The Senate Watergate Committee: Ervin, Baker and 319 Hours of Live TV

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

After five men were arrested inside the Democratic National Committee offices at the Watergate on June 17, 1972, the White House called it a third rate burglary and Richard Nixon won 49 states that November. The House Banking Committee under Wright Patman of Texas tried to investigate in October 1972, but its subpoena vote failed when several Democrats joined Republicans. In February 1973 the Senate voted 77 to 0 for Resolution 60, creating the Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities with four Democrats and three Republicans. Sam Ervin of North Carolina chaired it, Howard Baker of Tennessee was the ranking Republican, and Samuel Dash and Fred Thompson served as majority and minority counsel.

Hearings opened in May 1973. CBS, NBC and ABC carried them live, PBS replayed them gavel to gavel each night on more than 150 stations, and NPR carried the audio, for 319 hours of coverage reaching 85 percent of American households. Baker asked what the president knew and when he knew it. John Dean testified for four days that he had warned Nixon of a cancer on the presidency, and Alexander Butterfield revealed the secret Oval Office taping system. Ervin pressed John Ehrlichman on whether any law let a president authorize the break-in at Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office. The committee disbanded in June 1974 with a seven volume, 1,250 page report, 40 officials were indicted, and Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974.

• Some Southern Democrats on the House committee faced White House threats to district funding and primary challenges.
• Ervin, 76, paired a folksy manner and quotations from the Bible and Shakespeare with deep constitutional scholarship.
• Dean revealed a White House enemies list under questioning by Senator Daniel Inouye.
• Republican committee member Lowell Weicker learned he was on that enemies list.
• The coverage is credited with turning NPR from a fledgling network into a national news force.