American Power and Secrecy series

Washington, D.C.
June 1971

The system did not fail quietly.

It did not fracture in some distant corridor or obscure archive. It broke at the very centre of power, where classified truth was meant to remain contained, controlled, and unquestioned. When the first instalments of what would become known as the Pentagon Papers leak appeared in print,...

June 17, 1972,
Washington, D.C.

It did not begin as a constitutional crisis.

It began with a door that would not lock.

Shortly after midnight, a security guard making a routine round through the Watergate complex noticed something that did not belong. A strip of tape had been placed across the latch of a basement door—carefully positioned to prevent...