Fred LaRue

[John Simkin]

Frederick Cheney LaRue died earlier this week. He was first cousin of Sid Richardson, the Texas oil and ranching tycoon. In 1957 the family sold one of its oilfields for $30m. Soon afterwards LaRue killed his father while duck-shooting.

LaRue had extreme right-wing opinions and worked for right-wing politicians in the early 1960s. This included Barry Goldwater. After Goldwater's crushing defeat in the 1964 presidential election, LaRue joined Richard Nixon. He helped Nixon in the 1968 campaign and afterwards served as one of his political advisers.

In 1972 LaRue worked with John Mitchell on Nixon's re-election committee. On 20th March, LaRue attended a meeting of the committee where it was agreed to spend $250,000 "intelligence gathering" operation against the Democratic Party. This included the decision to plant electronic devices from the Democratic campaign offices in an apartment block called Watergate.

LaRue now decided that it would be necessary to pay the conspirators large sums of money to secure their silence. LaRue raised $300,000 in hush money. Tony Ulasewicz, a former New York policeman, was given the task of arranging the payments.

Hugh Sloan, testified that LaRue told him that he would have to commit perjury in order to protect the conspirators. LaRue was arrested and eventually found guilty of conspiring to obstruct justice. He was sentenced to three years in jail but only served four months before being released.

Over the years it has been claimed that LaRue was Deep Throat, the man who leaked crucial information about Watergate to Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward. LaRue always denied this charge. Woodward said he would reveal the identity of Deep Throat after his source had died.

In 2003 Jeb Magruder claimed that Richard Nixon approved the Watergate plan in a telephone conversation with Mitchell. LaRue denied this and told The Sun Herald newspaper that Magruder lied when he claimed Nixon knew about the break-in.

Has LaRue ever been linked to the assassination of JFK?

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKlarue.htm