June 17, 1972- 5 arrested at Democratic National Committee headquarters in Watergate Hotel

[bobthedrummer]

There's a lot to discuss about the fact that POTUS Richard M. Nixon ordered that "mission".

Let's talk about it, today.

Below are a few links to start this thread.

All 5 of the Watergate burglars who broke into Democratic headquarters were CIA operatives (archived DU thread started 7-19-09 by NNNOLHI)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6104319

Washington Post Watergate Chronology
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/onpolitics/watergate/chronology.htm

Wikipedia Watergate page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate_scandal

Spartacus Schoolnet (UK) Watergate Chronology
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/WatergateChronology.htm

Add to this thread.

[monmouth]

1. I remember this like it was yesterday. I took time out from the spring

cleaning to call my very republican mother who worked for the very republican county clerk. She wasn't too informed yet but said, to quote..."Oh for god's sake, you hippie liberals will try to make hay out of anything. It's nothing." I swear I hung the phone up and found myself with mouth agape. I can honestly tell you that was my beginning real interest in politics. Nixon was a conniving slimeball. The news people (and they really were news journalists in those days) could hardly believe what they were reading...Ah..good times.

[bobthedrummer]

2. At that time I never thought there would be worse Presidents than Nixon-I was wrong. n/t

[slackmaster]

4. The day Nixon resigned, my mom told me we wouldn't have a GOP POTUS for a full generation

But just over six years later...

[bobthedrummer]

6. Let's not forget FBI informant and another criminal POTUS Gerald Ford, he pardoned

the domestic black ops crew, and he goes way, way back beyond "...the Bay of Pigs thing..." doesn't he?

[happy_liberal]

27. History repeats

After the media tanks Obama and enables the theft of election 2012, they are going to stick us with someone even worse than W. I know it sounds impossible...but it could be worse...like Cheney/Palin

[blogslut]

3. My family and I were visiting DC that weekend

At that time, the DC press thought it was all so funny.

[leveymg]

5. Posted this a few days ago on another thread . . .

(Woodward & Bernstein) transcribed the story as told to them through Ben Bradlee. But, the source was
the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), for which Bradlee and Woodward had both worked before they went to The Post, the CIA's newsletter. Next to the CIA, with which it worked closely, ONI was the most elite of the elite in American intelligence.

NSA was just a bunch of Army signals technicians and code breaking geeks at that time. But, ONI listened in on everyone in the days of radio tubes and microphones the size of your nose, particularly the White House, in the basement of which Woodward had worked just before the Yeoman Radford affair. GOOGLE Yeoman Radford, and you'll get a glimpse of this.

Exactly why ONI and the Joint Chiefs and the CIA (with Hoover's quiescence) did in Nixon is an enduring mystery. But, Deep Throat was military intelligence and the White House bugs were theirs.

-Mark

[bobthedrummer]

7. If one accepts Mark Felt as Deep Throat (I don't) The National Security Archive has quite a bit on

him and Watergate.

The Deep Throat File (The National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book 156)
FBI Memos Detail Mark Felt's Involvement in Efforts to Identify Secret Watergate Source
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB156/index2.htm

[leveymg]

10. My understanding is that the FBI watched while the spooks did their work

Felt may have had contemporaneous knowledge of some of what was going on, but I strongly doubt that anyone had to leave the building at The Post to learn the details of the operation. The Washington intelligence establishment (and it WAS The Establishment that manned and ran the CIA, at the time) deeply distrusted Nixon because he tried to take control over the CIA for his own purposes (and when rebuffed, ran his own rival group of spooks). As Ike's VP, Nixon had a management role running wet ops, mostly using military intelligence assets and exile groups against the Chinese and others. There was even an attempt to poison Chou en-Lai at a state dinner, which was called off at the last minute. Read Bill Corson's Armies of Ignorance, and Trento about that.

The Pentagon brass didn't think much of Nixon. They believed he had compromised his anti-Communist cred by hooking up with Kissinger, who the Admirals didn't really trust or understand, so they kept Nixon and Kissinger under constant surveillance.

Watergate is a codeword for a much bigger internal political war and dirty tricks campaign going on between these factions within American intelligence, one that continues to this day.

[bobthedrummer]

17. No doubts at all that this has continued, "Watergate" is as much a codeword as "Bay of Pigs" n/t

[bobthedrummer]

47. Since Nixon often referred to his aversion of reopening "the Bay of Pigs thing" and since so many

of the individuals involved directly and indirectly with the Watergate scandal had connections to that ill-fated invasion of Cuba this post is a link to The National Security Archive's Bay of Pigs 40 Years After Chronology (it sure beats reading Norman Mailer's fictional "Harlot's
Ghost" in its entirety)

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/bayofpigs/chron.html

[Ken Burch]

18. Out of curiousity, why DON'T you think Mark Felt was Deep Throat?

If not him, who's YOUR candidate?

[bobthedrummer]

24. Because he was the #3 guy in Hoover's FBI, and I don't have any more to say about that except that

the leaks went far beyond FBI Counter-Intelligence.

[alsame]

49. My father was always convinced that George HW Bush was

Deep Throat. When the Felt story broke, he didn't believe it.

[bobthedrummer]

51. One thing is for sure about Poppy, alsame, he was the Director/ CIA that expanded secrecy contracts

exponentially throughout the entire federal government during his brief tenure as DCI.

[ET Awful]

8. Oddly enough, even though I didn't realize the date was coming up . . .

I just re-watched "All The President's Men" on Tuesday night.

[bobthedrummer]

9. One last kick from me for today, June 17, 2010...add to this history lesson DUers

[Ken Burch]

11. I always wondered why that didn't instantly destroy Nixon's support

Why didn't the whole country just say "screw you, buddy", when his burglars were caught? Everybody KNEW he was in on it from rhe get-go.

[pinboy3niner]

12. Many were in denial, blaming it on bad apples in a rogue CREEP unit nt

[Ken Burch]

13. MInd you, I also still don't understand why Nixon even authorized the break-in

The Trickster had a twenty-five to thirty point lead over McGovern(and, most likely, a strong lead over any other possible Democratic nominee as well, including Scoop Jackson). It was OVER.

Why didn't he just do a straight-ahead "civics lesson" campaign from there on in?

If Milhouse had just kept it simple, he'd have had a landslide AND served out his whole second term.

I guess this teaches us what happens when you try too hard.

[Brother Buzz]

23. Paranoia and alcohol were at work

It got worse. By October 1973 everyone on his staff knew he was over the edge.

[Ken Burch]

20. A thought that's disturbing in itself, because it implies

that there were CREEP units doing legitimate things.

Which means that there were a lot of Americans, even in 1972, that were OK with the idea of rigging an election.

This perhaps explains why so many people were ok with what happened twenty-eight years later.

[bobthedrummer]

61. Denial has continued, as politicized perception management and neuroscience is rampant n/t

[kgnu_fan]

16. That is the level of morality in this country i think

[MarshalltheIrish]

14. Wow...it's one of my greatest historical fascinations, and I was unaware of the date approaching

I've been intrigued by it endlessly since 2004, and "All the President's Men" is easily one of the best of all American films. But the craziest part for me: My grandmother on my dad's side is a docent at the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, and has come to worship Nixon to such a nauseatingly epic extent that she considers Watergate totally trivial. During her most recent visit she tried to rationalize with my (uninterested) dad that it was a common practice for political parties to dig up dirt on each other, so that made the whole thing OK! Add to that my also arch-Republican uncle David's lax assertion that Watergate was "just the media going after him," as well as attending John W. Dean's visit to the Nixon Library last summer that had fellow Nixon-lovers screaming at the top of their lungs in anger, and I think it's safe to say I could go the rest of my life without hearing anymore love for Nixon. For the love of god, the guy illegally bombed more civilians in Cambodia and Laos to death than there were U.S. military deaths in World War II! Not to mention his administration's egregious intervention in Chile, which resulted in the Pinochet regime that ended and ruined countless lives.

I think this calls for Hunter S. Thompson's spot-on farewell, "He Was a Crook":

http://www.counterpunch.org/thompson02212005.html

[kgnu_fan]

15. i missed this thread yesterday but still want ot follow up on this subject

[bobthedrummer]

19. After Nixon resigned and Ford "immunized" the blackops crew we elected Jimmy Carter

then the same RW coalition brought us Ronald Reagan as a response to Iranian revolution and the beginning of the end of FDR's safetynets-and while we're at it Iran-Contra.

Robert Parry had another historical post about how Reagan's operatives operated on Congress-it's below

The Tricky October Surprise Report (by Robert Parry 6-17-10 Consortium News)
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2010/061710.html

[bobthedrummer]

21. I'm interested in other DUers remarks about this because of those that were mentored by creeps n/t

[bobthedrummer]

22. On this day in history, June 22 in 1977 former USAG John Mitchell began serving a 19 month sentence

for his role in WATERGATE, the only USAG ever to serve a criminal sentence.
Don't Ashcroft and Gonzales deserve the rule of law too???

[MinM]

25. The Moorer-Radford affair

Two things about Al Haig that are not in his obituary

[bobthedrummer]

26. Thanks MinM. n/t

[bobthedrummer]

28. On June 23, 1972 Nixon ordered the CIA to stop the FBI investigation of Watergate, citing "national

security" (no surprises there)

Nixon appointed General Vernon Walters to Deputy Director of CIA at about that time. What a tool Walters was.

Lt. General Vernon Walters (Wikipedia page)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernon_A._Walters

Vernon Walters (Spartacus Schoolnet entry)
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKwatersV.htm

[bobthedrummer]

29. Watergate Days by Seymour M. Hersh (June 13, 2005 The New Yorker)

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/06/13/050613ta_talk_hersh

[Seneca]

30. Seems all very quaint now, doesn't it?

Ah, simpler times.

[bobthedrummer]

31. kick

[madinmaryland]

32. and recommended.

x(

[bobthedrummer]

33. John Arthur Paisley was appointed to the CIA White House Special Investigations Unit to find the

Watergate "leaks" by James Angleton-who can make this stuff up?

John Paisley profile (Spartacus Schoolnet)
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKpaisley.htm

[bobthedrummer]

34. Bernard Leon Barker, born in Havana, Cuba on St. Patrick's Day March 17, 1917

died in Miami June 5, 2009 at the age of 92. You name it, this man had been there 8th Air Force, German POW, Batista's secret police, FBI, CIA, Bay of Pigs, broke into Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office-plus he did time for his role in the Watergate break-in.

It's the end of June one year later and this thread needs more imput from others. So I'll link to some pages about one of the operatives that broke into Democratic National Committee headquarters during Nixon's administration-Bernard Leon Barker.

Bernard L. Barker Wikipedia page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Barker

Spartacus School Net (Guardian UK) page
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKbarkerB.htm

Here's another Watergate chronology that I found-maybe others can find it useful and add to this thread.

Watergate Chronology
http://staff.imsa.edu/socsci/jvictory/currentevents_06/watergate/topics_watergt_chron.htm

[bobthedrummer]

35. Rethinking Iran-Contra by Robert Parry (7-1-2010 Consortium News)

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2010/063010.html

Seems like there are some continuing patterns within patterns when it comes to highly politicized domestic black operations.

[bobthedrummer]

36. Don Segretti, J.Timothy Gratz, Robert Foster Bennett, Karl Rove all had links to Watergate...kick

and another request for other DUers participation in this thread as we head into Independence Day weekend

[bobthedrummer]

37. US/Russian spy swap announcement-the folks in this thread had that background--kick

add to this thread DU.

[bobthedrummer]

38. Maybe it has been my rereading of Norman Mailer's "Harlot's Ghost", a work of fiction

but there are so many facts about the Watergate "scandal" that seem to solidly connect to the present day, in the context of a continuing real criminal conspiracy against all US citizens .

Take Dwight Chapin (who "hired" Donald Segretti among other things) below is his Wikipedia profile
Dwight Chapin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwight_Chapin

And the almost unbelievable, at first hearing, life and death of Dorothy Hunt-E. Howard Hunt's spouse.
Dorothy Hunt page (History Commons .org)
http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=dorothy_hunt_1

Add to this thread DU.

[bobthedrummer]

39. Sure enough, tonight on PBS there was Judy Woodruff with Sen. Robert Foster Bennett (R-Utah)

he goes back to Watergate as well as the CIA's Robert Mullen front group, there's an informative Spartacus School Net (Guardian UK) page on this Watergate veteran still active in our lives (counsel for Sen. Mitch McConell and who knows what else)

Robert Foster Bennett
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKbennettRF.htm

Again, add to this thread DU.

[bobthedrummer]

40. Frederick Cheney LaRue aka the bagman, once thought to be Deep Throat

take a look at some of the entries about Frederick Cheney La Rue
Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_LaRue

Spartacus Schoolnet
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKlarue.htm

paineinthearse archived DU thread started 6-7-05 ended up asking a question that I also have and maybe someone here can answer-relationship to Cheney???
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3803817

[bobthedrummer]

41. Fred Fisher Fielding

BUSH/CHENEY hired this creep back in 2007, Fielding was another central figure in WATERGATE.

BUSH ADMIN Hires Nixon's Top Lawyer To Handle Legal Fights With Dem Congress (kpete thread started 2-23-07)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x272641

Fred F. Fielding Source Watch profile
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Fred_F._Fielding

Btw, we've got a long way to go in this thread-add to it--these folks and their progeny/students are very much with US today.

[bobthedrummer]

42. There's always Henry Kissinger and Associates-kick and request for your input DU. n/t

[bobthedrummer]

43. Speaking about Henry Kissinger-he was Nixon's National Security Adviser for awhile

there were some unusual protocols when it came to Nixon's CIA briefings.

The National Security Archive's Electronic Briefing Book 116 has a chapter about this that relates to this thread, for those that are interested in such matters. I've linked to it below.

"Chapter 4--Nixon and Ford: Uneven Access

During his eight years as Vice President in the 1950's Richard Nixon had had broad exposure to the activities of the civilian US Intelligence Community. He was aware that the CIA had briefed the presidential candidates in every election since 1952 and undoubtedly harbored mixed feelings about the way the process had worked in 1960, when his narrow defeat by John Kennedy might well have hinged on the candidates different perceptions of the intelligence process.

This familiarity with the Intelligence Community' capabilities and practices made him willing, at the outset of his new campaign for the presidency in 1968, to accept briefings from CIA Director Richard Helms. It also led him to decline to receive routine briefings from lower level officers opening the way for Henry Kissinger, his National Security Adviser, to play a central and expanding role."

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB116/cia/Chapter%204%20--%20Nixon%20and%20Ford%20Uneven%20Access.htm

C'mon and add to this thread interested DUers.

[Tennessee Gal]

44. Forrest Gump was there!

Saw it in the movie last night.

[bobthedrummer]

45. Frank Sturgis was there for real Tennessee Gal-as a world traveling CIA operative

Frank Sturgis (Wikipedia page)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Sturgis

Frank Sturgis (History Commons entries)
http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=frank_sturgis_1

Frank Sturgis (Spartacus School Net/Guardian profile)
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKsturgis.htm

[bobthedrummer]

46. Robert C. Mardian was made chief of DoJ internal security in 1970 by John Mitchell-the only USAG

ever spending any time behind bars. Robert Mardian was another well experienced RW operative-he was CREEP's attorney for a time.

Robert C. Mardian (Wikipedia entry)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mardian

Robert Mardian (Spartacus Schoolnet page)
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKmardian.htm

As noted in the links, Mr. Mardian passed away July 17, 2006 in San Clemente, CA.

There's a lot more to post about in this thread DU, make your contributions.

[bobthedrummer]

48. John Wesley Dean III is an enigma to me-yes, he has denounced many RW Republicans and various ideo-

logues, but I have serious doubts about him to this day. Perhaps a post about him will spark some responses from you, fellow DU members.

Here are two links about Mr. Dean, and a link to his blog at a NYC based "centrist/liberal" political website.

John Dean (Wikipedia entry)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dean

John Dean (Spartacus School Net/Guardian UK page)
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKdean.htm

John Dean (Smirking Chimp blog)
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/author/john_w_dean

We've got a lot of Watergate history, that is currently having an influence on all of US today, left to cover.

Your input is required, requested and appreciated DU.

[bobthedrummer]

50. Charles Wendell Colson-my Christian faith doesn't rely on Douglas Coe, or Colson's RW underwriters

but that's not important. Colson has homes in McLean, VA (hub of US intelligence community) and Naples, FL. (former home to Wallace Hilliard's Huffman Aviation and various intelligence community "assets") that's another reason I'm very leery about his prison ministry, not those that have the gift of Christian faith.

Here's a few links about this Watergate scandal figure.

Charles Colson (Wikipedia entry)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Colson

"Charles Colson: How a Watergate crook became America's greatest Christian conservative" by David Plotz (March 10, 2000 Slate article)
http://www.slate.com/id/77067

Charles Colson (Source Watch page)
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Charles_Colson

Charles Colson (Spartacus Schoolnet/Guardian UK)
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKcolson.htm

There's so much left to cover in this historical thread, add to it DUers.

[bobthedrummer]

52. July 21, 1971 was the founding of the Nixon White House's Special Investigations Unit/SIU aka the

"Plumbers". One of the central figures of SIU was Egil Krogh, a man that eventually did prison time for lying to Watergate investigators-and his part in overseeing the break-in of the office of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist.

Egil Krogh was a well connected functionary in the Nixon administration, he was a fellow Christian Scientist with both John Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, Krogh brought G. Gordon Liddy into the SIU, and was appointed an executive position in the FAA one day after the fatal aircrash near Chicago that claimed the life of Dorothy Hunt.

"Small people", US citizens like myself, research these little facts and often come up with solid evidence of real criminal conspiracies (based on the open sourced historic work of others and applied to further events) sometimes attracting various reactionaries that use "professionals" to attempt reframing, discredidation and even extreme measures to silence those of us that continue to speak about these real criminal conspiracies. That's enough about where I'm coming from-let's get back to Egil "Bud" Krogh.

Like Colson, Krogh was "rehabilitated" after serving time, or repackaged imo-there shouldn't be any questionable ties to the criminal/political connections after beginning a new life.

Egil Krogh (Muckety relation map)
http://www.muckety.com/Egil-Krogh/181350.muckety

"Nixon plumber who went to prison tells story" by Kathy George (9-15-03 Seattle Post Intelligencer)
http://www.seattlepi.com/local/139617_plumber15.html

Egil Krogh (Wikipedia entry)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egil_Krogh

Egil Krogh (History Commons page)
http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=egil_krogh_1

Egil Krogh (Spartacus School Net/Guardian UK profile)
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKkrogh.htm

Add to this thread DU.

[bobthedrummer]

53. How about James Rodney Schlesinger, or those 2 former NYPD/BOSSI officers John J. Caulfield and

Anthony Ulasewicz (I'm researching that over the weekend using several books)-add to this thread over the weekend DU.

I apologize for misnaming H.R. Haldeman "John Haldeman" up thread.

There is so much to this "national nightmare" that has never ended and is having direct influences today in the nation and the entire world.

Using just a small portion of James Rodney Schlesinger's various career paths in the context of Watergate-he was the interim CIA Director between Helms and Colby and served in that capacity from 1-2-73 to 7-2-73, then he became the Secretary of Defense from 7-2-73 to 11-19-75 when he was replaced by Donald Henry Rumsfeld.

There is so much more to all this-so post this weekend.

[bobthedrummer]

54. One small link post from The National Archives, for now-this thread needs your input, if you're up

to it.

Watergate-Related Criminal, Civil and Miscellaneous Case Files from the United States District Court of the District of Columbia
http://www.archives.gov/research/independent-counsels/watergate/us-district-court-files.html

[bobthedrummer]

55. Add to this thread, it's not fading away-kick n/t

[bobthedrummer]

56. J. Timothy Gratz was a WI. College Republican that received a mysterious call to really

mess with Democrats in Wisconsin in the early 1970's-the call came from Donald Segretti. Karl Rove was the president-elect of the national group of College Republicans at that time. Karl never finished actually earning a degree (he's got lots of "honorable" ones) but he sure went to work at that time, learning from many of the Watergate crew and developing his own RW criminal networks.

Karl Rove (The Center for Media and Democracy/Source Watch profile)
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Karl_Rove

Btw, Karl has returned to those early roots as a "speaker" at many College Republican meetings, last week in California at Merced.

So he gets a post in this thread too.

[XOKCowboy]

57. I had just graduated high school and was in the classic fight with my Dad...

I had also just gotten my draft lottery number. 138. I was in a highly rebellious state and it was just another reason not to trust the government and especially Nixon. I had no idea it was the dawning of an era of Republican dirty tricks.

[bobthedrummer]

58. And I never thought there would be a worse POTUS than Nixon, XOKCowboy, we were both wrong

[XOKCowboy]

59. No kidding!

Nixon's looking like a pinko commie compared to the current batch of Republicans.

[bobthedrummer]

60. Another weekend kickoff for this thread, post away DUers there's so much left to cover n/t

[bobthedrummer]

62. Operation 40 Contract Agents and other domestic wetworks (set the time machine to 1968)-kick

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2762695