US Edition
The Watergate scandal still haunts Washington DC, even 50 years later
Our writer checks into the notorious hotel where the events of summer 1972 lead to ramifications far beyond Room 214
I am woken just after 2am by a scratching at the door. Immediately, I’m alert. Is it Frank Sturgis, one of the burglars arrested in this very room on the night of June 17 1972? Is it the ghost of John Mitchell, Richard Nixon’s disgraced former Attorney General, seeking some phantom trace of his lost career? Is it an afterlife incarnation of the 37th US President himself – doomed to haunt the corridors of the place where his downfall began?
Obviously not. Bleary investigation reveals a fellow guest, a little worse for the evening, struggling to find his own room. But in a location such as this, the mind can be feverish.
The Watergate. Its name rings with hard echoes of what happened inside its walls a half-century ago. Even now, after such a chasm of time, it stands out. It is a stark, unmissable complex on the south-west side of downtown Washington DC – which doesn’t so much adorn the east bank of the River Potomac as seem to loom menacingly over it. You might not describe its modernist bulk as an eyesore. It is too dramatic for that. But there is something about it – perhaps its size, maybe the pointed concrete “teeth” that protect its balconies, turning its facades into tense smiles – that seizes your gaze, and doesn’t let go.
It was constructed between 1963 and 1971 – as a mixed-purpose proposition of residential, retail and office space – to the blueprint of Italian architect Luigi Moretti. The response was positive. Vastly different in aesthetic to quaint, red-brick Georgetown, half a mile to the north-west, it was chic, desirable – and soon a coveted address for big hitters in a city awash with them. Its hotel opened in 1965 – another feather in a fashionable cap.
And it was here, of course, that notoriety dawned. An exact 50 years ago today, the Watergate Hotel was the scene of a break-in which had ramifications far beyond what, in the summer of 1972, was Room 214. At that time, it was an office being used by officials of the Democratic National Committee. Just after midnight on June 17, five men were apprehended raiding it. This was, in fact, the second such invasion; a bid to replace malfunctioning phone taps which had been planted three weeks earlier, on May 28.
These bugs were there for the most nefarious of political reasons – to glean secrets during an election year. Two years of investigations and recriminations would connect the burglars to the Committee for the Re-election of the President. Nixon was unaware of the initial scheme, which was cooked up by the some of the “White House Plumbers” – a covert operations unit which included FBI alumnus G. Gordon Liddy, and former CIA agents Sturgis and E. Howard Hunt Jnr – but he was deeply complicit in the desperate attempts to cover it up. As proof arrived and impeachment loomed, he resigned, on August 8 1974.
Most of those involved have since passed away. The room remains where it was. It is the same, but it is different – much like the hotel, which having slumped to closure in 2007, emerged revitalised in 2016 via a US$125million (£103million) refit. It has embraced its infamy, coming full circle to be a point of attraction. A small plaque on the renumbered Room 205 describes it as “The Scandal Room”. Crossing its threshold is an undeniable thrill. Spending the night within it feels like sleeping in the arms of history. Refurbished for the 45th anniversary of the break-in in 2017, it clings to the Seventies – a red faux-leather sofa against one wall; a vintage record player; a pile of decade-relevant singles, by the likes of Diana Ross, Elton John and John Denver, to match.
But it is the printed sources, hanging all around, which are most redolent of the era. There are 36 of them in all, neatly framed – reproductions of various newspaper front pages of August 9 1974, reporting Nixon’s defenestration; his brief, one-sentence resignation letter; a poster for All The President’s Men, the 1976 movie wherein Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman reprised the stubborn efforts of Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein to untangle the thread. Beyond, a second door leads onto a low balcony, from which the burglars gained entry. No wonder my sleeping subconscious conjures ghosts.
In some places, this old yarn has faded from view. The Howard Johnson’s Motor Lodge, which was directly opposite the Watergate complex at 2601 Virginia Avenue NW, is long demolished. It was from this motel that the burglary was overseen – very badly, as it happened; the watchman failing to spot the approaching police. Nothing remains. The address is now host to the Boathouse Apartments, a gleaming block of 21st century glass.
And yet, it is surprising how much this 50-year-old story lingers in a city which swirls with political machinations. Across town, behind the Capitol, The Monocle has been popular with senators and presidents since it opened in 1960. Nixon is remembered here with relative fondness – a signed photo, addressed to the restaurant’s original owners, is still there on a rear wall, along with similar images of George HW Bush and Bill Clinton. He is a little less visible, though, at Martin’s Tavern, a lunchtime haunt in Georgetown, where he was known to order the meatloaf. His favourite spot is marked as “The Richard Nixon Booth”, but a potted guide to the restaurant’s history, available on each table, only wants to speak about John F Kennedy, who supposedly proposed to Jackie Bouvier here.
Nixon appears in a more positive light in the fabled collection of presidential images at the National Portrait Gallery. The 37th Oval Office incumbent was painted by Norman Rockwell – who, saying that he found his character elusive, opted for flattery. Thus we have a sunny Nixon in 1968, newly elected to his first term, his right arm resting on the back of a chair.
He is more triumphant still downstairs, where a temporary exhibition, “Watergate, Portraiture and Intrigue” (until September 5), shows him celebrating his second victory in 1972 – a reminder that, five months after the burglary, he won the election in question by a landslide. Alas for him, further exhibits underscore what came next – a 1976 photo of Mark Felt, the FBI Deputy Director who would be unmasked as Woodward and Bernstein’s “Deep Throat” source in 2005; a Time magazine caricature of April 1973, depicting core government figures tangled in phone lines and recording tape.
The scandal extends its tentacles further. Washington’s superb International Spy Museum has sections devoted to the off-record manoeuvres of the FBI and CIA in the Sixties and Seventies, and debates the ethics of the era. “Watergate was a tipping point for mistrust in authority,” says Dr Andrew Hammond, the museum’s curator. “The scandal left a residual suspicion – people were much more trusting of government before it happened.”
It has returned to the screen too. Recent television series Gaslit has earned plaudits for its focus on two pivotal players in the narrative – with Sean Penn as John Mitchell, and Julia Roberts as his wife Martha. Mitchell, one of Nixon’s right-hand men, was convicted of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and perjury. Martha endured an ordeal of another kind. Shortly after the break-in, she was abducted and held captive for several days – a panic measure to ensure that a woman who knew one of the burglars wouldn’t talk to the press.
If this is dark stuff, then the Watergate Hotel has long learned to revel in it. Its ground-floor drinkery, The Next Whisky Bar, is currently offering a range of Gaslit-themed cocktails – including the “Watergate Scandal”, a Glenmorangie-heavy concoction for $18 (£15). Art imitates life. Life imitates art. Even – or perhaps especially – the salacious bits.
How to do it
Double rooms at the Watergate Hotel 001 844 617 1972; thewatergatehotel.com) start at $314 (£260). The Scandal Room is available to book. More on the city at washington.org.