The 1972 Watergate break-in turned the world into conspiracy theorists. Was Richard Nixon the architect of his own downfall or was it all part of a Deep State plot? What exactly were the Watergate burglars looking for - intelligence about Fidel Castro, kickbacks, and call girls? Or were they just rummaging around for dirt on the Democrats? 

More than 30 Nixon administration officials, campaign officers, and donors caught up in the scandal either pleaded or were found guilty of breaking the law. Every one of them had a story and most had a theory about what was really going on. 

Here are some of the biggest and most bizarre conspiracy theories - you be the judge.

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1. The crash of United Airlines Flight 553 wasn’t an accident

Dorothy Hunt, the wife of ex-CIA officer and Watergate planner E. Howard Hunt, died in a mysterious plane crash in December 1972. Investigators said Dorothy - who’d also worked for the CIA - was carrying $10,000 in $100 bills at the time. The FBI's unusually speedy appearance at the Chicago crash site triggered suspicion. Was she a CIA paymaster who was murdered for knowing too much? Private investigator Sherman Skolnick alleged that the CIA sabotaged the aircraft because 12 of its passengers had links to Watergate.

Chances of the theory being true? An extensive National Transportation Safety Board investigation found pilot error to be the cause. But…

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2. There was a Deep State-big media plot to bring down Nixon

Nixon’s ex-lawyer Geoff Shepard transcribed the Oval Office ‘smoking gun’ tape in which the president and his then-chief of staff, Bob Haldeman, discuss having the CIA interfere with an FBI investigation. Shepard argues in his book, The Nixon Conspiracy, that the tape - recorded on June 23, 1972 - actually proves Nixon’s acting in good faith. The real Watergate conspiracy, in Shepard’s view, is a corrupt Deep State-big media alliance of Democrats who wrongly brought down a Republican president.

Chances of the theory being true? Shepard makes a convincing case but it is shaped and seen through the lens of a Nixon White House lawyer. 

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3. The Martha Mitchell ‘kidnapping’ is linked‍

Martha Mitchell was the gossipy wife of Attorney General John Mitchell, known as ‘the mouth that roared’. She exposed the Nixon government's links to Watergate which apparently led the administration to conspire against her, painting her as delusional. While Martha was calling a reporter in 1972, ex-FBI agent Stephen King reportedly ripped the phone out of the wall, drugged her, and held Martha captive in her California hotel room. Newsweek repeated the kidnapping claim in 2017, but King maintains ‘much, if not most all’ of the reported facts in the Newsweek article are false. So did the government conspire against Martha, or was she exaggerating?

Chances of the theory being true: King didn’t specify which allegations were true or false, leaving the door open to speculation.

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4. The gods of baseball are to blame

Watergate conspiracies range from the deadly serious to the downright bizarre. One of the Bleacher Report bloggers argues that ‘the gods of baseball’ brought the Watergate scandal down on Nixon as punishment for not taking action to keep the flailing Washington Senators baseball team in the state (they rebranded as the Texas Rangers in 1972).

Chances of the theory being true? Zero. Strike out. 

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5. The Watergate break-in was linked to a CIA prostitution ring‍

No one - including the burglars - has adequately explained why they were in the Watergate complex in June 1972. Jim Hougan’s Secret Agenda (1984) argues that the White House ‘plumbers’ were hunting for intel related to a CIA-run prostitution ring. Hougan also believes one of the burglars was secretly working for the CIA and sabotaged the break-in to protect the Agency.

Chances of the theory being true? As Kirkus’ book review puts it: “There are wheels within wheels within wheels and, as Hougan acknowledges, conjectures galore; at the very least, it's a fascinating series of puzzles.”

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6. John Dean ordered the break-in to protect his fiancé ‍

Riffing on the call-girl theme, Watergate break-in supremo G. Gordon Liddy claimed the burglars wanted to know if the Democrats had photos that would embarrass John Dean, Nixon’s White House counsel (pictured above with his wife Maureen). Specifically, Liddy said burglars were looking for compromising photographs of Dean's then-fiancé, which they believed were locked in the desk of secretary Ida ‘Maxie’ Wells, along with photos of alleged prostitutes.

Chances of the theory being true? Liddy’s theory is based on books about Watergate, not first-hand information, and Dean has dismissed the idea as ridiculous. Oddly, however, no one has adequately explained why a key to Wells' desk was taped to a yellow, spiral-bound notebook in the pocket of a Watergate burglar. Maxie Wells sued Liddy for defamation, maintaining she had nothing to do with a prostitution ring, but a federal jury deadlocked and her case was dismissed. 

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7. The real ‘Deep Throat’ still hasn’t been identified‍

When Bob Woodward (Robert Redford) met ‘Deep Throat’ in All the President’s Men, they spoke one-to-one. The FBI’s No. 2, Mark Felt, eventually admitted to being the real-life ‘Deep Throat’ but what if Felt was just a minor player? What if Deep Throat was actually Nixon’s chief of staff Alexander Haig? (White House lawyer John Dean certainly thought so.) Or what if Deep Throat was a composite of sources including journalist Diane Sawyer; acting FBI director Patrick Gray; and Nixon’s deputy counsel John Sears? What if the idea of one all-knowing Deep Throat was a myth?

Chances of the theory being true? Woodward and Carl Bernstein hedged their bets in response to Felt’s revelation. "W. Mark Felt was 'Deep Throat' and helped us immeasurably in our Watergate coverage," they said in a statement. "However, as the record shows, many other sources and officials assisted us and other reporters for the hundreds of stories that were written in The Washington Post about Watergate."

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8. Nixon’s Federal Reserve chair was out to get him

Nixon’s paranoia was legendary but - even by his own standards - Nixon took things to a new level with his conspiracy theory that Nixon’s personally-appointed Federal Reserve Chairman Arthur F. Burns and the Bureau of Labor Statistics were out to get him. Nixon was angered by news coverage on July 2, 1971. Apparently, the Bureau of Labor Statistics had announced a drop in the unemployment rate but warned it might be a result of a ‘statistical quirk’. Nixon ordered an immediate investigation to find out who was responsible: “He’s got to be fired.”

Chances of the theory being true? It was a statistical quirk and there was seemingly no economic cabal conspiring against Nixon. 

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9. The CIA masterminded the break-in to bring down Nixon‍

Did the CIA conspire to oust Nixon because he repeatedly demanded the Agency hand over files on the JFK assassination and Bay of Pigs? The conspiracy theory started swirling around the Agency and other government departments around the time Nixon established the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP), according to David Greenberg, author of Republic of Spin. Greenberg argues Nixon himself fingered the CIA as masterminds of the break-in. But is it fact or fiction?

‍Chances of the theory being true? The final Senate committee report of June 1974 speculated, inconclusively, about the CIA’s role. White House ‘plumber’ Eugenio Martinez said the Watergate burglars had keys, so there was no need for ex-CIA officer and burglar James McCord to leave duct tape on door locks, alerting a security guard that a break-in was in progress. So was the CIA setting Nixon up for a fall? Then again, the Agency may have been a convenient scapegoat for Nixon to cover up his own failings.