Alfred C. Baldwin III was ringside in the unfortunate Watergate break-in on June 17, 1972. He was the lookout, watching from a perch across the street with a mission to warn his burglars at the Watergate complex as law enforcement approaches.
When he finally saw the police come in, he was too late to warn the burglars. He fled from his lookout, but was later arrested by the FBI
In the motley crew of eccentrics, miscreants, would-be spies and dirty tricksters involved in the ensuing two-year Watergate drama—which culminated in President Richard M. Nixon’s resignation in 1974—Mr. Baldwin was a minor character. But he played a vital early role by becoming a government witness and one of the first to publicly link the burglars to Nixon’s reelection attempts.
His account of his involvement, provided to The Los Angeles Times a few months after the break-in, was “perhaps the most important Watergate story to date,” wrote journalist and author David Halberstam in 1979 in “The Powers That Be.” a book about the media.
“It was so tangible,” he added, “it had an eyewitness and it brought Watergate right to the door of the White House.”
Mr Baldwin passed away more than two years ago, on January 15, 2020, but the news only came to light recently. It was first reported by Shane O’Sullivan, an Irish author and filmmaker, who was updating his book ‘The Watergate Burglars’ (originally published in 2018 as ‘Dirty Tricks’). The news became public on May 3 when Mr. O’Sullivan’s book was published in paperback. He said Mr Baldwin, who was 83, died in a care facility in New Paltz, NY
DailyExpertNews confirmed the death along with Mr. Baldwin’s attorney and longtime friend, Robert C. Mirto. The cause was cancer.
Baldwin, a former FBI agent, was recruited in May 1972 to work for the Presidential Re-election Committee known as CREEP by James W. McCord Jr., a former CIA security expert who masterminded the Watergate. burglary. (Coincidentally, Mr. McCord’s death in 2017 was also overlooked for two years and was also first reported by Mr. O’Sullivan.)
Mr. Baldwin first gave a vivid account of his role in a 1972 interview with Jack Nelson, a reporter for The Los Angeles Times. The report was one of the first in which the public learned the details of the break-in, including that in June, in which the burglars were caught, was their second visit to the Democratic National Committee offices at the Watergate.
During the first break-in, in late May, the burglars installed two listening devices, Mr Baldwin said in his interview. He was stationed across the street at the Howard Johnson Motor Lodge, from where he tapped wiretaps. He had logged about 200 calls by the time Mr. McCord realized the listening devices were malfunctioning and decided to stage a second raid on June 17 to modify them.
It was not clear when Mr Baldwin saw the police on the scene. A 2012 report in Washingtonian magazine said that at the time he was “glued to the TV watching a horror movie, ‘Attack of the Puppet People’, on Channel 20 – oblivious to the situation unfolding across the street.” the street developed.”
But that story didn’t add up, Mr. Baldwin said. He said he turned on the television to obscure the sound of his walkie-talkie, which he used to communicate with the burglars.
Washingtonian reported that by the time he “knew things had gone wrong across the street, it was too late” — the District of Columbia undercover police had already arrived, thanks to a phone call from Frank Wills, the security officer for Watergate, who noticed tape on the door to DNC headquarters, which prevented it from locking.
Mr Baldwin said he saw the officers’ cars outside the Watergate and got on his walkie-talkie to warn the burglars about “men with guns and flashlights looking behind desks and on the balcony”.
In a short time, the uniformed police swarmed out of the scene, and the mold was gone. E. Howard Hunt, one of the conspirators who had slipped out of the Watergate, rushed to Mr. Baldwin’s hotel room, told him to pack up the surveillance equipment, take it to Mr. McCord’s house, and then disappear.
“Does that mean I no longer have a job?” mr. Baldwin said he called Mr. Hunt had asked. But by then Mr. Hunt was out the door.
Federal investigators have found Mr. Baldwin is quickly tracked down. By the end of the month, he was working with the government, the only participant not to have been charged. He testified before the Senate Watergate Committee in May 1973, adding to the story he told Mr. Nelson.
Alfred Carleton Baldwin III was born on June 23, 1936 in New Haven, Conn. His father was a lawyer and a state commissioner for unemployment benefits. Alfred’s great-uncle, Raymond E. Baldwin, who died in 1986, had served as governor of Connecticut, a United States senator representing the state and its chief justice.
Alfred received his degree in business administration from Fairfield University in Connecticut in 1957 and enlisted in the Marines. He received his law degree from the University of Connecticut law school, graduating in 1963, and later that year, he joined the FBI. He was assigned to several towns in the South and resigned three years later when he married Georgeann Porto and moved back to Connecticut. The marriage soon ended in divorce.
Information on survivors was not available.
Mr. Baldwin worked as a safety director for a transportation company and as an instructor in a law enforcement university program until he was recruited by Mr. McCord to join CREEP.
Mr. Baldwin’s first assignment was to provide security for Martha Mitchell, whose husband, John N. Mitchell, had stepped down as Attorney General to work on Mr. Nixon’s reelection campaign. They were not a good match.
“Al Baldwin is probably the most gauche character I’ve ever met in my entire life,” Ms Mitchell later said in a statement from Watergate. For starters, she said, he’d taken off his shoes and socks in her hotel suite.
Mr. Mirto, Mr. Baldwin’s lawyer, said in an interview that Mr. Baldwin was a “funny man”. He was so attracted to women, Mr. Mirto said, that if he saw an attractive one driving on the toll road, he would drive for her and pay her toll, then ask her out for a drink. He said this worked about 10 times.
Speaking to Mr. Nelson in The Los Angeles Times, Mr. Baldwin had one request – that he be described as “an ex-Marine husky” in an attempt to impress a woman he met. Mr. Nelson obeyed.
After Watergate, Mr. Baldwin struggled to find work. He eventually got a job as a substitute teacher in New Haven. He received a master’s degree in education from Southern Connecticut State College (now university). And although he had obtained his law degree two decades earlier, in 1987 he took the bar exam for the first time and passed.
He later became a prosecutor in Hartford, his last job before retiring.