Oops-New York Times let Watergate slip

The New York Times had the first scoop on Watergate before the Washington post but let it slip.

That's according to an article in the paper this morning which says that

almost 37 years after the break-in, two former New York Times journalists have stepped forward to say that The Times had the scandal nearly in its grasp before The Post did

One of the journalists concerned says that two months after the break in during a lunch meeting

the acting director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, L. Patrick Gray, disclosed explosive aspects of the case, including the culpability of the former attorney general, John Mitchell, and hinted at White House involvement.

but

In the days after that 1972 lunch, the Times bureau was consumed by the Republican convention,

They must feel like the man from Decca who turned down the Beatles