The opening sets the overall tone. Seven sharply dressed men, complete with attache cases, engage in what appears a smartly organized break-in of the Democratic National Committee Headquarters at the Watergate. The crew soon abandons the effort, however, because they possessed incorrect tools. This marked attempt #2.
It's 27 May 1972.
The first episode covers considerable material in short order, especially for those not well-versed on Watergate. Understandably, many events throughout the series will become truncated or omitted.
My historical expertise includes the Nixon Presidency in general and the DNC Break-in in particular. I thus watched this show fully prepared to decimate if not obliterate it as a complete trainwreck.
I was, however, quite pleasantly thwarted, but I soon realized that fully appreciating the often deft humor depends upon how well one knows the subject matter. I shall try to fill-in some of the gaps here.
E. Howard Hunt (Woody Harrelson) enters first. Hunt had a long and successfully colorful career with the CIA. He served in Vienna, Mexico City, Tokyo, Uruguay, and Madrid; planned covert-ops in the Balkans and Guatemala; and also on the staff for the Bay of Pigs Operation (organizing the "Provisional Government," which would have followed a successful invasion of Cuba).
During this time, Hunt also became a reasonably prolific and successful author and a figurative legend among the anti-Castro Cuban community in Miami, FL. Officially "retired," he went to work at Mullen & Co., a CIA front. His wife Dorothy also served in the CIA and has also retired. Both, however, remained assets. This explains why Howard has no problem discussing certain activities with her throughout the show.
The writers cleverly work-in some of these details. Hunt was "barely employable," because he attempted to publish a book on the Bay of Pigs, which defended the CIA. He used one his CIA aliases for a pseudonym and listed his home address for the copyright. The Agency concluded this exposed his identity to the Soviets.
Harrelson's portrayal of Hunt, while not quite distracting, certainly proves rather exaggerated. Hunt was far more monotone, deliberate, and serious. He often spoke like he was writing a book using erudite vocabulary.
Charles Colson, Special White House Counsel, recruits Hunt for the new White House Special Investigations Unit. Colson, however, did not directly oversee the SIU. That job fell to John Ehrlichman, Chief Domestic Policy Advisor. Colson had thus recommended Hunt.
Ehrlichman already recruited Egil "Bud" Krogh (Rich Summer) as Director. Side Note: Krogh "greenlit" the impromptu meeting between President Nixon and Elvis Presley. Rich does a good job portraying Krogh's dry, no nonsense demeaner, but there's not really a lot with which to work.
In any case, enter John Dean III (Domhnall Gleeson), Counsel to the President. His early appearance surprised me. When the DNC break-in imploded upon Nixon, the media treated Dean as the celeb du jour. Hollywood typically makes Dean the lone hero among Nixon's cabal of dastardly craven criminals. Dean, however, always sat near center throughout almost all of the ever-swirling White House shenanigans.
As former Solicitor General (and later Reagan SCOTUS nominee) Robert Bork once quipped: if anyone ever needed a skeleton in their closet, they could grab one from John Dean; he would never miss it.
Gleeson effectively captures (what many saw were) Dean's soft spoken mannerisms that masked a perceived self-import, arrogance, and "swarminess." The actor, however, is simply far too tall.
This brings us to, as Fred Emery observed, the "exceptionally articulate" G. Gordon Liddy (Justin Theroux). Justin alone makes this series worth watching. His performance absolutely nails Liddy's precise diction of deadpan phantasmagoria.
A Korean War veteran, attorney, former FBI Agent, congressional candidate, prosecutor, and narcotics agent for the Department of Treasury, G. Gordon Liddy was simply a weapon just waiting to be loaded and fired. Krogh, who had known Liddy from Treasury, recruited Liddy into the SIU.
Liddy's comment about Hunt being a "regular James Bond" not only refers to Hunt's work in clandestine operations for the CIA but also to a series of novels Hunt wrote to create the American version of 007 (Hunt's agent even shopped them to a couple of movie studios during the late 1960's). In any case, as depicted, Hunt & Liddy "hit it off."
The Episode, however, presents events out-of-order and ommits some details. The Pentagon Papers, which detailed America's involvement in South Vietnam, appeared on 13 June 1971. By June 30, President Nixon concluded the FBI would not pursue the matter aggressively enough. He ordered creation of SIU on 2 July 1971. Colson, however, had already, and independently, hired Hunt and assigned him an office (Room 338). Hunt indeed interviewed with Ehrlichman July 7th but testified that his move to SIU occurred over time through "bureaucratic osmosis."
The SIU, moreover, had a not depicted co-Director, David Young, drafted from the staff of Henry Kissinger, National Security Advisor. HR "Bob" Haldeman, White House Chief of Staff, noted Nixon personally ordered Young's appointment over Kissinger's objections (and there's considerable backstory as to why).
Co-Director Young transferred to SIU on 14 July; Krogh joined 17 July and then brought Liddy onboard from Treasury a few days later. Hunt, in the meantime, had been researching the Pentagon Papers and even completed one "clandestine" trip (in disguise) by the time he met Liddy toward the end of July 1971. Technically, Hunt still worked for Colson but had started spending more and more time with SIU.
The producers, moreover, assert the show is based upon Krogh's book Integrity, but most of the details for Hunt's personal life comes from his own books Undercover and American Spy, while Liddy's personal life comes from his book Will.
The SIU meeting with FBI Associate Director Mark Felt (Gary Cole cameo) is fictional. The scene nonetheless reveals (correctly) that SIU became much more than just the Hunt & Liddy Show. One of the two other men around the table, for example, would be John Caulfield. He later authored Project SANDWEDGE, which would morph into Liddy's GEMSTONE. The dialogue also accurately captures real requests from the White House to the FBI as well as displays tensions SIU had created. All of this, however, did not happen all at once.
The brief glimpse of the hallway placard is exceptional attention to detail. SIU was better known in the beginning as "The Room 16 Project" and its crew as "The Fixers." Undepicted Co-Director David Young's grandmother coined the term "Plumbers" during Thanksgiving 1971, when David told her he "fixed leaks" for the White House. The name obviously stuck.
Unfortunately, the meeting also ultimately proves a Checkov's Gun.
The conversation covers (the tail end of) what history now calls "The Kissinger Taps," i.e., when Liddy requests polygraphs (the request actually came earlier and from elsewhere). Although unrelated to Watergate, the taps would in fact come back and bite the White House a few years later. Felt, moreover, eventually became far more famous by his stage name: Deep Throat, the confidential source on Watergate for Bob Woodward of the Washington Post. Knowing Felt's eventual (later) alter-ego partly explains his attitude. Neither topic, however, are referenced again. Side note: Felt never told Woodward to "follow the money."
As Liddy reveals after the meeting, when hired, he had indeed took it upon himself to rename SIU to ODESSA: Organization Directed to Eliminate Subversion of Secrets from the Administration (and, yes, he had stationary made and even fired-off several memos but expected each classified Top Secret thus never to be seen except internally). Ehrlichman nonetheless overruled Liddy about a month later.
By this point, SIU had remained essentially a clearing house. It pulled information together from various government agencies (especially the FBI & CIA) but now broaches the first overtly criminal act. Consequently, exactly how the Beverly Hills Break-in originated still remains a matter of unresolvable dispute between Ehrlichman, Colson, Krogh (and Young), Hunt and Liddy.
The episode for the most part follows Liddy's version (Krogh agreed with only minor differences). Totally unmentioned, however, Hunt sent a memo about the "Fielding Plan" to Colson on 28 July. Colson then at least discussed the (possible) venture with Ehrlichman. Naturally, both Colson & Ehrlichman disagreed on who knew and said what during this meeting.
An additional event becomes omitted (actually two, but the second is tangential): Hunt's memo to Colson, absent useful information from FBI, prompted co-Director David Young to request a "psychological profile" of Daniel Ellsberg from the CIA, which the Agency (eventually) delivered on 11 August 1971. The perceived inadequacy finally moved Krogh (and Young) to discuss Hunt's (or Liddy's) plan to infiltrate the office of Ellsberg's psychiatrist Lewis Fielding with Ehrlichman. Every player disagrees on the particulars discussed yet all denied an actual break-in was even considered.
To be continued ...
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