WILLS ON DUTY: The Story of Watergate Security Guard Frank Wills

My History Can Beat Up Your Politics

Bruce Carlson

News, History, Politics

4.6 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 24 July 2022

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We are a month beyond of the 50th anniversary of the Watergate break-in, but it does seem appropriate to note an obscure player in the story. Frank Wills discovered a door had been deliberately held unlocked in the basement of The Watergate Office Complex. The rest became history. But for Wills it was bittersweet. His intersection with history also became a story of race and the choppy waters of a "proto-reality TV" 1970's America. We also tell the story of an intern in the wrong place at the wrong time, though it was perhaps the right time who played a completely accidental role in thwarting a burglary. We are part of Airwave Media Network www.airwavemedia.com Interesting in advertising? sales@airwavemedia.com Music by Lee Rosevere - he's on bandcamp - https://leerosevere.bandcamp.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to an AirWave Media Podcast.
0:04.0	It was just a piece of tape on a door, but it would change history.
0:30.0	When Frank Wills sees it, he thinks very little of it.
0:35.0	The gray duct tape had been used to hold open the lock in the basement door at the Watergate office complex part of a Tony section of Washington, D.C.
0:46.0	where Frank Wills worked as a security guard.
0:49.0	I checked the basement floor and I found a small piece of tape placed across the latch of the door, leading into the office building.
0:59.0	I found the first piece of tape, I took it off and I put it in my pocket and I continued making my security check within the building.
1:08.0	What is surprising, is it your celebrity crush knocking on your front door?
1:17.0	Oh, hiya!
1:18.0	Is it barbecuing and not burning the sausages?
1:23.0	Is it realising your cat has more friends than you?
1:28.0	Or is it finding hit animals like Goran Lagan, Cowboy, BeeBop and Tokyo Ghoul to stream free on ITVX?
1:35.0	You'd be the judge, ITVX, the UK's freshest streaming service.
1:39.0	His job was to patrol around the area and see if anything was amiss, specifically he was to check doors.
1:45.0	And he did that in what is still June 16, 1972.
1:51.0	The Watergate complex in the foggy bottom area of Washington, D.C.
1:56.0	the star tenant with the whole sixth floor was the Democratic National Committee, but not too much happened at the office complex.
2:05.0	He removes the tape, secures the door and puts it in his pocket.
2:11.0	He also makes a note in his security log, a log that will become famous.
2:16.0	At this point, he's not thinking anything.
2:18.0	It's common for maintenance people in the Watergate complex to keep the doors open that way.
2:23.0	They don't have to keep opening it.
	...

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