Remembering Frank Wills; Forgotten Watergate Hero
By Bruce Branch
WI Staff Writer

The identity of “Deep Throat”, former FBI agent Mark Few, who was the secret source for the coverage of the Watergate scandal, was revealed last week after 30 years of anonymity. The Watergate scandal was, perhaps, the most damning event in American political history, which led to the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon.

Much overlooked, however, is the contribution of an obscure African-American security guard named Frank Wills, whose alert action led to the discovery of a burglary at the Watergate Hotel and the subsequent exposure of a political scandal that lasted for more than two years.

As the journalists often speculated about the identity of “Deep Throat”, others often wondered what ever happened to Frank Wills.

Life for Wills changed for good shortly after moving to the District from his native home of Aiken County , South Carolina and during a routine evening at the Watergate apartment complex, where Wills worked the midnight to 7 am shift for GSS, a private security company, earning a meager $80 per week. In the early morning of June 17, 1972, while making his rounds, Wills noticed a piece of duct tape covering the latch on a door between the basement stairwell and the parking garage. Wills suspected the cleaning crew (they left earlier) had taped over the door latch to prevent it from locking. He removed the tape and went on with his duties. Meanwhile, James McCord, the leader of the buglers and a former CIA employee, noticed the tape was missing. Rather than calling off the intrusion, he just re-taped the door.

Wills made his rounds again and saw the tape had been replaced. At 1:47 am, Wills alerted the police and the break-in of the offices leased by the Democratic National Committee was defined as a “third rate burglary.” The capture of the Watergate burglars set off a train of events that resulted in the resignation of President Nixon in August 1974.

If Wills had not performed his security guard duties diligently, there probably would not have been a Watergate scandal.

Wills, who played himself in a brief cameo role in the movie “All The President’s Men,” quit his job as a security officer, reportedly, because he did not receive a raise for his for his role in discovering the burglary. Unable to maintain a steady job, Wills was given an opportunity to work with comedian/activist Dick Gregory in the Bahamas where he helped to market Gregory’s Bahamian Diet.

For Wills, the true hero of the Watergate scandal, there were no lucrative movie or book deals, but instead a few shining moments in the public spotlight, but rarely a mention in the history books. The magnitude of his fame which should have been his good fortune turned into a lifetime curse. He became an emotional wreck and developed several illnesses caused by excessive drinking and tough times.

“He was the only [Watergate figure] that did his job perfectly,” Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward once said of Wills.

Wills received some recognition for his efforts. He received awards from the Democratic Party and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Award from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. For a short period of time he was sought after by the Washington press corps and was paid $300 per interview, but that didn’t last long. Plans were made for him to lecture, but were abandoned after his 15 minutes of fame waned.

“I don’t know if they are being told not to hire me or they are just afraid to hire me,” he told the Washington Post. By the late 70's he moved in with his sick mother. In 1983, Wills was sentenced to a year in prison for shoplifting a pair of sneakers.

On the 25 th anniversary of the break-in 1997, Wills had become bitter. During a Boston Globe interview, he said: “I put my life on the line. If it wasn’t for me, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein would have not known anything about Watergate. This wasn’t finding a dollar under a couch somewhere.”

Wills remained jobless. As a result, he died nearly penniless on September 27, 2000, of a brain tumor in Augusta , Georgia at the age of 52.