[Beckwith]

This incident blows Watergate away.

Watergate and the subsequent coverup was a political crime that was described as a "3rd rate burglary".

The Berger Break-in was not performed by a bunch of GS-Nines, but by the National Security Adviser.

The target wasn't political information but national security information, classified Top f*ckin' Secret.

The tactics weren't covert, they were overt - in your face - I'm outta here with this stuff.

And now some of it has gone missing?

The early news is reporting there is backup. I hope so.

[Guenevere]

bttt

[devane617]

I am almost certain all these docs have backups, or at least I hope so.

[AFPhys]

The information that I have been able to glean is that the document he took - twice - constituted different draft copies of the same document. The document writer typically writes it, several copies are made of that first draft and distributed to others (here, the President and other cabinet members, I presume) and they annotate/ redline/ marginal notes/ etc., and then the drafts are returned to the writer for incorporation into the final document.

It seems that some of these annotated copies are what is missing, and so they are gone forever, as Berger apparently intended for some reason. It has to be particularly damning for somebody who noted these documents. However...

The real part of the story is that the "librarians" did not simply stop the theft. From the way I've read these stories, they noticed on previous occasions that Berger had taken some things, and on at least one of the later occasions they "marked" things he was given. The reason to do this is to catch a person who intended to swap legitimate copies with an illegitimate copy of an item. They had suspicions that went beyond Berger simply stealing something.

The question then becomes, what was he trying to change and hide from future historians and national security advisers.

Something is truly rotten here.