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1-Page Summary of All the President’s Men
Overview
The film begins in 1972, with the president arriving at the Capitol to give a speech. He is very popular and seems unbeatable.
The film then cuts to an underground parking garage where a security guard notices that one of the doors is open. He calls security who catch five burglars breaking into the Democratic National Committee’s office in Washington D.C.’s Watergate complex.
The Washington Post’s headquarters is shown, where Harry Rosenberg tells the freshman reporter Bob Woodward that he needs to investigate something mysterious. Burglars broke into a building and stole money with sequential serial numbers, but they all had lawyers paid for by an unknown source. The burglars are on trial, but they don’t seem to have any connections except for their lawyers. Woodward learns that one of them used to work for the CIA and has Hunt’s initials in his bag. He uses his contacts to discover that there is a connection between the burglars and the White House.
Woodward is assigned a partner by the Washington Post to cover Watergate: Carl Bernstein. They’re both talented, but they have different styles. Woodward chastises Bernstein for stealing his story and rewriting it.
Woodward talked to an old official who was in the administration. This person is only known as “Deep Throat.” Deep Throat met with Woodward at night, and they used codes to set up meetings. His advice: “follow the money.”
Bernstein and Woodward follow the money trail, which leads them to connect the burglars’ checks with Nixon’s campaign. The Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP) was run by one of Nixon’s attorneys general and seems connected to his administration. Bernstein and Woodward investigate CREEP further, discovering that it acts as a slush fund for moving money around secretly between different people.
The paper’s editors don’t believe the story. Why would Nixon, who is almost guaranteed to win in November, be hiring people to break into the Democratic National Committee? However, executive editor Ben Bradlee believes in them and allows them to continue publishing stories. Through their investigations they find that this slush fund was used for sabotage purposes during primary elections to ensure a Nixon victory in the general election. An accountant for CREEP confirms that there is about $6 million dollars of funding from corporations and wealthy individuals. A California man admits that he was paid by CREEP (Committee To Re-elect The President) as part of a rat-fucking campaign where he traveled around sabotaging other candidates’ campaigns so Nixon could win easily (“rat” refers to political dirty tricks). Hugh Sloan, treasurer of CREEP admits that five men control the slush fund with many ties directly back to members of the administration including Attorney General John Mitchell and White House aides Haldeman and Ehrlichman.”
Woodward and Bernstein connect the slush fund to H.R. Haldeman, one of Nixon’s aides. However, Woodward mischaracterizes a source in his article, making it seem as if there were no connection between the two. This is a setback for them because they lose credibility with their reader base and are forced to retract their story. Despite this setback, Bradlee does not take them off the case or fire them from The Washington Post.
Woodward overslept, and when he went to meet Deep Throat for the last time, he was furious. He said that this whole coverup is a conspiracy that goes throughout the government. It’s also dangerous for Woodward and Bernstein because their lives are in danger.
Woodward goes to Bernstein’s house, and they put on music in case they’re being bugged. Deep Throat has told them what to do next, so the two go to Bradlee’s house. Bradlee believes their story and is willing to help them with it.
