Q&A
Who were the White House Plumbers?
• SHORT ANSWER
The Watergate scandal broke thanks, in part, to a bunch of ‘plumbers’ who could not fix leaks
• LONG ANSWER
When five burglars were caught in the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters at Washington DC’s Watergate complex on the night of 17 June 1972, it smashed open a scandal that brought down US president Richard Nixon. At the heart of the matter was a secret task force in the White House, known as the Plumbers, whose job was to stop leaks, discredit opposition and help Nixon get re-elected.
Prominent Plumbers included White House aides Egil Krogh and David Young, former CIA officer E Howard Hunt and former FBI agent G Gordon Liddy. Following the break-in – to repair bugging equipment planted to spy on the DNC – a major conspiracy unravelled, involving illegal wiretapping, money laundering and assassination plots. It later turned out that one of the burglars, James W McCord Jr, was the security chief of Nixon’s re-election campaign. Eventually, in August 1974, Nixon resigned; many of the Plumbers ended up being imprisoned.
13
The number of times that Diana Spencer met Prince Charles in person during the four years from first meeting to their engagement.