Ep. 30: Stranger Danger, Hiding Stevens and Russell

The Mysteries of Watergate

As of late March 1973, it looked like all the pieces were falling in place for the CIA to avoid exposure of its role in the Watergate scandal and to hide the salacious information actually targeted. If Watergate continued to be viewed as a campaign fiasco, John Dean’s and Jeb Magruder’s testimony against their superiors in the White House would be increasingly valuable. But there loomed, as Watergate burglar James McCord was unleashing to Judge Sirica about the White House, two serious dangers to this view of Watergate: Michael Stevens and Lou Russell. They worried Dean and Magruder more than they threatened the CIA. Stevens and Russel especially threatened a newspaper which was about to be awarded a Pulitzer Prize for its Nixon-targeted reporting. Can you guess which paper, and whether it reported truthfully about Russell and Stevens? Could that paper have helped avoid at least one needless death?
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