E01: All the President's Spies –– A Prehistory of Watergate

Richard Nixon was not the first president to make questionable demands for political intelligence. Rather than a bug of his administration, espionage was a feature of the postwar presidency. In this episode, we explore how past presidents –– particularly LBJ –– made personal use of the FBI and CIA, we examine how escalating social unrest prompted a push to expand domestic surveillance, and we consider the expectations that Nixon held of his intelligence agencies as he entered office.