Watergate: What was it all about?

[Ashton Gray]

Ashton, since you find something so mysterious about Mr. Caddy's role at Mullen, can you tell us what procedures would have had to have taken place before Mr. Caddy could ever take over Mullen?

If Mullen was constructed and/or operated as a CIA proprietary front, may I suggest that the notional owner would have exercised no influence over who was chosen to replace him? If it was an Agency front, that choice would have resided solely and exclusively with Langley, irrespective of whatever suggestions were made by its notional "owner."

Would there not have been a security check on Mr. Caddy before he would EVER be told the company was a CIA cover company overseas?

Can I suggest that such a security check would have been run on Mr. Caddy before he was ever even accepted for employment? What kind of CIA front company puts non-cleared personnel into the mix and risks that personnel becoming witting of things that are intended to remain secret? If Mr. Caddy was checked and cleared, his orientation was either unknown to CIA [unlikely, imho] or viewed as something other than a disqualifier.

There seems to be something extraordinarily squirrely going on in this thread that I can't figure out. Are things being quoted from another thread? I can't find the original message from Robert Charles-Dunne in this thread that is being quoted regarding Caddy. I find his comments very insightful and would like to discuss them more, but the 4-level-nested quotes of something apparently not even in this thread, combined with color codes instead of quote codes is making it functionally impossible.

Can anybody tell me where the original of his post is? Thanks.

Ashton Gray

[John Simkin]

There seems to be something extraordinarily squirrely going on in this thread that I can't figure out. Are things being quoted from another thread? I can't find the original message from Robert Charles-Dunne in this thread that is being quoted regarding Caddy. I find his comments very insightful and would like to discuss them more, but the 4-level-nested quotes of something apparently not even in this thread, combined with color codes instead of quote codes is making it functionally impossible.

Ashton, J. Raymond Carroll has understandably reposted this on this thread. The original can be found on the thread about getting you removed from the forum.

I have also reposted another contribution of Robert Charles-Dunne below.

I don't believe I said these documents were the WHOLE truth. We know they were not. I was trying to assert that they were at least partially true.

I believe it was Peter Dale Scott who suggested that in order for disinformation to be effective, it must largely consist of the truth. Hence, "partial" truths can often mask just the opposite, a fact that should be borne in mind.

Mr Gray is asserting, as near as I can tell, that everything from the Pentagon Papers to the Church Committee was a CIA script put into play to deceive the American people...

Is there any doubt that CIA has sought to perfect the deceit and deception necessary to hoodwink the American people? If you're suggesting the opposite, then Ashton Gray is not alone in rebutting your premise. In each of the documents and reports you cited, CIA influence over the final result is not just detectable, but should be read as a given. It may dress up that influence in the frilly frock of "protecting national security" or any number of other putatively legitimate guises, of necessity. It may not have been singularly responsible for the final product in each case - as in a "CIA script" - but it certainly exercised an influence over what that final product became. We should also bear that fact in mind, in assessing whose self-serving purposes were pursued, perhaps at the expense of something more than "partial" truth.

and cover up that the Government and L. Ron Hubbard were experimenting in extra-sensory perception.

I noted the presence of much Scientology-related stuff in the timeline AG cited, but since it wasn't his timeline, I ignored it. In the absence of any arguments from AG that said stuff is in some way germane, I recommend that others also ignore it. [Parenthetically, it should be noted, though, that Scientologists were at the forefront of seeking disclosure of various mind control documentation, and may, in fact, be owed a debt of gratitude by all who think that's an important pursuit. But I digress...]

In order to push this agenda, he has asserted that NEARLY EVERYONE involved in this period of history, from Daniel Ellsberg to John Dean to Gerry Ford, was working for the CIA, in a combined effort to destroy Poor Richard Nixon, among other things.

Perhaps I've been misreading what AG has written, but I don't think he's ever stipulated that NEARLY EVERYONE was "working for the CIA." You are a talented writer and know that there is a world of nuance separating "working for the CIA" - as in on the payroll - and "doing its bidding," whether wittingly or otherwise.

If David Atlee Phillips introduces himself to me as the proxy for wealthy industrialists and under that guise recruits me to monitor the activities of Cuban Embassy staff in Montreal, am I "working for the CIA." Yes, but even I wouldn't necessarily know it.

In his view, Nixon was an unimportant figure in this period. I have been fascinated by Nixon since a child. I have studied his words and the words of those who knew him, and have come to view him much the same as Oliver Stone portrays him in his film Nixon, that is, as a deeply troubled and disturbed man, who wilted under the pressure of high office, and who sought to use his office to destroy his personal "enemies" in the name of "national security".

And if among those imagined personal enemies were some Langley muckety-mucks, who can say that they wouldn't retaliate against him, in the name of "national security?" It is at least hypothetically possible that a sitting President was murdered under the same rubric, so I wouldn't be too hasty to dismiss the suggestion that a sitting President was forced to resign under similar circumstances. Not everyone was a fan of detente with China, peace with Viet Nam, or a number of other policies pursued by Nixon that might have depicted him, in some quarters at least, as a dangerous appeaser and suddenly "soft" on Communism. While it may be hard for us to rationalize, there were some who thought Agnew was preferable. That's certainly the premise offered by Hunt and Liddy when they attempted to recruit personnel to sabotage the '72 Republican convention in California and mount an assassination attempt against Nixon. [see Donald Freed's "Glass House Tapes" and Mae Brussell for more on that score.]

Now Mr. Gray, if that's really his name, comes along and attacks Baldwin and Caddy as evil conspirators in an actual not-in-Nixon's mind plot to destroy Nixon and give the Presidency to the CIA and Gerry Ford. His theory is as wacky as a religion based upon the precept that the souls of long-dead aliens travel the world looking to attach themselves to peoples' psyches in times of pain.

I must have missed the post where AG posited that particular theory.

I am mortified that his ridiculous ideas have gained a foothold on this forum. While there are many unanswered questions surrounding the period of Watergate, Mr. Gray is asking the wrong questions, IMO. It should not even be debated that Daniel Ellsberg had an attack of conscience and tried to do something about Vietnam. For years, the debate has been whether he was truly heroic or just a jerk out for attention. Now Gray comes along and says that Ellsberg was under Richard Helms' remote control the whole time, and that Howard Hunt and Gordon Liddy, right-wing wackos if there ever were a pair, were working WITH Ellsberg and Helms to try to overthrow Nixon. If it meant damaging the war effort they fervently believed in and supporting those hippies they SO LOVED TO HATE, oh well, no big deal, whatever makes Helms happy. Is this truly wirth discussing?

If - let me stress that qualifier - there was a concerted CIA effort to undermine Nixon, why wouldn't Helms and Co. wish to see Nixon attacked from all sides simultaneously? By depicting him as too "right" for the left and too "left" for the right, it would certainly chip away at his base. Let us recall that Nixon's self-admitted rationale for resorting to the Plumbers was to stop "leaks" that he thought hurt him politically.

I suppose this then is the basis is of my absolute contempt for Mr. Gray and his views: his absolute lack of understanding of humanity and history. In his mind, men like Caddy, Baldwin, Dean, Hunt, and Ellsberg are all CIA robots controlled by an evil CIA computer run by...who was it exactly? Helms? The man so vastly powerful that he spent half the Ford years testifying before congress and admitting to his involvement in crimes? The man so powerful he was convicted of perjury? The man so powerful that the supposed beneficiary of his largesse, Ford, turned around and told the media that he'd been involved in assassination attempts, which led to congress' discussion of why Helms had never mentioned this to the Warren Commission, which led to creation of the HSCA?

The mocking tone doesn't disguise the fallacies of the content, Pat. If Helms spent the Ford years testifying before Congress, it was not because Ford told anyone anything, but because Sy Hersh opened the floodgates with his stories about CHAOS. Once that toothpaste was out of the tube, there was no way for Ford to put it back in. As for Helms' "admitting to his involvement in crimes," it was precisely because he failed to do so that he was charged with perjury. And if Helms were so powerless as you claim, perhaps you'd care to explain how it was that his conviction was overturned? Clearly, somebody up there liked him.

In Mr. Gray's world, NOT ONE man involved in this period of time EVER tried to do the right thing or tell the truth. They were all deliberate liars, playing out a script. This is incredibly self-serving, IMO. Why should we believe that only he, and perhaps his alter-ego Huntley Troth, like the GREAT KARNAK before them, using their mystical and borderline divine ways, can ascertain the answer without first having been asked the question. All the man needs is some box to stand on and some tonic to sell.

If you'd care to catalogue the list of potential witnesses who died just prior to giving their subpoenaed testimony, I think you'll discover a great many who likely were about to "do the right thing." Such an environment is unlikely to dispose other witnesses to be fully candid and forthcoming. Am I really alone in wondering why such deaths seemed to occur in clusters at highly [un]timely junctures in the unfolding of this history?

As for snarkiness about Karnak and the rest, I'll leave you two lads to duke it out. It doesn't elevate the level of debate or bring us closer to resolving anything.

While I welcome a closer inspection of Watergate, an inspection that starts off with the notion that Nixon was an unwitting dupe and not a dangerously out of control megalomaniac, and then seeks to re-interpret all the evidence of his crimes as part of a CIA frame-up, is akin to a re-inspection of WWII that starts with the premise that Hitler knew nothing of the holocaust, and that he was framed by some of his closest associates, who were in fact western spies. Bunkum.

Again, we see a rather two-dimensional construct. Why could Nixon not be both an "unwitting dupe" and a "dangerously out of control megalomaniac?" Certainly it would not be the first instance in history where one's own excesses lead to one's own destruction, albeit unintended. The unwritten law of the unintended consequence invariably bites one's bum, and as they say, payback's a bitch.

As far as the Caddy/Mullen situation, there is no evidence that ordinary employees at Mullen in Washington were screened or cleared as CIA assets.

Evidence of which would be supplied by whom? CIA? Mullen employees who decided to blow their own covers? Upon whom, precisely, would you rely to deliver to us such evidence?

Furthermore, the evidence suggests that Robert Bennett was not involved with the CIA UNTIL COLSON helped hook him up with Mullen, in order to bring the Howard Hughes account into the grasp of his loyal Republicans.

Which brings us to a highly fascinating Watergate footnote that I do hope you'll try your level best to explain. Reprinted in the Nedzi Committee Hearings, pages 1073-1076 is the following:

MEMORANDUM OF MARCH 1, 1973

TO: CIA DEPUTY DIRECTOR FOR PLANS

FROM: CIA CHIEF/CENTRAL COVER STAFF

"Mr. Bennett said also that he has been feeding stories to Bob Woodward of the Washington Post with the understanding that there be no attribution to Bennett. Woodward is suitably grateful for the fine stories and by-lines which he gets and protects Bennett (and the Mullen Company).... he stated his opinion that the Ervin Committee investigating the Watergate incident would not involve the company. He said that, if necessary, he could have his father, Senator Bennett of Utah, intercede with Senator Ervin. His conclusion then was he could handle the Ervin Committee if the Agency can handle Howard Hunt."

Irrespective of when Bennett got his Agency bones, he certainly wasted little or no time in using his inside information to shape the Post's reportage, and in so doing, seemed to be protecting the Agency, and advising it how to minimize the damage to itself, while inculpating Nixon, at least according to that particular memo.

Does this make it clearer to you why Nixon and his cronies suspected a CIA plot to bring down that administration? And if Hunt had nominally been assigned to Mullen, just why the "cancer on the Presidency" was diagnosed by Dean? And why Colson suspected the Agency was responsible for sparking and spreading that cancer?

Nixon went ballistic when he found out about Hughes and Maheu having hired O'Brien, as he was fearful Maheu would tell O'Brien about the cash given to Rebozo. Nixon then ordered Colson to help Hughes find Washington representation. Colson had heard through Hunt that Mullen was for sale, and arranged for Bennett to buy it and get the account. I don't believe there is any evidence tying Bennett to the CIA before this point. Later, when Colson found out about Bennett's ties to the CIA during the Watergate hearings, after the CIA VOLUNTEERED that both Martinez and Bennett were active assets, he flipped out, and started the whole CIA-did-it campaign, as detailed in Haldeman's book.

If I read this correctly, you are suggesting that we should disbelieve the notion of CIA culpability in Watergate because Colson did believe it to be true?

At the risk of belabouring the obvious, we have a group of [purportedly] former CIA personnel insinuated into the White House's clandestine intelligence Gestapo, which still enjoys access to CIA resources while purportedly working for Nixon, proceeds to do nothing tangible for Nixon but whose alleged best efforts - and cheery admissions of guilt - lead to Nixon's greatest political crises, and these facts are covertly fed to the press by an admitted CIA front company-owner, but CIA is blameless for any role in Nixon's downfall?

It is not often that I am so gobsmacked as to be left lost for words, Pat, but you've achieved it.

[Ashton Gray]

Ashton, J. Raymond Carroll has understandably reposted this on this thread. The original can be found on the thread about getting you removed from the forum.

I have also reposted another contribution of Robert Charles-Dunne below.

Thanks John. I'm grateful that Mr. Carroll did post the first one here (despite my initial confusion).

I've read the originals in the JFK forum now (including Raymond Carroll's note there that he was going to post Robert's message in here), and I realized upon reading it all that anything I would add to Robert's brilliant analysis would be extraneous baggage indeed.

Ashton

Edited July 3, 2006 by Ashton Gray

[J. Raymond Carroll]

Thanks John. I'm grateful that Mr. Carroll did post the first one here (despite my initial confusion).

Ashton

When I reposted the Speer/Charles-Dunne exchange above, I did a brief introduction (or thought I did) explaining where the exchange came from. Somehow it got lost in translation, hence Mr. Gray's understandable confusion. My apologies. Obviously I am not cut out to be a moderator.

I realize there are much bigger issues for this thread, but the subject of Douglas Caddy's involvement with Mullen is raised here again. I just now read Mr. Caddy's earliest posts, and he makes it clear that at no time was he actually a Mullen employee. He was at all times on the General Foods payroll. So any background checks on him were probably done before he joined General Foods. I don't see any basis on which to dispute Mr. Caddy when he says he never was an agent of the CIA.

The real questions for this thread include: On whose behalf were Hunt and McCord really operating, and what were their real purposes at any given time (their purposes may have changed as opportunities arose). If they had a Secret Agenda, as Jim Hougan argues very persuasively, there is no way in hell they would reveal it to their attorneys, one of whom was Douglas Caddy.

Edited July 3, 2006 by J. Raymond Carroll

[John Simkin]

In their book, Widows: The Explosive Truth Behind 25 Years of Western Intelligence Disasters, William R. Corson, Susan B. Trento and Joseph J. Trento, argue that John Paisley was a Soviet spy. They also argue that he was never murdered and that he was probably in hiding in the Soviet Union. (1)

Joseph Trento repeats the charge in his book, Prelude to Terror. He argues that “there was a suspicion that he had been recruited by the Russians during World War II, having been a radio operator on merchant vessels that visited Russia during the war.” He also confidently asserts that “a subsequent investigation revealed that a body later recovered and initially identified as Paisley’s was in fact not his.” (2) It turns out from the footnote to this sentence that this investigation was the one carried out by Trento for his earlier book, Widows. The authors argue that Dr. Stephen Adams “had no conclusive evidence that the body he examined was John Arthur Paisley.” (3) In doing so, they reject the claim made by Dr. Russell Fisher, that the identification of the corpse of Paisley’s came from the fingerprints the FBI had on file for the dead man. They also dismiss the claim that Paisley was identified by his dental records. (4)

Trento, and all other authors who have looked into this case, have all argued that Paisley did not commit suicide. As Jim Hougan pointed out in Secret Agenda, “according to the coroner who conducted the autopsy, death was caused by a gunshot wound behind the victim’s left ear.” Hougan add: “The site of the wound, behind the victim’s left ear, also militated against the suicide theory, since Paisley himself had been right-handed, and would presumably have fired the gun with his right into the right side of his head. Adding to the suspicion that murder had been committed was the fact that no blood, brain tissue, weapon or expended cartridge was found aboard the Brillig, which suggested that the victim had been killed in the water or perhaps murdered elsewhere and his body dumped at sea.” (5)

As the authors of Widows point out: “Although the physical evidence defies that conclusion, the police determined that Paisley had wrapped two nineteen-pound weight belts around himself, jumped from Brillig, and shot himself in the head in midair.” (6)

Clearly, the people who killed the man identified as Paisley did not want his body to be found. Once it had, a great deal of effort was needed to convince the world it was suicide. Who, therefore, wanted Paisley to die in 1978? Also, who had the power to cover-up the crime? Like the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Trento blames the KGB. He argues that Paisley was about to be exposed as a KGB agent and that they wanted him killed before he could reveal any information about the Soviet network of spies.

Richard Case Nagell told Dick Russell that he believed Paisley was a KGB agent. However, he was unwilling to explain how he knew this. Nagell also believed that Paisley was killed by the CIA rather than the KGB. (7)

There is no doubt that as soon as Paisley was killed some CIA officials began a campaign to discredit him as a Soviet spy. The main figure in this was David S. Sullivan, of the CIA's Office of Strategic Research. On 25th August, 1978, Sullivan informed CIA security chief, Robert Gambino that "John Arthur Paisley, the former Deputy Director of Strategic Research, was working for the KGB." Sullivan does not appear to have any evidence that Paisley was a spy. As he told Trento in an interview in 1988: "I guess, in the end, I never trusted him... I never liked him. There was something that wasn't right. He seemed like some kind of burned-out old fart who had a beard and looked like a queer. I am convinced he was the mole." (8)

This is not convincing evidence and appears to be nothing more than prejudice against someone who refused to give into pressure from right-wingers like George Bush to exaggerate the military threat being posed by the Soviet Union. This helps to explain why others, such as General Daniel O. Graham, attempted to portray Paisley as a Soviet agent. Graham described Paisley as a "weepy liberal who was too soft on the Soviets". (9)

To anyone who held such right-wing views as Graham, liberals like John Paisley were always strong candidates to be Soviet spies. In the world inhabited by Graham, liberals in the 1970s were the same as communists.

It is worth considering why people in America became Soviet spies. The main reason seemed to be money. I suppose that in itself says a lot about capitalism. However, all Paisley’s friends admit that he never showed any interest in accumulating wealth. If he was well-paid as a Soviet spy, there is no indication from a study of his life to show what he did with the money.

In some cases members of the intelligence agencies were blackmailed into becoming Soviet spies. James Speyer Kronthal, is an example of someone who was blackmailed into providing classified material to the Soviets. Kronthal, head of the CIA station in Switzerland, unfortunately liked to have sex with young boys. The Soviets used this information to force Kronthal to become an informer. This came to an end when Kronthal committed suicide on 1st April, 1953. There is no evidence that Paisley was a homosexual. In fact, the opposite is true. All the available information suggests a very keen interest in women.

Sullivan and Graham believed that Paisley was a spy for political reasons. It is true that some Marxists did infiltrate the intelligence services as sleepers in the 1930s. This was the time of the Great Depression and many university educated people thought that communism was the future. Kim Philby, is probably the best example of this and he did considerable damage to the intelligence services in both Britain and the United States in the 1940s and early 1950s.

This phenomenon came to an end as a result of the policies of Stalin in both the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and the invasion of Hungary in 1956 finally destroyed all belief amongst western intellectuals in the merits of Soviet communism. Liberals like Paisley were never attracted to communism. The same is true of other liberals in the CIA. They had a deep hatred of military dictatorships. This is why they objected to the policy of supporting such regimes in Africa, Asia and the Americas. As Paisley’s family and friends pointed out, he had a passion for civil rights. This is not the philosophy of someone who would work for the Soviet regime.

If we accept that Paisley remained a liberal throughout his time in the CIA, his behaviour makes more sense.

In 1957 Paisley was placed in charge of the CIA's Electronic Equipment Branch, Industrial Division. According to Joseph Trento, Paisley joined the CIA's inner circle: "Using the new technology of spy satellites, evesdropping satellites and listening posts, Paisley combined that electronic data with information from agents in place to give startling new pictures of Soviet society."

Paisley still held this position in 1963. It would have given him insights into the way the Soviet government interpreted the assassination of John F. Kennedy. He would definitely have seen the same information that was distributed to the very highest echelons of the FBI leadership on December 1, 1966. As Doug Horne pointed out on this forum: “The document is a history of the innermost private thinking of the KGB-not ' propaganda-both immediately after the assassination, and later in September of 1965. It was explained to me by Phil Golrick that the language used in the memo indicates the information was obtained by electronic surveillance, not human intelligence, and therefore should be considered a very reliable record of what the KGB was saying behind its own closed doors in New York City. Right after the assassination, per page one, the KGB blamed the assassination on an "ultraright conspiracy," but by September of 1965, per page 3, the KGB privately told its staff in NYC that President Lyndon B. Johnson was responsible for the assassination of John F. Kennedy.” (10)

It is therefore possible that Paisley obtained important insights into the assassination of Kennedy. As he himself held left-wing political opinions, he would have been appalled by the idea that Kennedy had been removed by some right-wing cabal. He would also have known that certain people in the CIA would have been involved in this conspiracy. The problem for Paisley was how would he get this information out in the public domain?

Paisley was eventually moved to the Office of Strategic Research (OSR). Edward Proctor, director of the OSR, and his deputy Paisley, believed in supplying the president with accurate information about the estimates of Soviet military strength. In 1969 this brought Proctor and Paisley into conflict with Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger when they began putting the OSR under pressure to publish exaggerated estimates in order to justify increased military spending in the United States. It was also hoped that these high estimates would convince the Senate to give its support to the SALT 1 negotiations. There is no evidence that Proctor or Paisley gave into this pressure.

However, according to OSR colleague, Clarence Baier, claimed that Paisley, after his year off in London, he was not so vocal in his opposition to the demands made by Nixon and Kissinger. (11) I suspect this was a strategy that had been agreed with those in the CIA trying to protect the intelligence services from Nixon. If the CIA could convince Nixon that he could trust Paisley, they could get him into his inner-circle.

Paisley was not the only CIA officer who was trying to get into a position to spy on Nixon. As Deborah Davis pointed out in her book, Katharine the Great: “The president also began to rely heavily upon the counsel of Richard Ober, Angleton’s deputy, the man in the CIA most concerned with domestic counterintelligence, and one of the few whom Nixon trusted. Ober was given a small office inside the White House, where he was known only to Nixon, Haldeman, Ehrlichman, and possibly Kissinger. He had unlimited access to the president, could pass Haldeman at any time without permission and without going on the record (his name was never recorded in White House logs), and was present at many of the meetings that took place after the publication of the Pentagon Papers, when Nixon’s obsession with his enemies pushed him to the limits to rational thought.” (12)

Davis goes on to argue that Richard Ober was Deep Throat (she got this information from a high-ranking CIA official). On the other hand, the authors of Widows argue that John Paisley might well have been Deep Throat. (13) It is almost certain that Deep Throat was several different sources and it is possible that both Ober and Paisley provided information to Bob Woodward.

If this is the case, it was part of the CIA strategy to portray Paisley as sympathetic to Richard Nixon. This helps to explain why in 1971 Paisley was chosen to work with Egil Krogh, David R. Young, G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt, to investigate the people "leaking" classified documents and secret information.

The authors of Widows suggest that the initial idea came from James Jesus Angleton. It is also argued that Angleton was growing increasingly suspicious of Henry Kissenger and that he "wanted Paisley in Young's proximity was that Paisley may well have been working for Angleton all along." Trento adds that Kissenger was very interested in "how hundreds of pounds of enriched uranium were transferred illegally to Israel to seed their nuclear weapons program". Angleton had been the man responsible for this and feared that if this story was discovered, he would be sacked from the CIA. (14)

Paisley agreed to help the White House to search for the source of these leaks. His first task was to investigate the activities of Daniel Ellsberg. By August 1971, the project to discredit the leakers of the Pentagon Papers became known as Operation Odessa. It is not known what role Paisley played in Watergate. He kept details of these activities from friends and family, including colleagues in the CIA. However, I believe that Paisley job for the CIA was to spy on Nixon’s illegal activities. If that is the case, like Richard Ober, he would have been in a good position to undermine Nixon by leaking information to journalists.

It also has to be remembered that during the Watergate scandal, Nixon tried to blackmail Richard Helms into helping cover-up these illegal activities. This included references to the CIA involvement in the assassination of John F. Kennedy (15). Is it possible that this information came from John Paisley? Was Paisley playing a double game? Was he interested in exposing the illegal activities of both Nixon and the CIA?

In 1971 Paisley began organizing sex parties in Washington. Along with CIA colleague, Donald Burton, Paisley formed the Rush River Lodge Corporation. According to Trento, "Burton and Paisley staged several sex parties at the lodge." Those who attended these parties included politicians and journalists. Burton admitted that a "high-level Nixon appointee enjoyed tying up women and beating them" at these parties. Another person who attended was the beautiful Hana Koecher, an agent with the Czech intelligence service.

Trento argues that another regular at these parties was Carl Bernstein. "In a December 1979 telephone interview, Bernstein denied having attended any such parties. A few days later he called back to say, 'I may have attended the parties, but I never met anyone named John Paisley'. Half a dozen Paisley intimates place Bernstein and Paisley at the same sex parties beginning as early as 1971." (16)

Were these sex parties another example of the CIA obtaining blackmail information to use against the Nixon administration? Why did Paisley and Burton invite Washington journalists like Carl Bernstein to these parties? Was this all part of Operation Mockingbird? In his book, Deep Truth: The Lives of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, Adrian Havill, points out that Woodward assigned another Washington Post reporter, Tim Robinson, to investigate Bernstein’s relationship with John Paisley (17).

In March 1973, James Schlesinger became director of the CIA. According to Donald Burton, Paisley "despised Schlesinger". Burton adds that "Schlesinger told Paisley that he did not like OSR's estimates and wanted them changed". Paisley ignored Schlesinger's orders and in less than six months he had been replaced by William Colby. According to Sam Wilson, Colby's Deputy Director, Paisley became very close to the new head of the CIA. It is therefore surprising that Paisley officially retired from the CIA in 1974. In reality Paisley continued to work for the CIA. He carried out several highly secret assignments where he reported directly to Colby.

In August 1975, the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB) wrote a letter to President Gerald Ford proposing that an outside group of experts be given access to the same intelligence as the CIA analysts and be allowed to prepare a competing National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) and then make an evaluation. The outside group would be called the B Team. The CIA and the intelligence community estimates would be the A Team.

William Colby, the director of the CIA, rejected the idea. On 30 January 1976, Ford sacked Colby and replaced him with George H. W. Bush. Soon afterwards Bush agreed to the setting up a B Team. As a result of this move, outsiders would now have access to all of America's classified knowledge about the Soviet Military.

Paisley was brought out of retirement to become the CIA 'coordinator' for the B Team. It was Paisley who would control the documents that they saw and the information they received. In their book, George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography, Webster Griffin Tarpley and Anton Chaitkin argue that Bush handpicked Paisley for the post. In their view, Paisley was under the control of Bush and his team of right-wing extremists on the B Team. (18)

This is not true. It was Hank Knoche, Bush's deputy, was ordered to organize this new system. Knoche was opposed to the idea of outsiders looking at classified documents. The appointment of Paisley was an attempt to frustrate the work of the B Team.

Members of the B Team included Richard E. Pipes, Lt. General John Vogt, Brigadier General Jasper Welch, Clare Boothe Luce, Paul Nitze, General Daniel O. Graham, William van Cleeve (University of Southern California), Foy Kohler (U.S. Ambassador to Moscow), Seymour Weiss (State Department), Thomas Wolfe (Rand Corporation), Edward Teller and Paul Wolfowitz (Arms Control and Disarmament Agency).

One member of the A team, David S. Sullivan, of the CIA's Office of Strategic Research, came to the conclusion that Paisley had been put into place to prevent the B Team from seeing important classified material. As a result, Sullivan began leaking classified documents concerning the SALT 1 negotiations to Pipes and Graham. He also passed documents to Richard Perle, who at that time was working for Senator Henry Jackson. Sullivan was later dismissed from the CIA for leaking classified documents to Perle. (19)

On 26th December, 1976, David Binder reported in the New York Times that the B Team had changed the National Intelligence Estimate around by 180 degrees. The CIA was furious claiming that right-wing members of the B Team had leaked classified documents to the New York Times and in doing so had compromised national security.

After Paisley’s death, Binder claimed that it was Paisley who leaked this information to him (20). Paisley’s boss, Hank Knoche, dismissed this story. He remains convinced that it was members of the B Team who leaked this information: “The leaks were from the right-wingers. The hard right. The Danny Graham types… the ones that later became part of the Reagan administration.” Knoche explains it was not in Paisley’s interests to undermine the work of the CIA. “The integrity of the process and the objectivity of those estimates is something that John was very, very fond of and that resonated deep within his soul. So the idea of leaking something that would reflect adversely on CIA doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense to me.” (21)

When President Jimmy Carter took office he sacked George H. W. Bush and replaced him with his old friend, Stansfield Turner. Paisley continued to do work for the CIA and records show that Paisley briefed Turner in 1977 and 1978. Paisley's address book included both Turner's home and White House telephone numbers.

In May 1978 Paisley began working for the Washington accounting firm of Coopers & Lybrand. The job had been obtained for Paisley by Dr. K. Wayne Smith, who was a fellow member of the CIA's Military and Economic Advisory Panel. However, Joseph Trento discovered that the CIA was actually paying his $36,000 salary. As Trento points out: "It is clear that the Coopers position was needed as some sort of cover job for Paisley during the spring, quite possibly without the knowledge of Dr. Smith."

Dr. K. Wayne Smith's secretary, Kay Fulford, claims that Paisley rarely visited the Coopers & Lybrand office and most of the time she contacted him via his telephone number at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. As Trento points out: "four years after his retirement, Paisley still had an office at the CIA." (22)

What kind of work was Paisley doing for the CIA when he died? Whatever it was he seems to have been doing it for Stansfield Turner. On 24th September, 1978, John Paisley, took a trip on his motorized sailboat on Chesapeake Bay. He anchored his boat at Hooper's Light and in a radio conversation with his friend, Mike Yohn, Paisley explained that he had an important report to write.

According to the Baltimore Sun, top secret documents concerning “Soviet nuclear capabilities conducted in late 1977 by a CIA group” were found on his boat. The newspaper goes onto argue that “government sources said it is not possible to rule out the theory that the Paisley affair touches on the existence of a Soviet “mole” – a deep-cover Soviet agent planted inside the Agency – and the dead officer’s knowledge thereof.” (23)

This is probably CIA disinformation. A very different story is told by Gerald Sword, the first man to board Paisley’s boat. He looked through the papers and later told the CIA what he found. As Dick Russell points out, he found a CIA memo that stated: “Coast Guard personnel found some papers dealing with the Cuban crisis.” (24) It is not known what was meant by the term “Cuban crisis” but it is possible that Paisley was writing a report about the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

One has to remember that Paisley died during the House Select Committee on Assassinations investigation. Was Paisley involved in writing a report for Stansfield Turner on the assassination of John F. Kennedy?

It is probably no coincidence that another person close to Nixon, and another Deep Throat candidate, William Sullivan, was shot dead near his home in Sugar Hill, New Hampshire, on 9th November, 1977. An inquest decided that he had been shot accidentally by Robert Daniels, the son of a police officer, who was fined $500 and lost his hunting license for 10 years.

Sullivan, who carried out the original FBI investigation into the Kennedy assassination, had been scheduled to testify before the House Select Committee on Assassinations. Had Sullivan, like Paisley, leaked information on the assassination to Nixon?

Sullivan was one of six top FBI officials who died in a six month period leading up to the death of Paisley. Others who were due to appear before the committee who died included Louis Nicholas, special assistant to J. Edgar Hoover and Hoover's liaison with the Warren Commission; Alan H. Belmont, special assistant to Hoover; James Cadigan, document expert with access to documents that related to death of John F. Kennedy; J. M. English, former head of FBI Forensic Sciences Laboratory where Oswald's rifle and pistol were tested and Donald Kaylor, FBI fingerprint chemist who examined prints found at the assassination scene.

Notes

1. William R. Corson, Susan B. Trento and Joseph J. Trento, Widows: The Explosive Truth Behind 25 Years of Western Intelligence Disasters, 1989 (pages 31 -190)

2. Joseph J. Trento, Prelude to Terror, 2005 (page 96-97)

3. William R. Corson, Susan B. Trento and Joseph J. Trento, Widows: The Explosive Truth Behind 25 Years of Western Intelligence Disasters, 1989 (page 173)

4. Dick Russell, The Man Who Knew Too Much, 1992 (page 123)

5. Jim Hougan, Secret Agenda, 1984 (page 316)

6. William R. Corson, Susan B. Trento and Joseph J. Trento, Widows: The Explosive Truth Behind 25 Years of Western Intelligence Disasters, 1989 (page 184)

7. Dick Russell, The Man Who Knew Too Much, 1992 (page 127)

8. Joseph Trento, interview with David S. Sullivan, 1st July, 1988

9. Comments made by Daniel O. Graham in the Wilmington News-Journal (27th June, 1979)

10. Doug Horne, JFK Forum posting (6th June, 2006)

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...=6849&st=15

11. William R. Corson, Susan B. Trento and Joseph J. Trento, Widows: The Explosive Truth Behind 25 Years of Western Intelligence Disasters, 1989 (page 60)

12. Deborah Davis, Katharine the Great, 1979 (page 271)

13. William R. Corson, Susan B. Trento and Joseph J. Trento, Widows: The Explosive Truth Behind 25 Years of Western Intelligence Disasters, 1989 (page 62)

14. William R. Corson, Susan B. Trento and Joseph J. Trento, Widows: The Explosive Truth Behind 25 Years of Western Intelligence Disasters, 1989 (pages 71-73)

15. H. R. Haldeman, The Ends of Power, 1978 (pages 48-50)

16. William R. Corson, Susan B. Trento and Joseph J. Trento, Widows: The Explosive Truth Behind 25 Years of Western Intelligence Disasters, 1989 (pages 71-72)

17. Adrian Havill, Deep Truth: The Lives of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, 1993 (page 105)

18. Webster Griffin Tarpley and Anton Chaitkin, George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography, 1992 (page 323)

19. Joseph Trento, Prelude to Terror, 2005 (page 97)

20. Joseph Trento, interview with David Binder, 24th June, 1979

21. William R. Corson, Susan B. Trento and Joseph J. Trento, Widows: The Explosive Truth Behind 25 Years of Western Intelligence Disasters, 1989 (page 119)

22. William R. Corson, Susan B. Trento and Joseph J. Trento, Widows: The Explosive Truth Behind 25 Years of Western Intelligence Disasters, 1989 (page 131)

23. Baltimore Sun (26th January, 1979)

24. Dick Russell, The Man Who Knew Too Much, 1992 (page 128)

[Ashton Gray]

I just now read Mr. Caddy's earliest posts, and he makes it clear that at no time was he actually a Mullen employee. He was at all times on the General Foods payroll. So any background checks on him were probably done before he joined General Foods. I don't see any basis on which to dispute Mr. Caddy when he says he never was an agent of the CIA.

Even after resorting to posing like Rodin's "The Thinker" for far too many hours, I have yet to produce a single sensible thought to explain why anybody not working in some capacity for CIA would be inserted into a CIA front company's headquarters in the capitol of the United States, spittin' distance from Langley. Perhaps you could help me on this point so I, too, can become sensible.

The real questions for this thread include: On whose behalf were Hunt and McCord really operating, and what were their real purposes at any given time (their purposes may have changed as opportunities arose). If they had a Secret Agenda, as Jim Hougan argues very persuasively, there is no way in hell they would reveal it to their attorneys, one of whom was Douglas Caddy.

Another view (arising, perhaps, from the discomfort of the Rodin pose) is there is not the remotest chance in hell that anybody but a CIA-controlled attorney would be allowed anywhere near any of them. YMMV. And apparently does.

Ashton Gray

[Ashton Gray]

Thanks again for this rich storehouse of information, John. With the little time I've had I've begun to work some of this into my own timeline that I'm cobbling together from all the ones I have, and it's already very illuminating.

Although what I'm about to bring up isn't directly related to Paisley, and so far is unevaluated against all this, it's sure seeming to mesh with the information in this thread. It's an event that I think has a great deal of significance, but it often seems to get lost in the shuffle surrounding Watergate and the Pentagon Papers.

It's Nixon's discovery in late December 1971 that Navy Yeoman Charles E. Radford had systematically stolen and copied documents of the President's National Security Council (NSC) for Admiral Thomas Moorer over a period of about thirteen months, giving Naval Intelligence a spyglass into the Oval Office throughout.

Attention tends to fix on when Nixon discovered this, in December 1971 (and foolishly kept the lid on it), but more significant is when it had started, and the time period it covered.

Working back over the period during which it was going on, it puts the start of this Intelligence Cult spying at around November 1970.

In one of those head-torquing coincidences we've all come to know and love, here's what else happened that month:

• Douglas Caddy leaves the Mullen firm to work for Gall, Lane, Powell and Kilcullen.
  
• E. Howard Hunt becomes a "client" of Caddy and of Gall, Lane, Powell and Kilcullen.
  
• G. Gordon Liddy (who already has "special CIA clearances") is approached by Robert Mardian, asking Liddy to take a position that Mardian describes as "super-confidential."
  

So the Intelligence Cult spy operation on the White House was going on through the entire Pentagon Papers op, the hiring of Liddy, the hiring of Hunt, NSA's David Young's move over to create the totally incompetent "plumbers," the Fielding office photo-op by Hunt and Liddy (which would take Ellsberg off the hook), and the purported "Diem cables" op. Minimally.

Of course apologists for the interagency Intelligence Cult will swear on a stack of Bibles that the Boy Scouts at CIA would never, ever stoop so low as to receive every syllable produced by this illegal domestic spy operation on the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces during wartime. These apologists have superhuman X-ray vision that can penetrate the sealed envelopes whizzing endlessly amongst these intel cruds, which is why the apologists can swear this on a stack of Bibles.

We should be grateful for such Karnaks in our midst.

Thank you again for the information.

Ashton Gray

Edited July 3, 2006 by Ashton Gray

[J. Raymond Carroll]

Another view (arising, perhaps, from the discomfort of the Rodin pose) is there is not the remotest chance in hell that anybody but a CIA-controlled attorney would be allowed anywhere near any of them. YMMV. And apparently does.

Ashton Gray

I am glad to see that John Simkin is prescribing a course of reading for you. Maybe when you finish the course you will realize that, in a situation like the Watergate, the CIA would be smart enough not to engage lawyers who could be traced back to them, for the same reason that a professional killer, while he may have a personal weapon that he prefers to all others, will choose as murder weapon a gun he does not like so well just because it is untraceable.

And it won't do to respond that Douglas Caddy CAN be traced to the CIA, because you certainly have not done so.

However, go ahead and file a FOIA request for CIA documents on Douglas Caddy, and see what you come up with.

As the Sufi said to the pilgrim: O traveller! I fear you will never reach Mecca, for you are on the road to Turkestan.

[Dawn Meredith]

I am glad to see that John Simkin is prescribing a course of reading for you

Oh here we go again. Seems to me you'd do well to read Simkin's "course" yourself.

From where I sit he's in agreement with Mr. Gray.

Perhaps, counselor, you've just not had time to read his recent posts.

Dawn

.

[J. Raymond Carroll]

I am glad to see that John Simkin is prescribing a course of reading for you[/color]

From where I sit he's in agreement with Mr. Gray.

Dawn

So according to the Dawn Meredith School of Logic (of which more anon on the Diem thread) if John Simkin agrees with someone, then that someone must be right.

This is fallacious reasoning. John Simkin agreed with me that England would win the World Cup and he was wrong.

P.S. I hope Ashton Gray doesn't mind you responding on his behalf, because I am quite sure he is capable of responding for himself, if he thought a response was called for.

Edited July 3, 2006 by J. Raymond Carroll

[Ashton Gray]

I hope Ashton Gray doesn't mind you responding on his behalf

She didn't. Have you heard about the "Reading Is Fun" program?

because I am quite sure he is capable of responding for himself

I am.

if he thought a response was called for.

I didn't.

Ashton Gray

[J. Raymond Carroll]

if he thought a response was called for.

I didn't.

Ashton Gray

I had a feeling you wouldn't. No answer to the "killer analogy," what?

[John Simkin]

Two photographs of John Paisley. One alive, one dead. Is it the same man?

[Dawn Meredith]

[quote name='John Simkin' date='Jul 4 2006, 03:34 PM' post='67115']

Two photographs of John Paisley. One alive, one dead. Is it the same man?

Does not appear to be, but I shall defer to the many photo experts on this forum.

Dawn

[John Simkin]

Gary Buell has posted this story from the San Francisco Chronicle on 5th May, 1977 on another thread.

Watergater Blames CIA

(Dallas)

Watergate burglar Frank Sturgis said yesterday the CIA planned the break-in because high officials felt the then-President Nixon was becoming too powerful and was overly interested in the assassination of President Kennedy.

Sturgis also said he believes "Deep Throat" - a major source for Washington Post reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward - was Robert Bennett, a partner in a CIA-front public relations firm in Washington. Bennett, a son of former Senator Wallace Bennett (Rep-Utah), is employed by the Summa Corp., part of the empire of the late Howard Hughes. Hughes was a major client of Mullen Corp., Bennett's old firm.

Sturgis was convicted in the break-in at Democratic headquarters. He said Bennett - on orders from then-CIA Director Richard Helms - was fed information by Alexander Haig, Nixon's chief of staff; Alexander Butterfield, who disclosed the existence of Nixon's taping system; and Watergate burglar Howard Hunt.