FORWARD - CONTENTS - BACK
WATERGATE / AGNEW / D.o J. – a
funhouse mirror microcosm of the u.s.a.
contents:
lead photos and quotes
general laughter
memory
the way it ain't
boredom
all politics in a nutshell
background in the foreground
watergate
a study in contrasts – the principals
“characters”
summary – background and cleopatra
an “unreal atmosphere”
“twisted thinking”
actions skirting the law
mean at heart and in action
the joys of politics
roughed time line
list of plots and techniques
hang ‘em high - less glamorous indictments
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after effects
babies with guns
these are former CIA agents?
end
vice president agnew
unqualified racist goons
teeny tiny american mussolini
cash for favors
to prevent a possible succession
forty pages
tell us what you know
“voices of gloom and despair”
the friendly white house
schmaltz
seeking impeachment
a judge’s fine grasp of politics
the people as judge
back to reality
- dumber than the vile enemy |
“those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
- george santayana
“i don’t give a shit what happens, i want you all to stonewall it.”
- president nixon
 |
 |
the most famous picture of this era.
nixon, ever in touch with reality,
giving the victory sign after resigning after charges of burglary,
wiretapping, corruption, subversion of political process, interfering in department of justice prosecution of monopolies, and assorted skulldugery, not to mention
rampant paranoia and infighting. |
agnew, stalwart hero of the "silent majority", putting on a totally false brave face after a sure indictment on corruption charges stretching from decades past to right into the white house.
the letter of support being shown at a press conference was signed by one hundred members of congress. |
GENERAL
LAUGHTER
from the nixon's secret white house tapes
july 5, 1971: nixon, haldeman, and ziegler, 4:03 P.M., oval office
conversation
# 537-4; cassette # 876
nixon: jewish families are close, but
there's this strange malignancy that seems to creep among them - radicalism. I
can imagine how the fact that ellsberg is in this must really tear a fella like
henry to pieces - or garment. just like the rosenbergs and all that. it just has to kill
them. i feel horrible about it.
ziegler: could make up an english name.
haldeman: . . . rosenstein could change his
name. . . .
[general
laughter]
ziegler: It is right. It's always an ellsberg.
nixon: every one's a Jew. ellsberg's a jew.
halperin's a jew.
haldeman: gelb's a jew.
nixon: but there are [unclear] - hiss was
not a jew. very interesting thing. so few of those who engage in espionage - are
negroes. . . . in fact, very few of them become communists. if they do, they like,
they get into angela davis - they're more the capitalist type. and they throw
bombs and this and that. but the negroes. - have you ever noticed? . . . . any
negro spies?
haldeman: not intellectual enough, not smart
enough. . . not smart enough to be spies.
nixon: the jews - the jews are, are born
spies. you notice how many of them are just in up to their necks?
haldeman: a basic deviousness.
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MEMORY
this description is MUCH DIFFERENT from most public accounts, providing detail, emotion, color and an overview lacking elsewhere, in order to EMPHESIZE
the true importance of events and how people felt about them. the style of presentation, because the affairs
were so complex and bizarre, is only partially narrative, a large part consisting of various lists of bizarre behavior. some
passages are quotes, and it is IMPORTANT to realize that there is NO ironic use of quotation marks – all words are original.
people living in the so-called “real
world” will be upset that such a large chunk of history is
reduced to a brief summary and analysis, but the bare facts DO reduce
to one characterization – a BIZARRE syndrome of deceit SOLELY in
the service of power, NOT national security.
there are details throughout, not specially noted, that demonstrate the general acceptance of less than upright behavior in society as a whole.
that said, we still maintain that THIS IS THE BEST SUMMARY OF EVENTS THAT CAN BE HAD.
this is NOT the story of a mere burglary.
as plentiful details show, these people have
NO LIMITS.
THE WAY IT AIN'T
we absolutely cannot resist using
the then popular acronym "CREEP", for the "committee to re-elect the
president." it just too, too accurately describes how the WHOLE WORLD
felt about the OLD SCHOOL. though americans are ILLITERATE AND THEREFORE HISTORY BLIND, rest assured people in other countries have LONG MEMORIES. why should this be so? thinking "america is #1", but being deliberately kept illiterate, americans have NO IDEA that america has a LONG HISTORY of SERIOUSLY MESSING WITH OTHER COUNTRIES. if you were invaded, had your freedom subverted, your leaders assassinated, your economy crushed, and brutal dictators installed, you'd have a long memory too.
this page is very long.
BE PATIENT. THE PLOT THICKENS SLOWLY.
if you're antsy, click for "the main schpiel", then come back.
BOREDOM
boredom is the central element of evil. how could anyone with a real life bother with this crazy stuff? notice the central role of language, how it is used to distort, misdirect, and even how its absence is used to confuse.
people are not true adults if this is commonly acceptable.
people have non-existent memories. no
one recalls that several previous administrations had been literally
pervaded by scandal and corruption at the highest levels. they always
believe that a new administration will fix everything, but the pompous
dignity of political office simply means nothing at all. few people who
even recognize the term “watergate” recall that it
designated, not a perfidious president, but
one more
ENTIRE ERA
of scandal.
of equal importance to nixon’s plots and agnew’s payola were the desperate massive political cover-ups
conducted by both individuals. even caught red-handed, these people
still put on a pretense of honesty. their conscienceless use of their
PUBLIC PLATFORMS
in an already lost battle deeply divided the nation, showing by the absolute size of the drama the true worthlessness of all politics.
note
the Department of Justice proved to be EQUALLY tarnished in this era,
which the GENERAL PUBLIC of the time was acutely aware of,
but its history of problems is so OVERWHELMINGLY INSANE that it requires its own page, which immediately follows
this one. - no it don't yet, it's under construction. why this was only recently apparent, at least to the general
public, is a matter of historical trends, the DoJ being created only
after the civil war, and attaining its behemoth scale and wide
jurisdiction only after the 1930s. again, IT IS A MATTER OF MEMORY, as the plentiful historical examples will show.
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ALL POLITICS IN A NUTSHELL
PRESTIGE and NECESSARY SECRECY
are the
HALLMARKS of DECEPTION,
and are
always
bolstered by the best of false claims,
NATIONAL SECURITY.
the value of the watergate and agnew affairs is that they are
over and done with,
the verdict being that it was
ALL lies. these were not “momentous events” of history but
just the actions of CHEAP CROOKS. for what ALL these events reduce to,
there is no better word than BOMBAST, a public front,
speeches
NEVER
being anything but
deceit, vilification and rabble rousing.
to this day, some of the
events recounted can only be supposition, but are analyzable to various
degrees of certainty. this in itself is not at all a problem,
but is the whole point.
here is a LINK to a short page
on the nature of reporting:
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BACKGROUND IN THE FOREGROUND
people’s lack of awareness
before the special senate
investigations began, polls showed that most citizens were not even
aware of the watergate break in, and for those who were, it did not affect their opinions. indeed, president nixon’s ratings continued to climb. absolutely no one bothered to deduce even the POSSIBILITY that affairs were not as the publicists presented them.
FOUR things that were the TRUE state of affairs:
almost all presentations of this photopgraph remark that a "fire hose can take the bark off of trees."
these people were doing nothing except quietly marching down the street, saying,
"we need jobs. we need decent schools for our children. we need homes that aren't rat infested slums.
we want public toilets and water fountains that don't say, "white" and "colored."
these firemen received no legal orders from an authority. they just thought it would be a good idea.
white america viewed contemporary
upheavals over racism with a combination of bland indifference and
horror. back in the days, “nigger” wasn’t a taboo
word, you could yell it in the streets and no one would blink an eye,
and as the quote that starts this page shows, racism went right up to
the white house. vice president agnew’s payola scheme, as
mentioned below, received a huge boost from “white flight”
in maryland and the resultant boom in construction. good christians
across the nation just couldn’t understand why someone should
complain about generations of enforced crushing poverty and brutal police violence.
this is definitely not the image of "uncle ho" that the american public was given.
the vietnamese had seen what had happened in korea, and rejected direct help from the chinese.
everything described herein happened
while america was conducting an imperialist war in vietnam, justified
by the spurious “domino theory” that all of southeast asia
and the pacific basin would turn communist if not stopped in it’s
tracks. why use the inflammatory term “imperialist”?
because the u.s.a. had merely inherited this war from the COLONIAL
FRENCH forces who recognized the vast mineral resources of the region,
on which the industrialized west is heavily dependant. what the
government has successfully kept from the people is that there are
fifteen materials not found in north america
and another fifteen which are increasingly scarce,
without which the country, or put more accurately, the controlling industrialists,
would literally collapse.
ho chi minh, leader of the
north vietnamese, has been criticized for the brutal tactics he
employed in his rise to power, but people forget that the french kept
the people in ABJECT POVERTY and that their favorite tactic for
suppressing even SUSPECTED dissent was SUMARY EXECUTION.
this is what america stepped into with its massive resources and
cultural arrogance. during this war nixon failed to inform both
congress and the american people
for fifteen months
of the secret invasion of cambodia and laos,
an act that some justifiably snide critics referred to as
“REVERSE DOMINO THEORY”.
of course, this is all beside the point that, all by itself, WAR IS PROFITABLE. the “military-industrial complex” that first lincoln, then iesenhower, warned against CEMENTED its grip on the american economy during the vietnam war. the machinery and arrangement of war is very, very lucritive.
june 13 1971 – the new york times begins publishing the “Pentagon Papers,” which had been spirited away from the pentagon by daniel ellsberg, a study of war policy, strategy and effectiveness in vietnam stretching all the way back through the original french occupation. the study reveals an attitude of cruel arrogance coupled with a money sink of perpetual escalation that had DEMONSTRABLY REPEATEDLY FAILED,
both for the french and later the americans. put another way, while the
government was saying “victory is near, but we need more money
and more bodies” they knew
TO A CERTAINTY THAT THEY WERE LOSING.
october 27, 1972 – henry kissenger announces “peace is at hand” in vietnam. nothing could have been further from the truth. while americans at home were subject to constant PROPAGANDA
and those overseas perpetrated a hideous rain of death on a nation that
only wished to be left alone, the vietnamese negotiators in paris were
calmly waiting for kissenger’s bombast to die down so he could
realize what they always knew, that they were winning. he never did.
just leave us alone
years after the war’s
conclusion, an american veteran visits vietnam, as many did, in search of
healing. wandering the countryside, he was unable to understand why the
common vietnamese people DID NOT HATE HIM.
he asks one farmer about some large stone buildings overgrown by the
jungle, and is told that they are the remains of chinese fortifications
that are
OVER A THOUSAND YEARS OLD.
(3) ITT
in early 1971 harold s. green of ITT, at the time the largest corporation
in the usa, agreed to a campaign contribution of approximately 400,000
dollars, at a time when ITT was being investigated for violations of
anti-trust laws. a memo by an ITT lobbyist in washington stated,
“the president has told [attorney general john] mitchel to see that things come out fairly.”
on his own taping system president nixon says,
“there is not going to be any more anti-trust actions as long as I am in this chair.”
and in a call to deputy attorney general kliendienst,
“the ITT thing, stay the hell out of it. is that clear?”
and
“I do not want [assistant attorney general for anti-trust matters]
mclaren to run around raising hell about conglomerates.”
for the first time in modern history
americans became aware, but only vaguely aware, that it was
corporations that were running the country. notice the GENERALITY of the president’s statements – there were to be
NO
anti-trust prosecutions. this, while millions struggle on minimum wage
or spend a life under the shadow of a mortgage in an ever shifting
economy. nixon’s interference in anti-trust actions would be one
of the articles of impeachment.
(4) MAD with POWER - an aspect TOTALLY FORGOTTEN
as planned BEFORE the re-election, nixon required resignations FROM THE ENTIRE EXECUTIVE BRANCH, INCLUDING THE CABINET. all were to be reinstated or replaced only under oath that every detail of government
WOULD BE HANDLED DIRECTLY BY THE PRESIDENT,
making a sham of ONE THIRD of america’s government. this process HAD ALREADY BEGUN at the time the watergate affair broke into public awareness.
WATERGATE
A STUDY IN CONTRASTS – the principals
gentle faces, watchful eyes, and you can SEE the affection between them. above left. the ellsbergs in the audience at the senate watergate hearings. he exposed MASSIVE government lies with the Pentagon Papers. notice the guy wearing sunglasses indoors,
right behind them. you don't think that just possibly he works for the
CIA? "we just want you to know, mr. ellsberg, that we've got our eye on
you." above right.
the sloans. he was treasurer for CREEP, the committee to re-elect the
president. even if he was a rich kid he was possibly the only genuine
human being involved in watergate, being unfailingly kindly spoken and
giving the impression he had a life outside of politics. when asked to perjure himself he quit the campaign.
below are some of the principles. physically gross, stupid, arrogant, ALONE.
bungling burglars
what a pack of STOOGES.
four of the burglars were ex-cubans. cubans are extremely weird, living
in a past century of struggles by fanatics who posses no independent
critical thought. when the judge asked them why they broke into the
National Democratic Campaign headquarters, they elicited laughter in the
courtroom by replying that they were fighting communism, in a puppet
like response that included them all nodding their heads in unison.
ehrlichman
“what part of ‘SHOVE YOUR CONSTITUTION’ don’t you understand?”
- - he seems to be saying, suicidally arrogant to the very end. his job
was domestic policy, because nixon COULDN’T BE BOTHERED.
to repeat,
NIXON COULDN’T BE BOTHERED.
does it seem a little strange to you that a president of the united states should take no interest in the welfare of his OWN PEOPLE?
IT DARN WELL OUGHT TO.
john j. wilson
the GOUL’S HEAD.
he was the lawyer for nixon’s # 2 man, h. r. haldeman. in front
of TV cameras during the hearings, he called committee member senator
daniel k. inouye of hawaii a “LITTLE JAP.” inouye
had lost his right arm fighting in italy in world war two, and was so
popular that he had represented hawaii in washington literally since it
had attained statehood. he was the person most likely to break into BIG SMILES
when the stories became too much. also, LONG AFTER it was clear his
client was guilty, wilson approached the associates of john dean, who
had provided primary evidence, and said,
“AFTER YOU TALK TO HIM, DO YOU HAVE TO WASH YOUR HANDS?”
dean’s sin was having a change of heart and telling the truth. aren't these government types JUST SO HONEST AND WARM HEARTED?
pic is from his private collection.
pic and quote are from
“the war” by ward and burns. |
inouye witnessed pearl harbor. “one haunts me every so often. it was a woman clutching her child. her head was severed, but here she was with her arms around her baby. and so this is what I had to pick up. at seventeen.”
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senator inouye expressed the nation’s incredulity when, after testimony by ehrlichman, and thinking his microphone was turned off, he muttered,
“what a liar.”
haldeman and ehrlichman
were nixon’s # 2 and # 3 respectively. they were called "The
Berlin Wall" by other white house staffers in a play on their
german-american backgrounds and shared penchant for keeping others away from nixon, serving as his "gatekeepers."
l. patrick grey III
THE GRUMPY FROG.
can you believe this face? when he was placed at the head of the FBI by
nixon he had had NO LAW ENFORCEMENT EXPERIENCE. do we see a pattern
here? very big on honor, which somehow did not keep him from destroying
documents and lying to congress.
martha mitchel
LOVE THOSE GLASSES.
the attorney general’s wife provided comic relief, and her own
sort of confirmation, to a nation reeling from sick revelations about
its government. she was said to know nothing but “couldn’t
keep her mouth shut,” as the photo shows, and was CONSTANTLY
in the news. described by people of the times as a “wiggy truth
teller”, she claimed to be a “political prisoner,”
saying, “I’m not going to stand for all those dirty things
going on,” and threatened to leave her husband if he did not
abandon politics. she had several times independently telephoned the
United Press International, and one time while doing so at CREEP
headquarters had the phone RIPPED OUT OF THE WALL
by a CREEP security guard. there’s poor john in the background.
he resigned as attorney general in order to HEAD nixon’s
re-election campaign. notice how they walk apart.
"this truth stuff," and, at the very least, the "love of a good woman."
from "blind ambition" by john dean
john dean
he was the STAR WITNESS
for the prosecution, having been picked as the “fall guy,”
but only after ehrlichman and mitchel proved untenable for that
position. he was nixon’s lawyer, but being the new kid on the
scene was initially blocked out by the “berlin wall.” he
was probably instrumental in various plots, but because of the nature
of politics and his position as key witness was able to obscure his
role. despite his absolute truth sense remaining iffy, he has exercised
considerable intelligence as one of the MAJOR CRITICS of the BUSH
ADMINISTRATION, maintaining, as one of his book titles proclaims, that
bush is “WORSE THAN WATERGATE.”
henry kissenger
a REAL PSYCHO is the only way to describe henry, and many people,
including many CONSERVITIVES and INTELLECTUALS,
think that he should be
INDICTED FOR WAR CRIMES.
fat chance of that. he played only a small part in watergate but a central role in history. at first
national security advisor, then secretary of state, he authorized
taps on his own aids and white house aids, and
CBS NEWS offices,
the
reason given being “national security,” but actually
motivated by the revelation in the new york times of the SECRET bombing
of cambodia. he said that he had read the transcripts of the bugs but
had not authorized the bugs themselves. the FBI said that he had, and
with presidential approval, the goal being to cut off leaks. he never
stated, and because of his prestige
WAS NEVER ASKED
why he had not simply
questioned his aids in order to decide whether to fire them or not. he
is the only person, because of his unctuous charm and played up
academic aura, to survive politically into the dubious future, despite
being nixon’s architect for
hundreds of thousands of deaths in a LOST CAUSE.
ron zeigler
as white house PRESS SECRETARY, even
with mounting evidence and the editorials which ranged far ahead of
public opinion, he continued to mouth flat denials and excoriation of
the press which, most importantly, lacked any useful detail that would
reassure the public. his role may seem insignificant, but he was
“on the team,” the manicured, willing MOUTHPIECE for the CAMPAIGN OF LIES by the administration. he was NOT a passive participant. at one point when henry kissenger himself suggested admitting to a few facts, his vehement reply was,
“contrition is bullshit!!”
deep throat
famous yet mysterious, of some extremely high position, he was a MAJOR SPUR
to investigative reporting by the washington post. he insisted he was
not quotable even as an anonymous source, and could only be met
employing extreme subterfuge. he insisted on giving information only in
dribbles and broad hints, which he described as “my way,”
implying, or none at all. he called the nixon white house
“underhanded and unknowable,” claiming that nixon routinely
investigated his own people, and stated that,
“insulation is the
key to why evidence can’t be developed.”
after twenty years
he was revealed to be william felt, second in command of
the FBI, a long time career man under the nixon installed INCOMPETENT puppet.
gordon g. liddy
although he was the central figure at
the low end, he’s listed last here because he was such a mental
putz, sporting a stupid mustache and equally dim witted know-it-all
smirk. he was the greaseball star of watergate as the person who, at
least in their final incarnation, originated many of the “dirty
tricks.” he was actually considered a competent lawyer, was
capable of diligent study, had once been a prosecutor, and was the
initial council for CREEP. he showed up once at the white house with a
large bandage on his hand. when questioned, he said, “in my
business” he had to prove his macho to a prospective employee,
and had held his hand over a candle until the flesh had burned. after
this everyone agreed someone “needed to keep an eye on
him,” but no one wanted the job. he presented his extensive plans in meetings where attorney general john mitchel was present,
which were much more than the usual mudslinging “hardball”
tactics, including kidnapping leaders of demonstrations, gangs of
ex-CIA AGENT PROVOCATEURS at demonstrations, and sleazy entrapment
schemes for opposition politicians. all besides the now famous burglary
to obtain documents and plant audio bugs. his evaluation by others was
raised to bizarre and “frightening.” when the various plots
are exposed he offers to HAVE HIMSELF SHOT. he survives as a rabid talk radio guest.
“CHARACTERS” – organized crime idiom for “one of us”
the cast of characters alone, without descriptions, comes to JUST OVER SIX PAGES.
all of the major players, about twenty people, despite their innocuous
sounding titles, were very long timers who had or would hold
major government positions. maurice h. stans, head of finance for
CREEP, was a former SECRETARY OF COMMERCE. donald h. segretti, head of
a sabotage campaign, was an attorney for the TREASURY DEPARTMENT.
mardian, who arranged the cover up within CREEP, had come there from
the DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, where he had been HEAD of the Internal
Security Division.
SUMMARY
BACKGROUND
war is raging in the tiny country of
vietnam half the planet away, with no explanation of why and no end in
sight. despite new labor and environmental laws, huge corporations seem
to do WHATEVER
they want. a hundred years after the civil war, the frustrations of a
large segment of the population explodes into the civil rights
movement. women slowly begin objecting to being treated like IDIOTS, SEX OBJECTS, and BREEDERS,
seeking lives economically independent of men and, heaven forbid,
increasingly take their place in higher academia and the professions.
there is a creeping general feeling that god, country, and conformity
not only aren’t satisfying, but produce really messed up people.
there is ugly anecdotal evidence of strange priestly sexual practices,
but it will be almost another two decades before this explodes.
widespread devastation from NUCLEAR WAR is in the background of every
day. while all of europe wonders how a country can survive on
spaghetti, steak, and television, a very normal historical pattern
emerges where people begin to explore new forms of culture, including
personal relationships, music, art, sexuality, and social action
outside of government. this freaks out a majority of americans, who
back the first of a series of alcoholic, increasingly WEALTHY LAW AND ORDER
administrations with one answer for everything. with nagging hints of
complicity in corporate depredations and double dealing in the
background, the federal government of the USA remains the one shining
bastion of normalcy and freedom for the whole world. the curtain rises.
YOU KNOW CLEOPATRA DON'T YOU? SHE WAS QUEEN OF DENIAL.
prior to becoming president, nixon
had used anti-communist mudslinging against his political opponents to
become state, then national representative and senator, where he was
instrumental in the anti-communist RABID WITCH HUNTS of the House Un-american Activities Committee that DESTROYED so many people’s lives. in other words he progressed not because of talent, but by spreading FEAR.
he had been defeated in the race for governor of california, where his
concession speech presaged his future paranoia with the famous words,
“you won’t have dick nixon to kick around any more.”
he was vice president under
eisenhower and became president in 1969. he won a second term by the
greatest landslide in modern history, which, since most people
don’t vote and for the remainder it’s a proven coin toss,
really meant only 11 points over the usual apathetic 51 percent.
the MAJOR POINT,
the bizarre thing, was that all the sick shenanigans that were to be
revealed were totally unnecessary, his re-election being almost totally
assured. there had been no need for any trickery. it was all pure
machiavellian narrow mindedness – always be meaner and more
underhanded, not in response to a situation, but on principle.
nixon’s administration was characterized by unprecedented
infighting and secrecy, which prompted one of the first uses of the
term “imperial presidency.”
THE MAIN SCHPIEL
on june 17, 1972 five guys are caught
burglarizing the National Democratic Party Campaign Headquarters at the
watergate hotel complex in washington, d.c., and they have cameras and
phone bugging equipment. a security guard had noticed tape covering the
locks on several doors in the complex and called police. they were
charged with conspiracy, burglary and violation of federal wiretapping
laws. despite the fact that evidence points to republican party
campaign officials and even higher politicians, no investigation is
made. the men go to jail. then investigative reporting by members of major newspapers VERY SLOWLY widens
cracks in people’s stories. there seem to be links to literally ALL PARTS OF GOVERNMENT, but this is all very difficult to prove.
meanwhile other nefarious plots surface all over the country. after
daniel ellsberg reveals the pentagon papers, there is a burglary at the
office of his psychiatrist. at republican campaign headquarters, it
seems a whole heck of a lot of money is unaccounted for. finally,
definite but tenuous links are established to the Executive branch of
government, and an official investigation begins. there are strong
hints that the Department of Justice has not only been aware of further
facts and done nothing, but also helped SUPPRESS
the investigation. nixon acted like an ostrich in the early days of the
investigation, then alleging that serious charges were brought to his
attention, he ordered a new investigation. in an effort to give the
impression of “cleaning house,” nixon got rid of gray, the
acting director of the FBI, john w. dean III, his lawyer, his most
trusted aids h. r. haldeman and john elrichman, and attorney general
kleindienst. the attorney general resigned in protest rather than fire
the special prosecutor involved, archibald cox. all of these actions
were in actuality only a further effort to forestall investigation.
congress begins its own investigation, and soon after, the original,
run by cox, is finally canned by the president, with no explanation
given. before and after this nixon would alternate long periods,
sometimes months, without even surrogate press releases and then the
luxury of nationally televised speeches that in effect SAID NOTHING. at
one point press secretary ron zeiglar announced that all previous white
house “statements” were to be considered
“inoperative.”
were people meant to think that previous announcements actually had not occurred? more than all others this one simple announcement really scared people for its similarity to “double speak,” from george orwell’s novel “1984,” wherein language itself is manipulated by a world despot to dull all thought processes.
using broad subpoena powers, and motivated by increasing investigative
reporting, the senate committee calls ever higher government officials
and people begin to crack. the unprecedented nationally televised
senate hearings extended to 27 days, with the three broadcast TV
networks sharing coverage of the hearings and an estimated 85% of
americans with television sets tuning in to at least one portion of the
hearings. it was through watergate that the nation first learned that a
president felt the need to tape all conversations in the white house without telling
anyone. alex butterfield, former head of white house security, let slip
during questioning on discovery, meaning a search for basic facts
preceding focused testimony, that everything said in the white house
had been taped. the nation found out by accident. nixon refuses to hand
over the tapes, and protesters, usually reviled by mr. and mrs. normal,
stand along the sidewalks outside the white house holding signs saying "HONK TO IMPEACH,"
and hundreds of cars driving by honk their horns. polls showed that 71%
of americans thought that nixon’s refusal indicated that he was
hiding something. the supreme court says he must hand over the tapes.
at the very end, so as to leave no trail or even rumors, negotiations
and queries were always conducted through intermediaries for an unnamed
party. how could nixon think it possible to negotiate for an unnamed
party? everyone knew they were speaking about the president. in short,
“tricky dick” and his cohorts of rich patrons and slimeball
ex-CIA/FBI agents have decided fair elections and the fourth
amendment’s guarantee of privacy are irrelevant. the list of
widespread illegal, semi-legal and down right dirty tricks grows
immense. one such turns out to be the burglary of daniel
ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office. when the cracks began to
show, these people worked like the devil to cover up the whole affair.
now they’re attacking each other like rats on a sinking ship,
pointing fingers and telling stories that have many laughing. testimony
reveals not just acts contrary to the WHOLE IDEA of democracy, and a MASSIVE CAMPAIGN to spy on people in all walks of life, but an incredible MEAN SPRITEDNESS.
until the very last moment the government stance is,
“we are
respectable. these charges are ridiculous.”
throughout there has
been a slew of resignations of the highest officials, and now some of
them are going to jail. there should have been more. nixon is pardoned
by the replacement president, gerald ford, who himself as a senator had
earlier been suspected of overly sympathetic actions in nixon’s
favor, and ford duly fails to win the next election. nixon was anything
but unintelligent, which makes his career that much more frightening.
but this is all behind us now, right? it was all just “a few bad apples,” and not the system, right?
HELLO…?
AN “UNREAL ATMOSPHERE” – ONE BIG WASTE OF TIME
deception and skullduggery were just
the fruit growing from a bizarre soil that had no relation to the
practicalities of running the country. eager young people would come to
washington, then slowly compromised their ideals in order to get things
done, thinking "THE MISSION”, working TOWARD IDEALS but not
BY ideals, was their purpose, and ended up a part of the machine, with
no ethics at all. while the surface appearance within the white house
was one of power and concomitant luxury, just beneath was a feeling of
being beaten down by the endless work and daily concern for personal
survival THROUGH PLEASING ONE’S SUPERIORS. tense cynicism
prevailed, and many perhaps were heavy drinkers as a result. john dean
said he detected a lack of forthrightness from his very first day on
the job. power, defined by who was admitted to the top players, was
evident in subtle social clues that pervaded the atmosphere, right down
to the white house cafeteria. there were three levels: the very few at
the top – essentially only four people, everyone else, who were
essentially considered to be lackeys no matter how important their
function, and hired outsiders, who may or may not have had an office
within the white house. success and failure could be seen in the size,
décor and location of offices. infighting was a normal part of
the atmosphere, including taking advantage of personality types, and
manifested in loyalty to factions and departments. being
“guarded” in personal interactions was the private
equivalent of public “stonewalling.” this could
become so intense that even at supposedly HIGH PRIORITY meetings people
would simply chat WITHOUT EVER discussing central issues. in essence,
every single person lied continually, both as a normal part of work and
later during the various official investigations. another pattern was that both
caution and respect for privacy and careers, though subtle actions,
were TANTAMOUNT TO CONSPIRACY, yet no one had enough INDEPENDENT
thought to admit to this. LOYALTY, to whatever faction or
“mission,” and the PRESTIGE of being in the white house
overrode ALL OTHER considerations.
thugs to remove a lone picketer.
the administration was LARGELY
characterized by a sensitivity to criticism and a fear of public
dissent coupled with a lack of regard for legal restraints. james w.
mccord, one of the burglars, testified that he felt a “realistic
threat” from the “violence oriented” Vietnam Veterans
Against the War – a law abiding, if vociferous, group whose sole
purpose was to demonstrate that veterans could be against war. the new
york times called this an example of the “twisted thinking”
of the nixon administration.
“I was told by others that this was a normal kind of activity.” - herbert l. porter, scheduling director for CREEP.
“I didn’t ask what the money was for.” – maurice h. stans, finance chairman of CREEP, referring to monies used for spying and sabotage.
john dean, in his book “blind
ambition”, recounts how within days of being hired he absorbed
the lesson that, as he put it, “the loyal soldier is
silent,” meaning that to pass on even the most trivial of facts
made you seem untrustworthy.
95 pages - and ALL just more deception
from "the watergate hearings" by the staff of the washington post
ACTIONS SKIRTING THE LAW
it would be so easy to see
this list as the innocent prerogatives of the powerful, but the final
analysis was that a pack of crooks used these ideas to SUCCESSFULLY CONCEAL THEIR CRIMES FOR YEARS. the watergate burglars were caught in 1972. major illegal operations went back AT LEAST two years. nixon did not resign until 1974.
one republican senator, previously a strong nixon supporter, called nixon’s public statements,
“sickeningly, transparently inadequate.”
hugh w. sloan said, “…there were damned few who were able to make or willing to make independent judgements.” “if you go into [politics] for a career // it sooner or later takes the edge off your values.”
•
insulation – always act through a third party so that nothing can
be proved. this was nixon’s strong suit, but he blew it by taping
himself.
• denial – just say it’s not true.
• find
a “fall guy.” this was discussed from the very beginning,
WITH or WITHOUT the fall guy’s consent.
• influence – on other departments of government.
• two
different reports were delayed until after the election. one example
was trial testimony being sealed, the other was the delay by the
General Accounting Office of congress after they looked into
CREEP’s finances.
• a
narrow investigation was arranged so no higher ups were implicated.
this was done by the head of the FBI.
•
semantic dishonesty – make only partial statements, or partial
answers to questions, only answer exactly the way questions are worded.
never offer information. this was the MAJOR, AND TOTALLY EFFECTIVE,
TACTIC in response to the various investigations.
• the president REFUSES to testify, the reasons being:
•
presidential privilege. among other things, nixon used this to attempt
to prevent dean from testifying about FBI director patrick gray’s
actions.
• client/lawyer confidentiality
• general confidentiality
•
national security – a good old saw. he used this to hold onto the
tapes after they are discovered.
• it
would violate the constitutional separation of powers. what a joke.
first he suborns democracy itself, then hides behind abstract
principles.
• the
president’s lawyers say that he cannot be indicted, and not
brought before a grand jury. under the constitution this is probably
true.
• just
fire the cop – because the Department of Justice is a part of the
executive branch of government, the president could arrange the firing
of watergate special prosecutor archibald cox, who had attempted to
subpoena 9 of the tapes. he couldn’t do this without looking as
guilty as heck, but did it anyway.
MEAN AT HEART AND IN ACTION
in society at large, gossip can be
cruel, but why are politicians GUARENTEED to be bent on the personal
destruction of all who they see as opposing them? repeatedly, always,
and completely, in one form or another, BEHIND THE SMILES, these people
are mean mouthed, and always out to get the other guy.
this is not just attitude. one reason the investigation was so prolonged was because lower level
PEOPLE WERE SCARED
to tell the truth. a person would have to be very NAÏVE to
not understand that people who stand up to politics, business, and
crime
DIE ALL THE TIME.
taken as a whole,
THIS LIST IS AMAZING.
• “after the election we’re going to ruin these people.” - nixon
• “I want the most comprehensive notes on those who have tried to do us in. they’re going to get it.” - nixon, in the middle of watergate
• nixon called his own cabinet, “ASSHOLES,” and the supreme court, “BOOBS.”
• nixon said to his cabinet, in reference to watergate, “we’ve had our cambodias before.” it is absolutely disgusting that what to the cambodians was a HORRIBLE DEATH BY THE TENS OF THOUSANDS BY MASSIVE BOMBING was to nixon only a political embarrassment to be gotten over.
• apprized on
the phone of a washington post article, ex-attorney general john
mitchel employs vernacular verging on ranting expletives, which is all
printed verbatim the next day, shorn only of
COARSE CHAUVINIST
references to the post’s owner, mrs. victoria graham.
• RNC and CREEP staffers being sought for interviews WERE SCARED AND SOMETIMES IN TEARS, MANY REFUSING TO EVEN ANSWER THEIR DOORS. ONE SAID, “NOBODY KNOWS WHAT THEY’LL DO. THEY’RE DESPERATE.”
• washington
post reporters woodward and bernstein, near the end of the
investigation, think they may be bugged by the CIA, and FEAR FOR THEIR LIVES, having been informed that the ENTIRE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY is involved with watergate and the cover up. they have also learned vague information that white house people are trying to MAKE MONEY from everyone’s paranoia. they decide that the SAFEST thing is to inform as many people as possible, and immediately, in the MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT, go directly to their boss’s home IN ORDER TO PROTECT THEMSELVES.
• charles w.
colson, special council to the president, is described as
“crazy” by one of his own staff. morton halpern had left henry
kissenger’s staff, and was possibly in possession of further
“pentagon papers.” he joined the brookings institute, which
had high security. colson suggested a
FIREBOMBING
to cover a burglary to retrieve the documents. this story quickly circulated in the white house and people shunned him.
• after the election colson said. “we’re really going to start shoving it to the [washington] post.”
soon challenges are filed with the FCC on the washington post’s
ownership of two florida TV stations, while simultaneously the
paper’s stock plummets to ½ its former value. it comes out
that the “independent” challengers for the TV station
licenses are LONG TIME FRIENDS of president nixon.
• prying into a PERSON’S PSYCHE,
as evidenced by the break in at ellsberg’s shrink’s office,
was the ONE thing that truly outraged public opinion against nixon. it
was obvious that the ONLY POSSIBLE uses for such information was either to
DISCREDIT or as REVENGE, with NO HOLDS BARRED.
• for its
innocent simplicity, the most telling single line in the whole affair,
reflecting the venal atmosphere within “respectable”
politics, came from colson, one time attorney for nixon. in a memo
leaked to the press, he wrote that he had been correctly quoted as
saying that he,
“would walk over my grandmother if necessary”
to insure nixon’s re-election. he also was indicted in watergate.
• various people, FEARING FOR THEIR LIVES, expressed the judgement that they could not feel confident of
ANY
representative of the FBI, DoJ, the grand jury, or various prosecutors who, in the service of some IDEALIZED EXPEDIENCY, might pass on confidential information that could reach the wrong people.
• mccord,
chief watergate burglar, had belonged to an Air Force special unit
connected to the office of Emergency Preparedness, the dual purpose of
which was to compile lists of radicals and develop censorship policy
for news and mail services during times of war. considering that this
occurred
DURING PEACETIME,
this is a VERY TELLING COMBINATION OF DUTIES.
THE JOYS OF POLITICS
•
nixon had installed permanent secret systems to record all
conversations and phone calls in the white house, the executive office
building, and the presidential retreat at “camp david.”
apparently the white house tapes covered twenty one months. there was
public speculation
concerning how foreign dignitaries felt about
secretly being taped.
• an
“enemies list” was compiled by nixon’s staff.
originally kept to twenty names, it later expanded tremendously.
IT
INCLUDED THE TWELVE BLACK REPRESENTATIVES IN THE HOUSE.
the bizarre
selection and comments are VERY REVEALING. at the time, it became a
sign of humorous prestige to be included on the list.
• judge
charles r. richey, a nixon appointee who presided at the original
investigation against CREEP as filed by larry obrien of the Democratic
National Campaign after the break in, sent encouraging signals through third parties to the white house, and in fact urged maurice h. stans,
head of CREEP finances, to file a counter suit, which he did. he
attempted to delay proceedings until after the election. richie later,
out of the blue, called the washington post’s investigative
reporters woodward and bernstein, who he had never met or spoken with,
to assure them that his actions were not politically motivated.
• w.
mathew byrne jr., the judge in ellsberg’s trial, WAS OFFERED THE
DIRECTORSHIP OF THE FBI by elrlichman.
• one
person arranged for ONE HUNDRED DUMMY ORGANIZATIONS to funnel MILLIONS
OF DOLLARS TO NIXON’S CAMPAIGN.
• one
CREEP staffer said, “once, another person [from CREEP]
went back to the District Attorney because the FBI had not asked the
right questions. THAT NIGHT her boss knew about it. of all the federal
government, I always believed in the FBI.
NO MORE.”
•
howard hunt told the 4 miami cubans that broke into watergate that if they PLEAD GUILTY that
their families will be taken care of, and that they would receive
executive clemency within a few months. against their lawyer’s
advice they accepted. this arrangement would LATER lead to demands for
“lawyers fees” totaling a million dollars, and, when the money was not forthcoming, lead further
to another major crack in the administration’s façade of
innocence.
the ESSENTIAL POINT here is
that, with the submission of guilty pleas NO NEW INFORMATION WOULD BE
SOUGHT BY THE COURT CONCERNING THE BACKGROUND OF THE BURGLARIES.
witnesses definitely had information the judge did not ask about, which
would have led EASILY to mitchel, colson, ehrlichman and john dean.
• when
the initial watergate investigation was completed and indictment
announced, THERE WAS NOT EVEN A MENTION OF CONNECTIONS TO HIGHER UPS.
one person at the DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE who was pressed for an
explanation said, “IT WILL ALL COME OUT IN THE WASH.”
public opinion was unanimous that this was not a very precise legal
procedure. the washington post detailed evidence that the DoJ FAILED TO
PURSUE, and senator george mcgovern called the investigation “a
whitewash.”
• THE
FBI NEVER INVESTIGATED THE PHONE NUMBERS IN THE BOOKS CARRIED BY THE
BURGLARS, and NEVER EVEN SEARCHED THEIR HOMES.
• acting head of FBI patrick gray said to nixon that he had “CONTAINED” the investigation.
• gray
ALSO knew of the taps, which were done by ex-FBI/CIA agents who were
hired OUTSIDE OF THE USUAL CHANNELS. here
we have illegal wire-tapping done by ex-government agents, yet somehow the head of the FBI was perfectly aware of the action.
• gray,
and later, assistant attorney general henry e. peterson, gave results
of watergate investigations to dean to pass on to the president.
•
republican leader of the senate hugh scott said that the watergate case
was not of concern to the average voter, but “JUST SENATOR
MCGOVERN AND THE MEDIA.”
• FBI
interviews at CREEP headquarters were not private, BUT ALWAYS WITH A
CREEP HIGHER STAFF PRESENT. some staff later said that they had been
ordered TO NOT OFFER INFORMATION NOT DIRECTLY ASKED FOR.
• there
is the good possibility that a watergate SENNATE INVESTIGATION
COMMITTEE MEMBER was part of or knew about wateregate. an informant
describes him as “IN THE BAG. REPORTING TO THE PRESIDENT.”
• haynes testified - “muary would say to the [potential campaign donating] democrats,
‘you know we got this crazy man [ head of the EPA ]
ruclelshaus back east who’d just as soon close down
your factory as let the smoke stacks belch.’”
CRAZY MAN?
CRACK
from "all the presidents men" by bernstein and woodward
some things are placed when
they happened, some when they were revealed, and some adjacent to other
facts they clarify. plus, there's some historical background. believe it or not, this scheme works pretty well.
eventually, few of the principles openly denied their involvement,
while many confessed.
this time line is in NO WAY complete, but this affair was so hidiously complex that we're sick of thinking about it.
a drum roll please
there were connections in the white
house going back to the university of southern california, and the
white house staff had been called the “USC MAFIA.”
these people had while in college formed a student political group
called the “ratfuckers,” who practiced all the shady
dealing that they now did on the “adult” national level.
favorite tactics were stuffing ballot boxes and forging letters to the press indicating personal indiscretions, with a strong emphasis on winning popularity contests with grossly overbearing, totally fake friendliness.
january 20, 1969 – nixon becomes president for his first term.
attorney general john mitchel contends that the president can order taps without court approval regardless of the fourth amendment.
june 5, 1970 – an interagency
group is formed for domestic spying, and recommends, in its own words,
“clearly illegal” acts. nixon APPROVES
the group, then retracts his approval after the head of the FBI j.
edgar hoover complains. that this retraction is formal was contested by
huston, whose name titles the group. it is never made clear whether
hoover disapproves for legal reasons or because the plan lessens his
own power. tom charles huston, architect of the massive interagency
domestic surveillance program bearing his name, considered himself a
philosopher who was against any form of repression, yet felt that
social chaos would beget repression, and that therefore intense
domestic surveillance was necessary.
this is called CIRCULAR REASONING and is not deep philosophy.
IT IS NOT CLEAR WETHER THIS PLAN WAS EVER ABANDONED, OR JUST SHOVED UNDER A RUG.
NOW, OF COURSE, WITH 9/11 THIS GROUP SEEMS LIKE SANDBOX PLAY.
on june 18 1971 ellsberg is charged with - what? telling the truth? to repeat, the PENTAGON PAPERS proved BEYOND A SHADOW OF A DOUBT that both the administration and the military knew that tens of thousands of americans, and millions of vietnamese, were dying in a LOST CAUSE. american tactics were IDENTICAL to those of the french, and they got their bunns kicked.
there were bugs planted three weeks
previous to the watergate bust, and the Vietnam Veterans Against the War had been
infiltrated, but they had failed to enter mcgovern headquarters.
getting caught
june 17, 1972, burglars are detected
by hotel security, at the, not local, but National Democratic
Party Campaign headquarters and are detained by city police, who are a
sieve of leaks about the details. they carry cameras and bugging
equipment, and a radio scanner capable of listening to police
frequencies. of the burglars, james mccord, recently retired from the
CIA, was a security consultant for CREEP, while the four ex-cubans from
miami were involved in anti-castro activities. reasons put forward to
not grant bail were: they initially gave patently false names, carried
a total of 2,300 dollars in cash, and had a tendency to travel abroad.
mccord, one of the burglars, was described as a “government man” - someone who was unquestioning, and who does nothing on his own initiative.
CRACK
- address books of two burglars contain the name howard hunt and the
words “white house” and the initials “w.h.”
a former nixon administration official said of the watergate burglary, “they’d be looking for something else [besides politics]…scandal, gossip.”
one burglar, marinez, had discussed
housing arrangements at the university of miami for 3,000 Young
Republicans during the convention, yet no republican organization had ever heard of
martinez or such plans. this little detail demonstrates both how
obscure events were and how the various conspirators were not centrally
organized.
the morning of the washinton post’s
story, “white house consultant linked to suspects,” white
house press secretary ronald zeigler described the burglary as “third rate” and not worth further comment.
the FOLLOWING DAY, june 20, the
chairman of the DNC filed a one million dollar suit against CREEP,
saying that facts were “developing a clear line to the white
house.” the number of defendants in the suit and the money asked
in damages will be continually added to.
the GAO (government accounting agency) was ready to release a major report, then announces a delay.
the next day, august 22. district court judge charles richie, with no agency making a pleading, then REVERSES HIS OWN DECISION, saying that all pre-trial testimony will be withheld from the public until the case is completed – in other words,
UNTIL AFTER THE ELECTION.
who’s pulling the strings?
the latest washington post
story, supported by allegations from multiple sources, and pointing out
the OBVIOUS connections between the burglars and republican
headquarters, WAS IGNORED BY THE NATIONAL PRESS, which however did publish CREEP’s denials.
months pass with no new developments, at least none that are substantiated by multiple sources, and nixon is re-elected. in desperation reporters woodward and bernstein attempt
to interview the jurors on the grand jury, and they are darn lucky to get
away with a reprimand from the judge. on the advice of Deep Throat,
they resolve to go over every detail they have gathered in search of
clues that might have been missed.
nixon attempted to explicitly portray CREEP as INDEPENDANTLY CREATED BY HIS SUPPORTERS, yet it was SOLELY his creation, was STAFFED DIRECTLY from the white house, and reported ONLY TO HIM.
CRACK - howard hunt, formerly in the
CIA, was a consultant for charles colson, special council to the
president, and his “hatchet man.” the white house portrayed
hunt as a departed part time employee, but he proved to be working not as
a consultant, but full time. there had been a fruitless frantic search for documents proving their story.
july 22, the newspaper Newsday reports that white house aid gordon liddy , lawyer for CREEP, had been fired by mitchel FOR REFUSING TO ANSWER FBI QUESTIONS regarding watergate.
sally harmony, gordon liddy’s scretary, was strongly suspected of withholding information
from both the FBI and the grand jury. one source characterized it as
done “for gordon.” do we have a hint of that macho tripe
again? jeez, over the hill and MORE stiff hair.
on july 1st,
only nine days after public denials by nixon, MITCHEL RESIGNS as head of
CREEP. xx
as the scandal mounted, john mitchel
resigned as head of creep in a very public fashion, saying that his
wife insisted, though others doubted he would relinquish his love of
power just for his wife. but HE STILL RAN THE SHOW,
showing up at headquarters three or four times a week and often calling
in. this was not difficult to ascertain. one main question was, had
mitchel, beginning in 1971, dispensed funds while still the attorney
general?
what is certain is that AN INCREDIBLE AMOUNT OF RECORDS WERE DESTROYED. one person described piles of shredded documents that LITERALLY FILLED A ROOM.
documents destroyed before the FBI investigation included wiretap
transcripts, slush fund pay outs, and ledgers of campaign contributors. money would be harder to trace if they obscured even legal contributions.
the General Accounting Office says that HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS are UNACCOUNTED FOR in CREEP, and describes,
“a rat’s nest behind the surface efficiency of computerized financial reporting.”
its next report states that it found 500,000 dollars unaccounted for.
an insider says the OFFICIAL STORY
will be that the fund was raised because of rumors of planned
disruption of the republican convention, and budgeted 100,000 dollars
for “convention security.”
hugh sloan, CREEP treasurer,
said he had never heard either of the terms “convention
security” or “security fund” until after the botched watergate burglary.
sloan also said mardian and lerue had
“engineered the response” of staff non-disclosure to the
FBI. he also said of campaign manager john mitchel, acknowledging his
lack of direct proof, but knowing the people, committee operations, and
plausible second hand information,
“YOU DON’T HAND OUT THAT KIND OF MONEY
WITHOUT THE HEAD OF THE CAMPAIGN KNOWING.”
according to another CREEP official, john mitchel formulated many of the “non-denial denials.”
mcgruder testifies that mitchel and dean helped plan the break in and paid off the convicted burglars to be silent.
mitchel denies to the senate investigation that he aided in watergate. even some republicans laugh at mitchel’s denials.
89,000 dollars were deposited into the burglar barker's account from A MEXICO CITY LAWYER. one
person involved in the complex transaction, a bank director, also headed the
midwestern campaign for nixon. the mexican case seemed obviously,
though not initially provably, a simple case of money laundering, making sources untraceable. it was
conjectured that this was an attempt to skirt new campaign finance
laws. texas lawyer richard hynes said,
“stans has been running this operation FOR YEARS for nixon.
NOTHING IS REALLY WRONG WITH IT.”
the total discovered going through this chain soon rose to 750,000 dollars.
head of the watergate committee senetor sam irvin seeks broad subpoena powers.
howard hunt disappears and 150 FBI
agents are assigned to look for him. he later shows up and offers to
co-operate. respected lawyer william o. bittman is alleged to have
received 25 thousand dollars IN CASH to take his case.
it quickly became apparent that, at the very least, mitchel’s lieutenants were aware of the espionage.
CRACK
- in march 1973, james mccord, when hush money is slow in coming, while
in jail wrote a letter to judge john j. sirica charging a cover up of
the burglary. the Los Angeles Times says his information is essentially
that mcgruder and dean were involved in planning watergate. his letter
transformed the affair into a political scandal of unprecedented
magnitude.
SIMULTANIOUSLY the president has claimed that dean was investigating watergate. this is truly bizarre. counteract accusations of wrongdoing by saying that the perpetrator is the investigator.
there are rumors that nixon top aids
dean and haldeman will resign, but nixon holds a rare press conference
and says a new investigation will be started.
CRACK
- dean issues a statement, incredibly described by the white house as
“unauthorized”, that he will not be the fall guy. ( I
should say not. here son, go stand over there and take a bullet for
me.) dean contends that the first he knew that he had supposedly run an
investigation on the watergate affair was when president nixon
announced it on national television.
haldeman was composed and deferential
at the hearings, yet suffered GREAT LAPSES OF MEMORY for someone in the
number two position in the government.
CRACK -
april 27, the Associated Press learns that judge mathews, presiding at
daniel ellsberg’s “pentagon papers” trial, says he
was informed by watergate prosecutors that hunt and liddy supervised
the burglary of ellsberg’s shrink’s office in 1971. this
means that watergate and the shrink burglary are ONE CASE, leading to speculation ON THE SCOPE OF THE DIRTY TRICKS CAMPAIGN.
the FBI ALSO had evidence of wider operations BUT DID NOT PURSUE THEM.
the CIA provided the equipment used
in the burglary of ellsberg’s shrink’s office, and later
for an interview by liddy with his hospitalized secretary. get this
– the later included an orange wig and a voice modifier.
ehrlichman, a bit of a patsy despite
being # 3 to nixon, says that the burglary of ellsburg’s
psychiatrist’s office was within the purview of national security. come again? this is a shrink, and the alleged "crime" is long in the past.
the government failed to inform
ellsberg’s defense lawyers of wiretap info, which leads to
charges being dropped due to government misconduct. you should have seen the smiles that day. [ in the usa and many other places, to ensure a fair trial, prosecution and defense MUST share all vital information. ]
REALLY BIG CRACK
- head of the FBI gray provides documents to the senate committee. one
was an interview with herbert w. kalmbach, who said that dwight chapin,
PRESIDENTIAL APPOINTMENTS SECRETARY, was involved in hiring donald h.
segretti for undercover work.
discrediting the kennedys and...
from "all the president's men" by berstein and woodward.
ruckleshaus, after gray resigns, says
he has "discovered" evidence of 17 wire taps that functioned between
1969-71 – 13 of government officials and 4 of reporters, whose
names are not disclosed.
ellsberg had been overheard on a tap of a home phone of one of the staff of henry kissinger.
a newspaper informant says that some
taps were ordered by kissenger. in public kissenger hedges on the
question. on the phone with a washington post reporter he guardedly
admits to the taps, then insists that the information is “on
background,” a press term usually employed before an interview
meaning that all information is off the record. he then becomes irate when the reporter justifiably refuses a retraction, and
this also is in the next day’s paper. why should henry get angry,
unless he has something to be afraid of?
on april 30, 1973, nixon was forced
to ask for the resignation of two of his top aides, h. r. haldeman and
john ehrlichman, both of whom were much later indicted and ultimately
went to prison.
nixon appointed a new attorney
general, elliot richardson, and gave him authority to designate, for
the growing watergate inquiry, a special counsel who would be
independent of the regular justice department hierarchy, to preserve
his independence.
on may 19, 1973, richardson named archibald cox to the position.
on july 13, 1973, late in the
investigation, donald sanders, the deputy minority counsel, asked
alexander butterfield in discovery, meaning in a general search for
facts, if there were any type of recording systems in the white house.
butterfield, former head of white house security, revealed the
existence of a permanent sophisticated taping system. supposedly it is
known only to nixon, haldeman, larry higby, haig, butterfied and the
secret service agents who operate the system. dean said that he first
suspected that nixon was taping conversations when he noticed that the
president would have PRIVATE meeting with individual staff that
consisted ALMOST ENTIRELY OF LEADING QUESTIONS, as if nixon were, among other things, establishing an alibi.
cox subpoenas the nixon tapes, which
are the most solid evidence to date, most evidence having been self
serving personal testimony that required massive sifting. nixon orders
cox to abandon his subpoena.
october 20, 1973, cox's refusal to
drop his subpoena led to the "saturday night massacre", when nixon
compelled the resignations of richardson and deputy william ruckelshaus
in a search for someone in the justice department willing to fire cox.
this search ended with solicitor general robert bork, who years later
was a failed nominee for u.s. supreme court justice, and the new acting
department head dismissed the special prosecutor.
nixon, however, was forced to allow the appointment of a new special prosecutor, leon jaworski, who continued the investigation.
while nixon continued to refuse to
turn over actual tapes, he did agree to release edited transcripts of a
large number of them. nixon cited the fact that any sensitive national
security information could be edited out of the tapes. it was
speculated that the tapes may have contained foul language and racial
slurs. they did, and boy howdee.
the united states supreme court ruled UNANIMOUSLY that the president must hand over the tapes. nixon gives up the
tapes, but two are missing and are said to never have existed. some contain
obvious erasures.
the tapes largely confirmed dean's
account and caused further embarrassment when a crucial 18½
minute portion was found to have been erased, during a discussion that
included the president and haldeman, on a tape which had never been out
of white house custody. the white house blamed this on nixon's
secretary, rose mary woods, who said she had accidentally erased the
tape by pushing the wrong foot pedal on her tape player while answering
the phone. however, as photos splashed all over the press showed, it
was unlikely for woods to answer the phone and keep her foot on the
pedal. later forensic analysis determined that the gap had been erased IN SEVERAL SEGMENTS — at least five, and perhaps as many as nine—thus refuting the "accidental erasure" explanation.
nixon discussed using in his
defense information, not easily publicly available, that
every recent
president had conducted secret wire taps.
he was persuaded against this
by FBI and CIA officials and his own staff, as
TOO UPSETTING TO THE PUBLIC.
this information remains absolutely unknown to the general public.
this testimony was kept seperately in the private safe of only a single senator,
and in transcripts of watergate testimony exists only as
a blank, with the notation, "irrelevant."
the smoking gun
in august, the previously
unknown tape from june 23, 1972, was released. recorded only a few days
after the break-in, it documented nixon and haldeman formulating a plan
to block investigations by having the CIA falsely claim to the FBI that
national security was involved. the tape was referred to as a "smoking
gun." with few exceptions, nixon's remaining supporters deserted him.
the TEN congressmen who had voted against all three articles of
impeachment in the committee announced that they would all support
impeachment when the vote was taken in the full House.
on july 27, 1974 the house judiciary
committee voted 27 to 11 to recommend the first article of impeachment
against the president: obstruction of justice. the second, abuse of
power, and third, contempt of congress, articles were passed on july
29, 1974 and july 30, 1974, respectively.
nixon resigned on august 9, 1974.
the first four are from "all the president's men" by berstein and woodward of the washington post.
the agnew fundraiser is from "the watergate hearings" by the staff of the washington post.
LIST OF PLOTS AND TECHNIQUES
hints arose that there was
NATIONAL campaign to not just gain privileged information but to
DISRUPT Democratic Party actions and SUBVERT THE ELECTORAL PROCESS
through active deceptions aimed at
“CAUSING HAVOC.”
there were also all sorts of
nitwit, but well funded, schemes, and even lines of communications were
unclear. for agents they were deliberately seeking lawyers and soon to be retired
military personnel. schemes were found that involved
AT LEAST FIFTY MORE PEOPLE:
• an enemies list – these people were to be investigated for scandal or otherwise disrupted. it was never proven that nixon ordered this, and responsibility was taken by lower staff members, very enthusiastic ones. if it were not for THE CHANCE discovery of nixon's taping himself, THIS WOULD HAVE GONE FORWARD. remember, this is the OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT.
• campaign fraud
• a "plumbers" unit to plug political leaks – run by howard hunt
• the establishment of a secret “dirty tricks” squad
• political espionage and sabotage
• illegal break-ins - of private and professional buildings. the ready excuse ALWAYS was NATIONAL SECURITY.
• improper tax audits - this is a VERY COMMON POLITICAL TACTIC, using the MASSIVE MACHINERY OF GOVERNMENT to both HARASS and DESTROY PEOPLE'S LIVES. an individual full audit is a VERY RARE OCCURANCE, and, in the so-called "respectible" world, the MERE PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE of such an audit can DETROY A PERSON'S REPUTATION, and hence their CAREER and FAMILY.
• money laundering through mexico
• intense campaigns to subvert public opinion poles
• attempt to plant bugs at the headquarters of presidential hopeful george mcgovern
• a secret slush fund
• the use of hush money to buy the silence of the burglars
• hiding campaign contributions
• investigation of kennedy
• investigation of reporter jack anderson
• infiltrate Vietnam Veterans Against the War
• although no
one sought proof of responsibility, ALMOST EVERY SINGLE GROUP WHO WERE SIMPLY AGAINST
THE WAR HAD THEIR OFFICES BURGLED. this included RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS.
• mccord rents offices next door to headquarters of presidential hopeful muskie
• a federal
investigation of segretti, ONE HEAD OF THE DIRTY TRICKS SQUAD, found that his trail, as evidenced by the use
of phone numbers and credit cards, passed through all the election
primary cities.
• there was a
letter, later proved to be a forgery, sent to a newspaper alleging that
senator muskie had used the derogatory term “canuk” to
refer to new england voters of french canadian heritage, and scurrilous
rumors were started about his wife. he cried openly in defending
himself against these shots, and this was taken by the public as a sign
of weakness not allowable in a national leader, and he was
forced out
of the presidential race.
this was the CLEAREST EXAMPLE of propaganda
used to DIRECTLY disrupt a campaign. white house aid ken w. clawson
indiscreetly bragged to a female reporter friend about writing the
letter, then retracted the story. he explained to her,
“that’s politics. that’s the way things are.”
• a gun was
found by the FBI in howard hunt’s white house office, which
prompted several people to say, “this is not Dodge City.”
• widespread bugging on a massive scale – watergate was just a drop in the bucket.
• following people - both to
intimidate,
and as pure fishing for any information useful for disruption. this was done by FBI and CIA agents, and people of UNKNOWN AFFILIATION.
• false press leaks
• fake letters
• canceling and changing the times of campaign rallies
• investigating campaign workers’ PRIVATE LIVES
• planting spies
• stealing documents
• planting provocateurs at demonstrations - this innocent seeming tactic is a
HISTORICALLY CLASSIC TECHNIQUE USED TO
DESTROY PEOPLE'S LIVES
AND
ALL OPPOSITION.
• disrupting political rallies and meetings by ordering supplies COD timed to arrive during the height of the event.
• there was a
plot to attempt to portray the assassin of governor george wallace as
an extreme leftist associated with presidential hopeful george
mcgovern. after first arriving at bremer’s apartment, the FBI
left for an hour WITHOUT SEALING IT, essentially allowing reporters to
make off with disturbing leftist literature. what was not reported was that the
apartment also contained rightist literature. colson tells hunt to
break into bremer’s apartment.
- attempted SUBVERSION OF A FEDERAL JUDGE - just offer them a MORE LUCRATIVE job.
HANG ‘EM HIGH
these facts are mentioned merely to indicate the scope of the indictments. IT WASN’T JUST THE BOSS HOG.
•
nixon campaign aide herbert porter pleaded guilty to the charge of
lying to the FBI during the early stages of the watergate
investigation.
•
nixon's personal lawyer herbert kalmbach pleaded guilty to two charges
of illegal election-campaign activities. other charges were dropped in
return for kalmbach's cooperation in the forthcoming watergate trials.
•
former aides of the president, known as the Watergate Seven —
haldeman, ehrlichman, mitchell, charles colson, gordon c. strachan,
robert mardian and kenneth parkinson — were indicted for
conspiring to hinder the watergate investigation. white house chief of
staff haldeman was imprisoned for 18 months for his crimes.
• dean, magruder and other figures in the scandal had already pleaded guilty.
• the
watergate grand jury indicteded reinecke, republican lieutenant
governor of california, on three charges of perjury before the senate
committee.
• former nixon appointments secretary dwight chapin was convicted of lying to the grand jury.
• the grand jury also SECRETLY named nixon as an unindicted co-conspirator.
AFTER EFFECTS – elections, financing, the Freedom Of Information Act, tougher reporting, ABA “rules”
in the senate and house
elections only three months later, democrats gained five seats in the
senate and a remarkable forty-nine in the house.
the scandal also indirectly caused
many changes in campaign financing, as well as laws requiring new
financial disclosures by key government officials. while not legally
required, other types of personal disclosure, such as releasing recent
income tax forms, became expected.
historical note: it was not until a mudslinging campaign during the eisenhower administration that even voluntary disclosures became expected, and there still were no general legal requirements. in other words, for almost 200 YEARS NO ONE ASKED WHERE POLITICIANS GOT THEIR MONEY. it was all "JUST POLITICS AS USUAL."
it was a driving factor in amending the Freedom of Information Act in 1976. since this is in effect a mere law, it has been repeatedly gutted and reinstated by various administrations, yet this is one of the MOST IMPORTANT IDEAS in modern politics.
it also led to an era in which the
press became more interested in finding the dirt on national figures
and it became far more cynical in reporting on political issues. the PRESTEGE OF POSITION has never been anything but a SHEILD.
drunk driving totally ignored
for instance, wilbur mills, a
powerful congressman, was in a drunken driving accident, similar to
others which the press had previously never even mentioned. mills had to
resign from his position as the Chairman of the United States House
Committee on Ways and Means.
rampant shady dealing still unregulated and never publicized
since nixon and many senior officials
involved in watergate were LAWYERS, the scandal severely tarnished the
public image of the legal profession.
in order to
DEFUSE
A QUITE LOUD PUBLIC DEMAND
for direct federal regulation of lawyers
the American Bar Association
enacted two major reforms. first, the ABA decided that its 1969 code of
conduct was a total failure and replaced it with the Model Rules of
Professional Conduct in 1983. the MRPC has been adopted in part or in
whole by 44 states. second, the ABA promulgated a requirement that law
students at ABA-approved law schools take a course in professional
responsibility, which means they must study the MRPC. however, since the major job of lawyers is to OUTWIT OTHER LAWYERS, this doesn't mean anything at all. historically, at least in america, unlike england, until the civil rights era, and the gideon florida prison case, ALMOST ALL LAWYERS WERE CORPORATE LAWYERS.
BABIES WITH GUNS
what was SCARY to everyone was
that people of such power could be so dumb. these are the people that
control NUCLEAR BOMBS, fight ORGANIZED CRIME, supposedly are concerned
about DEADLY POLLUTION, and at august meetings FIDDLE with the ECONOMY.
its more like Nero fiddling while rome burns.
hanging yourself
• nixon taped himself.
• it wasn’t just that the agents of the mighty were stooges foreordained to be caught,
• but that the
people who controlled them did not see that a LOT OF MONEY would be
necessary to KEEP THEM QUIET.
• covert
actions were both so loose and so massive that any cover up would
involve an incredible number of people, making success literally
impossible.
• there was no
pre-prepared official version of events. the impromptu device of
blanket denial was a strain on credulity right from the beginning. even
the average bovine american caught on by the time the senate hearings
began.
• when things
began to crumble, desperate measures appalled americans instead of
mollifying them. the prime example is nixon arranging the firing of the
special prosecutor that he himself had requested, which could only be
accomplished by firing the attorney general himself. after which, of
course, there was nothing to prevent the appointment of a new
prosecutor. it was a pointless circus that left people gaping.
·
the whole affair was rife with smaller
BIZARRE statements: nixon calling john
dean’s confession “unauthorized,” or press secretay ron zeiggler’s announcement
that all previous white house announcements were “inoperative.”
· EGO in the highly placed made them
incapable of remaining silent. kissenger publicly denies ordering phone taps,
then within days on the phone admits it to a major figure of the press.
these are
former CIA agents ?
their
incompetence includes:
·
the burglars had not only stayed at
the watergate complex but had eaten lobster together in the hotel
restaurant.
·
they had left tape over the door locks
they had picked. this is one tiny thing is what busted them.
·
they continually fail in their
break-in attempts.
·
they use a public service to
develop their photographs. ??????????????????????
·
the bugs were so poorly made that they could
not at first be received.
·
they carried into the burglaries 2,400
dollars in pay-off money in 100 dollar bills that are in sequence.
·
address books of two of those arrested
contained the name of someone close to the white house, howard hunt, and
the words “white house” and the initials “w.h.”
·
one carried an application under false
i.d. for a college Democratic
Party support group, even though they were all geezers.
·
a photo was discovered of liddy posing
outside ellsberg’s shrink’s office.
·
part of liddy’s covert equipment is an ORANGE
WIG? surely no one would notice that.
END
“I
am not a crook.”
- nixon on
national television at disneyland, near the end of the senate hearings.
to anyone alive at or near the time, this is one of the most famous statements of the affair,
repleat with shaking pendulous jowls, and still makes a good joke.
“MY
GOD !”
– howard hunt, on being told by washington
post reporter robert woodward
that his name was in one of the burglars’ address books.
“I
thought mitchel’s silent pipe smoking was wisdom, but it’s just stupidity.”
- a white
house aid, after the house of cards starts tumbling down.
AGNEW
this
section is much shorter than the one on watergate simply because, frankly, agnew was
nowhere near as bright as nixon and was caught red handed. however, they shared
identical techniques of bailing out a sinking ship with a tin can. once again,
what should have been over in an eye blink instead took years. excerpts are from "a hearbeat away" by cohen and witcover, of the washington post.
"nothing was beyond possibility for
him..."
unqualified racist goons
agnew
had almost no political experience
before becoming vice president. after dropping out of college he had seamy
intermittent careers as an assistant insurance underwriter, in WWII was a
service company commander, became a law firm clerk trainee, insurance
investigator, a glorified chain store detective, a union contract negotiator
and finally had a failed law practice. he then worked on a zoning appeals board
in a suburbia created by “white flight.”
recall
that this is a time when civil rights, or opportunities
for
afro-americans were completely non-existent.
this
municipality was a separate political entity, and the “flight” that created it
was followed by literally all real
estate and construction firms.
he
became governor of maryland only because
the opposing party was incredibly factionalized, eventually putting forward a
candidate who made the mistake of being openly
racist. his campaign motto was
always “integrity”, this in a state where the major issue for decades had been legalized slot machines and
representatives and governors regularly
ran for re-election while under
indictment, and
on
getting out of jail
were treated as celebrities,
fêted in public halls !!
you don't believe it? back in maryland, one dufus who had been
placed in the legislature entirely by the political machine had literally been chased from the statehouse by goons after he welched on a heroin deal, and his body was later found in an ally.
teeny tiny american
mussolini
nixon
chose him as a running mate entirely as a political expedient, because of his middle class appeal, but was soon attempting to replace him
because of his overly vociferous public attacks on anyone and everyone who
displeased him. as vice president agnew portrayed himself as the singular
hero of
“the great silent majority
of
forgotten americans.” this
was an expression that would become famous
world wide, and the butt of endless
jokes. why were they silent, and why was this obvious crook claiming
them as his vanguard?
for
people who did not witness it, it is ALMOST
IMPOSSIBLE to grasp how powerfully this yahoo roused the public
imagination. the great majority of people ARE
illiterate, and hence very easily swayed by slogans and rhetoric. while
incapable of being calculating, he was amazingly persistent, and presented the
father figure the masses craved. he was well on his way to steamrollering all
open debate under the banner of “justice.”
"a conspiracy against...all that was right and proper."
from "a reporter's life" by walter cronkite
he
was in office only ten months and had firmly established himself as at war with the press, a
supposed lynch pin of
democracy. having little else to do, his ONE
MAJOR ACTIVITY was crossing
the country giving endless speeches against, not just those who
criticized him, but anyone deviating from the complacent lifestyle that had
allowed people to blandly accept the likes of his previous schemes. that was
his function, to be a LOUD VOICE,
a barking dog, preventing people from focusing on any real issues or shady
deals. in fact, the most popular political cartoons of the day depicted him as
a jowlly and goofy if stern dog. luckily, he never truly graduated from the
state to the national level.
yet
once rumors of wrong doing surfaced, even his friends, including his
press secretary, were surprised at how
little he said and counseled him that an honest man would be
less indignant and more forthcoming.
" i am innocent of wrongdoing."
cash for
favors
federal
attorneys conducting a general investigation, not focused on agnew, determined
that he had a standardized system
for receiving kick-backs related to preferential treatment for state contracts,
people coming three or four times a
year to his apartment or to
the office of the vice president, which were always in cash, and that none ever reported to the
internal revenue service. just one
month before becoming nixon’s running mate he received
20,000 dollars,
then another 10,000 dollars
in his white house office. this is not chicken feed, folks, and was just the tip of the iceberg. he once said after a
long series of allegations,
“they’re
trying to get me for something that has been
going
on ever since this country was founded.”
in
1973 nixon told a private gathering of senators that agnew’s transgression had
“been
in the maryland tradition.”
are
these quotes meant to imply putative support from the founding fathers of the
country? whether to supporters or investigators, he always gave the same story: his salary was not
in line with his “lofty responsibilities” and his position required a certain
standard of living. does this all sound “lofty” and “responsible” to you?
to prevent a
possible succession
the only reason agnew was
allowed to resign
was because many people were terrified that, as was the
constitutionally designated function of the vice president, he might become president if
something happened to the acting president, and it was felt that, as impeachment proceeding might
drag on forever, there was a risk of installing a
felon as president.
if
this had been anyone besides
the vice president, he would have been in jail quicker than you could say,
“highway robbery” – which in fact it
literally was. almost all the payoffs involved favoritism regarding
state contracts for highway construction.
forty pages
later
this would be the only point of
agreement between the parties. he was offered the chance to plead nola
contendere – a pleading which does not
admit guilt but makes a person liable
to punishment. a “full
disclosure” statement would be placed into the public record. even though in legal language and form, it came to FORTY PAGES, and there
were many, many witnesses who
were more than willing to testify. this was very much more than the single
indictable offense that was officially presented in court, and what in actuality pried him from office. see the two
paragraphs below on judge hoffman’s dangerous
legal equivocations. a net
worth examination – an
exhaustive examination of income versus spending – was begun which lasted far
past his term of office.
in essence
he is saying,
"can we see the evidence before trial?
we'd like to
prepare a defense and maybe buy off a few witnesses."
tell us what
you know
once
the issue became public, but before charges were formally brought, the
prosecutors were repeatedly
asked to provide more information, in an effort, it was said, to provide a
“middle ground” - double-speak for violating a basic principle of law. what was wanted was a list of
witnesses that could be hushed up.
he also asked to be allowed to present a deposition – again, not strictly
according to legal procedure. he was not asking for facts, which must be shared, but
NAMES.
“voices of gloom and despair”
agnew
lumped together watergate and attacks on himself, characterizing them as,
“voices of gloom and despair in america…what we need
is hope and faith.
forget the masochistic persons [who are] looking for all
that is wrong,”
[who] “call
themselves informed sources close to the investigation.”
in
a thinly veiled interview by
a highly sympathetic reporter, he rejected an offer to plead guilty to a lesser
charge because it was “a cop out that would make him look guilty in the eyes of
the public.”
"the newspapers have poisoned the minds of the people."
"the assistant attorney general has a personal vendetta againt me."
agnew’s
lawyers attempted, for what conceivable reason is not clear, to obtain sources for media stories about him
and were directed to relevant lawyers, hitting a brick wall of confidentiality
of sources. its just more of the old political story of "get the bastards" we don't like.
"i
have complete confidence in you."
but within fifteen minutes...
the friendly
white house
while
his representatives characterized the investigation as “abusive” and the charges as “lies,” they simultaneously sought the help of the white
house, which agnew was “in awe of,” to “make
a deal” with prosecutors. politics
were ever the center of
maneuvering. nixon could not acknowledge publicly
that he did not support agnew, because agnew had the support of “middle
america” in terms of both
publicity and votes. nixon would often not even
acknowledge that a meeting had taken
place. when he was first called to the white house, nixon told him directly that he had complete confidence in him.
agnew’s own press secretary
innocently denied the initial meeting, then was forced to affirm it later that same day. later,
while the existence of the investigation still remained only rumor, he asked
for another interview and was denied.
what is this? the president and vice president don't even speak, and
need official appointments? when the president retracted a request for
another meeting with prosecutors no reason was given. keep in
mind that this is not a boy scout troop, but the very highest level of
government, and public actions
are being taken, yet without any explanation that the american public could find satisfying. much later, in a televised press conference from
his san clemente home nixon
said,
“…and the talk about resignation even now…would be
inappropriate.”
yet
his chief of staff, alegander haig, had essentially asked for agnew’s resignation. eventually he was totally isolated from the white
house for refusing to tone down
his scapegoating speeches.
“there
was more time being spent getting
ready for meetings than was being spent in the meetings themselves. it
was sound legal and tactical practice, but at the same time it underlined the adversarial atmosphere, or at
least the climate of wariness, that existed on all sides within the high level bureaucracy of the nixon
administration.”
- “a heartbeat away”
richard m. cohen and jules witcover of the washington post
agnew
employed, as did nixon, many forms of secrecy, even within his own organization:
·
the prestige of the office held many at bay.
·
there was strict compartmentalization of his own staff.
·
he could only be approached through
his head of staff, a person described as aloof and unemotional.
agnew
told NO ONE of the drawn out plea bargain negotiations, not even his staff, while
publicly being adamant concerning his
innocence, and characterizing the Department of Justice as persecuting, manipulative, over zealous and underhanded.
then a press story revealed his long
negotiations with people he supposedly despised, over charges he said
he was totally innocent of.
schmaltz - yiddish for "chicken fat"
these are all really great guys, and it's all just been one big misunderstanding.
seeking impeachment
agnew
considered seeking impeachment by congress – which would be a circus run by
self interested peers, who agnew characterized as having a more “sophisticated” understanding of the issues. the
process would have been cumbersome and very drawn out, possibly taking years, without any certain outcome, just another stall. on the verge
of trial, agnew did indeed
ask the House of Representatives for impeachment hearings, and the white house lobbied strongly for it, but
they were turned own.
after
the denial of the impeachment request, agnew asked the court to deny the grand
jury proceedings on two grounds:
·
that a vice-president could not be indicted, because
he was not just an “ordinary person.”
a federal judge ruled against this idea.
·
that he could not get a fair trial
because the Department of Justice had deliberately, repeatedly leaked aspects of the case to
the press. this is ridiculous for two reasons:
·
a grand jury’s function is only to determine if there
are grounds for indictment. also, unlike with a criminal trial, there is no enforced sequestering of jury members.
unless otherwise stipulated, they are free to speak to anyone they wish and
examine all media.
· the impossibility of tracing leaks in
such a byzantine case. this
aspect would develop telling
political highlights. later analysis by various groups laid some of the leaks
to the DoJ, some to the white house, who had long made it plain they
would prefer a different v.p., and some to agnew himself in an attempt to discredit the DoJ.
a judge’s fine
grasp of politics
regarding
leaks, judge hoffman called both prosecution and defense lawyers into a private session relating to
instructions to the jury. when prosecutors objected that defense lawyers had no standing in a grand jury, the
judge replied that this case was “different”
and he would permit a hearing even
before the prosecutors had responded to charges. in other words, the
Attorney General was being brought
before an evidentiary
hearing on the UNPROVABLE
charge of gossip mongering.
he also stated that there might be
a statute of limitations
involved, and the defense lawyers offered to waive it. the prosecutors rejected
this idea, because such waivers are commonly overruled, citing this as another tactic to prolong proceedings.
even
with the MASSIVE evidence of MULTIPLE
crimes spanning DECADES, judge hoffman, after earlier allowing the
absolutely unprecedented evidentiary hearing on leaks to the press, at the end
of proceedings AT FIRST BALKED
at the length of the DoJ’s
“full disclosure” statement, saying it was beyond the purview of a trial based
on a single felony count. now there’s a man who has a fine grasp of political realities. there were still legally contestable
points, all in the prosecutors favor, yet which could have been raised by the
defense merely as a means of prolonging
the process indefinitely. it was not the single proposed indictment,
but the pressure brought to
bear, that attained the necessary action. up to the very last moment, agnew negotiated through his lawyers to
have
information suppressed
–
specific pay-offs, pay-offs after he became vice president, payola from slot
machine owners (see, there they are again. we weren't kidding.), and the full disclosure statement.
the people as
judge
just previous to indictment,
agnew had proclaimed his intent to “take
[his] case before the public.” he reportedly told nixon that it would
be the dirtiest fight he’d
ever seen. this in effect would turn the entire
nation into one vast factious camp, which he was willing to do, lowering the intelligence and dignity
of the american people, even though he was guilty, and knew they had the goods on him. would someone please explain why he thought PUBLIC OPINION would override LEGAL PROCEDURE?
yet
because of the PUBLIC PLATFORM
allowed by his holding office, combined with other’s concern that he not attain
the presidency, he was allowed to and deliberately did conduct a LENGTHY and highly dishonest
public campaign of lies and VILIFICATION,
and attempted to take advantage of every LEGAL
DIVERSION possible, all the while knowing he was guilty of BRIBERY, EXTORTION, and CONSPIRACY,
all of which was again
ONLY MADE POSSIBLE
by his holding THREE PUBLIC OFFICES – county
executive, governor, and vice-president. that's politics, folks -
ONCE IN OFFICE YOU CAN STEAL,
and because you're in office,
YOU CAN'T BE PINNED DOWN.
back to reality - dumber than the vile enemy
let us
end by getting back to reality and repeat some of agnew’s HILARIOUS third
hand
pirated wit. unable to compose his own speeches, and even more unable
to produce witty put downs, he depended on two people, pat buchanan and
william safire, long time republican no-holds-barred muckrakers, who in turn enlisted a shaggy haired, rumbled clothed
student of american history,
just the sort agnew despised,
to research
the historical situations that would make him SEEM LIKE a true blue
american. can you imagin the second highest official in the land saying
these things, and not knowing he was laughable?
“nattering nabobs of negativism”
“hapless hysterical
hypochondriacs of history”
“effete corps of impudent snobs”
“pusillanimous pussyfooters”
“rotten apples” who needed to
be gotten rid of.
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