The Plot to break into Arthur Bremer’s residence was an alleged White House-directed operation to search the Milwaukee apartment of the man who shot Governor Wallace. Its significance lies in the gap between the proposed objective and what could be established: Howard Hunt reportedly said Charles Colson sent him to retrieve politically useful material, but the account was disputed, and the available reporting did not verify that the planned entry occurred or that Bremer was connected to the Watergate suspects.

Background and Intended Objective

On May 15, 1972, Wallace was shot at a shopping center in Maryland. By 6:30 that evening, a Washington Post editor had learned the would-be assassin’s name from White House official Kenneth Clawson. Clawson said literature found in Bremer’s Milwaukee apartment made it clear that Bremer was connected to left-wing causes, possibly the campaign of Senator George S. McGovern. The political meaning of the apartment’s contents therefore entered the story almost immediately, while the evidence was still being gathered.

The initial suggestion of a left-wing connection was not supported by Bob Woodward’s reporting. He rejected that interpretation after learning that the apartment contained both left-wing and right-wing propaganda. Reporters from Milwaukee also told him that they had been allowed inside during the ninety minutes after the shooting. Many carried away papers and other belongings. Two said that Federal Bureau of Investigation agents had entered once and left; about an hour and a half later, the agents returned and sealed the apartment. The Bureau offered no explanation for allowing Bremer’s belongings to be taken. This sequence matters because the apartment had already been entered and its contents disturbed before the later allegation that Hunt was instructed to break in and retrieve material.

The Alleged Instruction

About a week before John Dean testified before the Senate committee in June 1973, Woodward spoke with a Senate attorney who believed Hunt could shed light on further undercover work. Hunt had been brought from jail to Capitol Hill for lengthy interviews. According to the attorney, Hunt said that, about an hour after Wallace was shot, Colson wanted him to fly immediately to Milwaukee, break into Bremer’s apartment, and bring back anything that might help link Bremer to left-wing political causes. The alleged assignment thus joined a proposed unlawful search to an explicit political purpose: finding material that could make the would-be assassin appear connected to the left.

The account reached Woodward indirectly, through the attorney’s description of Hunt’s disclosure, rather than through a contemporaneous record of the instruction. The attorney presented the alleged order as part of Hunt’s account of an instruction he had received; the evidence supplied here does not establish that Hunt carried it out. Nor does it establish that the desired political connection existed. Indeed, Woodward’s earlier reporting had found both left- and right-wing material in the apartment, while the paper’s reporters never found evidence connecting Bremer to the Watergate suspects.

Corroboration and Denial

The next morning, Woodward called Hunt’s attorney, William O. Bittman. Bittman confirmed that testimony had been given about Colson asking Hunt to go to Milwaukee and enter Bremer’s apartment. But he could not clearly recall the stated reason for the trip and did not remember whether the word break-in had been used. His response supported the existence of testimony about a request to go to the apartment, while leaving uncertainty about the precise wording and purpose of the instruction.

On June 19, 1973, Woodward went to the law office of Colson’s partner and chief legal adviser on Watergate matters, David Shapiro. Shapiro and another attorney challenged the allegation and tried to persuade Woodward that it was too flimsy to report. Colson then met with Woodward. The lawyers argued that an order to Hunt would have made little sense because Colson had been in close contact with the Federal Bureau of Investigation that night and had urged the Bureau to conduct a speedy, thorough investigation. Colson likewise asked how he could have pressed the Bureau to investigate while simultaneously sending Hunt to Milwaukee. Woodward answered that the Watergate case already contained many apparent contradictions; he recorded Colson’s response, not a resolution of the competing claims. Colson called the charge absolutely untrue and said he would swear to that under oath.

Reporting Record and Significance

The allegation returned to a question that had troubled The Washington Post before: whether the apparent political value of evidence could shape how officials sought or interpreted it. The first public suggestion that Bremer’s belongings pointed toward left-wing causes came from Clawson, but Woodward’s reporting complicated that account by establishing that the apartment contained propaganda from both sides. The later allegation described a proposed search intended to find material useful to that same political theory. The difference between a theory announced to the press and an order allegedly given to an operative is consequential, but the reporting does not turn the latter into a proven event.

The book records both the allegation and the limits on confirming it. Hunt’s reported account, as conveyed by the Senate attorney, and Bittman’s confirmation that testimony existed gave Woodward grounds to investigate Colson’s role. Bittman’s uncertainty about the instruction’s rationale and wording, the defense lawyers’ argument about Colson’s contact with the Bureau, and Colson’s categorical denial left the central claim contested. Earlier reporting by Woodward and later work by another Washington Post reporter in Milwaukee also produced no evidence tying Bremer to the Watergate suspects. The proposed apartment search therefore stands in the narrative not as a verified completed burglary, but as a politically charged allegation whose stated aim, disputed authorization, and unsubstantiated target theory expose the distance between suspicion and proof.