(3 of 6)
On Nov. 7, Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew are re-elected by a landslide. Watergate is all but forgotten. Early the next year, as the Watergate trial of the five burglars plus Liddy and Hunt gets under way with Judge John J. Sirica presiding, there is no hint that anybody else will be implicated. On Jan. 11, Hunt pleads guilty to all counts against him, and four days later the four Cuban Americans follow suit. Despite pressure from Sirica to get the burglars to tell the whole story. Hunt tells reporters that no "higher-ups" are involved.
III Cracks in the Stonewall
Still, there have already been some damaging disclosures. The Washington Post, relying partly on a still secret source known to outsiders as "Deep Throat," reports that Dahlberg's $25,000 check found its way into Barker's bank account, and that Watergate was part of a massive program of political sabotage. TIME discloses that Donald Segretti had been hired by White House Aides Dwight Chapin and Gordon Strachan and paid out of C.R.P. funds by Kalmbach to sabotage the Democratic presidential campaign.
Sirica, meanwhile, continues to push aggressively for the truth. On Feb. 2 he says he is "not satisfied" that the trial disclosed the full story. On Feb. 7, the Senate votes 77-0 to establish a select committee to investigate Watergate. Sam Ervin is named its chairman the next day.
Within a few weeks, the engineers of the cover-up begin to lose control. On Feb. 28, the Senate Judiciary Committee begins hearings on L. Patrick Gray's confirmation as FBI director. Gray discloses that he gave Dean FBI reports on the Watergate and that Chapin and Kalmbach have been involved in Republican espionage activities. These revelations precipitate a frantic scramble in the White House.
March 13: Nixon learns that Gordon Strachan has reportedly lied to federal investigators. The President explicitly rejects "the hang-out road," the White House term for full disclosure. March 17: Nixon later tells Ziegler that on this day, he has ordered Dean "to cut off any disclosures that might implicate him in Watergate." Worried that Magruder could implicate Haldeman in the affair, Nixon says: "We've got to cut that back. That ought to be cut out." March 21: Talking about Hunt's demands for money, the President says: "For Christ's sake, get it!"
At this point, Sirica's efforts pay off. On March 23 he reads the court a letter from McCord charging that perjury has been committed in the Watergate trial and that defendants have been pressured to remain silent. Pouring on the pressure, Sirica gives Hunt and the Cubans harsh provisional sentences of up to 40 years in an effort to make them talk.
IV The Gathering Storm
Maintaining a "stonewall" policy on Nixon's instructions, Ehrlichman on March 28 informs Attorney General Richard Kleindienst that nobody in the White House had prior knowledge of the burglary. Two days later he has Ziegler tell the press that "no one in the White House had any involvement or prior knowledge of the Watergate event."