HBO’s new drama White House Plumbers seems to be a satirical parody-like retelling of one of the US’ most infamous political scandals. President Nixon became the first sitting POTUS to tender his resignation in the aftermath of the Watergate Scandal that the show dramatizes. Nixon famously said, “I am not a crook!” trying to defend and distance himself from the scandal that unfolded over two years in the ’70s. It beleaguered the democratic spirit in the US and came at a time when paranoia and hysteria were at their peak.
The US had just signed the peace agreement in Vietnam and withdrew its combat troops (clearly, there weren’t the winners) and the scandal jolted the public. Fear-mongering about communists taking over the country and destroying its democratic ethos ran rampant, something we see the characters of Howard Hunt and Gordon Liddy embody in the HBO show’s first episode. Alan Pakula’s brilliant All President’s Men (1976) is a direct retelling of the entire story, and Francis Ford Coppola’s enigmatic The Conversation (1974) was an artist’s response.
In this piece, we break down the true story behind White House Plumbers, which is actually based on the Watergate Scandal referred to above. So, yes, White House Plumbers is based on a true story. What that story really is, follows ahead.
The Backstory: Formation of the “White House Plumbers”
It all began with the publishing of the Pentagon Papers in the year 1971, when Daniel Ellsberg, a political activist, got access to high-level papers of national importance and leaked them into the press. Given the dire political and social unrest, President Nixon wanted this to be nipped in the bud. Ellsberg’s acts were potentially treasonous and threatened to reveal a lot of covert information to malicious parties.
The Papers charted the military history and discourse of the US in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967. All its involvements were mentioned in the report, which was of critical significance for the Department of Defense. Ellsberg had actually worked on the report. But his conscience could not let him keep quiet. His moral conflict resulted in him leaking the report to the press. Later, the report was found to prove that the Lyndon B. Johnson administration “systematically lied, not only to the public but also to Congress.”
How did the Watergate Scandal take shape?
The Committee that was subsequently created was called a Special Investigations Unit, or simply, SIU. They were tasked to discredit Ellsberg publicly so that the re-election campaign of Nixon wouldn’t be affected. The situation was getting out of hand for the Nixon administration, and to “Fix their leak,” they required the help of these “plumbers.” As the first episode shows, they first tried to break into Dr Fielding’s office to get Ellsberg’s psychiatric records. Although the exact composition of the committee is still unclear, the HBO show focuses on Liddy and Hunt.
The Watergate Scandal came to absorb many high-ranking government officials who participated in undemocratic activities to unjustly interfere with due processes of law and abused State machinery to achieve their nefarious ends. But the operation was a big botch up and Ellsberg got wind of it. The case against him was dismissed for “government misconduct” and the group then went on to perform several other low-key operations that we will see in the upcoming episodes.
The Committee to Re-Elect President Nixon
Hunt and Liddy were placed at the top of the Committee to re-elect Nixon as the President soon after the Fielding operation. The men were tasked to do whatever possible in their arsenal to make win Nixon in the upcoming elections. One of the many things they were involved in was the Watergate. They had a total of four attempted burglaries, out of which the last one was caught red-handed by a security guard at the Watergate building. That is when five of these “plumbers” were arrested and the conspiracy was brought out into the public eye.
Liddy and Hunt were found guilty of their offenses and served terms in prison. Nixon had to resign and the tumultuous political landscape shaped an iconic era in America’s chequered State affairs history.
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