June 17, 1972 Watergate break-ins set the stage for "All the President’s Men"
On this day in 1972, five men are caught trying to bug the offices of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C.
The story of the break-in, which seemed like a minor event, was handed to two young reporters, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, by their Washington Post editor-in-chief, Ben Bradlee. The reporters pursued the story tirelessly and broke the scoop of White House involvement in a pattern of unethical practices against political enemies. The pair later wrote the bestselling book All the President’s Men (1974), about the journalistic process of exposing the Watergate scandal.