Los Angeles became the western counterpart to the Watergate investigation when evidence about the burglary of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office surfaced at Ellsberg’s trial there. The proceedings connected a prosecution over the Pentagon Papers leak to the political operations associated with Watergate, and ultimately ended with the dismissal of all charges against Ellsberg.

Setting and Connection to Watergate

At Ellsberg’s trial in Los Angeles, Judge Matthew Byrne announced that he had learned from the Watergate prosecutors that E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy had supervised the 1971 burglary of the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist. The disclosure gave the trial a direct connection to the Watergate investigation: an operation once treated as separate from the break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters now linked the two cases through its personnel and methods.

The connection also acquired a newsroom shorthand. The Washington Post staff often referred to the two developing stories as Watergate East and Watergate West, with the Los Angeles trial serving as the western counterpart. In late April, an Associated Press bulletin about Judge Byrne’s announcement brought the new link sharply into the reporters’ attention; Bernstein then contacted an associate of John Dean for their daily conversation about how the information had come to light.

Wiretap Revelations and the Trial

The trial’s relationship to the leak investigation deepened when Bernstein and Woodward pursued reporting in early May about wiretaps connected to the Pentagon Papers inquiry. Deep Throat had previously given Woodward the names of New York Times reporters Neil Sheehan and Hedrick Smith, but the reporters could not obtain a second source to confirm those names, so they left them out. They did find a possibility that Ellsberg himself had been overheard on a tap.

The prosecution had insisted that there were no wiretaps involving Ellsberg. Judge Byrne nevertheless asked the government to search its records again. Acting FBI director William D. Ruckelshaus found that Ellsberg had been overheard at least once, not on Sheehan’s telephone but on the home telephone of Morton Halperin, a former member of the National Security Council staff of Henry Kissinger. Ruckelshaus also announced that Halperin’s telephone had been tapped for 21 months. The disclosure was the first confirmation that the administration had used wiretaps to investigate news leaks, and it showed that the government had failed to disclose all its wiretap information to Ellsberg’s defense attorneys.

Dismissal and Significance

Several days later, on May 11, Judge Byrne dismissed all charges against Ellsberg. He said that government misconduct had “incurably infected the prosecution.” The decision made the Los Angeles trial consequential beyond its immediate case: disclosures about a secret burglary and concealed surveillance had undermined the prosecution and brought the government’s leak investigations into public view.

Los Angeles thus marks a point where the Watergate story widened. The trial did not merely reveal that Hunt and Liddy had supervised another burglary; its proceedings also exposed wiretapping and nondisclosure that affected Ellsberg’s defense. The paired label Watergate East and Watergate West captured that expansion, as revelations from the Los Angeles courtroom connected political espionage, the Pentagon Papers investigation, and the growing scrutiny of government conduct.