I have been reading Jerry terHorst's book on Gerald Ford. TerHorst was Ford's press secretary, but he resigned after one month when Ford pardoned Nixon before Nixon had even been indicted for a crime. In the chapter on the hearings to determine if Ford was fit for the Vice-Presidency, terHorst discusses Robert Winter-Berger, a lobbyist who'd written a book on political pay-offs in 1972. While Winter-Berger's biggest revelation was that he'd witnessed Speaker of the House John McCormack and LBJ discussing a 1 million dollar pay-off to Bobby Baker, to assure his silence, he also mentioned a few smaller schemes involving Ford. He gave Congress a signed affidavit confirming these schemes, but backed-off when they used his IRS returns to argue that he'd never had the money to bribe Ford as claimed. To continue, of course, would have forced Winter-Berger to admit he was a tax cheat. (Elsewhere in his book, terHorst notes that Ford was convinced that the government "whitewashed" over the Bobby Baker scandal once LBJ became president. Was Ford really so blind that he could not see that the Warren Commission was a similar "whitewash"?)

Anyhow, reading about Winter-Berger reminded me of two other books on pay-offs from this time period. One was by Michael Dorman, entitled Payoff, and detail mafia payoffs of politicians. It has a section on Marcello's use of bagman Jack Halphen in the fifties, and notes that LBJ and Ramey Clark's father were among those on Marcello's payroll. At another point it has an interview with Marcello, in which Marcello asserts he is a businessman, with as much right to make political contributions as any other businessman. The other book was by Douglas Caddy, entitled The Hundred Million Dollar Payoff. It focused on the incredible influence organized labor wielded in Washington, predominantly over the Democratic Party. This book came out in 74.

The realization that Caddy's book came out after the others led me to suspect it was written in part as a response. Here Winter-Berger muddies Ford's name and reputation, and therefore the reputation of the Republican Party as a whole, and here Caddy comes out with a book muddying up the Democrats. Adding to my suspicion this was no coincidence is a quote on the cover of Caddy's book. It reads "A very serious study of the tremendous amount of political clout organized labor has...President Gerald Ford."

So...Doug, now that we're back in an Ashton Gray-free zone, can you help us understand the context of your writing of this book? Was its writing encouraged by the Ford Administration? If so, who? Did you know Don Rumsfeld? Was it partially funded by a right-wing think tank? Or was the writing of this book purely your own idea? If so, how did you get the plug from Ford for your cover?

While I don't think these questions are of crucial importance, your answers can help us better understand the climate of the time. Thanks.

One year later Arlington House published How They Rig Our Elections: The Coming Dictatorship of Big Labor and the Radicals by Douglas Caddy.

One bookseller described it thusly:

Book Description: ArlingtonHouse, 1975. Skivertex,Leatherette. Book Condition: Near Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. 8vo - over 9" Tall. 280pp.

In 1975 liberals in Congress took advantage of Watergate to quietly pass an "election reform" law that would make it easier for them to win re-election eternally; a fact that threatens to plague the nation eternally, all with the careful assistance of powerful pressure groups including the AFL-CIO, Common Cause, the League of Women Voters, and the liberal community.

Good point, Mike. It does seem a bit of a coincidence, Doug, that, subsequent to your involvement in Watergate, you wrote two books that, at least on the surface, seemed designed to help the Republicans, and Gerry Ford in particular, retain control of the White House. Was this an honest reflection of your concerns at the time? Or were you encouraged to go in this direction? How did Washington work in 74-75? Does it still work that way today? Should we assume that most pro-Bush or anti-Bush or pro-Hilary or anti-Hillary books are being encouraged by forces behind the scenes?

http://www.douglascaddy.com/theplay.html

Excerpt:

I now call Douglas Caddy to the witness stand.

Mr. Caddy, I understand that one time you served as Director of Elections for the State of Texas, a position in the Texas Secretary of State's office, under Republican Governor Bill Clements. Also, you were the original attorney for the Watergate Seven. Do you see any parallel between what happened in Watergate and what is happening now to our election system?

Caddy: Watergate started when five Republican operatives were arrested around 2 A.M. on June 17, 1972 while they were inside the Democratic Party headquarters attempting to plant wiretapping devices. Howard Hunt and Gordon Liddy, who were nearby, escaped, and Hunt telephoned me about half a hour later to retain me as his attorney in the matter. I has previously served as Hunt's personal attorney. Hunt telephoned Liddy, whom I also knew, from my apartment a short time later and Liddy also retained me as his attorney.

What took place in the Republican rigging of the Presidential election in the 2000 and is now taking place for 2004 is a million times worse that what the Republicans tried to do back in 1972. It makes the Watergate scandal look like a third-rate burglary.

The 2004 election is being rigged through the use of computerized voting machines - machines owned by companies that are in turn owned by Republicans.

A new book on the subject is published. It's title is "BlackBox Voting," and its author is Beverly Harris. The book can be read at www.blackboxvoting.com. Ms. Harris has already dropped one bombshell as the result of doing research for her book.

P: That bombshell being?

Caddy: That for more than six years a leading Republican Senator, Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, failed to disclose on his financial statements filed with the Senate Ethics Committee that he is a key owner of the company that manufactures many of the electronic voting machines used throughout the country.

The Hill newspaper, published on Capitol Hill, carried a February 2, 2003 article titled, "Hagel's ethics filing pose disclosure issue." The article states, "On May 23, 1997 [over five years ago], Victor Baird, who resigned Monday as director of the Senate Ethics Committee, sent a letter to Sen. Charles Hagel requesting 'additional, clarifying information' for the personal financial disclosure report that all lawmakers are required to file annually."

The article goes on to state, "One underlying issue is whether Hagel properly disclosed his financial ties to Election Systems & Software (ES&S), a company that makes nearly half the voting machines used in the United States, including those used in his native Nebraska.

"ES&S is a subsidiary of McCarthy Group Inc., which is jointly held by the holding firm and the Omaha World-Herald Co., which publishes the state's largest newspaper. The voting machine company makes sophisticated optical scan and touch-screen machines vote-counting devices that many states have begun using in recent years.

An official of Nebraska's Election Administration estimated that ES&S machines tallied 85 percent of the votes cast in Hagel's 2002 and 1996 elections races."

P: What is being done to alert the general public to the overall issue of fraudulent use of electronic voting machines?

Caddy: The newly published book, "BlackBox Voting," by Beverley Harris exposes the scandal. Also the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Martin Luther King III and investigative reporter Greg Palast have created a petition online directed to Attorney General John Ashcroft to "Stop the Florida-tion of the 2004 election."

Congressman Rush Holt has introduced a bill in Congress that would go far to assuring the voter than his vote will be counted as he cast it. However, with the Republicans controlling both houses of Congress, I fear that this legislation stands little chance of being enacted.

P: Thank you, Mr. Caddy, you have give us much food for thought.

Here is the background on my writing both The Hundred Million Dollar Payoff and subsequently
How They Rig Our Elections.

Both books were my own idea. No one suggested their topics to me.

They were both written by me in the years immediately following the breaking of the Watergate case in June 1972.

The Hundred Million Dollar Payoff, published in 1974, is 99 percent comprised of the systematic compilation of internal union documents that revealed how organized labor used its members’ dues money to engage in partisan political activity. These documents were obtained through legal discovery in a landmark federal case, George L Seay, et. at, v. Grand Lodge International Association of Machinists, et al.

As I wrote in the book’s Introduction, “One of the most significant revelations of the multifaceted Watergate scandal has been the number of corporations (perhaps as many as twenty) that contributed corporate funds to the reelection campaign for President Nixon....These contributions from corporate treasuries to the Nixon campaign are indefensible. Violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act should be prosecuted no matter who is involved – corporations, national banks, or labor organizations, all of which are covered by the act...One object of this book is to trace the sources of organized labor’s financial support of political activity.”

Because I was aware of the thousands of union documents that had been revealed in the Seay case, I conceived of the idea of writing a book that would, hopefully, bring some balance to the partisan political atmosphere that pervaded in the wake of Watergate.

I received a $15,000 grant from the Robert M Schuchman Memorial Foundation to write the book. Schuchman, while a student at Yale University Law School, was the first National Chairman of Young American for Freedom. He died at an early age while studying under Professor Milton Friedman at the University of Chicago.

As to how Gerald Ford came about to endorse the book:

(1) When Ford was serving as Vice President under Nixon, he sent me an unsolicited personal letter on his VP letterhead in 1974 complimenting me on "The Hundred Million Dollar Payoff."

(2) On the day he became President, after Nixon resigned, the Washington Star interviewed Ford. He said in reply to a question as to what book he was currently reading, that he every night before he went to bed he spent 15 minutes reading from my book, The Hundred Million Dollar Payoff, which he described as “a very serious study on the tremendous amount of political clout organized labor has.”

(3) I was invited to be the principal speaker on my book and on the political role of organized labor at an officially sanctioned luncheon sponsored by the 1976 Republican Convention in Kansas City. Before I was invited, someone in the White House telephoned me for material to support my statement that President Ford, who was to be nominated at the Convention, had praised my book. I sent that person in the White House the letter I had received from VP Ford and the Washington Star article. Once those were received, my invitation to speak was confirmed and officially announced.

The University of Oregon Library Archives in Eugene, Oregon contain my personal and professional papers, which include a ticket to the luncheon bearing the sponsorship by the Republican National Convention as well as the original letter from VP Ford to me and a copy of his interview that appeared in the Washington Star.

Elsewhere in the Forum I have described the moment when the Right Went Wrong. This occurred at a 1974 meeting of the Schuchman Foundation’s Board of Directors when Joseph Coors, President of Coors Beer, told the directors that they must follow his orders and those of his lackeys, Ed Fuelner and Paul Weyrich, or face retaliation. The Board refused to buckle to Coors’ demands. Subsequently Fuelner founded the Heritage Foundation and Weyrich founded the Committee for a Free Congress – both funded by Coors. These two organizations brought about the emergence of the Radical Right, which has been a calamity of the entire world and the driving force to curtail individual liberty and impose a police state. Only a few weeks ago President George W. Bush delivered a major address at the Heritage Foundation.

Recall that both Edwin A. Walker and Otto F. Otepka retained Dr. Robert J. Morris, from the Dallas John
Birch Society and YAF, as their lawyers during a time of national crisis as well. Walker, after the Ole
Miss Riots and Otepka after being fired by Dean Rusk, Dean Acheson and John F. Kennedy for leaking
classified documents, to SISS, I believe it was, related to the confirmation hearings for Walt Whitman Rostow.
Otepka, for all intents and purposes, along with Ms. Florence(?) Knight of the passport office, known as
the "Dragon Lady" would have had to rule on each and every one of Lee Harvey Oswald's passport
applications and on his readmission into the USA after declaring himself to be a defector. Otepka
even admitted that he had the Oswald portfolio on his desk even before he reapplied for admission
to the USA. Any comments here?

And in early 1964, William F. Buckley, Jr. presented the YAF Man of the Year award to Robert J. Morris.
I wonder if Doug could share with us exactly WHY Robert J. Morris was chosen for this award. I can see
NOTHING that Morris did, absent his obvious role in the JFK conundrum and assassination, which would have
warranted such a prestigious award from Mr. Buckley.

Also, the Senior William F. Buckley, shortly after World War I became the first person to utilize private funding
to intervene in the Foreign Affairs of a sovereign nation, Mexico, using the assistance of relatives of the former
U. S. Treasury Secretary under Reagan and Bush one Nicholas F. Brady, Jr. the college classmate of George W.
Bush at The Yale Skull and Bones Society. Does anyone have any insights to offer in regards to this little factoid?
This was during the Buckley attempts to stave off nationalization of Pantapec Oil by Mexico, which apparently failed
as I recollect.

And lastly, it now appears that Clendenin J. Ryan, Sr. the father of Clendenin J. Ryan, Jr. Caddy's roommate at
Georgetown, who had inherited a fortune of about $100,000,000 from his father just like Charles Edison did from his
father, Thomas Alva Edison, were both involved with the formation and/or funding of Young Americans for
Freedom in the early 1960's. Ryan, Sr. was also the primary financial sponsor of the antics and campaigns of
OSS Colonel Ulius "Pete" Amoss, from Baltimore, who ran the ISI Foundation there.

And finally, it was also Clendenin J. Ryan, Sr. who led the takeover attempts launched against ITT shortly before
it became a dedicated CIA proprietary in South America and Latin America. Any insights into these events?

Is this why Richard Condon, in The Manchurian Candidate, chose to mention most of the persons involved with
this original sojourn into Mexico under General John J. Pershing including George A. Draper, Wick Draper's uncle,
James Hugh Angleton, Jim Angleton's father who gave birth to Jim in Mexico to a Mexican mother, William F.
Buckley, Jr. mentioned as "...that fascinating young man who wrote about man and God at Yale." and Charles
A. Willoughby himself who is almost everyone's favorite candidate along with Robert J. Morris as 2 of the Gang
of Five involved with plotting JFK's demise?

In answer to the question posed in your second paragraph above, I am at loss to offer an explanation as to the circumstances that led to YAF presenting an award to Robert Morris in 1974. At that time I was attending New York University Law School and working in the New York City office of Governor Nelson Rockefeller, for Lt.-Gov. Malcolm Wilson. Between hitting the law books and working I had no time for YAF in those days.

Actually it was in 1964 as posted above and not 1974. Were you involved with YAF in 1964 at all and were you ever invited to these YAF Man of the Year presentations? Could you speculate for us at least based on what you know about Dr. Robert J. Morris and his roles in The John Birch Society, his YAF work with Larrie Schmidt and his part in the Wanted For Treason Poster? Did you ever meet this man in person? What do you know about him? Can you ask Bill Buckley any of these questions as well?

Doug, I hope my follow-up questions seem reasonable. You acknowledged that you received a grant from the Schuchman Foundation. My questions are...did you have to apply for this? Or did they find out about your work, and offer it to you? And how did you find out about the Seay documents in the first place? You also said you were working out of Rockefeller's office in 74, just before he became Veep. You were the first man called by the Watergate burglars. You received a grant from a right-wing foundation. You received public praise from Ford. It seems that you were very much an insider. I'm not trying to make that sound like a bad thing. What I've been trying to find out is if this level of connection is common in Washington. Should we assume most books to come out by Washington insiders are funded by foundations? When we see someone plugging an inside scoop book on The Daily Show or The Colbert Report, should we assume this book is something he really cares about, or that it's something he was encouraged to write to bring some balance to the partisan political atmosphere.

I apologize for misstating the year. In 1964 I was in law school. 1974 was post-Watergate. I was not active in YAF in 1964 for the reasons stated in my prior reply. I never met Robert Morris and am not in possession of any information that would answer the questions you pose. Bill Buckley is still suffering from the trauma of the recent death of his wife, Pat, and this coupled with his extremely poor health seem to present a circumstance whereby it would not be appropriate to bother him with any questions.