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The President at first asked that the FBI tap the telephones of several reporters, including two at the New York Times, and of at least four of his own White House aides. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover resisted, on the grounds that the practice would be indefensible if discovered. Hoover would order the tapping, he said, only if Attorney General John Mitchell gave him written authorization. Mitchell did. Recalls one Government official: "It was essentially a fishing expedition." Though little was learned from the taps, they resulted in one official's being shifted from a sensitive Pentagon post and the transfer of another out of the State Department. The FBI taps on reporters continued at Mitchell's direction through much of 1970 and 1971, as Nixon became angry about press disclosures of American U-2 spy flights over China.
As Hoover became more irascible and seemed a political liability to the Administration, the Justice Department moved tentatively to pressure him out of office. Kleindienst, who was Deputy Attorney General in 1971, publicly suggested that Congress investigate the operation of the FBI. Angered, Hoover telephoned Kleindienst and threatened to reveal those embarrassing taps. No further move against Hoover was made by either Nixon, Mitchell or Kleindienst. Explained a Justice Department official: "Hoover used those wiretap authorizations to blackmail the Nixon Administration. As long as he had the papers [documenting the taps], they couldn't get rid of him."
In the late spring of 1971, Hoover suddenly discovered that all of his records on the taps had disappeared. He ordered W. Mark Felt, now the bureau's No. 2 man, to investigate. Felt could not find out who had carried out what agents call "a bag job"—a burglary—on the FBI'S own files. Felt asked Robert C. Mardian, then an Assistant Attorney General, if he knew who had taken the documents. Replied Mardian: "Ask the President. Or ask Mitchell."
Nixon ordered a crash effort to find the source of more leaks in the summer of 1971. The U.S. position at the SALT talks with the Soviets had begun leaking into newspapers, and Daniel Ellsberg released the Pentagon papers to the New York Times and other newspapers. Nixon demanded that Mitchell plug those leaks within two weeks. The President apparently asked no questions about the tactics to be used.
Mitchell was reluctant to ask Hoover to do this type of snooping again. That led White House aides to set up their own spying operation. They recruited G. Gordon Liddy, a former FBI agent, and E. Howard Hunt Jr., who had worked for the CIA and had written dozens of mystery novels. The hiring of Liddy had been suggested by Egil Krogh, Deputy Assistant for Domestic Affairs, that of Hunt by Presidential Special Counsel Charles W. Colson. Liddy and Hunt became known in the White House as "the plumbers," because they were hired to plug leaks. They later became an integral part of the Watergate crew. This team promptly began tapping telephones, including those of New York Times reporters.
At first the plumbers worked out of the office of David Young, a staff assistant to the President. Young's boss was Krogh, who reported to Ehrlichman. At