Bob Woodward said, "He's the only one in Watergate who did his job perfectly." Meet Frank Wills

Today is a very important anniversary in American history.  Very few of us will ever forget waking up to the news the day after an inept group of burglars, masterminded by the mentally unbalanced G. Gordon Liddy, attempted to break into the Democratic National Headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington DC.  

You know, they would have gotten away with it had it not been for Frank Wills, a security guard who noticed tape covering the latches on doors leading to the DNC offices, removed it, and then found tape re-attached an hour later as he made his rounds.  If not for his vigilance, the five clowns sent by the President of the United States of America, one Richard M. Nixon,  to install spying devices in phones and photocopy documents would not have been caught, there would have been no ensuing scandal as the facts came out linking Nixon and his criminal cohorts to the stupidest crime in history, and the crook who later insisted "I'm not a crook" would have been able to serve out his entire second term instead of being sent off in abject disgrace, which is what he was anyway. 

What made it so stupid was that Nixon ordered all this espionage because he feared that he could lose the 1972 election to whomever the Dems threw against him.  As if!  He was a lock, being so popular in his beloved "Middle America," where he sent Vice President Spiro Agnew out to deliver speeches in which he regularly insulted people of all sorts.  Nice couple of guys, and they had 99 problems, but that election wasn't one of them.

Frank Wills

It took diligent reporting by the team of Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward to uncover the many criminal secrets and coverups that sprang out of the well that Frank Wills (1948- 2000) uncapped this day, 42 years ago.  If not for him, and the Washington Post, history would be far different.  For want of a nail, the shoe was lost....