Fifty years after Watergate, how a security guard’s crucial role was ignored

As the threat to America’s democracy rises again his central part will never be diminished, writes David Harding

A film full of 1970s feather cuts, flares and dialogue starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman (AP)

Friday marks the 50th anniversary of the best-known scandal in western politics. Watergate, an event that changed the course of American history, took place on 17 June 1972, and is now half a century old.

It is a tale well told; how it led to the fall of President Nixon, the disastrous cover-up, the tapes, how Watergate became a high point in journalism, Deep Throat, the introduction of names such as Hunt, Liddy and Magruder into the political lexicon, and a film full of 1970s feather cuts, flares and dialogue starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman. Watergate even gave its name to every subsequent scandal since, see Partygate.

One name that might not be so familiar, though, is Frank Wills. Which is a shame because without Wills the scandal may never have been exposed and you have to wonder why that might be.