AP Photo
Members of the Senate Watergate Investigating Committee are seen during a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington as they listen to witness Robert Odle, foreground, May 17, 1973.
The Revolving Door Project, a Prospect partner, scrutinizes the executive branch and presidential power. Follow them at therevolvingdoorproject.org.
Wayne F. Stiles is one of the last living Miami FBI agents involved in the Watergate investigation, the only time in American history that corruption deposed a president. The Prospect spoke with Stiles by phone during the ongoing January 6th hearings to shed light on what’s changed since the investigation into Richard Nixon’s attempt to subvert the Democratic process, and what failures of the American justice system have remained. This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and style.
TAP: Let’s talk about the investigation you were directly involved with. How did you become involved in Watergate, and what was your role during the investigation?
Wayne Stiles: I had served for five years as a naval officer and helicopter pilot in the 1960s, serving in detachments aboard four aircraft carriers. In early 1972, I was 31 and only two years out of FBI agent training school when I was assigned to the Miami office of the FBI. There, I found myself assigned to the major criminal squad.
I remember coming into work the Monday morning following the arrest of the Watergate burglars. All agents were instructed to meet in the supervisor’s office, and during that meeting we were told to place all our pending cases on hold in order to devote full attention to the new case out of D.C.
At that time, I was fairly new to the squad so I waited to receive assignments from senior agents. I went along on interviews of Frank Sturgis, aka Frank Fiorini, the wife of Bernard Barker, and others. Our role was to gather all information on the Watergate burglars, their families, friends, and associates. We also gathered info on their movements prior to the D.C. break-in.
The Miami case agent was William Guilfoyle. The high priority of the case was demonstrated by his having to send a teletype to FBI HQ summarizing that day’s work followed by a full formal report at the end of each week. One day, Guilfoyle assigned me a lead involving the vehicle of Virgilio González, who became known as “the lock guy.” Vehicles owned by the other suspects living in Miami had been accounted for. I was provided a description of the car along with the Florida license plate and tasked with searching the parking areas of the airport for the missing vehicle.
So you found the car … What was in it?
I located the car and phoned it in to the office. A federal search warrant was obtained and a search of the trunk revealed a deposit slip for the Republic National Bank, in Miami. The deposit slip reflected that a $25,000 check had been deposited into the account, which later was revealed to be in the name of Bernard Barker, one of the Watergate burglars. The deposit was later identified as originating from the Committee to Re-Elect the President, CREEP. I’ve long maintained that it was that deposit that actually connected the Watergate burglary to the campaign of President Nixon. It provided the impetus to explain how that money ended up in Miami and what it was used for.
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Are there moments or revelations from your time working on the Watergate investigation that stand out today?
Well, the interview of Frank Sturgis stands out as being somewhat amusing. He was asked during an interview who had put tape on the door latch at the Democratic HQ. He said, “Yeah, we were bringing stuff in and every time we went in we had to have someone inside open the door.” The door had a panic bar which locked every time the door closed. Sturgis said that he put tape on the latch. This tape was noticed by the Watergate security guard on his rounds and he removed it. The story I remember is the guard thought the tape had been left by the people working during the day at the DNC. Sturgis told us that when he noticed the tape was missing, he put another piece on the latch, thinking one of his people had taken it off. On his next round, the guard noticed the tape had been put back on, and as they say, the rest is history.
Also, Howard Hunt was the Miami CIA contact for the Bureau. This is all hearsay and office gossip, but supposedly Hunt and an agent from our office had monthly lunch meetings where they swapped information. The CIA would have names and info having domestic relevance and the FBI would pass on information [that] the CIA might have use for. So there was a strong relationship there between the two agencies. I’m not mentioning the FBI agent’s name, as he is now deceased.
What are the parallels you see in the current ongoing investigations and what you saw both at the Bureau and in Congress back in the ’70s?
Watergate was a very aggressive investigation and I can remember every day, everyone was busy, everyone had something to do involving the case. The Bureau was on it 24/7 and of course I was a fairly new agent and not privy to upper-level discussions.
I do see a contrast with what’s happening today vis-à-vis the January 6th matter. There seems to be reticence to put the same focus on this case as we had in the Watergate investigation. To me both cases are critical, but January 6th seems to represent a greater threat to our democracy than Nixon and Watergate. We were stuck with the unfortunate outcome of Nixon being allowed to resign. That seems to have allowed similar misconduct to fester because there was really no deterrent put in place. Nixon got to fly off into the sunset in the government helicopter, waving as he left.
It is sad to say, but I believe there is a real danger to our democracy at this point. There have been so many elections where the minority candidate has ended up president and then taken steps that have weakened opposing forces. And I just hope in November people come out strongly and show their refusal to accept an authoritarian government and machinations of Mitch McConnell. You know, I’m like every other citizen, waiting to see what happens.
Where do things stand currently with these hearings? Are there aspects of all this that are familiar?
I would first call your attention to a New York Times article identifying Thomas Windom, who is overseeing key elements of the DOJ’s January 6th investigation. He is portrayed as a below-the-radar prosecutor but a very aggressive, no-nonsense guy that is supposedly working under the close supervision of [Attorney General Merrick] Garland’s top aides.
They are delivering subpoenas, so there has to be a federal grand jury sitting somewhere in order for that to have happened. I see the big complaint from the other side is that the January 6th hearings are a political stunt, so I’m sure the DOJ is being very careful not to act in a way that supports that complaint. They want to run parallel investigations but not intersecting ones. It seems to me that they are running out of time, everyone knows the clock is ticking down. I can’t help but see the advantage of instituting certain judicial processes that can’t be interfered with should November not go the Democrats’ way. They need to get things established so they can’t be interfered with. And like most, I think they are trying to get all this information out in order to sway voters in the coming election.
Where does Garland fit into all of this?
Garland, I think, is going overboard to show his impartiality, and to not be accused of revenge at having been denied a seat on SCOTUS. But sometimes I think he’s gone too far in the other direction. In my opinion, he has more than enough probable cause to begin, maintain, and bring to a close an investigation into the people who tried to take over our government. And I think most Americans agree that he has probable cause to do what he needs to do. But we don’t see a lot of evidence of him doing it. I hope there are a lot of things going on in the background and that they are not appearing to be working hand in glove with the committee. On the other hand, that sure didn’t seem to bother people back during Watergate. Truth is truth, and the truth shouldn’t have varied much between these two cases.
Are there any final thoughts you’d like to share?
I am an ordinary American. I worked my way through college and what my wife and I have earned on our own. My father didn’t graduate high school, my mother was a stay-at-home mom. My wife quit college to support both parents who became disabled. We’re just common people who have lived in an uncommon era, but we still like to think like small-town folks. We hope there are enough people that will stand up for democracy and stem the tide of this authoritarian right-wing takeover.
