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Douglas Caddy, Hunt, Liddy, Mullen, and the CIA


Ashton Gray

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Hi, Doug. I'm very heartened to see that you don't gainsay or deny that your meeting with Barker and Hunt was before the release of the Pentagon Papers, and that you only attempt to downplay the incident.

I reiterate my previous statement about this matter, which indeed is trivial as to a specific date over 30 years ago about a meeting that was thoroughly examined at the time by the appropriate Watergate law enforcement authorities

Don't be so modest, Mr. Caddy. No, it is not trivial. It's not even a little bit trivial. In fact, truth be told, there is not any date in 1971 where you can put Barker's shiny butt in a chair with you and Hunt that would be "trivial" in the least.

And thanks for the talking-points recitation, but I already know how expert you are at "reiterating" your scripted talking points ad infinitum, ad nauseum. I know how adept you are at sending people off around the mulberry bush looking for one of your other non-responsive talking-points issuances that you cite circularly, hoping they'll just go away and stay away and shut up. I already know your whole aria by heart about how the FBI and the "appropriate Watergate law enforcement authorities" dubbed you squeaky clean and lily white and smelling like Elizabeth Taylor after a tour of her perfume factory.

But frankly, Mr. Caddy, I wouldn't care if the Archangel Michael himself had personally crossed your forehead with olive oil on the Rotunda steps and a color photo of it made the cover of TIME naming you man of the year. Too many things directly involving your participation don't add up, and I'm about to stroll down memory lane and explore a few of them. You're welcome to come along and address some of the sights along the path, or you can just stand right here under the tree droning your monotonous talking points over and over and over and over, asserting and reasserting your innocent and uninformed "wrong place at the wrong time" victimization, never wavering from the script's key points, and see if you can draw a crowd and distract them from the sightseeing tour—which is pulling away right now.

First stop is that same Washington Post article you mentioned and that I quoted from above. In it you not only spill the beans about having been in a private meeting with Hunt and Barker a year earlier, you also tell the world how you got tapped to represent Mr. Barker. Remember this?

  • "Douglas Caddy, one of the attorneys for the five men, told a reporter that shortly after 3 a.m. yesterday, he received a call from Barker's wife. 'She said that her husband told her to call me if he hadn't called her by 3 a.m.: that it might mean he was in trouble.'"
    —The Washington Post, Sunday, June 18, 1972, "5 Held in Plot to Bug Democrats' Office Here," by Alfred E. Lewis

So here we have you on contemporaneous record, Mr. Caddy, avowing that Bernard Barker had told his wife in Miami, at some undetermined point in time but certainly prior to the "break-in," to call you in Washington, D.C. if Barker "hadn't called her by 3 a.m." So Barker himself had given his wife your name and phone number prior to the 16-17 June 1972 break-in, after purportedly having met and spoken to you only once in his life, that one brief meeting having been a year earlier. :blink:

Bear with me a moment, Mr. Caddy (if you're still with me on the Memory Lane tour), while I attempt to cipher this mystery.

Let me first assume, to your credit, that Bernard Barker had been so beguiled and impressed by you at the Army-Navy Club back in June 1971 that he had asked for your business card, and had kept it until it was creased and dirty and dog-earred just in case he ever got into criminal trouble in Washington, D.C., and therefore gave it to his wife before kissing her on the cheek and flying off to D.C. to commit criminal acts—even though he had to know that you were not a criminal lawyer. :blink:

Pardon me. I'm just going to lean against something and catch my breath. My credulity is already being stretched like pregnancy pants, and this is starting to sound more like a Teletubbies episode than a documentary tour. For surcease from this spinning sensation, I'm going to flip in my Tour Guide Book to the one other "authoritative source" on this call from Bernard Baker's wife, your good friend and long-time client, E. Howard Hunt. Below is what he tells us, in excruciating, exacting detail about Mr. and Mrs. Barker and you on that fateful night. I am aware that you lionize Mr. Hunt's writing skills, but with apologies to you and his editors at Berkley/Putnam, I'm going to prune his prose with hedge clippers to get at what's relevant. Here's Hunt on his germane activities right after the arrest. He's just gone to his White House office with some disputed number of "attaché cases" brim full with evidence that will incriminate the White House and deposited it there—naturally. Having planted the evidence, he does the following, according to his account in his autobiographical book, "Undercover":

  • "I opened my two-drawer safe, took out my operational notebook, found a telephone number and dialed it. After several rings the call was answered and I heard the sleepy voice of Douglas Caddy. 'Yes?'
    "'Doug? This is Howard. I hate to wake you up, but I've got a tough situation and I need to talk to you. Can I come over?'
    "'Sure. I'll tell the desk clerk you're expected.'"

So while you're heating up water for instant coffee, and with the evidence conveniently planted in his White House safe, Hunt makes sure his "operational notebook" that he'd gotten your number from gets put back into the White House safe (naturally), then trots across the street to his convenient Mullen office—for no other apparent reason than to call Barker's wife:

  • "From my [Mullen] office I dialed Barker's home in Miami and spoke with his wife, Clara.
    "'Clarita,' I said, 'things have gone wrong and Macho's [bernard Barker] been arrested.'
    "I heard a muffled shriek. Then, 'Oh, my God!'
    "'He's got bail money with him,' I told her, 'so maybe he'll be able to get out before dawn. I don't know how these things work, but I think you ought to have an attorney. I've already called one and I want you to call him too.'
    "I gave her Caddy's name and telephone number and asked that she phone Doug and retain him for her husband."

Now, just for the tour participants, Doug, so they don't get too disoriented in this maze, I think I should mention that the "burglars" had been arrested at 2:30 a.m. Hunt and Liddy purportedly already had watched part of the arrest, then collected up a lot of incriminating evidence to plant in the White House, then Hunt had driven Liddy to Liddy's jeep, then Hunt had driven to the Howard Johnson's and gone up to the seventh floor and told Baldwin—who he claims never to have met before, although Baldwin claims otherwise—to "get rid of" all the electronic equipment—which Baldwin drives straight over to McCord's house, naturally—then Hunt had driven to the White House and called you while planting the evidence there, then had gone over to his Mullen office across the street (are you worn out yet?) and called Mrs. Barker and only then made it over to your apartment. (Whew!) And let's remind people that you told the Post Barker's wife had called you "shortly after 3 a.m." :blink:

But we're not done: Hunt finally gets to your apartment, and it could not possibly have been before 3:30 a.m., and you welcome him, having boiled some water for instant coffee—but no milk for his ulcer. And he briefs you on what's happened. And having briefed you—to your dismay of course—he hands you $8,500 and asks you if you "can bail them out."

And only after all that, with it now having to be pushing at least 4:00 a.m., Hunt claims that he said the following to you, and describes your response:

  • "'Bernie Barker's wife will probably call you and retain you officially to represent her husband and the other men.'
    "Caddy looked at his wristwatch, then went to another room to phone [Caddy's law firm's partners]."

:blink: I'll tell you, Mr. Caddy, for the sake of my sanity and that of the tour attendees, for now I'm going to have to just gloss right over the fact that Hunt's first mention to you of a man you purportedly had only met and spoken to once a whole year earlier was using the chummy "Bernie Barker," and get directly to what you had to have seen when you looked at your wristwatch.

It sure as hell wasn't "shortly after 3 a.m." It had to be considerably later. And there still is no call from Bernard Barker's wife to you. And E. Howard Hunt stays at your apartment all the way through the phone calls from two of your law firm's partners, and all the way through them scaring up Rafferty (an actual criminal lawyer), and all the way through two phone calls from Rafferty, and all the way through you telling Hunt that Rafferty is coming to your apartment so you can tag along like a fifth wheel for reasons nobody in the world knows to this very day—since by your own endless protestations, you were not a criminal lawyer—and when Hunt finally leaves to go home, it's already nearly dawn.

And still there is not one single word about a call having come to you from Bernard Barker's wife while he was there.

Yet just hours later, you told a Washington Post reporter that Clara Barker had called you from Miami "shortly after 3 a.m.," not at the behest of E. Howard Hunt, but because Barker himself had told his wife to call you if Barker hadn't called her by 3:00 a.m.

Well, if what you told the Washington Post that same day is true, Mr. Caddy, Mrs. Barker's call to you had to have come before Hunt ever even got to your apartment. And if that's the case, then Hunt's whole little anecdote about leaving one phone at his White House office to go to another phone at his Mullen office just to call to Mrs. Barker, and her dramatic little shriek, is just complete fiction. Just really, really bad, hack-writer spy fiction. It's just embarrassing! It's one of his trashy little spy novels passed off as "fact."

So since we're just chatting candidly and casually here, tete-a-tete, Mr. Caddy, I have to tell you that I can see only three possibilities:

1) Hunt lied.

2) You lied.

3) You both lied.

Before the tour continues, I sure would like to have that one deadly booby trap cleared off the path. I'll be perfectly happy to find out that your client, Hunt, lied like a dog, and that you, in accordance with your Chatty-Cathy talking-points, are the One True Boy Scout who merely wandered like Pollyanna into a den of lying thieves, and simply, kindly prepared a cup of instant coffee for the Chief Lying Thief—your client—on that momentous morning.

So is it 1), 2), or 3) above?

Ashton Gray

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Hi, Doug. I'm very heartened to see that you don't gainsay or deny that your meeting with Barker and Hunt was before the release of the Pentagon Papers, and that you only attempt to downplay the incident.
I reiterate my previous statement about this matter, which indeed is trivial as to a specific date over 30 years ago about a meeting that was thoroughly examined at the time by the appropriate Watergate law enforcement authorities

Don't be so modest, Mr. Caddy. No, it is not trivial. It's not even a little bit trivial. In fact, truth be told, there is not any date in 1971 where you can put Barker's shiny butt in a chair with you and Hunt that would be "trivial" in the least.

And thanks for the talking-points recitation, but I already know how expert you are at "reiterating" your scripted talking points ad infinitum, ad nauseum. I know how adept you are at sending people off around the mulberry bush looking for one of your other non-responsive talking-points issuances that you cite circularly, hoping they'll just go away and stay away and shut up. I already know your whole aria by heart about how the FBI and the "appropriate Watergate law enforcement authorities" dubbed you squeaky clean and lily white and smelling like Elizabeth Taylor after a tour of her perfume factory.

But frankly, Mr. Caddy, I wouldn't care if the Archangel Michael himself had personally crossed your forehead with olive oil on the Rotunda steps and a color photo of it made the cover of TIME naming you man of the year. Too many things directly involving your participation don't add up, and I'm about to stroll down memory lane and explore a few of them. You're welcome to come along and address some of the sights along the path, or you can just stand right here under the tree droning your monotonous talking points over and over and over and over, asserting and reasserting your innocent and uninformed "wrong place at the wrong time" victimization, never wavering from the script's key points, and see if you can draw a crowd and distract them from the sightseeing tour—which is pulling away right now.

First stop is that same Washington Post article you mentioned and that I quoted from above. In it you not only spill the beans about having been in a private meeting with Hunt and Barker a year earlier, you also tell the world how you got tapped to represent Mr. Barker. Remember this?

  • "Douglas Caddy, one of the attorneys for the five men, told a reporter that shortly after 3 a.m. yesterday, he received a call from Barker's wife. 'She said that her husband told her to call me if he hadn't called her by 3 a.m.: that it might mean he was in trouble.'"
    —The Washington Post, Sunday, June 18, 1972, "5 Held in Plot to Bug Democrats' Office Here," by Alfred E. Lewis

So here we have you on contemporaneous record, Mr. Caddy, avowing that Bernard Barker had told his wife in Miami, at some undetermined point in time but certainly prior to the "break-in," to call you in Washington, D.C. if Barker "hadn't called her by 3 a.m." So Barker himself had given his wife your name and phone number prior to the 16-17 June 1972 break-in, after purportedly having met and spoken to you only once in his life, that one brief meeting having been a year earlier. :blink:

Bear with me a moment, Mr. Caddy (if you're still with me on the Memory Lane tour), while I attempt to cipher this mystery.

Let me first assume, to your credit, that Bernard Barker had been so beguiled and impressed by you at the Army-Navy Club back in June 1971 that he had asked for your business card, and had kept it until it was creased and dirty and dog-earred just in case he ever got into criminal trouble in Washington, D.C., and therefore gave it to his wife before kissing her on the cheek and flying off to D.C. to commit criminal acts—even though he had to know that you were not a criminal lawyer. :blink:

Pardon me. I'm just going to lean against something and catch my breath. My credulity is already being stretched like pregnancy pants, and this is starting to sound more like a Teletubbies episode than a documentary tour. For surcease from this spinning sensation, I'm going to flip in my Tour Guide Book to the one other "authoritative source" on this call from Bernard Baker's wife, your good friend and long-time client, E. Howard Hunt. Below is what he tells us, in excruciating, exacting detail about Mr. and Mrs. Barker and you on that fateful night. I am aware that you lionize Mr. Hunt's writing skills, but with apologies to you and his editors at Berkley/Putnam, I'm going to prune his prose with hedge clippers to get at what's relevant. Here's Hunt on his germane activities right after the arrest. He's just gone to his White House office with some disputed number of "attaché cases" brim full with evidence that will incriminate the White House and deposited it there—naturally. Having planted the evidence, he does the following, according to his account in his autobiographical book, "Undercover":

  • "I opened my two-drawer safe, took out my operational notebook, found a telephone number and dialed it. After several rings the call was answered and I heard the sleepy voice of Douglas Caddy. 'Yes?'
    "'Doug? This is Howard. I hate to wake you up, but I've got a tough situation and I need to talk to you. Can I come over?"
    "'Sure. I'll tell the desk clerk you're expected.'

So while you're heating up water for instant coffee, and with the evidence conveniently planted in his White House safe, Hunt makes sure his "operational notebook" that he'd gotten your number from gets put back into the White House safe (naturally), then trots across the street to his convenient Mullen office—for no other apparent reason than to call Barker's wife:

  • "From my [Mullen] office I dialed Barker's home in Miami and spoke with his wife, Clara.
    "'Clarita,' I said, 'things have gone wrong and Macho's [bernard Barker] been arrested.'
    "I heard a muffled shriek. Then, 'Oh, my God!'
    "'He's got bail money with him,' I told her, 'so maybe he'll be able to get out before dawn. I don't know how these things work, but I think you ought to have an attorney. I've already called one and I want you to call him too.'
    "I gave her Caddy's name and telephone number and asked that she phone Doug and retain him for her husband."

Now, just for the tour participants, Doug, so they don't get too disoriented in this maze, I think I should mention that the "burglars" had been arrested at 2:30 a.m. Hunt and Liddy purportedly already had watched part of the arrest, then collected up a lot of incriminating evidence to plant in the White House, then Hunt had driven Liddy to Liddy's jeep, then Hunt had driven to the Howard Johnson's and gone up to the seventh floor and told Baldwin—who he claims never to have met before, although Baldwin claims otherwise—to "get rid of" all the electronic equipment—which Baldwin drives straight over to McCord's house, naturally—then Hunt had driven to the White House and called you while planting the evidence there, then had gone over to his Mullen office across the street (are you worn out yet?) and called Mrs. Barker and only then made it over to your apartment. (Whew!) And let's remind people that you told the Post Barker's wife had called you "shortly after 3 a.m." :blink:

But we're not done: Hunt finally gets to your apartment, and it could not possibly have been before 3:30 a.m., and you welcome him, having boiled some water for instant coffee—but no milk for his ulcer. And he briefs you on what's happened. And having briefed you—to your dismay of course—he hands you $8,500 and asks you if you "can bail them out."

And only after all that, with it now having to be pushing at least 4:00 a.m., Hunt claims that he said the following to you, and describes your response:

  • "'Bernie Barker's wife will probably call you and retain you officially to represent her husband and the other men.'
    "Caddy looked at his wristwatch, then went to another room to phone [Caddy's law firm's partners]."

:blink: I'll tell you, Mr. Caddy, for the sake of my sanity and that of the tour attendees, for now I'm going to have to just gloss right over the fact that Hunt's first mention to you of a man you purportedly had only met and spoken to once a whole year earlier was using the chummy "Bernie Barker," and get directly to what you had to have seen when you looked at your wristwatch.

It sure as hell wasn't "shortly after 3 a.m." It had to be considerably later. And there still is no call from Bernard Barker's wife to you. And E. Howard Hunt stays at your apartment all the way through the phone calls from two of your law firm's partners, and all the way through them scaring up Rafferty (an actual criminal lawyer), and all the way through two phone calls from Rafferty, and all the way through you telling Hunt that Rafferty is coming to your apartment so you can tag along like a fifth wheel for reasons nobody in the world knows to this very day—since by your own endless protestations, you were not a criminal lawyer—and when Hunt finally leaves to go home, it's already nearly dawn.

And still there is not one single word about a call having come to you from Bernard Barker's wife while he was there.

Yet just hours later, you told a Washington Post reporter that Clara Barker had called you from Miami "shortly after 3 a.m.," not at the behest of E. Howard Hunt, but because Barker himself had told his wife to call you if Barker hadn't called her by 3:00 a.m.

Well, if what you told the Washington Post that same day is true, Mr. Caddy, Mrs. Barker's call to you had to have come before Hunt ever even got to your apartment. And if that's the case, then Hunt's whole little anecdote about leaving one phone at his White House office to go to another phone at his Mullen office just to call to Mrs. Barker, and her dramatic little shriek, is just complete fiction. Just really, really bad, hack-writer spy fiction. It's just embarrassing! It's one of his trashy little spy novels passed off as "fact."

So since we're just chatting candidly and casually here, tete-a-tete, Mr. Caddy, I have to tell you that I can see only three possibilities:

1) Hunt lied.

2) You lied.

3) You both lied.

Before the tour continues, I sure would like to have that one deadly booby trap cleared off the path. I'll be perfectly happy to find out that your client, Hunt, lied like a dog, and that you, in accordance with your Chatty-Cathy talking-points, are the One True Boy Scout who merely wandered like Pollyanna into a den of lying thieves, and simply, kindly prepared a cup of instant coffee for the Chief Lying Thief—your client—on that momentous morning.

So is it 1), 2), or 3) above?

Ashton Gray

Ashton, might I request you tone down your questions? While you have done a good job of demonstrating that Mr. Caddy, in order to keep Hunt's involvement secret, probably lied to a newspaper about a phone call from Barker's wife--(geez, isn't that what lawyers do, protect their clients?)--the relevance is not immediately apparent to some of us on the outside, who value Mr. Caddy's contributions to this forum. Your desire to play "gotcha" with Caddy is understandable, but not altogether appropriate, as he has repeatedly tried to answer any and all questions on his role in history. Ask the questions in a nice manner and I suspect he'll provide you with a response. Point out an inconsistency and he'll offer an explanantion if he has one. Ditto with Mr. Baldwin, who has been nothing but a gentleman. I do sympathize with your desire to play "gotcha" however...However long the list you have for Caddy about what appears to be inconsistencies in his statements, I guarantee you it positively PALES in comparison to the mental list of questions I have for Robert Maheu, should I ever be able to ask him a question.

Please play nice.

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So since we're just chatting candidly and casually here, tete-a-tete, Mr. Caddy, I have to tell you that I can see only three possibilities:

1) Hunt lied.

2) You lied.

3) You both lied.

So is it 1), 2), or 3) above?

Ashton Gray

While you have done a good job of demonstrating that Mr. Caddy, in order to keep Hunt's involvement secret, probably lied to a newspaper about a phone call from Barker's wife...

Okay, I'm gonna' take my stubby little pencil here and put that down as a vote for #2) above. :blink:

Please play nice.

Well, geez, Pat: I sang to him, didn't I? :blink:

Okay, okay, I repent. I take back the Archangel Michael thing (I probably would be pretty impressed), and I won't say anything else about the talking-points. Does that cover my sins? Do I need to wear a hair shirt or anything?

the relevance is not immediately apparent to some of us on the outside...

Well, not being sure of the "us" you're being spokesperson for, unless there's a mouse in your pocket, I still am always responsive to questions about relevance. So have you read the article, There was no "first break-in" at the Watergate, and it's foundational articles yet? I gave you the link a few messages back. If you haven't, that might be why the relevance is not immediately apparent. If you have, stay tuned: the Relevance Express is headed down the track, this-a-way.

Ashton Gray

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Another apologetic request to have a message deleted (this one). When attempting to post, if it times out with an error message and I hit my browser back button and try again, I wind up with two copies. I won't do that any more. Sorry. Meanwhile, the actual message I was trying to post is below.

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Mr. Caddy,

I didn't mean to slight you by being this long in getting back to you on these questions, but I wanted to give your answers due and proper consideration, and I'm very glad to see that you're posting here in the forum.

Thank you again for your more than thoroughgoing address to most of the questions I'd asked. At a point that would have been a very good ending of your message, you wrote:

I believe that above responses cover the inquiries posed by you.

They certainly covered most of them, but there are a few that were left unanswered, two that I'm afraid I have to apologize to you for not having asked very clearly (which I'll clear up below), and then—if you could see your way clear to extend your largesse—there are a few that arose from a couple of your answers. I'll set off sections for each category

First, here are the questions that weren't answered. I've edited or amended one or two very slightly—just to reflect answers that you did provide where applicable, or because they've been taken out of their original context—and have renumbered them for simplicity:

UNANSWERED QUESTIONS:

  1. Who besides Hunt at Mullen was "witting and cleared" of the CIA relationship? (If you don't have that specific information, who else can you name who worked at Mullen while you were there?)
  2. If you know, did Hunt, or you, or anyone at the Mullen company have any contact, directly or through an intermediary, with Daniel Ellsberg?
  3. If you know, were persons employed at or by Gall Lane "cleared and witting" of Mullen ties to CIA at any relevant time? If so, who?
  4. If you know, was Gall Lane in any sort of relationship with CIA that was similar to the relationship that the Mullen company enjoyed? (At any relevant time.)
  5. Did any of your legal tasks for either Liddy or Hunt include arranging for possible overseas travel? (You may have answered this by indirect exclusion, but I wasn't certain, and would like to have it cleared up.)

This next section is where I think I inadvertently created some confusion by my cavalier tossing around of the word "probate" in its more general sense, from Black's: "...in current usage this term has been expanded to generally include all matters and proceedings pertaining to administration of estates, guardianships, etc." I get the idea that you were interpreting and using the word "probate" in its more narrow sense of court procedure determining validity of a will of a dearly departed—after the fact, so to speak.

To correct my legalese faux pas, with your continued graciousness, I'll set forth my original questions and the relevant parts of your answers to those, then I'll ask more specifically what I was trying to ask in the first place.

QUESTIONS I ASKED USING THE WORD "PROBATE" TOO BROADLY:

  • QUESTION: Hunt became a client a Gall Lane, and you were one of the attorneys working with Hunt. You've said you consulted with Hunt regarding probate and "other matters." What were the "other matters"?
    DOUGLAS CADDY: At Hunt’s request, we prepared a will for him... . None of this legal work involved probate matters.
    QUESTION: Did the probate matters include Dorothy Hunt's probate?
    DOUGLAS CADDY: At no time was I involved in any probate matters dealing with Dorothy Hunt. ...I do not know who handled the probate of Dorothy Hunt’s estate.

Thank you. Now here is more narrowly what I had hoped to learn:

  1. At any time, did you prepare a will for Dorothy Hunt? If not, do you know of anyone who did, and if so, who?
  2. Do you know if Dorothy Hunt had a will at the time you were preparing one for her husband, E. Howard Hunt?
  3. If you know, was E. Howard Hunt named as the primary beneficiary and/or executor of any will of Dorothy Hunt at any relevant time.

I hope that narrows this considerably, and thanks for your patience.

Finally, there are several questions that came up in my review of the answers you provided, if you would be so kind.

QUESTIONS ARISING FROM YOUR ANSWERS:

First in this section of new questions is something that arose out of the following exchange:

  • QUESTION: What was the nature of the "legal tasks" you were doing for Liddy?
    DOUGLAS CADDY: In March, 1972, George Webster...asked for a lawyer to do voluntary campaign work in John Dean’s office. I was "volunteered" by John Kilcullen. I did several legal research assignments given to me by Dean and one of his associates.

That's very interesting in light of something I'm about to take up with Pat Speer if he posts the new topic I asked him to post. (By the way: I think it was very thoughtful of you to post something about the kind of unwarranted and irrelevant ad hominem attacks he has launched on me repeatedly, but really, it's nothing. It's just sort of like having a gnat buzzing around.)

But this thing you said about working for Dean: John Dean, of course, is the one who took possession of the contents of Hunt's White House safe and divided it into two neat piles: one pile he turned over to the rank-and-file FBI agents on Tuesday, June 27, 1972 (two days after Baldwin started cooperating with the U.S. Attorneys); the other pile Dean placed into a big envelope (or "two folders," depending on which section of L. Patrick Gray's congressional testimony you happen to be listening to), and, in the presence of Ehrlichman, handed directly to L. Patrick Gray on Wednesday, June 28, 1972—right around the very time you went before the grand jury as the very first witness called.

So the questions that your answer above caused to spring immediately to mind are:

A. Who was the "associate" of John Dean that you also were doing research work for?

B. What was the work you were doing for Dean and that associate?

C. Did you know that Dean could open Hunt's safe?

And the last few questions I have that arose out of your answers is a real head scratcher for me. I'm in a real pickle here, and I hope you can help me out. Here are the relevant questions and sections of your answers:

QUESTION: Were you cleared and witting of the Mullen company's involvement with CIA?

DOUGLAS CADDY: No, I was not cleared and witting of the Mullen Company’s involvement with the CIA.

QUESTION: Hunt became a client a Gall Lane, and you were one of the attorneys working with Hunt. You've said you consulted with Hunt regarding probate and "other matters." What were the "other matters"?

DOUGLAS CADDY: This work was performed in conjunction with a partner of that law firm, Robert Scott, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney, who later became a judge. At Hunt’s request, we...analyzed his proposed business relationship with the Mullen Company after Robert Bennett assumed its ownership (no mention was made then by Hunt of the CIA’s involvement with the Company)... .

Okay. I've got all of that, and that's very clear. But here's why I'm in a pickle.

First, the Mullen company, as a matter of CIA record, had been cooperating with CIA for at least seven years (since 1963) when Hunt went to work there, and you were already working out of the Mullen D.C. office at that time.

Second, the Mullen company, as a matter of CIA record, had overseas offices, at least one of which in Europe was "staffed, run, and paid for by CIA."

And given all of that information, I've got this passage from Hunt's own autobiography that I'm trying to reconcile with your answers. Read along with me, if you would, as Hunt recounts his early days at Mullen (my bold emphasis added):

  • "The CIA placement officer had told me that the Mullen firm had "cooperated" with CIA... . So I inferred that my CIA background would not prove a handicap to employment with Mullen as it had with several multinational firms.
    "During a second meeting Mullen told me that he was getting on in years, the company was comfortably established and he was casting about for younger successors to take over the managment and direction of the firm. One of Mullen's accounts was the General Foods Corporation, whose Washington representative, Douglas Caddy, worked out of the Mullen offices. According to Mullen, with Caddy, myself and an as-yet-unselected individual, Mullen would be able to retire, leaving the business in the hands of this successor triumverate."
    —E. Howard Hunt, Undercover

Can you kind of see why this is a head-scratcher for me? The owner of the Mullen company was going to retire soon, and in his mind you and Hunt had been dubbed as two of his successors. But he was in an on-going long-term secret relationship with CIA, including overseas installations completely manned, funded, and run by CIA, and so with the answers you gave above, I gotta' tell you, Mr. Caddy, I can't figure out for the life of me how the hell he expected you to be one the of three co-managers of the entire international CIA-front company if you were totally ignorant of CIA's involvement.

Can you clear that up?

Thanks again so much.

Ashton Gray

Edited by Ashton Gray
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Mr. Caddy,

Can you kind of see why this is a head-scratcher for me? The owner of the Mullen company was going to retire soon, and in his mind you and Hunt had been dubbed as two of his successors. But he was in an on-going long-term secret relationship with CIA, including overseas installations completely manned, funded, and run by CIA, and so with the answers you gave above, I gotta' tell you, Mr. Caddy, I can't figure out for the life of me how the hell he expected you to be one the of three co-managers of the entire international CIA-front company if you were totally ignorant of CIA's involvement.

Can you clear that up?

Thanks again so much.

Ashton Gray

Mr. Ashton Gray is accusing Mr. Douglas Caddy, directly or by implication, of being a xxxx. This is a clear violation of forum rules. Mr. Gray is clearly a truth-seeker, but throughout this thread he shows every evidence of falling into the fallacy of guilt by association. I do not have the slightest doubt that Mr. Caddy is an honest man. If he was not, then he would avoid this forum like the plague.

I gather it is true that Mr. Caddy had the misfortune to be retained to represent some unsavoury characters connected to the Watergate break-in. I would guess that he now regrets that experience, and wishes he had confined himself to representing widows and orphans. It is no wonder that not everyone wants to be a lawyer, despite what they see on TV.

But it is a logical fallacy to assume, as Mr. Gray seems to do, that you can attribute the client's knowledge to his lawyer.

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Mr. Caddy,

Can you kind of see why this is a head-scratcher for me? The owner of the Mullen company was going to retire soon, and in his mind you and Hunt had been dubbed as two of his successors. But he was in an on-going long-term secret relationship with CIA, including overseas installations completely manned, funded, and run by CIA, and so with the answers you gave above, I gotta' tell you, Mr. Caddy, I can't figure out for the life of me how the hell he expected you to be one the of three co-managers of the entire international CIA-front company if you were totally ignorant of CIA's involvement.

Can you clear that up?

Thanks again so much.

Ashton Gray

Mr. Ashton Gray is accusing Mr. Douglas Caddy, directly or by implication, of being a xxxx.

Au contraire, Mr. Carroll! I merely asked politely if Mr. Caddy could help reconcile this seeming discrepancy. You seem to have eliminated the very real possibility that E. Howard Hunt, a hack spy fiction writer, could merely have gotten a little overzealous in claiming that Mr. Caddy had been selected to run a major international CIA front company. I'm perfectly prepared for Mr. Caddy to say that Hunt must have been smoking something a little too strong when he wrote that passage, or that Hunt just made it up out of whole cloth.

Exactly as in my perfectly reasonable questions about the mutually exclusive stories told by Mr. Caddy and Mr. Hunt in "The Curious Case of Mrs. Barker's Phantom Phone Call," I'd be completely satisfied to learn that it was Mr. Hunt, not Mr. Caddy, who misrepresented the facts at issue, as long as these so-far unresolvable contradictions get resolved.

Don't you agree that they should be able to be resolved, and that they therefore should be resolved?

After all, I didn't create either of the situations at issue, I merely pointed them out and asked perfectly prudent and reasonable questions. It does, though, remind a little of a situation that arises in the game of chess referred to, so appropriately, as being "forked."

Now, I will admit that when we come to certain important questions about who actually was legally representing the Watergate burglars when, Mr. Hunt isn't in the picture at all. But I haven't gotten there yet. I'm hoping Mr. Caddy will clear up these other contradictions between his accounts and Mr. Hunt's accounts of rather materially crucial issues first.

Wouldn't you honestly like to see these mutually exclusive "facts" resolved one way or another, too, Mr. Carroll? It seems to me that it if Mr. Caddy could just simply say that Hunt got it wrong, then the record will be clear, and it only can derive to Mr. Caddy's benefit. Then we can move on. Don't you agree?

Ashton Gray

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Wouldn't you honestly like to see these mutually exclusive "facts" resolved one way or another, too, Mr. Carroll? It seems to me that it if Mr. Caddy could just simply say that Hunt got it wrong, then the record will be clear, and it only can derive to Mr. Caddy's benefit. Then we can move on. Don't you agree?

Ashton Gray

I agree, Mr. Gray, but I really do not see the need to needle Mr. Caddy in the manner you are doing here. Everyone knows that E. Howard Hunt is a xxxx and a writer of fiction, so it seems to me that it is a safe assumtion that if Mr. Hunt and Mr. Caddy are in conflict, you can take it to the bank that Mr. Hunt is lying (or was in possession of information unavailable to Mr. Caddy) and that Mr. Caddy is telling the truth.

In this case, I see no reason to suggest that a valued fellow forum member is lying. I suggest you take off that cowboy hat and replace it with your thinking cap.

Edited by J. Raymond Carroll
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Wouldn't you honestly like to see these mutually exclusive "facts" resolved one way or another, too, Mr. Carroll? It seems to me that it if Mr. Caddy could just simply say that Hunt got it wrong, then the record will be clear, and it only can derive to Mr. Caddy's benefit. Then we can move on. Don't you agree?

Ashton Gray

Everyone knows that E. Howard Hunt is a xxxx and a writer of fiction, so it seems to me that it is a safe assumtion that if Mr. Hunt and Mr. Caddy are in conflict, you can take it to the bank that Mr. Hunt is lying (or was in possession of information unavailable to Mr. Caddy) and that Mr. Caddy is telling the truth.

<TWEEET!> "OFFICIAL TIME OUT CALLED, GRAY TEAM"

  • Pst! Hey Doug! Douglas Caddy: Hi. Over here. I just had to call a time out for a minute. Why don't we each come out under a white flag here, and meet out here in the middle of the field where nobody can hear us, and let's you and me have a quiet respectful talk, soto voce.
    Listen, Doug, I really, really don't want to have to do what I'm simply gonna' have to do when the whistle blows again, so I just called you out here to try to give you some help in this thing: do yourself a favor, man—get somebody else besides this Carroll guy to run in here and talk for you and do your public relations work. I've done public relations, and this is— This is just— <Groan> Aw, man, even though you and I have our differences, I really hate to see anybody get done to them what he's just done to you. Even I'm over here cringing.
    Somebody really ought to tell him the first law of PR: don't discredit your client. Ohhhh, man! I'm afraid the PR egg he just laid might even make the PR textbooks in infamy!
    I think the time-out's nearly over, and you do what you want to do, but I've got to tell you that if I were you, I'd get out the hook, and not bother puttin' him on the bench, or even sending him to the showers, or even stopping to collect a severance check.
    Up to you.
    Uh-oh: the whistle just came out. I enjoyed this little chat, but I gotta' get back. Good luck!

<TWEEET!> "OFFICIAL TIME OUT IS OVER"

I'm sorry, Mr. Carroll, for that little interlude. You were commenting on questions I had asked Mr. Caddy concerning conflicts between his statements, and those of E. Howard Hunt in Hunt's purportedly non-fiction autobiography. So what was it you were saying to me again?

Everyone knows that E. Howard Hunt is a xxxx and a writer of fiction, so it seems to me that it is a safe assumtion that if Mr. Hunt and Mr. Caddy are in conflict, you can take it to the bank that Mr. Hunt is lying (or was in possession of information unavailable to Mr. Caddy) and that Mr. Caddy is telling the truth.

Oh, dear. That's right. That is what you said, isn't it. Well, Mr. Carroll, I'm speechless. And since Mr. Caddy isn't talking about any of this himself, the only decent thing I can do on his behalf is quote him on the subject of Mr. Hunt's veracity in Mr. Hunt's non-fiction works. I briefly turn the podium over to Mr. Caddy for his own endorsement of Mr. Hunt's works, and let's all give Mr. Caddy a warm welcome for coming out and speaking:

  • "Even Hunt's most vociferous critics concede that he is an extremely gifted writer and this is reflected in all of his books." —Douglas Caddy February 6, 2006, 07:20 AM

<APPLAUSE! APPLAUSE!>

Wow! Now there's an endorsement. Did you see that, Mr. Carroll? I wish I could get some kudos like that written for my work. I'd make damn sure the publishers put that right at the tippy-top on the back cover of any non-fiction book that my name was going on, because of course "extremely gifted" writers simply don't spew a bunch of lies in their non-fiction works. Right, Mr. Carroll?

And did you know, Mr. Carroll, that in Mr. Caddy's article, "Gay Bashing in Watergate," he opens it with a long passage from E. Howard Hunt's Undercover—the exact same book that I've been quoting from, asking Mr. Caddy to reconcile the mutually exclusive accounts given by him and Mr. Hunt for the same events?

Mr. Caddy seems to have a very high opinion of Mr. Hunt as a writer generally, and for that autobiography in particular.

But, Mr. Carroll: you seem to have a <COUGH!>, um, somewhat, shall we say, "lower opinion" of Mr. Hunt's non-fiction forays than does Mr. Caddy. What was your proposed kudo for Mr. Hunt again?

Everyone knows that E. Howard Hunt is a xxxx.

Mmmm. Oh. Oh, yeah. That's right.

Tell you what, I'm going to have to just step aside in this one and let you and Mr. Caddy fight it out over whether Hunt is telling the truth, or is telling lies that conflict just disastrously with Mr. Caddy's statements. I hate getting involved in dosmetic disputes. Ya'll talk among yourselves.

Meanwhile, I really, really hope Mr. Caddy will come in here and clean up this mess now! I mean, now, it's just all over the floor.

Hey, Doug: podium's all yours. :angry:

Ashton Gray

Edited by Ashton Gray
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do yourself a favor, man—get somebody else besides this Carroll guy to run in here and talk for you and do your public relations work. I've done public relations, and this is— This is just— <Groan> Aw, man, even though you and I have our differences, I really hate to see anybody get done to them what he's just done to you. Even I'm over here cringing.

I am charging Mr. Caddy $425 per hour for my PR work on his behalf, and I believe I am worth every penny. Actually, I now feel morally compelled to reduce my rate, because defending him against Mr. Gray is such a cakewalk.

"Even Hunt's most vociferous critics concede that he is an extremely gifted writer and this is reflected in all of his books." —Douglas Caddy February 6, 2006, 07:20 AM

<APPLAUSE! APPLAUSE!>

I did not see anywhere where Mr. Caddy says or even suggests that Hunt's writings contained even a grain of truth. He would probably praise Charles Dickens, too. I do think, however, that Mr. Caddy was overly generous in his praise of Mr. Hunt, but I suspect that's just his character. As my dear mother would say, "he likes to have the good word."

There is a principle of logic known as the "principle of charity." According to Wikkipedia, " It was named in 1958-59 by Neil L. Wilson, and Willard Van Orman Quine and Donald Davidson are associated with different formulations of the principle of charity. Davidson also sometimes referred to it as the principle of rational accommodation. He summed it up as: We make maximum sense of the words and thoughts of others when we interpret in a way that optimises agreement. The principle may be invoked in the case of a particular logical argument or indeed to make sense of a speaker's utterances when one is unsure of their meaning; Quine's use of the principle, in particular, gives it this latter, wide domain."

Although it is not mentioned in Wikkipaedia, the principle of charity was formulated some two thousand years ago, by a carpenter from Bethlehem named Jesus H. Christ. I recommend this principle for Mr. Gray's consideration.

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I did not see anywhere where Mr. Caddy says or even suggests that Hunt's writings contained even a grain of truth. ...We make maximum sense of the words and thoughts of others when we interpret in a way that optimises agreement.

:D

Ohhhhhh. Well... Gosh, thanks! I think I'm getting this now. So, I see what you're saying: To interpret Mr. Caddy's endorsement of Hunt properly, so you and I can "optimise agreement," Douglas Caddy's statement about Hunt more accurately would be: "Even Hunt's most vociferous critics concede that he is an extremely gifted xxxx and this is reflected in all of his books."

Tell me if I'm getting this right. That does seem to put you and me in agreement on that one point. Hmmmm. Do you think that will "optimise agreement" with Doug, too, Raymond?

(By the way, lowering that rate you're charging might be a very good idea indeed. I think we've "optimised agreement" on that, too.)

Ashton Gray

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Douglas Caddy's statement about Hunt more accurately would be: "Even Hunt's most vociferous critics concede that he is an extremely gifted xxxx and this is reflected in all of his books."

Tell me if I'm getting this right.

You're not quite there yet, Mr. Gray, but you are getting warm. I think the principle of charity would decree that Mr. Caddy meant that Hunt is an extremely gifted novelist. I have read many of Hunt's books, and I would respectfully disagree with Mr. Caddy on this issue.

(By the way, lowering that rate you're charging might be a very good idea indeed. I think we've "optimised agreement" on that, too.)

Ashton Gray

So far Mr. Caddy has had no complaints about the rate I am charging him, or the services I provide. My bills are always paid upon presentation, and the checks always clear, (Eat your heart out). Surely Mr. Caddy is the only person with standing to complain, if complaints were due.

By the way, I have a copy of a sign that JFK had on his desk, according to Salinger. It says "COMPLAINTS IGNORED"

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I think the principle of charity would decree that Mr. Caddy meant that Hunt is an extremely gifted novelist.

You know: that's precisely what I thought you might say. But I'm afraid that such a charitable interpretation probably would have to be attributed more to "the principle of ignorance" than to "the principle of charity." Let me 'splain to you why. I'll do it slowly.

You see, Mr. Caddy was referring specifically to E. Howard Hunt's non-fiction when he made his now chewed-to-death quote. Did I fail to mention that before? <Tcht!> I am so sorry. I don't know how I overlooked mentioning that!

Here's some more context of Mr. Caddy's quote for you, Mr. Carroll, regarding Hunt being "an extremely gifted writer," so you can have a prayer of finding out what's going on:

  • "My meeting came about by Howard Hunt inviting me to join him for lunch at the Navy Club in Washington, D.C. When I arrived there, Hunt and Barker were already seated and Hunt made the introductions. I do not recall exactly what we discussed but it most likely was Barker's role under Hunt in the ill-fated invasion of Cuba that took place under President Kennedy, who later came to believe that he had been misled and misadvised by the CIA on the matter. Hunt's recounting of the invasion is told in his book, 'Give Us This Day.' Even Hunt's most vociferous critics concede that he is an extremely gifted writer and this is reflected in all of his books, including the above-mentioned one." —Douglas Caddy

(Aside to Caddy: Doug, now you can't say I didn't try to warn you. I spent one of my own time-outs and everything! I told you that you ought to get the hook! But no! You wouldn't listen. I tried, man.)

And I'm so glad you asked for it, Mr. Carroll! (The contextual reference, I mean.) Not just because it gives you your third "Caddy PR machine" meltdown in a row, either.

Notice there where Doug said, concerning this private meeting with Hunt and Barker in June of 1971—before the "Pentagon Papers," mind you—the following:

  • "I do not recall exactly what we discussed but it most likely was Barker's role under Hunt in the ill-fated invasion of Cuba that took place under President Kennedy."

Now compare what Mr. Caddy said to me on the first page of this very thread:

  • "When I arrived Hunt was already there with his guest, Bernard Barker. Hunt made the introductions. The luncheon conversation was almost entirely consumed with Hunt and Barker recounting their involvement in the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba."

I think that's part of the "principle of vacillating memory by convenience," isn't it? Or maybe his story about what he recalled or didn't recall changed only because Hunt had been sitting too close to him at the table way back then. You think? Maybe it's sort of a "principle of Hunt-osis by lunch table osmosis" syndrome that science and Wikipedia haven't caught up with yet.

In any case, next installment here is going to be: "Just Who the Heck was Caddy Representing When?" Better dig deep in that "Platitudinous Principles for Every Occasion" bag you're carrying. You're going to need 'em all.

Ashton Gray

Edited by Ashton Gray
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Mr Gray,

Of course you know what you're doing, but I hate to see a good thread denigrated and words wasted on someone who wouldn't know a cowboy hat if it bit him in the ass.

Respectfully, why bother responding to someone that can't even spell the name of his own source (It's Wikipedia) and then proceeds to quote the origin of "principle of charity"

"It was named in 1958-59 by Neil L. Wilson, and Willard Van Orman Quine and Donald Davidson are associated with different
formulations
of the principle of charity......"

Then in the very next paragraph offers the totally contradictory statement that:

"The principle of charity was
formulated
some two thousand years ago, by a carpenter from Bethlehem named Jesus H. Christ."

So who formulated the principle of charity? Was it Wilson? Or Christ? Forgetting that Confucius spoke of charity 500 years before the birth of Christ.

And this same person solemnly refers to Jesus as Jesus H. Christ. His source Wikipedia says this:

Jesus H. Christ is an example of slang serving as a mild, joking curse. The expression is most commonly used in a wry, sarcastic, cynical, or joking tone, although it may nonetheless be perceived as blasphemy.

To tell you the truth, I don't believe he even understands the distinction.

Again respectfully Mr. Gray, don't you have better things to do with your time?

Mike Hogan

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Hi Michael.

Again respectfully Mr. Gray, don't you have better things to do with your time?

Yep. Most of the things I should have been doing aren't quite as much fun, though. :D

Okay, I'll buckle down and get serious here. Stay tuned...

Ashton Gray

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