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[The Good Reverend Roger]

I am amazed at how small America has become.

Hardly widescreen at all, is it?

[Cain]

Watergate were an indie band, named after the hotel they were staying in when they heard about the Clinton "Penisgate" scandal.

[Odibex Grallspice]

Is a salad.

[LMNO]

Watergate were an indie band, named after the hotel they were staying in when they heard about the Clinton "Penisgate" scandal.

I fucking love you, Cain.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Watergate were an indie band, named after the hotel they were staying in when they heard about the Clinton "Penisgate" scandal.

[minuspace]

Watergate were an indie band, named after the hotel they were staying in when they heard about the Clinton "Penisgate" scandal.

It was a destination for said band to play for the G8, in case the "blak bloc" would not show as well.

[Cain]

To be serious a moment though, I'm not so sure the Watergate scandal was about spying on the Democratic convention.

Consider the background, first.  Nixon was a paranoid, but that didn't mean he was imagining he had enemies.  His rise to political prominence had been achieved with the help of the Republican "Eastern Establishment", but he resented their power and control, bucking them whenever it was convenient to do so.  For example, his choice of Spiro Agnew as VP left Prescott Bush seething, as there had been a concerted campaign to get George HW Bush on the ticket, backed by Chase Manhattan Bank, Tiffany & Co., J. P. Stevens and Co., Pennzoil, Brown Brothers Harriman and Thomas Dewey, among others.

And then there was Kissinger, an equally contentious figure.  Kissinger's links with the Rockerfellers made him suspect to the coldest of the Cold Warriors, who suspected the Rockerfellers of accomodationism with the Soviet Union and China, and was part of a larger dispute in the Republican Party between the Eastern Establishment "traders" and West Coast "warriors".  Kissinger was, and I know this seems unbelievable given his later career, seen as a "trader".  Nixon's own background made him more comfortable with the warriors, the West Coast establishment he hailed from, but Kissinger was an inspired choice for a man who wanted to bypass the institutional power of the State Department and CIA's key role in making foreign policy decisions. 

Remember, this penchant for secrecy was so alarming to the Pentagon that they organized their own spy-ring in the White House to find out what Nixon was up to.  And...well, you all know what the CIA was like, back then.  How can you imagine they reacted?

Nixon also secretly supported conservative Democratic politicians in their political ambitions, in return for their support (while they would stay out of inter-Republican squabbles), one of whom happened to defeat Bush's bid for being Senator.  And then, when Bush went to Nixon looking for a job in his second administration, in the Treasury, Nixon gave the top job to the Texas Governor, who had backed Bush's opponenent in his Senate race.

So, Nixon was stacking up enemies everywhere.

And then there is Watergate itself.  The people doing the bugging were pros, Cubans with longtime CIA connections.  Yet how they went about it was highly amateurish, to the point that they seemed to want to get caught.  The FBI at first thought they had stumbled onto a CIA investigation - and phoned Richard Helms to convey those suspicions. The risks of any bugging operation would outweight the benefits, too, since most of McGovern's actual campaign planning was going on either on Capitol Hill or in Miami - as Nixon would have known.

In fact, a set-up seems very possible.  McCord left tape horizontally over a lock, so that it could be spotted, as it was, by a security guard when the door was closed.  One of the burglars was carrying a cheque with E. Howard Hunt's signature on it—and Hunt's phone number at the White House.  And Hunt had told them to register at the hotel, and keep their keys on them while carrying out the job.  Hunt is many things, but he is not an amateur.  Why then, does this feel like a bugging operation carried out by someone whose closest experience of crime comes from a comic book, as opposed to a seasoned CIA covert officer with a penchant for assassination?  Hunt was "retired" from the agency, but we all know how that goes.  And Hunt went to great lengths to try and tie Nixon to the Agency, despite, the conflicts between the White House and Langley at the time.

And let us recall, this was the second break-in of the hotel.  The first one was done a month earlier, without a hitch.  And the same crew were responsible for the break-in of the Beverly Hills office of Dr. Lewis Fielding, the psychiatrist of Daniel Ellsberg.  With that break-in, the burglars were disappointed they did not find anything - but for some reason, Hunt considered it a success.  He broke open a bottle of champagne on being told the news of the break-in.  Martinez, one of the burglars and a long-time CIA asset, said he considered what happened there to be a "cover operation" of some kind.

Of course, Nixon did recognise some of the names - he had been the covert action officer for the White House on the preparations for the Bay of Pigs.  And of course, Nixon constantly referred to the "Bay of Pigs thing" in the tapes.  Nixon was obsessed with the activities of the Agency in the early 60s, demanding thousands of records on operations relating to Cuba and similar.  The CIA point-blank refused to give them to him.  Helms was summoned to the White House, who was equally unhelpful. 

Later, Helms would recall that Nixon asked about "the Bay of Pigs and I think about the Diem episode in Vietnam and maybe something about Trujillo in the Dominican Republic".  All attempted CIA assassinations and coups, you'll note.  It's possible Nixon, paranoid, suspicious, was worried that his battle with his various agencies was mirroring Kennedy's...and of course, Nixon knew how that story ended.  Hell, Nixon had been in Dallas on the day of the assassination...invited by the spooked up Pepsi corporation.  In addition to Pepsi's role in Indochina, Donald Kendall, the head of Pepsi's international operations, was a committed anti-Communist with a penchant for covert operations, and Cuba was the largest supplier of sugar to American corporations, before the revolution.  Kendall had invited Nixon to Dallas on the day Kennedy was assassinated, an assassination that left Nixon shaken, by all accounts.

Kendall appeared to know about the "Bay of Pigs thing" - in a letter from Nixon to him, Nixon said "When I return from Europe I am looking forward to having a chance to get a further fill-in with regard to your experiences on the Bay of Pigs incident."  This was June, 1963.  Years later, in a letter to Charles Colson, Nixon noted: "re idea of getting pol. Commitments— Sugar people are richest & most ruthless before we commit—shld put screws on & get quid pro quo ie Fl[anigan]—always go to Sugar lobby or oil etc. before we give them anything".

Kendall was also close to the Bush family, supporting George's Senate race, and allegedly involved in the overthrow of Allende.

Nixon had also heavily criticized Diem's assassination at the time it had occured.  He wrote a letter stating " "Our heavy-handed complicity in his murder can only have the effect of striking terror in the hearts of leaders of other nations who presumably are our friends."  Kennedy himself may not have authorised the assassination, but Lyndon Johnson knew about it: "We killed him. We all got together and got a god-damn bunch of thugs and assassinated him."

Whatever the "Bay of Pigs thing" was, Helms knew the secret.  When Haldeman confronted him, suggesting that the "Bay of Pigs thing" might be blown, Helms reacted explosively: "Helms gripping the arms of his chair, leaning forward and shouting, "The Bay of Pigs had nothing to do with this. I have no concern about the Bay of Pigs." . . . I was absolutely shocked by Helms' violent reaction. Again I wondered, what was such dynamite in the Bay of Pigs story?"

And then there is Woodward.  He had longstanding ties with the intelligence community, and a lot of political clout - he had been recommended to the Post by Paul Ignatius, who had been Johnson's Navy secretary before becoming the Post's President.  The Post's owners, the Graham family, were also very close to Prescott Bush, and editor Ben Bradlee was himself a Harvard graduate who, like Woodward, had spent time in naval intelligence during World War II.

Woodward's commanding officer in the Navy had been Rear Admiral Robert O. Welander, one of the principal movers and shakers in the Moorer-Radford spy ring.  He had also served as a communications officer under Admiral Moorer himself.  And Woodward had good ties within the CIA.  According to Coulson:

The CIA has been unable to determine whether Bob Woodward was employed by the agency. The agency claims to be having difficulty checking personnel files. Thompson says that he believes the delay merely means that they don't want to admit that Woodward was in the agency.

Thompson wrote a lengthy memo to Baker lastweek complaining about the CIA's non-cooperation, the fact that they were supplying material piecemeal and had been very uncooperative. The memo went into the CIA relationship with the press, specifically
Woodward. Senator Baker sent the memo directly to [CIA Director] Colby with a cover note and within a matter of a few hours, Woodward called Baker and was incensed over the memo. It had been immediately leaked to him.

The Post was known for being CIA friendly.  According to Bernstein:

When Newsweek was purchased by the Washington Post Company, publisher Philip L. Graham was informed by Agency officials that the CIA occasionally used the magazine for cover purposes, according to CIA sources. "It was widely known that Phil Graham was somebody you could get help from," said a former deputy director of the Agency. "Frank Wisner dealt with him." Wisner, deputy director of the CIA from 1950 until shortly before his suicide in 1965, was the Agency's premier orchestrator of "black" operations, including many in which journalists were involved. Wisner liked to boast of his "mighty Wurlitzer," a wondrous propaganda instrument he built, and played, with help from the press. Phil Graham was probably Wisner's closest friend.

Interestingly, Hunt also had a background in media disinformation operations.  After the Bay of Pigs, he was shunted off into the CIA's domestic unit, which "dealt largely with the subsidizing and manipulation of news and publishing organizations".

It seems to me that Nixon, while paranoid, wasn't entirely clear on who his friends or his enemies were.  He crossed a lot of powerful people, and thought he could get away with it, but his inner circle was riddled with people looking to string him up (George Bush in particular), and he made the mistake of enquiring too closely into the CIA's "private matters", and the ever-so-sensitive "Bay of Pigs thing".  So Nixon had to go.  Getting a bunch of former CIA guys, who could act under plausible cover of White House orders, to carry out a bunch of illegal actions was certainly more baroque than a bullet to the head...but then, it's so hard to get a reliable lone nutter, and if Presidents keep dropping dead all the time when they cross the CIA, someone might get, y'know, suspicious.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Wow, that's some very interesting stuff!

[Cain]

Thanks.

There's nothing conclusive...I mean, if the ghostly apparition of Richard Nixon were to fess up tomorrow, then, y'know, fair enough.  But I think it's sufficiently fishy that I doubt the full story is exactly as presented. 

Russ Baker (who I got a good amount of this information from) thinks that the Bush family were mostly behind this, angry at Nixon scuppering George's chance at VP.  I personally think it was the CIA, flexing its muscles to make or break yet another President percieved as being too independent in foreign affairs and too soft on Communism.  But there's plenty of motive and opportunity to go around.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

It fits like a glove. They wouldn't just kill him after JFK (and most likely RFK and MLK).

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

The idea of, in the end, Nixon being actually not guilty (of Watergate, at least) is kind of delicious.

[Salty]

Damn, thanks for sharing that, Cain.

I cant wait to use that info in, uh, debate. Yeah, debate.

[Telarus]

VERY interesting stuff. Thanks Cain!

[inode_buddha]

"The trend reflects growing concerns about the disproportionate spread of low-wage jobs in the U.S. economy, creating millions of financially strained workers and putting too little money in consumers' pockets to spur faster economic growth."

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/12/29/states-raising-minimum-wage/4221773

Does anyone else remember Ross Perot and his "giant sucking sound" of middle-class jobs leaving the country? IMHO (regarding the USA) the Fascists are winning. Eventually this place will be a giant banana republic of little fiefedoms. With an enormous military cock. And of course the NSA. Remember people, its all legal!

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I'll just leave this here.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/watercooler/2013/oct/8/poll-potholes-and-cockroaches-more-popular-congres/