John wrote:

Ulasewicz was also Tim Gratz contact.


What do you mean by this?

As you know full well, John, when I complained to CREEP about the activities of Donald Segretti, CREEP sent Ulasewicz to Wisconsin to try to record Segretti's next call to me (he was using the alias "Simmons").

According to Ulasewicz's memoirs, which I believe you now have, it was while Ulasewicz was in Wisconsin investigating my complaint (and probably as a result thereof) CREEP found out that Segretti was being run out of the White House by an aide to H. R. Haldeman, and Ulasewicz was ordered to get out of Wisconsin.

I did a little Internet research.  The man I know, who was prominent in the administration of GOP Governor Lee Dreyfus, was Willie Nunnery.

No idea if he was (is) related to Earl Nunnery.

Thanks, Bob!

I cannot remember where Mr. Nunnery was from or his background.  I believe both he and his wife were in the cabinet of Lee Dreyfus, a very moderate to liberal GOP governor who had been the chancellor of UW-Stevens Point.

Possible further research would show if Willie was related to Earl.  If Earl was black, it is highly likely they were related (and the converse, of course).

Dawn wrote:

Tim: Ya got a LOT of "splanin" to do it would seem.

About what, for heaven's sake?

Remember, I was trying to STOP Segretti and his dirty tricks.

So TIM GRATZ is an unindicted co-conspirator from the Watergate Era !

This would explain his attack on Mark Felt, his sympathy with COLSON,
and his ability to accept the theories of ANGLETON and HELMS.

Why does he try to take over every legitimate thread?

What is his motivation to say "Castro did it"?

Why does he cry crocodile tears over C.D. DILLON being suspect in 1963?


Some say TIM GRATZ has no job, but I say he is WORKING ..........

END OF STORY !

YOU ARE OUT OF THE GAME !

           

John, why do you not post the entire memorandum I wrote so I can see that you are not taking anything out of context?

So you admit that you wrote a memorandum?  One notes the absence of qualifiers such as "I may have written" or "that was attributed to me."  You would like to see it here in its entirety, only to ensure it is taken in proper context?  Fair and reasonable enough.

Re dirty tricks, without looking at the memorandum, I do not recall ever writing a memorandum.  I had told you that before, in a private e-mail.  This is not to say I had not written a memorandum to anyone about Segretti's approach to me, and if I saw the entire memorandum I might be able to determine from the verbiage whether I actually wrote it.

But counsellor, in your very first sentence you admitted having written a memo, and wish only that it be reproduced here in its entirety to ensure proper context.  I know that certain memories may fade with time, but just how many memos must one write on just how many political scandals, before one fails to recall their own footnote to political sleaze culture history?  Geez, Tim; you're the good guy in this tale... can't you remember what you did to earn that qualification? 

Or perhaps you are suggesting that the hierarchy of your own Republican party would forge a memo and falsely attribute it to you?  If so, why do you remain a member of so corrupt and despicable a party? 

(For the benefit of other Forum members, John is refering to a memorandum that is an appendix in Unlasewicz's book.)

I was concerned about much of what Segretti was proposing, which, of course, was why I reported him.  As I said before (and is the truth) I was concerned that Segretti (who I knew as "Simmons") was being funded by a well-meaning but ill-informed rich Republican (perhaps W. Clement Stone) or by a Democrat or by the Democratic Party as an agent provocateur. 

Your mind works in interesting ways.  You can actually envision a scenario in which the Democrats would recruit a young Republican to spy on the Democrats' own campaign for the Democrats?  Couldn't Democrats simply spy on their own campaign?  It seems much simpler.  I don't know which is odder: that you believed that then, or that you think we will now.  Your elaborately byzantine Castro-did-it nonsense pales by comparison.

I wanted to report Segretti's activities to the highest level of the Committee to Re-Elect the President which is why I contacted Karl Rove (who was then the Chairman of the College Republican National Committee).  I asked him to contact a high official in CREEP for me.

Reporting the mysterious "Simmons" to Rove only alerted Rove that his former mentor Segretti was running a non-secure operation.  Rove may assert that he didn't know "Simmons" was Segretti, but that's an obvious falsehood.  Among the things that got Segretti disbarred and sent to jail was the 1972 poaching and improper use of a rival candidate's letterhead.  Two years earlier, Karl Rove did the same thing while under Segretti's tutilege.  Rove would have recognized Segretti's modus operandi, even if Rove didn't know Segretti was using the nom de guerre "Simmons," which is itself highly questionable.  Irrespective of your claimed aims, your actions did not cause Segretti's operation to be shut down; only to be made more secure, which I suspect was your real intent.  If anything, Ulasewicz was dispatched to learn how much you knew and exercise damage control in the event that you really were a square john who'd stop at nothing to get to the truth of the matter.  No worries there, apparently.

I cannot remember all of the things that Segretti suggested doing.  Some were clearly objectionable, which is why I reported him of course.  Some I thought were probably not only objectionable but also illegal (e.g. printing bogus tickets to Democratic fund-raising dinners). 

So, you thought some of these suggested acts were "illegal," but didn't report them or "Simmons" to the police; instead you sought to protect the Republican party from its own excesses, which is precisely what informing Rove accomplished.

Whether or not campaign espionage, that does not involve an illegal activity such as wiretapping, is unethical, is, I submit, a close question, in part because both parties do it.  (As you are probably aware, LBJ assigned Howard Hunt to spy on the Goldwater campaign.)

Uh-oh.  Slippery ethical slope ahead... using somebody else's purported excesses to justify one's own real ones.

Also, to the extent Segretti proposed distributing literature truthfully exposing "issues" with the Democratic candidates, I clearly would have approved of that idea, but if it was to be done, thought that CREEP ought to know WHO was doing it.

Perhaps you could point out why you thought at the time that CREEP didn't know "who was doing it."  You may not have known, but what made you suspect they didn't?

Why did I not report Segretti to the police?  Well, he had not at that time suggested any specific ILLEGAL activities. 

Two grafs above this one, you claimed:  "Some I thought were probably not only objectionable but also illegal (e.g. printing bogus tickets to Democratic fund-raising dinners)."  Which is it, counsellor? 

What he was trying to get me to do at the outset was to get a college student to volunteer for the Muskie campaign so the student could spy on the Muskie campaign.  I thought it more appropriate for CREEP to find out who he was and close down his operation.

You just finished saying, again two grafs above this one, that you thought at the time that CREEP didn't know "who was doing it."  Now you seem to admit that CREEP had the power to "close down his operation," indicating that "Simmons" must have in some way been answerable to CREEP, and not the Democrats as per your prior fantastic assertion.  Which is it, counsellor?

And by the way John, as a result of CREEP finding out that Segretti was working for the WH due to my complaints, it is NOT true that Segretti was "shut down" because he was becoming careless.  Segretti continued to perform his dirty tricks right up until the election.

So, Rove and Ulasewicz and Caulfield didn't seem to care what Segretti did; only that he not be caught doing it.  Nice to see that your party's hierarchy took your concerns to heart. 

But I would request that you post the entire memorandum in part so I can evaluate whether I in fact wrote it.  (Since you claim Ulasewicz was involved in "dirty tricks" it might have been "invented", although I cannot say that until I see it.)

So you do suggest that your own party would "invent" a memo and falsely attribute it to you?  And yet you remain an Uber-Republican?  Apparently the 'ratfuckers' and those who ran them weren't the only ones with extraordinarily flexible ethics. 

Re "strange behaviour" on the Forum, what I think is bizarre is to claim that the left-wing "The Nation" magazine is part of a "criminal conspiracy" merely because some of its contributors do not subscribe to Salandria's views on the assassination.  Or to claim that Dillon did it.  You see, I object when false charges are made against far-left magazines as well as when they are made against Republicans.

Whereas the rest of us merely object when false charges of assassination culpability are made against Castro, the KGB, Madame Nhu and others in an apparent bid to misdirect the gullible and under-informed.

Tim says he reported Sengretti but it appears he still hung on to the fifty bucks. How much is he getting for his disinformation efforts here?

John, why do you not post the entire memorandum I wrote so I can see that you are not taking anything out of context?

Tim had asked John Simkin to post the following memo in its entirety, which John has graciously done.  Perhaps by parsing the language in the memo, and comparing it to Tim's more current statements here, we can determine what was really being planned and/or accomplished by the Watergaters.

Confidential Memo of Timothy Gratz regarding Don Simmons (alias for Donald Segretti) to Tony Ulasewicz (18th December, 1972)

It is unclear to me whether the memo was written on December 18, 1972, as is suggested by John's header above. 

Clearly, the events depicted in the memo could not have taken place on the dates suggested - in December of 1972 - for by that date, Nixon had already been re-elected, making the events described wholly anachronistic, given that the primaries being discussed would have taken place far earlier in the same year.  This may well indicate that the memo wasn't written by Tim Gratz after all, as he has intimated may be the case.  Conversely, it might also be that Tim simply misstated the year in his memo, though this notion is far harder to credit. 

Even if the year is incorrect and we assume it was written very late in 1971, which comports with the facts described, the final graf of the memo indicates it must have been prepared on the following day, December 19, or thereafter.  The date it was written may prove important.  If Tim wrote it on the following day or soon thereafter, it seems that somebody - whether Karl Rove or Anthony Ulasewicz - prevailed upon Tim to record the events described in a most timely fashion, while his recall was still fresh. 

What is clear, irrespective of the date, is that Tim reported the "Simmons" episode to Karl Rove - who was senior to Tim in the Young Republican food chain, and the most sensible person to whom Tim would turn - but that rather than alert anyone inside the Republican party, Karl Rove seems to have turned the information over to the White House insider responsible for controlling the "dirty tricks" campaign being run by "Simmons."  If all this happened within only a day or so, it is highly unlikely that Rove would have had the chance to contact some unknown third party who then alerted the White House "dirty tricks" chief, Ulasewicz.  If anything, it suggests that Karl Rove was aware of and very much involved in the machinations of Watergate, the Ratfuckers and Operation Sandwedge.  It is not an inescapable inference, but certainly must be considered possible, or even probable.  

The "Tim Gratz" memo is in blue.



I received a telephone call at my apartment on Saturday morning, December 18th, 1972, from a man who identified himself as Mr Don Simmons. He said he wanted to find a young person in Madison to do work for the reelection of the President, for about ten to fifteen hours per month, and wanted to put this individual on a retainer basis. He said the work involved opposition research, etc.

He said he was from a political consultant firm in New York. He said he received my name from Randy Knox. We set up a meeting in the Park Motor Inn Lounge for that afternoon.

We must question why "Simmons" placed a called to Knox, and why Knox suggested Tim Gratz was the man with whom "Simmons" would wish to speak.  Given the planned agenda of disrupting and sabotaging rival political candidates, surely "Simmons" was seeking operatives with both flexible morality and tight lips.  Unless "Simmons" was just cold-calling anyone and everyone within the Young Republican camp - a surefire invitation to the entire plan being exposed and backfiring against the Republican "dirty tricks" squad - "Simmons" must have had reason to believe that Knox was unethical and could be relied upon to keep his mouth shut, and/or Knox had reason to believe that Tim Gratz could be recommended for the same reasons.  It may prove to Tim's credit that he alerted Karl Rove.     

Simmons said he was interested in running a "negative campaign" in Wisconsin. He explained that the purpose of the campaign was to create as much bitterness and disunity within the Democrat primary as possible. He suggested doing things such as planting questions in student audiences before which the Democrat candidates were working, getting students to picket the Democrat candidates, e.g. a black student to picket Muskie regarding his remark on a black V.P. candidate, etc. He also said he was interested in planting spies in the Democrat candidate's offices. He said that he wanted to concentrate on Muskie, and give second priority to McGovern.

How, exactly, does this square with Tim's current contention that he thought "Simmons" might have been sponsored by Democrats?  In this very thread, he has asserted:  "I was concerned that Segretti (who I knew as "Simmons") was being funded by a well-meaning but ill-informed rich Republican (perhaps W. Clement Stone) or by a Democrat or by the Democratic Party as an agent provocateur."  One cannot dismiss as wholly fantastic the notion that Democrats would recruit a young Republican to damage their own campaign, only to unmask the charade at a later date, for whatever damage it might do to the Republicans.  However, even in the murky world of political intrigue, common sense dictates that it is such a stretch of the imagination as to be highly unlikely.  The more compelling rationale is that it was what it purported to be: a campaign designed to inflict maximum damage against the Democratic candidate for President, be it Muskie or McGovern.

Simmons said he wanted topay someone $100.00 per month, plus expenses, to co-ordinate these projects. He also said he was willing to pay a salary of up to $50.00 per month to a person we could plant in Muskie headquarters.

I asked him if he was working for the CCREP or the RNC. He replied he was working on his own, with his own money. (He implied that he was saying this because he did not want anyone to be able to trace his activities to the Nixon campaign or the Party officially.) I asked him how I could establish his credentials, and he was, frankly, evasive, although I got the impression that he was implying this evasiveness was deliberate.

This is precisely the vague, but reassuring, come-on used by "Maurice Bishop" in recruiting Veciana: "I represent certain interests of considerable authority and influence, but they must remain unnamed.  Draw your own conclusions."

Although the whole incident seemed strange, I tentatively agreed to work on his project (as most of the ideas he suggested seemed like they were worth doing anyway). He gave me $50.00 in advance payment, and said he would call back in early January. He said I should concentrate initially on finding someone to plant in Muskie HQ. He said that we would communicate only by telephone, for security reasons.

One notes the interesting use of language in the graf above: "I tentatively agreed to...."  Upon acceptance of the $50 on offer, I suggest there was nothing "tentative" about the arrangement.  "Simmons" clearly thought he had bought and paid for services yet to be rendered, an impresson Tim deliberately sought to foster. 

One also notes that Tim didn't balk at agreeing to the arrangement, and did not storm out of the meeting or threaten to report "Simmons" to the authorities.  That he was never asked to actually deliver on what he had agreed to do was due only to the fact that "Simmons" never called back. 

Why didn't he call Tim back?  Because Ulasewicz [or someone within his White House group], alerted by Karl Rove, tipped off "Simmons" that Tim Gratz had loose lips.  Otherwise, "Simmons" would have continued to assume that Tim Gratz was his man - bought and paid for - and contacted him again to put the plans in motion.  Clearly, someone advised "Simmons" not to pursue contacts with Tim Gratz, or there would have been followup contacts. 

Mr. Simmons registered at the Park Motor Inn on Dec 16, 1972, and checked out on Dec. 19th. He listed his home address as 1400 Olympic Avenue NW, Wash DC. He paid his bill in cash. He made approximately twelve local phone calls, and three long distance calls. One of the long distance calls was to Randy Knox' home in Fort Atkinson; one was to a Madison area (884 exchange) number, and one was to Peoria, Ill., 309-674-2143. (We are checking this number out through contacts in Illinois.)

Precisely how did you ascertain the above details, Tim?  It seems as though you managed to procure a copy of "Simmons"' hotel bill.  Surely the staff of the Park Motor Inn - even in the less sophisticated times of 1972 - would not disclose to anyone confidential information about a guest, his home address, his method of payment, the number of phone calls he placed, the numbers to which those calls were made, etc.  In order to obtain this information, did you use the $50 to bribe a Park Motor Inn employee, or did you misrepresent yourself to such an employee as a police officer?  Who were these "contacts in Illinois" from whom you expected to learn the subscriber to whom the number 309-674-2143 was registered? 

Up until the final graf of the memo, one might reasonably believe your assertion that you were simply a waif who got caught up in something larger and uglier than you had expected to find.  The reportage of the above details, however, suggests that you were more skilled or schooled than you were naive, or that you wished to demonstrate to the memo's intended audience that you might offer some utility to them in their future plans.  Either way, it seems that your final graf in the memo sinks any plausible credibility to the central tenet of your story: that you were an "innocent" who found himself embroiled in something through no fault of his own.

All, of course, based on the assumption that you actually wrote the memo you can no longer recall penning.

Did you?      

Interesting, Robert.

Do you come here to find the truth or to represent a point of view?  Segretti? Rove? Nixon? Are you kidding me?

I knew long ago Mr. Gratz had no interest in what really happened to John Kennedy on November 22, 1963.  To him it's all a game, played from the safety of his home, or library, or wherever he posts from.

"I'll take David Atlee Phillips, for a thousand..."

The headline in Sunday's paper was "Key West Dodges Another Bullet".  Dennis passed about 67 miles west of Key West.

The Bible teaches that not everyone who calls himself or herself a Christian is in fact a Christian.  A true Christian should earnestly desire to keep all of the Commandments of the Lord and in the Scriptures.  And that goes back to the concept of a just war.  Certainly it is sometimes moral, indeed may be a moral imperative, to fight in a war to, for instance, stop the evils of Hitlerism or Communism.  The concept of a just war does not permit murders pursuant to undeclared wars.  A Christian in the CIA would have been shocked at suggestions of politicl murders.

Stan wrote:

I knew long ago Mr. Gratz had no interest in what really happened to John Kennedy on November 22, 1963.

Without getting personal, I have sometimes observed that sloppy articulation can be a sign of a sloppy mind.

You seem keenly aware of this in everyone's posts but your own.

Stan, I respectfully suggest that we ALL know what happened to John Kennedy on November 22, 1963.  The question we address is: Who did it to him?

Not quite true, Tim.  We can all agree he died [barring the chap who wrote the book insisting JFK survived the attack and lived as a recluse.]  But we clearly do not know "what happened" to Kennedy. 

Dr. Gary Aguilar has written a lucidly argued piece on the topic of how FIVE different medical reviews of the evidence have ALL come up empty, in terms of certainty regarding the wounds sustained by the President.  If we cannot even know with certainty where the President was struck, how many bullets did the damage, and the trajectories, how can one assert "that we ALL know what happened to John Kennedy on November 22, 1963?"  It seems that all we can assert is that we have repeatedly been lied to by those in government responsible for telling us the truth. 

What was that you said about sloppy articulation? 

Now let me ask you a question, Stan my man.  How dare you impugn my motives (unless you claim pyschic abilities).

One needn't be psychic counsellor.  One need only read your posts to note the continuing passive-aggressive pattern: make a bold assertion without substantive evidence, then back-pedal when called to account, and switch topics to Madame Nhu or some such. 

You further wrote:

To him it's all a game, played from the safety of his home, or library, or wherever he posts from.

So you consider this a game unless the assassination researcher's life is physically threatened?  So do we assume that you feel physically in peril by participating in this Forum, or is it a game to you as well?

I can sincerely assure you I would not waste my time here if I did not sincerely want to see the killers of JFK brought to justice (whomever they might be), or, if that is not possible, at least their identities established so their names will forever be remembered in ignomy.

"Whomever they might be?"  I've seen no evidence in your posts of such open-mindedness, or that you lack certainty on the topic of who killed Kennedy.  You assert it is Castro, until required to post substantive proof for the assertion.  Then, and only then, will you allow that it might have been KGB or GRU or Madame Nhu.  It just couldn't have been anyone with deep ties to the domestic power base, the people most threatened by JFK's policies and his unwillingness to be manipulated into doing their bidding.  Those people are exempt from consideration on your list of suspects.  Perhaps because they purported to be Christians?

I suggest it is the height of intellectual arrogance on your part to question my sincerity.

Then perhaps you should address that comment to me, Tim.  Stan has only reiterated what I've been saying for months.  I have questioned and do question your sincerity.  So, I assume that if anyone here is "intellectually arrogant," it should rightly be me, no?  Please don't give Stan all the glory! 

It is clear to any impartial reader who has followed your contributions here that you have consistently committed the cardinal sin in deductive logic: you have commenced with a conclusion and then sought to selectively cherry-pick only the minimal data available to bolster that conclusion. 

You have continually given great weight to unsubstantiated and unverified accustions as though they were proven true; you have ignored contrary evidence for which you have no handy rationalization; and you have refused to address same when other posters here force-feed it to you, preferring instead to dwell on some bit of whimsy or feigned collegiality whose intent is to take our eye off the ball.  Some of us find it as galling as it is intellectually bankrupt. 

In the process, you have performed the most outrageously gymnastic logical contortions.  To wit:  "Here's a news report that Castro planned to nuke New York.  Do you think a man who'd kill an entire city would balk at killing a President?"  Had your initial predicate proved true, you might have had a case to argue.  However, since your uncritical acceptance of that predicate renders you blind to its lack of veracity, you have no case.  Not that a lack of evidence has ever hindered your assertions, or caused you the self-consciousness to retract or withdraw such baseless contentions.

By the way, now that we know you are safe from Dennis, and we have dispensed with the backslapping and gladhanding over Dennis, perhaps you'd be kind enough to address the issues directly above in this thread, regarding the memo attributed to you.  When John Simkin raised the topic, you wanted the memo displayed here in full.  It has been.  I have asked certain questions regarding its contents, and what they might mean.  Will you be addressing these issues at some point in the near future?  Or will you, again, gloss over them as though they are questions that were never asked? 



 

Robert, I did indeed write the memo, I am quite sure, but there are some problems, and most of your questions are easily answered.

First, I absolutely did NOT write the memo to Ulasewicz.  I did not even know his name until he came to Wisconsin in early January.  I am not sure if the error re who the memo was addressed to came from the book (or possibly even John's misinterpretaion).  And you are correct about the date.  It was December of 1971 not December of 1972 (obviously).  It is certainly possible I made the error in the original memo (or the book made the error when it typset the memo).

The memo was probably addressed to Karl Rove, or to someone in CREEP (but I was not familiar with their names).

Second, although the memo does not indicate this clearly enough, I WAS concerned about SOME of the things that he suggested, e.g. printing bogus tickets to dinners, which is presumably fraud.  Some of the things that he suggested, as noted in the memo (e.g. finding a black Republican college student to question Muskie about some remark he made that apparently was offensive to blacks) are just good political work that do not even raise ethical questions.  But I was concerned that some of the bad ideas he was suggesting would get the Republicans in trouble, perhaps serious trouble.

I had decided to report him before our meeting was over.  He insisted on giving me the $50 which I took so I could string him along.  I ultimately tried to return it to Ulasewicz but he did not want it so I put it into expenses of campaigning for Nixon.

You ask how I got the details about Segretti's address, the phone calls he made, etc.  Did I bribe the hotel?  No, the answer is much simpler than that, my friend.  Five years earlier when I was a junior in high school I obtained a job working at the Park Motor Inn in Madison.  I was a parking attendant.  It was a GREAT job for a number or reasons.  I loved cars and I got the chance to park many expensive and exotic cars.  It paid very well--most days I earned (in today's dollars) $250 in  tips.  It put me through college.  And the hotel was right accross from the Wisconsin State Capitol so I met a lot of politicos from both parties. At the time the Governor was Patrick J. Lucey, who in 1960 was the Democrat State Chairman in Wisconsin and did much to help JFK win the 1960 Wis Primary.  (I helped Governor Lucey into the governor's limousine (which I had previously parked) on numerous occasions).  (It was a top-of-the-line Rambler Ambassador.)  I also met Tommy Thompson who later became Wisconsin Governor and a Cabinet Secretary under Bush II.

But I digress.  The simple answer is that because I was employed at the Park Motor Inn I was able to rather easily get a copy of Simmons' bill.

You mentioned being hired five years prior to the Segretti incident.  Just to be clear: where you still employed by the Park Motor Inn when you had your meeting with "Simmons?"  And, whether or not you were still in its employ, do you think the Park Motor Inn management would have taken kindly to your poaching a guest's bill?

Re the timing of the memo. I do not recall if anyone suggested it to me, I think I give myself credit enough that I decided to do the memo myself so I could record the details while they were fresh in my mind; plus recording the details from Simmons' bill so I could report those to anyone who wanted to track Simmons down.

No offense, but the latter comment seems rather dubious.  You had a copy of the hotel bill, so it would seem reasonable you had no need to itemize its contents to keep your memory fresh.  On the contrary, it seems that the memo was written for consumption by someone else.

Back to the hotel.  Although my encounter with Segretti is not recorded in the movie "All the President's Men", it does flash, very briefly, a copy of Segretti's bill at the Park Motor Inn (the very one I used to get his address and phone records).

Now let's go into the ethics of Knox and me.  Segretti was indeed cold-calling.  He got Knox's name because Knox had been the chairman of the University of Wisconsin Young Republican Club a year or two earlier.  Randy Knox and I were from opposite ends of the Young Republican political factions (he was a liberal Republican) but a man I nevertheless respected.  (In fact, he married the best friend of a lady that I was dating.)  Knox was in law school at the time nad told Segretti he was too busy and suggested he contact me.  I do not believe Segretti proposed anything objectionable to Knox or Knox would have reported him.

You are certainly entitled to that opinion, since you knew Knox and clearly respected him.  However, do you not think it unwise for a man like Segretti to simply cold-call from a list of Young Republicans given what was on his agenda, and what kind of a person he was seeking?  You would have no way of knowing this, necessarily, but doesn't it make much more sense to you that Segretti had been pointed in the direction of those whom somebody within the Republican hierarchy thought both corrupt and efficient enough to be effective in the realization of the "dirty tricks" campaign?

You wrote:

It may prove to Tim's credit that he alerted Karl Rove.  I appreciate that, Robert, and that is the way the Senate Watergate Committee Report saw it.  (The Report has language to the effect that I was about the only one that Segretti attempted to recruit that had the sense to turn him in.)  As you remarked, I called Rove because Rove was my superior in the College Republicans.  What I wanted Rove to do was to get my report to someone in the highest echelon of CREEP.

About a week or two went by and I got a call from someone in CREEP (it might have been Bart Porter) that they did not know who Simmons was and I should decide for myself whether or not to work with him.  To me, that call did not make any sense at all.  I thought CREEP OUGHT to know who was organizing this campaign on its behalf but apparently without its sponsorship (or so I was told).

You are correct.  It doesn't make any sense.  Unless, of course, CREEP and the WH knew who "Simmons" was, and were content to let him continue.  The Bart Porter call was designed, I would suggest, to defuse your concern and give the Republicans plausible deniability in the event of subsequent blowback.  i.e. "We told Mr. Gratz that we didn't know who "Simmons" was, and that any decision to pursue the "Simmons" agenda would be Mr. Gratz's judgement call."  By so doing, they could gauge the level of your concern, and place the onus of responsibility on you, had you chosen to collaborate with "Simmons." 

It is POSSIBLE that at the time CREEP knew who Segretti was, and was trying to tell me, subtly, that it wanted me to help him.  But again, that reply made no sense to me and if recollection serves me I recontacted Rove and expressed those sentiments to him.

You are correct again.  However, what you think only possible I would consider highly likely.  Clearly, somebody within the upper management of the Republican party must have been not just witting of, but in control of, the Segretti agenda, in order to ensure the necessary compartmentalization, and that no wires be crossed.  This is, again, why I suspect that Segretti wasn't simply cold-calling, but had been provided a list of potentially useful names by someone higher up in the Republican food chain.  Otherwise, it is as though nobody was running the show, which is impossible to credit.

A short time later I got another call from CREEP.  This call was totally different in tune.  This caller said they had picked up on someone using the same approach in New Hampshire and now they desperately wanted to find out who it was.  They wanted me to set up a luncheon meeting with Simmons in DC so they could photograph him.  I told them this suggestion would make Simmons suspicious.  They asked if Segretti was going to call me.  I said yes.  The caller then said (in that call or a subsequent call) that they would send someone to Madison to try to tape-record the call.  That is when Ulasewicz and his associate showed up.  But Segretti never called.

Because by then, somebody within the Republican party had blown the whistle on you as non-secure.

You had posted:

Why didn't he call Tim back?  Because Ulasewicz [or someone within his White House group], alerted by Karl Rove, tipped off "Simmons" that Tim Gratz had loose lips.  Otherwise, "Simmons" would have continued to assume that Tim Gratz was his man - bought and paid for - and contacted him again to put the plans in motion.  Clearly, someone advised "Simmons" not to pursue contacts with Tim Gratz, or there would have been followup contacts

A bit out of order but from December 18(?) on Segretti (calling himself "Simmons") repeatedly called me to see if I had found a college student to spy on the Muskie campaign.  I kept stringing Segretti along (so he would not quit calling back) while I pursued the contacts in DC.  For instance, I told Segretti that all of my College Republicans had gone gome for the Christmas break).  Clearly, at some point, before Ulasewicz came to Wisconsin, Segretti had found out that I was reporting him.

Thank you.  My point, precisely.  It is only unfortunate that you didn't continue to take notes of developing events, so that we could know with certainty whether you got called by Bart Porter or somebody else, or the number of calls placed, who made them, and the order in which they were made.  All of this would have been most helpful, whether to the Republicans you were trying to warn, or to those later responsible for determining the depth and breadth of the corruption committed by your party.

It is my understanding that Segretti's operation was being run out of the WH by Dwight Chapin, an aide to Haldeman, and that at the time I first contacted CREEP through Rove most of the high officers at CREEP were unaware of the Segretti operation.  (I only qualify this because it is possible SOMEONE at CREEP was aware of Segretti).  Apparently it was because of my protests that CREEP first found out that the WH was running the Segretti operation.

I think it is possible Ulasewicz came to Wisconsin solely to convince me that Segretti was NOT a CREEP operative.  Ulasewicz gave me his business card (boy, do I wish I had saved it!) and told me I should call him if I ever heard from Simmons again.

Since Ulasewicz was running Segretti, it is clear that, whatever the motives for his trip to see you, tracking down his own operative wasn't among them.

Re Karl Rove ("boy genius") Rove NEVER encouraged me or the Wisconsin College Republicans to engage in any dirty tricks.  In fact, Rove organized a project he called Project Open Door which was designed to demonstrate the "open door" of the Republican Party to young people of all political persuasions (and he made me a vice-chairman of it).  I have no reason to suspect Rove had ever met Segretti when I reported Segretti to Rove.  I do not want to suggest that Rove has never in his career engaged in Machiavellian politics but I don't think he would have ever countenanced anything as stupid as Segretti.

Since Rove learned his chops at Segretti's knee, and has admitted committing at least one Segretti-style crime while being mentored by Segretti, I think it's safe to say that Rove could be as underhanded as he felt the occasion required.  If he learned anything about the Segretti situation, it was the importance of maintaining a plausible arms-length relationship with those who commit crimes or distort the truth on behalf of one's own candidate.  Swift Boat Veterans For Truth ring any bells, Tim? 

The whole Nixon White House operation with the Plumbers etc seems as stupid as some of the tricks the CIA (Landsdale and Fitzgerald in particular) plotted against Castro.

I am convinced if Rove had been running Nixon's White House there would have been no Watergate.  Rove is too smart for such operations, in my opinion.  Nixon's problem was he had surrounded himself with persons of presumed high intelligence but no common sense.

I may have previously posted this but in the College Republicans Rove was known as such a "good guy" "moderate" that the hard right faction that controlled the Young Republicans only acquiesed in the election of Rove as College Republican Chairman if Rove agreed to hire as Executive Director a person who was considered to be more of a hard-liner than Rove:  Lee Atwater.  It was through the Young Republicans that both Rove and Atwater met Bush I (and Rove met Bush II through Bush I).


NOW BACK TO JFK:

The reason I do not believe in a large conspiracy is that had the conspirators approached someone like me the whole operation would have beem doomed.  I can assure you that if Segretti had suggested physical violence against a Democratic candidate I would have gone immediately to the FBI. 

Which is why I suggest that Segretti was provided with a list of likely candidates, persons adjudged by somebody within the Republican party as being both sufficiently corrupt and could be depended upon to remain silent.  If Knox' name or your name were on such a list, you clearly didn't have the characteristics they were looking for, to your eternal credit.

How would the JFK conspirators been able to avoid approaching at least ONE PERSON with sufficient morality to object to a MURDER?

Given that persons who were approached in such a way were no doubt either intimidated into silence by threats against them or their family - or even summarily executed in the event that they balked after too much had been disclosed to them - we would have no way to testing your theory, would we?

And Tim, I've also forgotten the CIA operative who opposed the assassination attempts.  and lost his job as a result  You can find his name, however, in Trento's Secret History.  Look up Tracy Barnes and read about a meeting where Barnes proposes a cover company, and someone at the meeting mocks him.  I think his name was Robert ----?

Robert, I was under the impression Segretti was a recent hire by Chapin, an old pal from college.  Several times you've mentioned that Segretti and Rove had an ongoing relationship that preceded Tim's involvement.  I'm curious where you got this.  I don't particularly doubt it, but am just trying to educate myself should I decide to repeat this information.

Happy to oblige, Pat.  Karl Rove's CV is all over the 'net, needless to say, and some sites take greater liberties with the details than others.  I always try to exercise great caution regarding such sources.

However, there are citations to Rove's apprenticeship with Segretti in various accounts published by mainstream media such as the NY Times, Pittsburg Gazette, etc.  For example, here's a quote from an article that ran in the UK's Guardian just over a month ago, and on Salon.com as well if memory serves, penned by our own forum member Sidney Blumenthal:

"The other architect, Karl Rove, Bush's senior political aide, began his career as an agent of Nixon's dirty trickster Donald Segretti - "ratfuckers" as Segretti called his boys. At the height of the Watergate scandal, Rove operated through a phony front group to denounce the lynch-mob atmosphere created in this city by the Washington Post and other parts of the Nixon-hating media".

Here's a citation from Wikipedia, using information gathered in part from The Nation:

In 1970, at the age of nineteen and while a protege of Donald Segretti (later convicted as a Watergate conspirator), Rove sneaked into the campaign office of Illinois Democrat Alan Dixon and stole some letterhead, which he used to print fake campaign rally fliers promising "free beer, free food, girls and a good time for nothing," and distributed them at rock concerts and homeless shelters. Admitting to the incident much later, Rove said, "I was nineteen and I got involved in a political prank."

This, from American Prospect, by ex-Clinton CabSec Robert Reich:

The Rove Machine Rolls On

By Robert B. Reich
Issue Date: 2.1.03

It's no accident that Karl Rove was one of Richard Nixon's moles. Using techniques developed by his first mentor, dirty-tricks strategist Donald Segretti, Rove infiltrated Democratic organizations on behalf of Nixon's infamous 1972 campaign. Rove's formidable talents came to the attention of George Bush Senior, then incoming Republican National Committee chairman, and the rest is history. Seven presidential campaigns later, Rove masterminded a deluge of disinformation against John McCain, whose upset victory in New Hampshire had given him a shot at the Republican nomination. Word was spread among South Carolina voters that McCain had fathered a black daughter out of wedlock (McCain had, in fact, adopted a Bangladeshi girl), that McCain was a homosexual, that McCain's wife had a drug problem and so on.

Those are the most flattering and complimentary characterizations I could find, since this is a prime time show.  Others spew more purple prose.

Counterpunch's investigative reporter Wayne Madsen outlines the same background and calls Rove "our Joe Goebbels."  Elsewhere he's been called a scumbag, a troll, etc.

I'm uncertain, but I think he's still under criminal investigation for a variety of past sins, and can now add the Valerie Plame notoriety to his list of accomplishments. 

Here's a quote from David Corn, which will strike one as ironic, once taken in conjunction with something that appeared on the Washington Post website less than an hour ago:

DAVID CORN:  June 23, 2005

Rove spoke at Washington College in Maryland in April and urged respect in political discourse. He said, "Commentators should answer arguments instead of impugning the motives of those with whom they disagree." But in an interview on Hardball on Tuesday, Rove said the Senate Democrats opposing the John Bolton nomination are "putting their commitment to politics above their commitment to doing what's right for the country."

WASHINGTON POST - TODAY: 

White House Won't Comment on Rove, Leak

By PETE YOST
The Associated Press
Monday, July 11, 2005; 5:22 PM

WASHINGTON -- For the better part of two years, the word coming out of the Bush White House was that presidential adviser Karl Rove had nothing to do with the leak of a female CIA officer's identity and that whoever did would be fired.

But Bush spokesman Scott McClellan wouldn't repeat those claims Monday in the face of Rove's own lawyer, Robert Luskin, acknowledging the political operative spoke to Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, one of the reporters who disclosed Valerie Plame's name.

McLellan repeatedly said he couldn't comment because the matter is under investigation. When it was pointed out he had commented previously even though the investigation was ongoing, he responded: "I've really said all I'm going to say on it."

Democrats jumped on the issue, calling for the administration to fire Rove, or at least to yank his security clearance. One Democrat pushed for Republicans to hold a congressional hearing in which Rove would testify.

"The White House promised if anyone was involved in the Valerie Plame affair, they would no longer be in this administration," said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. "I trust they will follow through on this pledge. If these allegations are true, this rises above politics and is about our national security."

The investigation into the 2003 leak had largely faded into the background until last week, when New York Times reporter Judith Miller went to jail rather than reveal who in the administration talked to her about Plame.

Cooper also had planned to go to jail rather than reveal his source but at the last minute agreed to cooperate with investigators when a source, Rove, gave him permission to do so. Cooper's employer, Time Inc., also turned over Cooper's e-mail and notes.

One of the e-mails was a note from Cooper to his boss in which he said he had spoken to Rove, who described the wife of former U.S. Ambassador and Bush administration critic Joe Wilson as someone who "apparently works" at the CIA, Newsweek magazine reported.

Within days of the July 11, 2003, e-mail, Cooper's byline was on a Time article identifying Wilson's wife by name _ Valerie Plame. Her identity was first disclosed by columnist Robert Novak.

The e-mail did not say Rove had disclosed the name. but it made clear that Rove had discussed the issue.

That ran counter to what McClellan has been saying. For example, in September and October 2003, McClellan's comments about Rove included the following: "The president knows that Karl Rove wasn't involved," "It was a ridiculous suggestion," and, "It's not true."

Reporters seized on the subject Monday, pressing McClellan to either repeat the denials or explain why he can't now.

"I have said for quite some time that this is an ongoing investigation and we're not going to get into discussing it," McClellan replied.

Asked whether Rove committed a crime, McClellan said, "This is a question relating to an ongoing investigation."

Rove declined to comment Monday and referred questions to his attorney. Last year, he said, "I didn't know her name and didn't leak her name."

The Rove disclosure was an embarrassment for a White House that prides itself on not leaking to reporters and has insisted that Rove was not involved in exposing Plame's identity.

The disclosure also left in doubt whether Bush would carry out his promise to fire anyone found to have leaked the CIA operative's identity. Rove is one of the president's closest confidants _ the man Bush has described as the architect of his re-election, and currently deputy White House chief of staff.

Rove's conversation with Cooper took place five days after Plame's husband suggested in a New York Times op-ed piece that the Bush administration had manipulated intelligence on weapons of mass destruction to justify the invasion of Iraq. Wilson has since suggested his wife's name was leaked as retaliation.

The e-mail that Cooper wrote to his bureau chief said Wilson's wife authorized a trip by Wilson to Africa. The purpose was to check out reports that Iraq had tried to obtain yellowcake uranium for use in nuclear weapons. Wilson's subsequent public criticism of the administration was based on his findings during the trip that cast serious doubt on the allegation that Iraq had tried to obtain the material.

Luskin, Rove's lawyer, said his client did not disclose Plame's name. Luskin declined to say how Rove found out that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA and refused to say how Rove came across the information that it was Wilson's wife who authorized his trip to Africa.

Rove's lawyer says his client has done nothing wrong.

"In the conversation, Karl is warning Cooper not to get too far out in front of the story," Luskin said. "There were false allegations out there that Vice President Cheney sent Wilson to Niger and that Wilson had reported back to Cheney about his trip to Niger. Neither was true."

"A fair-minded reading of Cooper's e-mail is that Rove was trying to discourage Time magazine from circulating false allegations about Cheney, not trying to encourage them by saying anything about Wilson or his wife."

Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., and a private group, Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington, called on Bush to suspend Roves security clearances, shutting him out of classified meetings.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., asked the Republican chairman of the House Government Reform Committee to hold a hearing where Rove would testify.

Rove should resign or the president should fire him, said Tom Matzzie, Washington director of the liberal advocacy group, MoveOn PAC.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., asked Rove to detail any conversations he had about Plame before her name surfaced publicly in Novak's column.


With Rove having lectured others not to put their political commitments ahead of what's best for the country, it will be interesting to see if he put his own political commitments so far above the country's best interests that it led to actual treason and the needless endangerment of many lives.  It is important to remember that by "outing" Valerie Plame, it was not only her own welfare that was jeopardized, but also the dozens of others of her colleagues and coworkers who will fall under suspicion of being CIA as well.  That's a whole lot of damage to cause, just to get even with one man who happened to have the backbone to tell the truth to the country while the so-called President and all the President's men lied through their teeth.

I would remend members that visitors will be visiting this thread to find information on Dennis Salvatore Cassini. It would therefore be better to discuss it on the Anthony Ulasewicz thread.

John:

At the risk of incurring your wrath, I beg for a bit of indulgence here.  There are posts in this thread, that don't appear on the Ulasewicz thread, containing information that may yet prove quite illuminating.  And there's an outside chance we'll get back to the topic of Cassini/Cossini and his significance in the greater scheme of things quite soon.

Tim has pointed out a few things that I find rather unsettling, and I'd just like to resolve each to the extent that it can be done.

First, there is the issue of how Segretti determined which students to contact in seeking recruits for his Ratfuckers program.  I have argued against cold-calling, since it seems destined to implode upon encountering the first moral candidate.  As happened when Tim made his complaints about Segretti to Karl Rove.  The only reason that nothing tangible came of Tim's complaints lies in his contacting the Republican Party, to report its own excesses to it.  Had he reported Segretti's overtures to the Democrats, the police or the press, I assume more would, or at least could, have come of it. 

This is not to imply that Randy Knox or Tim Gratz had reputations for being underhanded.  But I have argued that somebody must have thought they could be useful in order for Segretti to have made his approach.  Tim may have provided us with an answer, with a news tidbit posted on the Watergate forum:

I had met one person from CREEP (who was associated, as I recall, with Nixon's "youth campaign"), a gentleman named Ken Rietz. As I recall, Rietz ended up in some legal trouble over Watergate as well, And for what it is worth I had not cared much for Rietz.

Tim, did you meet Reitz before or after the Segretti overture to you?  Here's why I ask the question.  Reitz was active in another White House plot called Operation Townhouse.  It distributed illegal campaign funds to a variety of Republican candidates running in tight, but potentially win-able races.  George Bush the Elder was among them.  It also actively sought students to infiltrate campus and anti-war groups, to spy on them and influence the group's direction.  In some respects, not unlike Segretti's Ratfuckers, and despite a limited number of references to them in the Nixon White House tapes, Nixon clearly worried that both Segretti and Reitz could put Nixon in a grossly unflattering light.

If you met Reitz first, and then got the Segretti overture, I would venture to guess the former advised the latter to contact you.  Moreover, if Reitz knew that you worked at the Park Motor Inn, it may well explain why Segretti chose to stay in that establishment when he came to visit you.  It provided a most low-key and inconspicuous way in which to contact you.  I must say, without that explanation, it otherwise seems a remarkable coincidence that Segretti would stay in the hotel at which worked the very chap he'd come to town to see.  Don't you think?  Unless he had already called you prior to arriving in town, and you suggested he stay at the Park Motor Inn, because you worked there and you thought it best to meet there for cloak and dagger reasons.  But if that were the case, I assume you would have mentioned that fact.

Did Reitz try to recruit you for something too?  Here's why I ask the question.  Both Reitz and Segretti were hustling about, trying to find Young Republicans to do some unattributable dirty work.  I think the chances of one Young Republican in a traditionally Democratic state being approached by two Republican dirty tricksters for use in two different and illegal Republican machinations are overwhelmingly slim, no matter how high your profile may have been, Tim.  Consequently, again, I venture to guess that the one suggested that the other contact you.  What else could explain it?

You stated in this thread that you thought Segretti's motive [and Reitz's too, it turns out], was to sow disunity within the Democratic party ranks.  Yet you refrained from believing the Republicans themselves might have something to do with it.  Instead, you said you thought it may have been sponsored by "a well-meaning but ill-informed rich Republican (perhaps W. Clement Stone) or by a Democrat or by the Democratic Party as an agent provocateur."  Both points deserve a little closer attention.

W. Clement Stone wasn't just a garden variety multi-millionaire.  He was also a principal contributor to the 1970 George Bush the Elder campaign, which received large sums from Ken Reitz's Operation Townhouse, which in turn received at least $40,000 of its funding from one W. Clement Stone.  Though you didn't mention them in tandem, we now find that you met Ken Reitz, an obscure Republican dirty trickster, and suspected his financier of underwriting Segretti's dirty tricks schemes.  That's remarkably prescient of you, I'd say.

As to your contention that you thought Democrats might be seeking Young Republicans to subvert the Democratic campaign, I believe it borders on the bizarre that you would think it then, or ask us to believe it now.  But then, that's precisely what the Ratfuckers campaign was designed to do: sow disunity and suspicion within the Democratic party.  And it worked.  You claimed you thought the Democrats were responsible for sponsoring Segretti.  So did the Democrats.

To crib something I posted earlier today on the Watergate Forum, here's how Muskie campaign executive Senator George Mitchell recalls events during the '72 primary election in Maine:

"In addition, there was the year of the infamous dirty tricks campaign that the Nixon campaign ran against Senator Muskie, particularly in the primary. And I myself was the direct object of a good deal of that campaign. We encountered what then seemed inexplicable crazy events. Everywhere I went on the road, there would be a bill for $2,000 in the restaurant and bar signed with my name. One day, 15 limousines showed up signed with my name. At four o'clock in the morning 500 pizzas were delivered to the hotel, ordered in my name. Crazy actions to disrupt the scheduling, phony photographs of Senator Muskie, cropped photographs distributed at various events. We couldn't figure out what was happening. We had no idea that it was coming from President Nixon's campaign. We thought it might be other Democrats in the primary. It had a tremendous disruptive effect on the operation of the campaign. And then later events, which got a lot of publicity, involved phony letters to the editor and Senator Muskie's response and so forth, which affected the campaign. .......to read about it later, it was really like a light bulb coming on. All of these crazy things that happened that seemed trivial and insignificant and inexplicable at the time suddenly became clear."

Also, Tim, I noted that you quit your Park Motor Inn job - despite earning upward of $250 a day in tips - to take a short-term gig with the Young Republicans in Rhode Island and New Hampshire, just after your meeting with Tony Ulasewicz.  Again, this is quite the coincidence.  Did Ulasewicz recruit you for this position, either directly or through a proxy?  If so, and the pay was sufficient to warrant you leaving your well-paid job, did it ever strike you that Ulasewicz was paying you to placate or mollify you, and to place you where they could keep tabs on you?  Please don't take umbrage at the questions.  These are far more flattering than others I could ask.

In short, you knew Karl Rove [though you declined to mention him here by name and waited for one of us to catch on], and were approached by his former mentor Donald Segretti.  Around the same time, you met Ken Reitz, who ran a dirty tricks campaign concurrent to Segretti's own dirty tricks Ratfuckers.  After meeting with Tony Ulasewicz, you traded in a well-paid job for a short term position to help out in what was among the dirtiest campaigns waged to that date.  That's quite a cast of notorious characters for a small town lad to encounter in so short a time frame, particularly if all occurred by random chance.