ADMIRAL MOORER, GENERAL HAIG AND THE NIXON WHITE HOUSE
by Frederick J. Graboske
http://www.watergate.com/stories/obit.aspThe last part begs the question, due to Bob Woodward's account of his ties to Adm Moorer and Mark Felt in today's papers, of what role he may have played (overtly or inadvertently) in Adm Moorer's spy ring.
The military wanted Nixon out of office so bad, with the navy especially. Pages 246-247 of Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage, by Sherry Sontag and Christopher/Annette Drew, shows us why:
"Kissinger had made a glaring mistake during arms negotiations that threatened to leave the Soviets with a dangerous lead in submarine-based ballistic missiles. In secret talks away from his military advisers, he had agreed, offhandedly, not to ask for limits on the Soviet's massive efforts to build the Deltas, a new class of submarines that would far surpass the Yankees and carry ballistic missiles with ranges of 4,000 miles. Zumwalt was furious, convinced that Nixon had given away the barn in their zeal to get SALT completed before the year's elections." (1972)
On top of that, you had negotiations with the North Vietnamese in Paris dealing with possibly excluding those POWs in Laos etc taken out of uniform. If they were being left out of the loop, that would end up in the hearings held with Sen Kerry's committee and Ross Perot's and Kissinger's testimony held around 1990 - see newspaper items listed at
http://members.tripod.com/thepatriotsinn/research.htmOne example: "Pentagon in 1973 thought P.O.W.'s were left behind. (former Secretary of Defense, Elliot L. Richardson testifies before Senate Select Committee on P.O.W-M.I.A. Affairs that Pentagon believed prisoners of war were left in Laos) (International Pages) The New York Times, Sept 25, 1992 v142 pA5(N) pA8(L) col 5 (16 col in)" If DoD thought that in 1973, they surely thought it in 1971-72 also...while building up to Watergate.
So, Nixon had two strikes against his with the military and, according to today's article by Woodward mentioning the Tom Huston Plan for consolidating domestic intelligence (on anti-war protesters and 'martial law') we have the CIA and FBI wanting to protect their turf so to speak, which Woodward offers as part of W. Mark Felt's motivation.
Why Woodward continues to avoid mention of the Adm. Moorer story is not too hard to guess.