McCord, a former CIA agent and CREEP’s security director. The police seized from the scene a walkie-talkie, 40 rolls of unexposed film, two 35-millimeter cameras, lock picks, pen-size teargas guns, and bugging devices that apparently were capable of picking up both telephone and room conversations. In addition, the burglars left behind $14,000 in hundred dollar bills that co...
