Welcome to the Watergate. This massive, block-size complex contains almost five hundred hotel rooms, around 600 apartments, two office buildings as well as a grocery store, a pharmacy and various other retail venues. Built by Nicholas Salgo's Societa Generale Immobiliare, it overlooks the Potomac river. The modern design caused a bit of a stir initially, but the Watergate soon turned into coveted residence and location for the kids that played on the Hill.

Richard M. Nixon's Attorney General, John Mitchell lived there with his wife Martha. Nixon's faithful secretary, Rosemary Woods had a Watergate apartment. In the summer before a Presidential election, the Democratic National Committee was leasing suite 600 at the Watergate Hotel.

Late one night while America slept, a group of men broke into the DNC Headquarters. Apparently the men were there - after breaking in three weeks prior - to readjust wiretapping devices when they were caught by a security guard named Frank Wills. Regardless of their task, the men ( Bernard Barker, Virgilio González, Eugenio Martínez, James W. McCord, Jr., Frank Sturgis) were arrested. James McCord was Chief of Security of Nixon's Committee to Re-Elect the President. This glaring detail might have been overlooked if beat reporter Bob Woodward had not been present during the burglar's arraignment. Woodward recognized McCord.

When the Watergate break-in first happened, people thought the whole thing was a bit silly. Certainly the President had no association with what his Press Secretary called "a third-rate burglary". Tricky Dick was doing great in the polls and would in fact, win a second term. It took two years to unravel the web of lies, slush funds, dirty tricks, bribes, payoffs and secretly recorded tapes that would eventually reveal all of it led directly to the President of the United States.

The Watergate scandal had nothing to do with a building. It had everything to do with the unchecked power and paranoia of Richard Milhous Nixon and his men. The sixties and the seventies had been hard on America. Discovering that our elected President was a crook killed the last vestige of our innocence as a people. We had seen one President shot and now we had another leave in shame.

The Watergate is still a hot spot for DC politcos. Bob and Elizabeth Dole lived there. Moinca Lewinsky did too. Heck, Condoleezza Rice lives at the Watergate today! The building still stands. Nixon is dead and Mark Felt was Deep Throat.

The Watergate's Modern Day Counterpart:

The Downing Street Memo