The Puzzle of Watergate by Jean Ellen Wilson

June 17, 2022 will be the 50th anniversary of the break-in of Democrat National Headquarters located in the Watergate complex in Washington D.C. This "third-rate burglary" was the first break in the wall that hid a series of political dirty tricks. With the wall breached, what came into view was a picture of opposition research gone illegal and leadership gone wrong. Investigations by reporters, the FBI, government prosecutors and Congressional committees led to the president's men jailed and President Richard Nixon's exodus from the White House. The Puzzle of Watergate is a late entry in the vast library of Watergate materials. Alfred C. Baldwin was cast as a bit player in the drama back in 1973, but this book, the result of many hours of interviews with the man, proves he should have been given a more prominent place in the spotlight. He was the eavesdropper on the Democrat calls and he also acted as the lookout for the covert operation that June night. A generation of U. S. citizens watched the trials on television with mounting disapproval of the Nixon administration. Since that time, two generations of Americans have heard of "Watergate," and may even know it is a metaphor for political scandal. For them, the upcoming anniversary with its documentary specials, its revisionist books, and its reviews will be a history lesson. For those of us who lived through it, Watergate's Golden Anniversary will bring back memories: our loss of trust in leadership and our diminished optimism about the great American experiment. Al Baldwin's voice in The Puzzle of Watergate contributes to the history of the scandal of the century in many ways: he alleges a different and shocking reason for why the five men broke in; he corrects wild theories about the content of the conversations overheard on the tapped phone; he reveals how his own lawyer passed confidential information to the Democrats