Spitfire List Web site and blog of anti-fascist researcher and radio personality Dave Emory.
The tag 'Watergate' is associated with 58 posts.

Exit Stage Right: Eugenio Martinez Dies (What Was Richard Nixon Doing In Dallas, Texas, on 11/22/1963?)

In FTR #‘s 961, 962 and 963, we exam­ined the pro­found con­nec­tions between the Water­gate Break-in and the assas­si­na­tion of JFK. The obit­u­ary of recent­ly deceased Water­gate bur­glar Euge­nio Mar­tinez con­tained a detail that opens up a vista onto the real Water­gate “op.” “. . . . In 1983, after his requests for clemen­cy had been reject­ed by Pres­i­dents Ger­ald R. Ford and Jim­my Carter, Mr. Martínez — who, it turned out, had still been on retain­er to the C.I.A. at the time of the Water­gate break-in — was par­doned by Pres­i­dent Ronald Rea­gan. . . .”


Nuremberg Redux: The Deep Political Context of the Texas Court of Inquiry

In Mis­cel­la­neous Archive Show M31, we exam­ined the mil­i­tary inquiry into the killing of Wehrma­cht Cor­po­ral Johannes Kun­ze, whose anti-Nazi sen­ti­ments were pun­ished by his fel­low pris­on­ers with mur­der. In the inquest, it became clear that Amer­i­can offi­cers had per­mit­ted their Ger­man POW coun­ter­parts to screen the mail of their fel­low pris­on­ers, which pro­vid­ed them the means to iden­ti­fy and kill cor­po­ral Kun­ze. The mil­i­tary pros­e­cu­tor in the case–future Water­gate and Kore­a­gate “Spe­cial Pros­e­cu­tor” Leon Jaworski–exercised what was polite­ly termed judi­cial restraint, and did not inves­ti­gate the U.S. offi­cers whose con­duct led direct­ly to the mur­der of Kun­ze. Jawors­ki lat­er par­tic­i­pat­ed in tri­als of Third Reich alum­ni accused of war crimes, includ­ing the tri­al of Dachau med­ical per­son­nel. “. . . . Col. Leon Jawors­ki, who will be in charge of the tri­al, esti­mates that at least 5,000 Jews died at Dachau from ordi­nary mis­treat­ment and tor­ture, while any­where between 1,000 and 3,000 died as a result of med­ical exper­i­ments per­formed upon them. . . .” The grue­some Dachau med­ical exper­i­ments: 1) Were per­formed by five doc­tors who were on the Project Paper­clip pay­roll by the time Jawors­ki again man­i­fest­ed judi­cial restraint: ” . . . . Five doc­tors work­ing at the cen­ter start­ing in the fall of 1945 were on the list: Theodor Ben­zinger, Siegried Ruff, Kon­rad Schafer, Her­mann Beck­er-Frey­seng, and Oskar Schroder. Instead of fir­ing these physi­cians sus­pect­ed of heinous war crimes, the cen­ter kept the doc­tors in its employ and the list was clas­si­fied. . . .” 2) Involved tri­als by four of the Paper­clip recruits of two process­es aimed at puri­fy­ing sea­wa­ter for drink­ing, with grue­some results for the Dachau “Unter­men­schen”: “. . . . Dr. Oskar Schroder, head of the Luft­waffe Med­ical Corps, was thrilled. Kon­rad Schafer had ‘devel­oped a process which actu­al­ly pre­cip­i­tat­ed the salts from the sea water,’ Schroder lat­er tes­ti­fied. . . . The effec­tive­ness of both the Schafer process and the Berka method would be test­ed on the Unter­men­schen at Dachau. A Luft­waffe physi­cian named Her­mann Beck­er-Frey­seng was assigned to assist Dr. Schafer, and to coau­thor with him a paper doc­u­ment­ing the results of the con­test. The senior doc­tor advis­ing Beck­er-Frey­seng and Schafer in their work was Dr. Siegfried Ruff. . . .” 3) Were filmed and screened for SS chief Hein­rich Himm­ler by the fifth Paper­clip recruit, Dr. Theodor Ben­zinger: ” . . . .This was the same Dr. Ben­zinger who had over­seen for Himm­ler the film screen­ing at the Reich Air Min­istry, in Berlin, of Dachau pris­on­ers being mur­dered in med­ical exper­i­ments. . . .” 4) Became part of an exper­i­men­tal con­tin­u­um, in which the Nazi research on Aeromed­ical Med­i­cine per­formed at the Kaiser Wil­helm Insti­tute pro­ceed­ed unin­ter­rupt­ed under U.S. Army Air Force com­mand: ” . . . . The Army Air Forces Aero Med­ical Cen­ter in Hei­del­berg  . . . only a few months pri­or . . .  had been the Kaiser Wil­helm Insti­tute for Med­ical Research, a bas­tion of Nazi sci­ence where chemists and physi­cists worked on projects for the Reich’s war machine. At its front entrance, the Reich’s flag came down and the U.S. Flag went up. Pho­tographs of Hitler were pulled from the walls and replaced by framed pho­tographs of Army Air Forces gen­er­als in mil­i­tary pose. Most of the fur­ni­ture stayed the same. In the din­ing room, Ger­man wait­ers in white servers’ coats pro­vid­ed table ser­vice at meal­times. A sin­gle 5” X 8” req­ui­si­tion receipt, dat­ed Sep­tem­ber 14, 1945, made the tran­si­tion offi­cial: ‘This prop­er­ty is need­ed by U.S. Forces, and the req­ui­si­tion is in pro­por­tion to the resources of the coun­try.’ Again, then Colonel Jawors­ki appar­ent­ly exer­cised “judi­cial restraint.” Fol­low­ing Pres­i­dent Kennedy’s assas­si­na­tion, Jawors­ki became both a War­ren Com­mis­sion coun­sel and, with Judge Robert Storey, head­ed the Texas Court of Inquiry, the Texas judi­cial body charged with inves­ti­gat­ing JFK’s mur­der. As dis­cussed in the linked Guns of Novem­ber, Part 3, Jawors­ki sat on the board of direc­tors of the M.D. Ander­son Fund, a doc­u­ment­ed CIA domes­tic fund­ing con­duit. In an ear­li­er pro­fes­sion­al incar­na­tion, Storey–as Colonel Robert Storey (above, right)–passed along the word that the de-Naz­i­fi­ca­tion edict was to be “relaxed” dur­ing the Nurem­berg tri­als. ” . . . . Colonel Robert Storey, the U.S. exec­u­tive tri­al coun­sel at the Inter­na­tion­al Mil­i­tary Tri­bunal and a senior aide to Robert Jack­son, has ‘passed the word down that the denaz­i­fi­ca­tion direc­tive was to be relaxed,’ . . . .” It seems prob­a­ble that the selec­tion of the com­po­si­tion of both the War­ren Com­mis­sion and the Texas Court of Inquiry was shaped, in part, by the per­ceived neces­si­ty of con­ceal­ing the many Nazis under the Amer­i­can bed.


FTR #1034 Interview #4 with Jim DiEugenio about “Destiny Betrayed”

The fourth of a planned long series of inter­views with Jim DiEu­ge­nio about his tri­umphal analy­sis of Pres­i­dent Kennedy’s assas­si­na­tion and New Orleans DA Jim Gar­rison’s hero­ic inves­ti­ga­tion of the killing, this pro­gram con­tin­ues with dis­cus­sion of the cast of char­ac­ters that fig­ure in Gar­rison’s inves­ti­ga­tion and their rela­tion­ship to anti-Cas­tro Cuban intrigue.

(Lis­ten­ers can order Des­tiny Betrayed and Jim’s oth­er books, as well as sup­ple­ment­ing those vol­umes with arti­cles about this coun­try’s polit­i­cal assas­si­na­tions at his web­site Kennedys and King. Jim is also a reg­u­lar guest and expert com­men­ta­tor on Black Op Radio.)

Con­tin­u­ing dis­cus­sion from FTR #1033, the pro­gram high­lights activ­i­ties of Bay of Pigs and Water­gate par­tic­i­pant E. Howard Hunt. One of the pri­ma­ry CIA offi­cers in the abortive Bay of Pigs, Hunt loathed Kennedy, helped ghost-write the Charles Mur­phy apolo­gia for Allen Dulles & Com­pa­ny in For­tune mag­a­zine (see FTR #1032), and may have been involved with the JFK assas­si­na­tion.

E. Howard Hunt was also present in Dal­las, Texas on 11/22/1963, as revealed in a memo craft­ed by James Angle­ton.

A sub­ject that will be dis­cussed at greater length in future con­ver­sa­tions with Jim is the man­i­fes­ta­tions of Ker­ry Thorn­ley:

1.–One of the Marine Corps bud­dies of Oswald the Marx­ist Marine.
2.–Reinforced the Oswald the Com­mie meme.
3.–Was involved with Oswald’s alleged pro-Cas­tro leaflet­ing orig­i­nat­ing from Guy Ban­is­ter’s office.
4.–Was appar­ent­ly involved with most of Oswald’s asso­ciates in the New Orleans area.
5.–Wrote two con­tra­dic­to­ry books about Oswald decades apart.
6.–Supplementing dis­cus­sion of Gor­don Nov­el from FTR #1033, the pro­gram fore­shad­ows future dis­cus­sion of infil­tra­tors into Gar­rison’s inves­ti­ga­tion. An elec­tron­ics expert involved with CIA and the Bay of Pigs oper­a­tion, Nov­el was involved with infil­trat­ing Gar­rison’s office and sup­ply­ing infor­ma­tion to Gar­rison’s ene­mies.

Also car­ry­ing over from FTR #1033, the pro­gram high­lights Guy Ban­is­ter’s so-called “detec­tive agency,” from which Oswald oper­at­ed his one-man New Orleans chap­ter of the Fair Play For Cuba Com­mit­tee. Sam Newman–the own­er of the New­man build­ing which housed that oper­a­tion, was eva­sive about Oswald oper­at­ing from an office there. New­man’s state­ments in that regard are con­tra­dic­to­ry. Oswald’s pres­ence there has been sub­stan­tive­ly con­firmed.

Of sig­nif­i­cance is the fact that Corliss Lam­ont of the pro-Cas­tro FPCC authored a pam­phlet for the orga­ni­za­tion in 1961, while Oswald was in the Sovi­et Union. It was the 1961 edi­tion of the pam­phlet that Oswald was hand­ing out when he had his alter­ca­tion with Car­los Bringuier. This sug­gests that Oswald got his edi­tion of the pam­phlet from the CIA. (Recall that David Phillips and James McCord head­ed the CIA’s anti-FPCC effort.)

Pro­gram High­lights Include:

1.–Review of JFK’s strip­ping of Charles Mur­phy of his Air Force Reserve com­mis­sion and Mur­phy’s state­ment that he did­n’t mind because his real alle­giance was to Dulles.
2.–Discussion of Guy Ban­is­ter’s detec­tive agency as a far right/fascist intel­li­gence ser­vice, infil­trat­ing lib­er­al and left­ist polit­i­cal milieux.
3.–Richard Nixon’s pres­ence in Dal­las on 11/22/1963 and the pro­found con­nec­tions between Water­gate and the JFK assas­si­na­tion.


FTR #1033 Interview #3 with Jim DiEugenio about “Destiny Betrayed”

The third of a planned long series of inter­views with Jim DiEu­ge­nio about his tri­umphal analy­sis of Pres­i­dent Kennedy’s assas­si­na­tion and New Orleans DA Jim Gar­rison’s hero­ic inves­ti­ga­tion of the killing, this pro­gram con­tin­ues with dis­cus­sion of Cuba and JFK’s pol­i­cy with regard to Cas­tro.

(Lis­ten­ers can order Des­tiny Betrayed and Jim’s oth­er books, as well as sup­ple­ment­ing those vol­umes with arti­cles about this coun­try’s polit­i­cal assas­si­na­tions at his web­site Kennedys and King. Jim is also a reg­u­lar guest and expert com­men­ta­tor on Black Op Radio.)

After review­ing dis­cus­sion from FTR #1032, the pro­gram high­lights the Cuban Mis­sile Cri­sis. The best known of JFK’s actions with regard to Cuba, the “Thir­teen Days” exem­pli­fies how Kennedy stood against the Cold War polit­i­cal estab­lish­ment and what Pres­i­dent Eisen­how­er called “The Mil­i­tary-Indus­tri­al Com­plex,” earn­ing the hatred of key play­ers on the U.S. polit­i­cal stage at the time.

Once it became clear that the Sovi­ets had placed offen­sive inter­me­di­ate range bal­lis­tic mis­siles in Cuba, plans were drawn up for both air strikes to take out the mis­siles and a mil­i­tary inva­sion of Cuba as a whole. Kennedy was exco­ri­at­ed for tak­ing a more thought­ful tack.

Des­tiny Betrayed by Jim DiEu­ge­nio; Sky­horse pub­lish­ing [SC]; Copy­right 1992, 2012 by Jim DiEu­ge­nio; ISBN 978–1‑62087–056‑3; p. 63.

. . . . On Octo­ber 9, Kennedy had a meet­ing with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Kennedy got into a back and forth with the hawk­ish Air Force Gen­er­al Cur­tis LeMay. . . . LeMay frowned upon the block­ade option. . . . “If we don’t do any­thing in Cuba, then they’re going to push on Berlin and push real hard because they’ve got us on the run.” LeMay, who was nev­er one to mince words, then went even fur­ther. To  show his utter  dis­dain for the block­ade con­cept, the World War II vet­er­an actu­al­ly brought up some­thing rather bizarre. He said, “The block­ade and polit­i­cal action, I see lead­ing into war. . . . This is almost as bad as the appease­ment at Munich.” LeMay was now com­par­ing Kennedy’s pref­er­ence for the block­ade with Neville Cham­ber­lain’s giv­ing away the Sude­ten­land to the Nazis, which encour­aged Hitler to invade Poland. Although not express­ing them­selves in such extreme fig­ures of speech, the rest of the chiefs of staff agreed with LeMay. . . .  

Think­ing that the Sovi­et buildup may have been a gam­bit to oblige the U.S. to for­go sup­port for West Berlin in exchange for with­draw­al of the nuclear forces in Cuba, Kennedy sought oth­er alter­na­tives. (Younger lis­ten­ers should bear in mind that West Berlin was the West­ern-aligned half of Berlin, which was itself locat­ed deep in East Ger­many.)

Ulti­mate­ly, Kennedy and Sovi­et pre­mier Niki­ta Khr­uschev drew down hos­til­i­ties, after Kennedy insti­tut­ed a naval block­ade of Sovi­et mar­itime ship­ments of mil­i­tary materiel to Cuba. Jim presents the alto­geth­er for­mi­da­ble order of bat­tle in Cuba, indi­cat­ing the strong pos­si­bil­i­ty that, had the more aggres­sive U.S. con­tin­gency plans been imple­ment­ed, it would have led to a Third World War and the end of our  civ­i­liza­tion.

As the elder Von Moltke observed: “No bat­tle plan sur­vives con­tact with the ene­my.” Some­thing would not have gone accord­ing to plan in the pro­posed mil­i­tary adven­tures against the Sovi­et pres­ence in Cuba. When that hap­pened, there would have been World War III.

Des­tiny Betrayed by Jim DiEu­ge­nio; Sky­horse pub­lish­ing [SC]; Copy­right 1992, 2012 by Jim DiEu­ge­nio; ISBN 978–1‑62087–056‑3; p. 66.

. . . . The deploy­ment includ­ed 40 land based bal­lis­tic launch­ers, includ­ing 60 mis­siles in five mis­sile reg­i­ments. The medi­um range mis­siles had a range of 1,200 miles, the long-range ones, 2,400 miles. In addi­tion, there were to be 140 air-defense mis­sile launch­ers to pro­tect the sites. Accom­pa­ny­ing then would be a Russ­ian army of 45,000 men with four motor­ized rifle reg­i­ments and over 250 units of armor. There would also be a wing of MIG-21 fight­ers, with 40 nuclear armed IL-28 bombers. Final­ly, there was to be a sub­ma­rine mis­sile base with an ini­tial deploy­ment of eleven sub­marines, sev­en of them capa­ble of launch­ing one mega­ton nuclear war­heads. In addi­tion, there were low-yield tac­ti­cal nuclear weapons for coastal defense in case of an inva­sion. . . . 

Fol­low­ing the Cuban Mis­sile Cri­sis, Kennedy sought to woo Cas­tro away from the Sovi­et Union with a diplo­mat­ic rap­proche­ment between Cuba and the U.S.

Using U.S. diplo­mat William Atwood, French jour­nal­ist Jean Daniel and Amer­i­can jour­nal­ist Lisa Howard as inter­me­di­aries, JFK was seek­ing to nor­mal­ize U.S./Cuban rela­tions.

The CIA and its anti-Cas­tro Cuban con­tin­gent learned of the nego­ti­a­tions, and under­took a num­ber of covert oper­a­tions, such as the Pawley/Bayo/Martino raid to break up the nego­ti­a­tions.

Pro­gram High­lights Include:

The roles of many of the “Drama­tis Per­son­ae” who fig­ure in Jim Gar­rison’s inves­ti­ga­tion into the JFK assas­si­na­tion in anti-Cas­tro Cuban intrigue, includ­ing:

1.–David Fer­rie’s work as a para­mil­i­tary train­er at camps used to train anti-Cas­tro guer­ril­las and as a pilot on var­i­ous “ops” against Cas­tro.
2.–Clay Shaw’s work orga­niz­ing CIA anti-Cas­tro Cuban activ­i­ties, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the New Orleans area.
3.–Guy Ban­is­ter’s “detec­tive agency,” which served as a front for para­mil­i­tary oper­a­tions against Cas­tro’s Cuba and also as a cov­er for Lee Har­vey Oswald’s role as a faux Cas­tro sup­port­er and Fair Play For Cuba mem­ber.
4.–Bernardo de Tor­res’ par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Bay of Pigs and sub­se­quent anti-Cas­tro activ­i­ties, as well as his work with silenced weapons devel­op­er Mitchell Wer­Bell and as an infil­tra­tor into Gar­rison’s office.
5.–Eladio Del Valle’s work with David Fer­rie, among oth­ers, and his bru­tal mur­der.
6.-Sergio Arcacha Smith’s role as a key offi­cial of the CIA front orga­ni­za­tion CRC and his links to many oth­er fig­ures in Gar­rison’s inves­ti­ga­tion.
7.–CIA offi­cer David Atlee Phillips and his work against Cas­tro, as well as against the U.S. Cas­tro sup­port group Fair Play For Cuba. In a 1988 con­ver­sa­tion with his estranged broth­er short­ly before his death, Phillips admit­ted hav­ing been in Dal­las when Kennedy was killed.
8.–Future Water­gate bur­glar James McCord’s work with Phillips against the FPCC.
9.–Antonio Veciana’s work with Alpha 66, arguably the most mil­i­tant of the anti-Cas­tro exile groups and his mys­te­ri­ous con­trol offi­cer “Mau­rice Bish­op,” who appears to have been David Atlee Phillips.
10.–Future Water­gate Bur­glar E. Howard Hunt’s col­lab­o­ra­tion with Allen Dulles and Charles Mur­phy on the anti-Kennedy For­tune Mag­a­zine arti­cle, as well as his work on the Bay of Pigs oper­a­tion.


Important Link Between JFK and MLK Assassinations and a Fateful Meeting on 11/21/1963

In FTR #962, we high­light­ed an alleged meet­ing at the Dal­las home of Texas oil man Clint Murchi­son, on 11/21/1963. In his recent book “The Plot to Kill King,” William Pep­per flesh­es out details con­cern­ing those in atten­dance: Osten­si­bly, it was an event to hon­or J. Edgar Hoover, who was a close friend of Murchi­son, H.l, Hunt, and the oth­er Texas oil giants. The guest list includ­ed John McCloy, chair­man of Chase Man­hat­tan Bank [and a future mem­ber of the War­ren Commission–D.E.] ; Richard Nixon, George Brown, of the Brown and Root Con­struc­tion Com­pa­ny; R.L. Thorn­ton, pres­i­dent of the Mer­can­tile Bank; and Dal­las may­or Ear­le Cabell, broth­er of Gen­er­al Charles Cabell, for­mer Deputy Direc­tor of the CIA, who was fired by Pres­i­dent Kennedy after the Bay of Pigs. Pep­per also informs us of paper­work found by a for­mer FBI agent in a car linked to the assas­si­na­tion of Mar­tin Luther King that con­nects James Earl Ray’s han­dler “Raul” with Jack Ruby, H.L. Hunt and [pos­si­bly] the Atlanta office of the FBI: ” . . . One piece came from a 1963 Dal­las, Texas, tele­phone direc­to­ry. It was part of a page that had been torn out. The tele­phone num­bers on the page includ­ed those of the fam­i­ly of H.L. Hunt, but more sig­nif­i­cant­ly, in hand­writ­ing at the top of the page, was the name “Raul,” the let­ter “J” and a Dal­las tele­phone num­ber, of a club in Dal­las which at the time was run by Jack Ruby, the killer of Lee Har­vey Oswald. The sec­ond piece of paper con­tained sev­er­al names; along­side of each were sums of mon­ey. It appeared to be some sort of pay­off list, and at the bot­tom was Raul’s name and date for pay­ment. Wil­son also said that he recov­ered a third piece of paper, on which was writ­ten the tele­phone num­ber and exten­sion of the Atlanta FBI field office. . . .”


Transcript of Miscellaneous Archive Show M4: “Gloria in Excelsis”

In 1986, we record­ed Mis­cel­la­neous Archive Show M4, deal­ing with fem­i­nist icon Glo­ria Steinem’s rela­tion­ship with the CIA. Record­ed at too high a lev­el, the pro­gram makes dif­fi­cult lis­ten­ing. We are pub­lish­ing a tran­script to sup­ple­ment our FTR series on “Weaponized Fem­i­nism.”


FTR #994 What Was Old Is New Again

This broad­cast recaps mate­r­i­al from pre­vi­ous pro­grams, under­scor­ing key points of infor­ma­tion from cur­rent devel­op­ments.

Last week, we opened our pro­gram with an arti­cle from Con­sor­tium News about some alarm­ing devel­op­ments in Ukraine–a piece of leg­is­la­tion approved by the Rada (the Ukrain­ian par­lia­ment) that might augur World War III.

One of the few media out­lets that has cov­ered the return to pow­er of the OUN/B’s suc­ces­sor fas­cist orga­ni­za­tions in Ukraine, Con­sor­tium News was found­ed and head­ed by Robert Par­ry.

Par­ry passed away last week­end.

Mr. Emory post­ed the fol­low­ing com­ment on the Con­sor­tium News arti­cle about Robert’s pass­ing:

A very, very sad occa­sion. It was my priv­i­lege to have inter­viewed Robert a num­ber of times over the years, includ­ing an interview–scheduled days before–that took place on the day he learned of Gary Webb’s death.

It was also my priv­i­lege to have used many arti­cles from Con­sor­tium News in my week­ly broad­casts, includ­ing, and espe­cial­ly, his reportage about the return to pow­er of the OUN/B suc­ces­sor orga­ni­za­tions in Ukraine.

Very few have man­i­fest­ed the courage and integri­ty to report hon­est­ly on those events.

Now, there will be few­er.

Rest in peace, Robert.

Next, we return to the sub­ject of Peter Thiel, of “Team Trump,” Face­book and Palan­tir.

We have cov­ered Peter Thiel in numer­ous pro­grams, begin­ning with our warn­ing about him in FTR #718.

Some of the points we have made about him include:

1.-His fam­i­ly back­ground in the Frank­furt (Ger­many) chem­i­cal busi­ness. Prob­a­bly I.G. Farben/Bormann, in that con­text.
2.-His pri­ma­ry role in Palan­tir, appar­ent­ly the mak­er of the PRISM soft­ware at the epi­cen­ter of L’Af­faire Snow­den.
3.-His role as the pri­ma­ry financier of Ron Paul’s super PAC. (Paul is an unabashed white suprema­cist, joined at the hip with David Duke and the neo-Con­fed­er­ate move­ment. He was the Pres­i­den­tial can­di­date of choice for Eddie “The Friend­ly Spook” Snow­den and Julian Assange.)
4.-Thiel’s net­work­ing with movers and shak­ers from In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s high-tech ven­ture cap­i­tal firm.
5.-Thiel’s active anti-immi­grant stance.
6.-Thiel’s sem­i­nal net­work­ing with oth­er tech titans and ven­ture cap­i­tal firms, includ­ing some with polit­i­cal and his­tor­i­cal trib­u­taries lead­ing back to the apartheid regime in South Africa.

With Thiel among the can­di­dates to head Trump’s Pres­i­den­t’s Intel­li­gence Advi­so­ry Board, we note that his apoc­a­lyp­tic, anti-Enlight­en­ment ide­ol­o­gy draws on, among oth­er influ­ences, Carl Schmitt. Arguably the prime mover behind the Ger­man Con­ser­v­a­tive Rev­o­lu­tion, Schmitt was also: “. . . . a Nazi and the Third Reich’s pre­em­i­nent legal the­o­rist. For Thiel, Schmitt is an inspir­ing throw­back to a pre-Enlight­en­ment age, who exalts strug­gle and insists that the dis­cov­ery of ene­mies is the foun­da­tion of pol­i­tics. . .”

There has been a fair amount of buzz about the release of addi­tion­al, pre­vi­ous­ly clas­si­fied, doc­u­ments about the assas­si­na­tion of Pres­i­dent Kennedy.

An inter­est­ing doc­u­ment came to light in the recent release of files relat­ing to the assas­si­na­tion of JFK. Jack Ruby told an FBI infor­mant to “watch the fire­works” in Dealey Plaza that day.

“Jack Ruby, the man who even­tu­al­ly shot Lee Har­vey Oswald, told an FBI infor­mant to ‘watch the fire­works’ on the day Pres­i­dent John F. Kennedy was killed, accord­ing to new records the Nation­al Archives released Fri­day. . . . ‘The infor­mant stat­ed that on the morn­ing of the assas­si­na­tion, Ruby con­tact­ed him and asked if he would ‘like to watch the fire­works,” an FBI record dat­ed April 6, 1977, says. ‘He was with Jack Ruby and stand­ing at the cor­ner of the Postal Annex Build­ing fac­ing the Texas School Book Depos­i­to­ry Build­ing at the time of the shoot­ing. . . .”

This might be eval­u­at­ed against the back­ground of FTR #963, relating–among oth­er things–a read­ing of Jack Ruby’s War­ren Com­mis­sion tes­ti­mo­ny. (A read­ing of Ruby’s tes­ti­mo­ny is re-broad­cast in this pro­gram.)

When inter­viewed by the War­ren Com­mis­sion, Jack Ruby indi­cat­ed that he had been part of a con­spir­a­cy to kill Kennedy and that he feared for his life. The War­ren Com­mis­sion turned a deaf ear to his desire to go to Wash­ing­ton and “spill the beans.”

Ger­ald Ford (who suc­ceed­ed Nixon as Pres­i­dent and par­doned him of all crimes com­mit­ted), Leon Jawors­ki (a War­ren Com­mis­sion coun­sel who was a direc­tor of a CIA domes­tic fund­ing con­duit and who was select­ed by Nixon to be Water­gate Spe­cial Pros­e­cu­tor) and Arlen Specter (anoth­er War­ren Com­mis­sion coun­sel who was Nixon’s first choice as his per­son­al defense attor­ney in the Water­gate affair) were present at Ruby’s de fac­to con­fes­sion.

War­ren Com­mis­sion Coun­sel J. Lee Rankin is also present at this inter­view. Nixon first select­ed J. Lee Rankin to serve as Water­gate Spe­cial Pros­e­cu­tor. Rankin was sub­se­quent­ly tabbed to review the Water­gate tapes and deter­mine which would be released. Rankin was the War­ren Com­mis­sion’s liai­son between the com­mis­sion and both the CIA and the FBI. Rankin was a key pro­po­nent of the so-called “Mag­ic Bul­let The­o­ry.”

We con­clude with dis­cus­sion of anoth­er aspect of the JFK assas­si­na­tion.

Jane May­er’s Dark Mon­ey has received con­sid­er­able dis­cus­sion and media play over the last cou­ple of years. In past dis­cus­sion of the Koch fam­i­ly, we not­ed that patri­arch Fred Koch worked with Hitler build­ing one of Nazi Ger­many’s most impor­tant refineries–one capa­ble of refin­ing the high-octane fuel need­ed by fight­er planes.

In addi­tion, we not­ed that Fred Koch was one of the first mem­bers of the John Birch Soci­ety.

May­er notes that Fred Koch helped finance ads in the wake of the JFK assas­si­na­tion that pinned respon­si­bil­i­ty for the crime on the Sovi­et Union–one of the pri­ma­ry lev­els of dis­in­for­ma­tion.

” . . . . In a hasty turn­about, soon after the assas­si­na­tion, Fred Koch took out full-page ads in The New York Times and The Wash­ing­ton Post, mourn­ing JFK. The ads advanced the con­spir­a­cy the­o­ry that JFK’s assas­sin, Lee Har­vey Oswald, had act­ed as part of a Com­mu­nist plot. The Com­mu­nists would­n’t “rest on this suc­cess,” the ads warned. In the cor­ner was a tear-out order form, direct­ing the pub­lic to sign up for John Birch Soci­ety mail­ings. . . .”

We have cov­ered the “paint­ing of Oswald Red” in numer­ous pro­grams, includ­ing FTR #‘s 925 and 926.


FTR #963 Watergate and the Assassination of President Kennedy, Part 3

As com­par­isons between the Water­gate scan­dal and “Rus­sia-gate” sat­u­rate the media (in the sum­mer of 2017), the pro­gram reviews infor­ma­tion about con­nec­tions between the Water­gate scan­dal and the assas­si­na­tion of Pres­i­dent Kennedy. Nixon told aides that he did­n’t want to release the White House tape record­ings because he was afraid “the whole Bay of Pigs thing” might come out. Nixon aide H.R. Halde­man said in his book “The Ends of Pow­er” that “the whole Bay of Pigs thing” was a code word in the Nixon White House for the assas­si­na­tion of Pres­i­dent Kennedy. (It should be remem­bered that Nixon was in Dal­las on 11/22/63, yet he told the FBI in Feb­ru­ary of 1964 that he had left Dal­las two days pri­or to Kennedy’s assas­si­na­tion.)

When inter­viewed by the War­ren Com­mis­sion, Jack Ruby indi­cat­ed that he had been part of a con­spir­a­cy to kill Kennedy and that he feared for his life. The War­ren Com­mis­sion turned a deaf ear to his desire to go to Wash­ing­ton and “spill the beans.” Ger­ald Ford (who suc­ceed­ed Nixon as Pres­i­dent and par­doned him of all crimes com­mit­ted), Leon Jawors­ki (a War­ren Com­mis­sion coun­sel who was a direc­tor of a CIA domes­tic fund­ing con­duit and who was select­ed by Nixon to be Water­gate Spe­cial Pros­e­cu­tor) and Arlen Specter (anoth­er War­ren Com­mis­sion coun­sel who was Nixon’s first choice as his per­son­al defense attor­ney in the Water­gate affair) were present at Ruby’s de fac­to con­fes­sion.

War­ren Com­mis­sion Coun­sel J. Lee Rankin is also present at this inter­view. Nixon first select­ed J. Lee Rankin to serve as Water­gate Spe­cial Pros­e­cu­tor. Rankin was sub­se­quent­ly tabbed to review the Water­gate tapes and deter­mine which would be released. Rankin was the War­ren Com­mis­sion’s liai­son between the com­mis­sion and both the CIA and the FBI. Rankin was a key pro­po­nent of the so-called “Mag­ic Bul­let The­o­ry.”

It is inter­est­ing to con­tem­plate the text of a let­ter that Jack Ruby smug­gled out of prison. In the let­ter, Ruby hints that Nazis and Japan­ese fas­cists par­tic­i­pat­ed in the assas­si­na­tion of Pres­i­dent Kennedy. Cer­tain­ly, ele­ments of what were to become the World Anti-Com­mu­nist League (includ­ing the Asian Peo­ples Anti-Com­mu­nist League) were involved.

” . . . Don’t believe the War­ren [Com­mis­sion] Report, that was only put out to make me look inno­cent. . . . I’m going to die a hor­ri­ble death any­way, so what would I have to gain by writ­ing all this. So you must believe me. . . . that [sic] is only one kind of peo­ple that would do such a thing, that would have to be the Naz­i’s [sic], and that is who is in pow­er in this coun­try right now. . . . Japan is also in on the deal, but the old war lords are going to come back. South Amer­i­ca is also full of these Naz­i’s [sic]. . . . if those peo­ple were so deter­mined to frame me then you must be con­vinced that they had an ulte­ri­or motive for doing same. There is only one kind of peo­ple that would go to such extremes, and that would be the Mas­ter Race. . . .”

The late inves­tiga­tive reporter and “What’s My Line” pan­elist Dorothy Kil­gallen pub­lished Ruby’s War­ren Com­mis­sion Tes­ti­mo­ny and had told asso­ciates she would “break this case wide open.” Short­ly after­ward, she was found dead of alco­hol and bar­bi­tu­rate poisoning–suicide and acci­den­tal death have both been put for­ward as rea­sons for her demise. Her wid­ow­er refused pub­lic com­men­tary on her death and even­tu­al­ly “com­mit­ted sui­cide” him­self.

We excerpt The Guns of Novem­ber, Part 2, high­light­ing Kil­gal­len’s death. Inter­est­ing­ly and sig­nif­i­cant­ly, “What’s My Line” host and mod­er­a­tor John Charles Daly was Earl War­ren’s son-in-law, as dis­cussed in FTR #190. Did Daly pur­pose­ful­ly or inad­ver­tent­ly con­vey infor­ma­tion to War­ren about Kil­gal­len’s inves­ti­ga­tion? Was that in any way con­nect­ed with her death?

On the Daly/Warren in-law relationship–note that Daly worked as a White House cor­re­spon­dent and globe-trav­el­ing reporter for CBS radio news, a vice-pres­i­den­cy at ABC in charge of news and also head­ed the Voice of Amer­i­ca, which had strong links to the intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty. Those jour­nal­is­tic posi­tions, as well as his role as direc­tor of VOA may well have brought him into the fold of the intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty.

The late inves­tiga­tive reporter and “What’s My Line” pan­elist Dorothy Kil­gallen pub­lished Ruby’s War­ren Com­mis­sion Tes­ti­mo­ny and had told asso­ciates she would “break this case wide open.” Short­ly after­ward, she was found dead of alco­hol and bar­bi­tu­rate poisoning–suicide and acci­den­tal death have both been put for­ward as rea­sons for her demise. Her wid­ow­er refused pub­lic com­men­tary on her death and even­tu­al­ly “com­mit­ted sui­cide” him­self.

Next, the pro­gram excerpts FTR #253, fea­tur­ing an intrigu­ing com­men­tary by the late, vet­er­an CIA offi­cer Gor­don Nov­el. High­lights of that pro­gram include:

1. The broad­cast high­lights the con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing Richard Nixon’s White House tapes. These tape record­ings were, ulti­mate­ly, the vehi­cle for forc­ing his exit from the White House. That event was the cul­mi­na­tion of the Water­gate affair. There was dis­cus­sion in the fall of 2000 among elec­tron­ics experts con­cern­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of uti­liz­ing advanced, high-tech equip­ment to recov­er mate­r­i­al from a famous 18 ½ minute era­sure on one of the tapes.
(The San Fran­cis­co Exam­in­er; 9/22/2000; p. A2.)
2. The sub­ject of whether or not the era­sure had been delib­er­ate was a sig­nif­i­cant ele­ment of con­tro­ver­sy dur­ing the Water­gate affair. (Nixon’s sec­re­tary, Rose Mary Woods, claimed that she “acci­den­tal­ly” erased the tape. Most experts reject­ed her ver­sion of events. Inter­est­ing­ly, the tape that was erased was a record­ing of a con­ver­sa­tion between White House aide H.R. Halde­man and Nixon. In an auto­bi­og­ra­phy about the Water­gate affair, Halde­man wrote that “the whole Bay of Pigs thing” was a code word with­in the Nixon White House for the JFK assas­si­na­tion. Nixon refused to release the Water­gate tapes for fear that release would lead to expo­sure of “the whole Bay of Pigs thing.”
3. Much of the pro­gram con­sists of excerpts from oth­er broad­casts. In an excerpt from G‑3, the broad­cast high­lights a vet­er­an covert intel­li­gence oper­a­tive and pri­vate inves­ti­ga­tor named Gor­don Nov­el. Among Novel’s many tal­ents is elec­tron­ic coun­ter­in­tel­li­gence. His name crops up in the con­text of both the JFK case and the Water­gate scan­dal. Nov­el was the source for an impor­tant piece of infor­ma­tion that fig­ured in the Jim Gar­ri­son inves­ti­ga­tion. That report con­cerned a raid on a muni­tions cache to obtain arms for anti-Cas­tro activ­i­ties, the CIA’s Bay of Pigs inva­sion, in par­tic­u­lar.
(“Coin­ci­dence or Con­spir­a­cy?”; Bernard Fen­ster­wald and the Com­mit­tee to Inves­ti­gate Assas­si­na­tions; copy­right 1976 by Zebra Books, a divi­sion of Kens­ing­ton Pub­lish­ers.)
4. This oper­a­tion alleged­ly involved David Fer­rie and Guy Ban­nis­ter, two of the key fig­ures in Garrison’s inves­ti­ga­tion. Nov­el was lat­er con­sult­ed by White House aide Charles Col­son con­cern­ing the fea­si­bil­i­ty of elec­tron­i­cal­ly eras­ing the tapes. (Coin­ci­dence or Con­spir­a­cy?)
5. Novel’s tan­gen­tial involve­ment in the Water­gate inves­ti­ga­tion sur­faced in a mag­a­zine called Tech­nol­o­gy Illus­trat­ed. In 1983, the mag­a­zine ran an arti­cle about Novel’s pres­ence at a gath­er­ing of vet­er­an covert intel­li­gence oper­a­tives, includ­ing con­vict­ed Water­gate bur­glar G. Gor­don Lid­dy.
(“Tech­nol­o­gy Illus­trat­ed”; 4/83.)
6. In a let­ter to the edi­tor, Mr. Nov­el took issue to some of the com­ments about him in the April issue.
(Tech­nol­o­gy Illus­trat­ed; 7/83.)
7. In that let­ter, Nov­el made ref­er­ence to his ultra high tech­nol­o­gy role “to erase the Water­gate tapes.” (Idem.)
In 1984, Mr. Emory was a guest on a late-night com­mer­cial talk show and Mr. Nov­el phoned in, tak­ing issue with Mr. Emory’s descrip­tion of his posi­tion in Garrison’s inves­ti­ga­tion.
(The Express Way show with Lar­ry John­son on KOME-FM in San Jose, Cal­i­for­nia; 10/29/1984.)
8. Most of the sec­ond side of this pro­gram con­sists of an excerpt­ing of the con­ver­sa­tion with the late, for­mi­da­ble Nov­el. In his con­ver­sa­tion with Mr. Emory, Nov­el denied any involve­ment in Kennedy’s assas­si­na­tion and crit­i­cized Garrison’s inves­ti­ga­tion. (Idem.)
9. When the sub­ject of Water­gate came up, Mr. Emory asked Mr. Nov­el if he denied actu­al­ly hav­ing erased the Water­gate tapes. Nov­el replied “only because they didn’t pay me.” (Idem.)
When pressed fur­ther, Nov­el clar­i­fied his state­ment, say­ing he didn’t erase any por­tions of the Water­gate tapes. He did state that he was one of a pan­el of experts who ana­lyzed the 18 ½‑minute gap and stat­ed that it could have been made acci­den­tal­ly. (Idem.)
10. Intrigu­ing­ly, Nov­el added that he was also on the pan­el of elec­tron­ics experts that tes­ti­fied that the Dic­ta­phone record­ing from a Dal­las police motor­cy­cle was accu­rate in its reveal­ing of a fourth shot–which neu­tral­ized the sin­gle bul­let the­o­ry.
11. In FTR #190, Nov­el con­firmed his role in the bur­glary of the Schlum­berg­er facil­i­ty and main­tained that he was involved with a plan to give anti-Cas­tro Cubans [Cas­tro] army uni­forms to wear while attack­ing the U.S. Marines at Guan­tanamo, there­by trig­ger­ing a U.S. inva­sion of Cuba.
12. After Mr. Nov­el­’s death, it emerged that he was serv­ing as a mole in Jim Gar­rison’s inves­ti­ga­tion, fun­nel­ing infor­ma­tion to Allen Dulles.


FTR #962 Watergate and the Assassination of President Kennedy, Part 2

This broad­cast con­tin­ues our review of the pro­found con­nec­tions between the Water­gate scan­dal and the assas­si­na­tion of Pres­i­dent Kennedy. For pur­pos­es of con­ve­nience and con­ti­nu­ity, we recap an overview of some of these links from the descrip­tion of FTR #961:

With Water­gate being bruit­ed about by our media in con­junc­tion with the “inves­ti­ga­tions” into Trump and “Rus­sia-gate,” we are tak­ing time to dig into the archives and recap infor­ma­tion about one of the fac­tors that under­lay the Water­gate scandal–the Assas­si­na­tion of JFK.

The first of these pro­grams excerpts The Guns of Novem­ber, Part 3 (record­ed on 11/15/1983) at length. From the descrip­tion for that pro­gram:

Richard Nixon’s polit­i­cal demise came through the Water­gate scan­dal. Nixon ini­ti­at­ed the Water­gate cov­er-up because he feared that “the whole Bay of Pigs thing” would come out. In his polit­i­cal mem­oir The Ends of Pow­er, Nixon aide H.R. Halde­man wrote that the phrase “Bay of Pigs” was a code-word with­in the Nixon White House for the Kennedy assas­si­na­tion.

The pro­gram doc­u­ments many of the areas of over­lap between the Water­gate and Kennedy inves­ti­ga­tions.

Nixon him­self was in Dal­las on Novem­ber 22, 1963, as a lawyer for Pep­si­co (the par­ent com­pa­ny of Pep­si Cola.) Fly­ing out of Dal­las rough­ly two hours before Kennedy was slain, Nixon told the FBI in Feb­ru­ary of 1964 that the only time he had been in Dal­las in 1963 had been “two days pri­or to the assas­si­na­tion.” This bla­tant lie is negat­ed by a wire ser­vice inter­view Nixon gave in Dal­las on Novem­ber 21. Text of the inter­view ran in the New York Times and oth­er major news­pa­pers.

(A Pep­si Cola exec­u­tive said that Nixon was present in Dal­las at a com­pa­ny meet­ing when the announce­ment came that Pres­i­dent Kennedy had been killed.)

Water­gate Spe­cial Pros­e­cu­tor Leon Jawors­ki was select­ed by Nixon to replace the ille­gal­ly fired Archibald Cox. Jawors­ki had pre­vi­ous­ly served as a War­ren Com­mis­sion Coun­sel, while at the same time serv­ing as direc­tor of a CIA domes­tic fund­ing con­duit.

Nixon named for­mer War­ren Com­mis­sion mem­ber Ger­ald Ford to replace Vice Pres­i­dent Agnew. Ford then replaced Nixon as Pres­i­dent and par­doned him of all crimes he may have com­mit­ted. . . .

. . . . The pro­gram dis­cuss­es evi­den­tiary trib­u­taries con­nect­ing numer­ous oth­er fig­ures to the both inves­ti­ga­tions, includ­ing Water­gate Judge John Sir­i­ca and Water­gate bur­glar Frank Stur­gis.

To attempt selec­tive era­sure of the all-impor­tant Water­gate tapes, Nixon sought the assis­tance of Gor­don Nov­el, a vet­er­an intel­li­gence agent, elec­tron­ics expert, anti-Cas­tro vet­er­an and a fig­ure in Jim Gar­rison’s inves­ti­ga­tion in New Orleans. At least one key tape was par­tial­ly erased (the famous 18 1/2 minute gap), though no cul­prit was ever iden­ti­fied.

In this sec­ond broad­cast of the series, we draw on Mis­cel­la­neous Archive Show M59–Richard Nixon’s Great­est Hits: High­lights of Richard Nixon’s Polit­i­cal Career. In that pro­gram (record­ed on 5/1/1994), we reviewed an adden­dum to the orig­i­nal The Guns of Novem­ber, Part 3. That addendum–recorded in June of 1972 (the 20th anniver­sary of the orig­i­nal Water­gate break-in)–builds on the infor­ma­tion from FTR #961.

After review­ing infor­ma­tion about Nixon’s pres­ence in Dal­las, Texas on 11/22/1963, the pro­gram presents research by the late Penn Jones that main­tains that Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover, among oth­ers, were present at a gath­er­ing at oil­man Clint Muchison’s home the evening before the assassination–a meet­ing Jones felt was a plan­ning ses­sion for the JFK assas­si­na­tion.

The bulk of this pro­gram is gleaned from Bernard J. Fen­ster­wald’s Coin­ci­dence or Con­spir­a­cy. (Fen­ster­wald was Water­gate Bur­glar James McCord’s chief defense attor­ney.)

Among the many links between Water­gate and the JFK assas­si­na­tion are the War­ren Com­mis­sion mem­bers and coun­sels who were tabbed by Nixon and/or oth­er fig­ures in the inves­ti­ga­tion to serve in var­i­ous capac­i­ties:

a) Nixon first select­ed J. Lee Rankin to serve as Water­gate Spe­cial Pros­e­cu­tor. Rankin was sub­se­quent­ly tabbed to review the Water­gate tapes and deter­mine which would be released. Rankin was the War­ren Com­mis­sion’s liai­son between the com­mis­sion and both the CIA and the FBI. Rankin was a key pro­po­nent of the so-called “Mag­ic Bul­let The­o­ry.”
b) War­ren Com­mis­sion coun­sel Arlen Specter, the author of the “Mag­ic Bul­let Theory”–was Nixon’s first choice as his per­son­al defense attor­ney in the Water­gate case.
c) Nixon also attempt­ed to req­ui­si­tion War­ren Com­mis­sion mem­ber John J. McCloy as Water­gate Spe­cial Pros­e­cu­tor.
d) For­mer War­ren Com­mis­sion coun­sel Albert Jen­ner was Nixon’s first choice to serve as the GOP’s minor­i­ty coun­sel before the Sen­ate Judi­cia­ry Com­mit­tee. Jen­ner lat­er with­drew from that posi­tion.
e) John Dean select­ed for­mer War­ren Com­mis­sion coun­sel Charles Shaf­fer as his attor­ney.
f) White House aide John Ehrlich­mann tabbed for­mer War­ren Com­mis­sion coun­sel Joseph Ball to rep­re­sent him.
g) Nixon’s sec­re­tary Rose Marie Woods select­ed for­mer War­ren Com­mis­sion coun­sel Charles Rhyne to rep­re­sent her in a pos­si­ble inves­ti­ga­tion of the famous 18 1/2 minute gap in one of the tapes.
h) Nixon Trea­sury Sec­re­tary John Con­nal­ly’s obstruc­tion of Jim Gar­rison’s extra­di­tion request for Ser­gio Archacha Smith.

Pro­gram High­lights Include:

1.The Nixon White House­’s inter­est in the assas­si­na­tion attempt on George Wal­lace, which elim­i­nat­ed the Alaba­ma Gov­er­nor as a pos­si­ble third-par­ty threat to Nixon’s so-called “South­ern Strat­e­gy.” Exact­ly who shot Wal­lace remains a mys­tery, but it was most assured­ly NOT Arthur Bre­mer.
2. Two long-time Nixon friends and polit­i­cal asso­ciates’ spon­sor­ship of the fam­i­ly of Sirhan Sirhan into the Unit­ed States. Sirhan did NOT kill Robert F. Kennedy, how­ev­er the cre­ation of the false cov­er sto­ry to set up the pat­sy is impor­tant. Nixon, of course, won the 1968 elec­tion, after Robert Kennedy’s mur­der elim­i­nat­ed him as a front run­ner.
3. The role of for­mer Lock­heed direc­tor of secu­ri­ty James Gold­en as chief of secu­ri­ty for Nixon’s 1968 cam­paign. Many researchers of the RFK assas­si­na­tion believe that the actu­al shoot­er of Robert Kennedy was Amer­i­can Nazi Thane Eugene Cae­sar, who was employed at Lock­heed’s Bur­bank facil­i­ty, in an area involved with the U‑2 spy plane project. (Oswald was also involved with the U‑2.)
4. A ver­i­ta­ble trove of War­ren Com­mis­sion let­ter and mem­o­ran­da per­tain­ing to the above fig­ures involved in the War­ren Com­mis­sion and tabbed by the Nixon team for roles in Water­gate that were miss­ing from the Nation­al Archives.


FTR #961 Watergate and the Assassination of President Kennedy, Part 1

With Water­gate being bruit­ed about by our media in con­junc­tion with the “inves­ti­ga­tions” into Trump and “Rus­sia-gate,” we are tak­ing time to dig into the archives and recap infor­ma­tion about one of the fac­tors that under­lay the Water­gate scandal–the Assas­si­na­tion of JFK.

The first of the pro­grams excerpts The Guns of Novem­ber, Part 3 (record­ed on 11/15/1983) at length. From the descrip­tion for the pro­gram:

“Richard Nixon’s polit­i­cal demise came through the Water­gate scan­dal. Nixon ini­ti­at­ed the Water­gate cov­er-up because he feared that “the whole Bay of Pigs thing” would come out. In his polit­i­cal mem­oir “The Ends of Pow­er,” Nixon aide H.R. Halde­man wrote that the phrase “Bay of Pigs” was a code-word with­in the Nixon White House for the Kennedy assas­si­na­tion.

The pro­gram doc­u­ments many of the areas of over­lap between the Water­gate and Kennedy inves­ti­ga­tions.

Nixon him­self was in Dal­las on Novem­ber 22, 1963, as a lawyer for Pep­si­co (the par­ent com­pa­ny of Pep­si Cola.) Fly­ing out of Dal­las rough­ly two hours before Kennedy was slain, Nixon told the FBI in Feb­ru­ary of 1964 that the only time he had been in Dal­las in 1963 had been “two days pri­or to the assas­si­na­tion.” This bla­tant lie is negat­ed by a wire ser­vice inter­view Nixon gave in Dal­las on Novem­ber 21. Text of the inter­view ran in the New York Times and oth­er major news­pa­pers.

Water­gate Spe­cial Pros­e­cu­tor Leon Jawors­ki was select­ed by Nixon to replace the ille­gal­ly fired Archibald Cox. Jawors­ki had pre­vi­ous­ly served as a War­ren Com­mis­sion Coun­sel, while at the same time serv­ing as direc­tor of a CIA domes­tic fund­ing con­duit.

Nixon named for­mer War­ren Com­mis­sion mem­ber Ger­ald Ford to replace Vice Pres­i­dent Agnew. Ford then replaced Nixon as Pres­i­dent and par­doned him of all crimes he may have com­mit­ted. . . .

. . . . The pro­gram dis­cuss­es evi­den­tiary trib­u­taries con­nect­ing numer­ous oth­er fig­ures to the both inves­ti­ga­tions, includ­ing Water­gate Judge John Sir­i­ca and Water­gate bur­glar Frank Stur­gis (aka Frank Fior­i­ni).

To attempt selec­tive era­sure of the all-impor­tant Water­gate tapes, Nixon sought the assis­tance of Gor­don Nov­el, a vet­er­an intel­li­gencer, elec­tron­ics expert, anti-Cas­tro vet­er­an and a fig­ure in Jim Gar­rison’s inves­ti­ga­tion in New Orleans. At least one key tape was par­tial­ly erased (the famous 18 1/2 minute gap), though no cul­prit was ever iden­ti­fied.

Pro­gram High­lights Include: Leon Jaworski’s role as Kore­a­gate Spe­cial Pros­e­cu­tor, which per­mit­ted the eclips­ing of the Moon orga­ni­za­tion’s links to the CIA; the role of the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church–the Moon organization–in gen­er­at­ing sup­port for Nixon dur­ing Water­gate; Jude Sarah Hugh­es’s involve­ment with a CIA domes­tic fund­ing con­duit; Hugh­es’s admin­is­tra­tion of the oath of office to LBJ on the plane fly­ing back to Wash­ing­ton DC; Judge Sir­i­ca’s elec­toral sup­port for Richard Nixon (“Max­i­mum John” Sir­i­ca was the Judge in the Water­gate case); the fact that the suit by JFK researcher Harold Weis­berg and attor­ney James Lesar sought infor­ma­tion from the War­ren Com­mis­sion, part of the exec­u­tive branch of gov­ern­ment; that body was a Pres­i­den­tial fact-find­ing com­mis­sion with no legal sta­tus what­so­ev­er; Sir­i­ca’s rul­ing against the plain­tiffs was a con­tra­ven­tion of the Con­sti­tu­tion; Jaworski’s role as one of two heads of the Texas Court of Inquiry, the body formed by the state of Texas in order to inves­ti­gate the assassination;“ex” CIA offi­cer James McCord’s deci­sive role in both betray­ing the Water­gate bur­glars and in see­ing to it that the inves­ti­ga­tion would go for­ward; Frank Stur­gis and his role (as Frank Fior­i­ni) in run­ning the Mob’s casi­nos in Cuba pre-Cas­tro; Stur­gis’s role in gen­er­at­ing dis­in­for­ma­tion point­ing toward Cas­tro as the archi­tect of the assas­si­na­tion; an arti­cle from a 1983 tech­nol­o­gy pub­li­ca­tion in which Gor­don Nov­el dis­cuss­es his ultra high-tech­nol­o­gy role “to erase the Water­gate tapes” (this will be dis­cussed at greater length in future pro­grams.)