{"id":33083,"date":"2023-05-23T17:22:19","date_gmt":"2023-05-23T15:22:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=1835024"},"modified":"2023-05-24T09:53:34","modified_gmt":"2023-05-24T07:53:34","slug":"is-white-house-plumbers-based-on-a-true-story","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/is-white-house-plumbers-based-on-a-true-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Is White House Plumbers based on a true story?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The HBO series gives a brand new look at the Watergate scandal – but how much of it is true? <\/p>

By James Hibbs\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Tuesday, 23 May 2023 at 12:00 am<\/p>

\n\n

New HBO satirical drama series White House Plumbers will soon arrive on Sky Atlantic in the UK, and it sees Woody Harrelson and Justin Theroux in the lead roles.<\/p>\n

The pair play political operatives\u00a0E Howard Hunt\u00a0and\u00a0G Gordon Liddy, who are charged by President Nixon with stopping press leaks after the Pentagon Papers are published in 1971.<\/p>\n

The series gives an in-depth look at a period in American history, but is it based on a true story and how much of what it details is real?<\/p>\n

Read on for everything you need to know about the true story behind White House Plumbers.<\/p>\n

Is White House Plumbers based on a true story?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\""Woody\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
Woody Harrelson as E Howard Hunt and Justin Theroux as G Gordon Liddy in White House Plumbers.<\/span><\/figcaption> HBO<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n

It is. White House Plumbers is based on the 2007 book\u00a0Integrity<\/a>\u00a0by\u00a0Egil \u2018Bud\u2019 Krogh and Matthew Krogh, which itself documents the real-life events surrounding the Watergate scandal which played out between 1972 and 1974.<\/p>\n

Bud Krogh was a lawyer who worked for the Nixon administration and who served four and a half months of a six-year sentence after approving the Watergate scandal burglary.<\/p>\n

This is far from the first dramatisation of the events surrounding the scandal \u2013 just last year Julia Roberts starred in the Starz series Gaslit<\/a>, which was also based on the scandal.<\/p>\n

Other dramatisations include 1976 film All the President\u2019s Men, 2017\u2019s The Post and 2008\u2019s Frost\/Nixon.<\/p>\n

How close to real life is the show\u2019s version of events?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\""Justin\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
Justin Theroux as G Gordon Liddy & Woody Harrelson as E Howard Hunt in White House Plumbers.<\/span><\/figcaption> HBO<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n

The series starts off with a title card which says: \u201cThe following is based on a true story. No names have been changed to protect the innocent, because nearly everyone was found guilty.\u201d<\/p>\n

The show does follow through on this, with most of the events depicted being based on the real events. However, there were some elements changed for dramatic effect.<\/p>\n

David Mandel told The Hollywood Reporter<\/a> that \u201cit is a true story but, like any true story, you can find discrepancies just in that sort of Rashomon way of how people in the same room will tell it differently\u201d.<\/p>\n

He also admitted that \u201cyou obviously can\u2019t tell everything, otherwise it would be a long, boring story\u201d and said that he therefore had to \u201cchisel away and create the story that\u2019s interesting\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mandel gave an example: \u201cHere\u2019s a meeting and other people were in it; let\u2019s just have two other people there, instead of six. You\u2019re making choices like that. But the things that are happening happened. We\u2019re not trying to rewrite what happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cOccasionally, we don\u2019t know what they said. Maybe both of them weren\u2019t there. So you take liberties to tell a dramatic story. But at least when you\u2019re taking those liberties, you\u2019re taking them in the name of the story you\u2019re trying to tell and who these guys were.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have no doubt there will be somebody going, \u201cThat\u2019s not what happened!\u201d But that\u2019s not the exact point of the show.\u201d<\/p>

Some of these changes which have already been noted include the show\u2019s opening sequence. In the scene, Liddy, Hunt and their team are seen attempting their second break-in, but it fails because they didn\u2019t have the right lock-picking tools.<\/p>\n

CNN presidential historian<\/a> Tim Naftali reported that this actually happened on the first attempt, while the second failed because they accidentally bugged an empty conference room, because they couldn\u2019t find the correct office.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, TV Guide<\/a> reported that while in the series the plumbers\u2019 first mission, breaking into a psychiatrist\u2019s office to get files on military analyst Daniel Ellsberg, sees them unable to find the file and trashing the office, in real life they reportedly did find the file.<\/p>\n

Ellsberg said<\/a> that they left the file as they didn\u2019t find it enlightening, and that he didn\u2019t believe the room was trashed.<\/p>