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Retired agent Angelo Lano served in the FBI for 29 years. He was the case agent of the FBI Watergate investigation, starting from the morning of June 17, 1972, when he received a phone call from his Bureau supervisor instructing him to report to the Watergate Complex to investigate a break-in at the Democratic National Committee Headquarters.
His initial assignment was to identify the five men caught in the act and arrested by local police. However, subsequent investigation by Lano and members of his squad quickly determined that this was more than just another interstate theft of stolen property case. They learned the intruders were connected to the committee to re-elect President Richard Nixon and the property crime case morphed into the biggest political scandal in U.S. history.
Lano’s investigation produced evidence of a cover-up and led to articles of impeachment being drawn up against Nixon, who resigned from office in 1974.
Angelo Lano was one of several FBI agents falsely accused of being Deep Throat, a source of leaks consisting of inside investigatory information for the Washington Post.
Special Agent (Retired)
Angelo Lano
6/10/1960 – 7/2/1989
The following are links to an FBI Overview, original investigative documents and files, transcripts and recordings, and newspaper articles regarding the FBI Watergate investigation and scandal:
FBI The Vault – Original Bureau records and files from the two-year long FBI Watergate investigation of the break-in and cover-up.
Watergate – The Washington Post
The Smoking Gun Tape – This is the transcript and recording of a meeting between President Nixon and his Chief of Staff, H.R. Haldeman, in the Oval Office on June 23, 1972.
Also listen to: Episode 121: John Mindermann – Watergate, FBI Public Perception Today
[…] Also listen to Episode 063: Angelo Lano – FBI Watergate Investigation. […]
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What was the name & ethnicity of Mr. Lano”s partner?
His name is Paul Magallanes. I don’t know his ethnicity. I found this article that attempts to explain his and Angelo Lano’s real life role in Watergate. https://thecinemaholic.com/angelo-lano-and-paul-p-magallanes/
I am loving your podcast, Ms. Williams, and tell my family and friends to listen as well. This story was particularly interesting to me because I was very young when the Watergate hearings were broadcast on tv, and I remember them on tv every day.
So far, all of your interviews have been so interesting. I commute to work every day, so in a way, I’m binge listening to them. But I’m catching up so fast that I wish you would do more interviews each week. But that’s ok, I’ll just re-listen to some of my favorites when I catch up.
Thank you for doing this podcast and I’m looking forward to more.
Jean – More than weekly? Noooo! Ha ha! I’m actually taking a short holiday break to focus on my next novel and line up podcast guests for 2018. I’ll have a bonus episode for you next week. Thanks for listening!
Thank you Thank you Thank you!,,
This is so special! Apparently Angelo Lano didn’t give many interviews…so to hear him personally recount Watergate as seen from his angle is simply priceless.
For me, he is one of the true heros of watergate. Yes, Woodward and Bernstein are to be rightly given huge credit for keeping the story alive and in the public eye. Their angle was more ‘dramatic’ and ‘Hollywoodian’, if you like….but, from an investigative point of view, it was the FBI that uncovered the facts of the story.
It is easy to deduce from the interview (and from the very few past interviews that are available) that Angelo Lano is a true professional and, above all, a true gentleman.
The only question you didn’t ask, that I would have loved you to, regards his contacts (and subsequent incident) with Woodward. It would have been nice to hear his version on that.
Notwithstanding that, it is an excellent and priceless interview.
Thank you Ms. Williams, and thank you Mr. Lano!
Thank you Pablo. I was just as excited as you to hear about the case from Angelo Lano’s investigator viewpoint. I was honored that he allowed me share this part of his FBI story.