Alfred C. Baldwin is one of the most interesting characters involved in the Watergate story. Yet he is rarely mentioned. I have been doing some research on Baldwin.

He studied law but repeatedly failed the Connecticut bar examination. He then served with the United States Marines before joining the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Tampa.

Baldwin resigned from the FBI and was living in Hartford when he was recruited by James W. McCord in May, 1972, to work for the Committee to Re-elect the President. His first job was to work as a bodyguard for Martha Mitchell, the wife of John Mitchell, who was living in Washington. According to McCord's testimony he selected Baldwin's name from a registry published by the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI. As Jim Hougan (Secret Agenda) pointed out, this was a strange decision because despite hundreds of FBI retirees in the Washington area, McCord selected a man living in Connecticut. Hougan speculates that "Baldwin was somehow special and perhaps well known to McCord".

Baldwin accompanied Martha Mitchell to Chicago. Mitchell did not like Baldwin and described him as the "gauchest character I've ever met". Baldwin was quickly replaced by another security man.

On 11th May, 1972, McCord arranged for Baldwin to stay at Howard Johnson's motel, across the street from the Watergate complex. The room 419 was booked in the name of McCord’s company. The plan was to wiretap the conversations of Larry O'Brien, chairman of the Democratic National Committee. On 28th May, 1972, McCord and his team broke into the DNC's offices and placed bugs in two of the telephones.

It became Baldwin’s job to eavesdrop the phone calls. Over the next 20 days Baldwin listened to over 200 conversations. These were not recorded. Baldwin made notes and typed up summaries. Nor did Baldwin listen to all phone calls coming in. For example, he took his meals outside his room. Any phone calls taking place at this time would have been missed.

It soon became clear that the bug on one of the phones installed by McCord was not working. As a result of the defective bug, McCord decided that they would have to break-in to the Watergate office again. He also heard that a representative of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War had a desk at the DNC. McCord argued that it was worth going in to see what they could discover about the anti-war activists. Liddy later claimed that the real reason for the second break-in was “to find out what O’Brien had of a derogatory nature about us, not for us to get something on him.”

Baldwin was the look out during the second break-in. However, because Barker turned off his walkie talkie Baldwin was unable to warn the burglars of the arrival of the police.

Baldwin told his story to a lawyer called John Cassidento, a strong supporter of the Democratic Party. He did not tell the authorities but did pass this information onto Larry O’Brien. The Democrats now knew that people like E.Howard Hunt and Gordon Liddy were involved in the Watergate break-in.

As Edward Jay Epstein has pointed out: "By checking through the records of phone calls made from this listening post, the FBI easily located Alfred Baldwin, a former FBI agent, who had kept logs of wiretaps for the conspirators and acted as a look-out." On 25th June, Baldwin agreed to cooperate with the government in order to escape going to prison.

It was Baldwin that enabled the police to discover what the Watergate burglars were up to. He also gave them evidence that the first successful break-in took place on 26th May rather than 28th May. Why has this testimony been ignored.

It was Baldwin and not Woodward who exposed the Watergate operation. This took place on 25th June. Mark Felt, who interviewed Baldwin, never passed this information onto Woodward (or if he did, he did not publish it in the Washington Post). This is one of the main reasons why researchers have always refused to believe that Felt was Deep Throat.

Namebase entry for Alfred C. Baldwin:

http://www.namebase.org/main1/Alfred-C-Baldwin.html

Colodny,L. Gettlin,R. Silent Coup. 1992 (142-4)
CounterSpy 1973-F (23)
Fensterwald,B. Coincidence or Conspiracy? 1977 (503)
Havill,A. Deep Truth. 1993 (74)
Hougan,J. Secret Agenda. 1984 (135-7)
Hougan,J. Spooks. 1979 (274)
McCord,J. A Piece of Tape. 1974 (19)
Myerson,M. Watergate: Crime in the Suites. 1973 (107-8)
Reasons,C. The Criminologist. 1974 (217)
Schorr,D. Clearing the Air. 1978 (24-5)
Summers,A. The Arrogance of Power. 2000 (408-10, 416-7)
Tarpley,W.G. Chaitkin,A. George Bush. 1992 (252)
Thomas,E. The Man to See. 1991 (270)
Washington Post Book World 1984-11-25 (5)
Washington Times 1996-09-13 (A8)
Weissman,S. Big Brother and the Holding Company. 1974 (304)
Wise,D. The American Police State. 1978 (158)

Alfred C. Baldwin has joined the Forum. He has complained that inaccurate statements have been made about him on this Forum and on my webpage on him.

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

I have started this thread so that these issues can be addressed.

Welcome, Mr. Baldwin. I guess the first question would be who you felt you were working for. While it seems clear to me that the "burglars" were working for Magruder and Mitchell and that the break-in to the DNC was on behalf of Colson, there's this alternative theory now espoused by Liddy that it was all Dean's doing. Similarly, there are a lot of people who put CIA and CIA together and get CIA, and assume that McCord got caught on purpose to set-up Nixon. I'm skeptical of this one as well. Your views on these issues will be much appreciated.

Seldom do I respond to requests for interviews from authors, radio, or television, and thus over the years many iaccuracies have been forthcoming. I would like to state that I have deep respect for the BBC who covered the story with the most accuracy.

Since you are involved with education, I will proceed with the belief that you are sensitive to facts and the reporting of same.I have been contacted by several close friends who have stated that their are numerous personal and other misrepresentations, half-truths, and distrtations that require my involvement.

With the above said I would like to offer you the following information. I realize that some of the issues I have cannot be corrected, such as what appears in Mr.Hougan's book, Secret Agenda, one of the authors to whom I refused an interview.

I hope that the below can be corrected on the sites that you yourself are invoved with and produce.

1. I was born in 1936 in New Haven, Connecticut (Not 1937 in Hartford), and I was living in the New Haven area not Hartford at the tme of the incident.

2. I graduated from Fairfield Uniersity in 1957 with a BBA then entered the USMC as a 2nd Lt. Prior to that I was an enlisted-man in the USMC Reserve. My final rank in the USMC was Captain.

3. After three years of acticve duty with the USMC I entered law school in 1960 graduating in 1963 with an LLB which then became a JD. I also attended Southern Connecticut State University after Watergate receiving a Masters (MS) Degree in Education for employment in the New Haven and State of Connecticut (College Level) school systems.

NOTE: With respect to the Connecticut Bar Exam, I would like to furnish you with specific details. Your posts reflect that I "repeatedly failed". This statement is false and insome degree libelous. On successful completion of my final year at law school, May, 1963, I was assigned to a new agents class of the FBI to begin early June 1964. This assignment was changed due to the death of my father. I was thus assigned to a July, 1963 class, which I did successfully attend and complete. Also, I had in my last year of law school signed up to take the bar exam given during June, 1963, In view of the family death and my assignment with the FBI, I intended to pass on takng the bar exam. Several friends and close family members convinced me to take the exam since I had successfully completed the application. In Connecticut at that period of time before you were allowed to take the written test, which consisted of two days of written essay questions, one had to appear before a Board of Attorneys and pass an orarl examination and if one passed you then proceede to the written portion. On the first day of the written exam, immediately after lunch,I turned my paper in telling the Proctor I was not going to complete the exam. If this was a failure then one can say that I failed once, however, I was told, and believe it to be true today, that I had "withdarwn" and it was marked as "incomplete". I sould also point out that then and today one is only allowed three attempts at the Bar unless there is an exception granted. My reasons for taking the action I did were personal and if given that same opportunity again I would take the same course of action. I then waited until the mid 1980s, approximately twenty-three years (23) after law school to apply, take, and pass that examination. Thus I did not "repeatedly take" the exam. After passing the Bar examination I left teaching in the high-school and college and took a job as a prosecutor in the Division of Criminal Justice, State of Connecticut with the title of Assistant State Attorney at the time of my retirement.

4. I was assigned to guard Martha Mitchell and I have no idea why she referred to me as "the most gauchest character". I was later told that it was due to the fact that I had attended a cocktail party and had taken my shoes and socks off and had placed my bare feet on a cocktail table in front one of the President's cabnet members, I believe the Secretary of Transportation Volpe. This was totally false and I was willing to take a lie detector test to prove that I had never ever been in the presence of any cabinet member. The FBI was satisfied with my statement on this subject, and if there was any truth to Martha's clam of gauchness I am sure that her husband would not have allowed my continued employment at the Committee To Re-Elect The President where he became the hairman after leave the cabinet post of Attorney-Geeral.

5. My story was never told to John Cassidento initially. The lawyer who hear it first hand was my friend and classmate at law school, Robert Mirto, who latter appeared at the congressional hearings with me. John was an Assistant Federal Prosecutor in New Haven, not Hartford, who subsequently joined Mr. Mirto's law firm actually in West Haven, CT. Mr Mirto is still practicing law in West Haven. Mr Cassidento is deceased.

6. I did not cooperate to escape prision. The question of indictment must first be meet, then a trail if indicted, then prision if convicted. Since my position the and today is that we were operating under the orders, or with the authority of the Attorney-General, what took place was legal. I was cooperating to avoid the grand-jury not prision.

7. One last point, I never meet nor was I ever interviewed by Mark Felt.

I realize that the above is quite lengthy, however the facts must be stated correctly, and I hope that you would have the integrity/professionalism to incorporate the above into your comments and observations on the appropriate sites.

I have corrected the mistakes you have pointed out. I have also added your statement to your web page:

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

I also have a few questions that hopefully you will answer.

(1) What work were you doing between 1966 and 1972?

(2) Did you know James W. McCord before he recruited you in 1972?

(3) Were you an active supporter of Richard Nixon's before 1972?

(4) Did you know any of the following before 1972: Anthony Ulasewicz, Douglas Caddy, Carmine Bellino, Tim Gratz, Jack Caulfield, E. Howard Hunt, Lou Russell, Donald Segretti and G. Gordon Liddy?

(5) Did you do any work for Operation Gemstone or Operation Sandwedge before the Watergate break-in?

(6) Are you aware of the real reason why the Watergate offices were burgled?

(7) It became your job to eavesdrop the phone calls. I believe that over a 20 day period you listened to over 200 phone calls. Could you explain the sort of information that McCord was looking for.

(8) Gordon Liddy later claimed that the real reason for the second break-in was “to find out what O’Brien had of a derogatory nature about us, not for us to get something on him.” Is that your understanding of the situation as well?

(9) On 17th June, 1972, Frank Sturgis, Virgilio Gonzalez, Eugenio Martinez, Bernard L. Barker and James W. McCord returned to O'Brien's office. It was your job to observe the operation from his hotel room. I believe that when you saw the police walking up the stairwell steps you radioed a warning. However, Barker had turned off his walkie-talkie and you were unable to make contact with the burglars. Is that correct?

(10) Is it true that when E.Howard Hunt arrived at your hotel room he made a phone call to Douglas Caddy?

Mr. Baldwin,

I addition to John's list of questions, can I add the following?

Is it true that you used the alias Bill Johnson? If so, was this at the suggestion of James McCord?

James

Mr. Baldwin, thanks for coming here to clear up some of these points. It's important that the story be told as straight as can be, so that people can come to informed decisions. I take from your comments on Hougan that you dispute the Liddy theory that Dean was behind it all. If I'm wrong, please let me know.

One minor point, however. Did a lawyer ever tell you that your actions were legal? As Liddy's operation was approved when Mitchell was still A.G., on the surface it might appear you were in the clear. But as the break-in itself was never approved by Mitchell, and as the break-ins and phone-tapping were conducted after Mitchell left to run CREEP, it could certainly be disputed. I believe you did the right thing by coming forward, even if it was to protect yourself. I'm wondering if Liddy, or anyone else, ever threatened you. Any comments appreciated.

With the hoildays approaching I am pressed for time. However, if it is all right with you I will address each and every question to the best of my ability after the New Year Hoilday season is finished thus probably the first week in Jan., 2006 or sooner if time permits. I truly feel it is important to state facts as accurately as one can. One fact that I have learned, especially in the field of history, is that seldom does man learn from past history and there are those who will do their utmost to desort the truth.

Liddy's thesis is not the thesis of Hougan's book, Secret Agenda. Secret Agenda's thesis is that Watergate was a CIA operation with Hunt and McCord at the helm. It also presents some pretty irrefutable evidence that the standard story of the wiretapping isn't true, which may be why Mr. Baldwin dislikes it so much.

Owen, you're a bright person. You should read McCord's book A Piece of Tape before you get sucked into the "CIA set up poor Dicky" vortex. McCord acknowledges that he resented Nixon's trying to make the CIA take the fall. He knew that Hunt was working on behalf of the White House, and not the CIA. He let the White House try to bribe him...let them hang themselves...before he sprung the trap and told Sirica what was going on. McCord's role in history is incredibly diminished when people ascribe his actions to Helms. He deserves credit for being the whistle-blower that he was. IMO, and evidently Baldwin's, he was nobody's puppet.

Excuse my confusion between Secret Agenda and Silent Coup. Both books take the established facts of Watergate--that Nixon was corrupt and that it eventually caught up with him--and try to pin the blame on someone else, namely Helms and McCord in one book, Dean and Haig in the other (as I remember). The real story of Watergate is incredibly fascinating--a peek behind the curtain--and pretending or convincing ourselves that there is another curtain is silly, IMO. With Deep Throat exposed, the only mystery left as far as I can see is what was meant by the "Bay of Pigs" thing, and why conservatives such as George HW Bush "broke out in assholes and shit themselves" after hearing the tape where Nixon used those words.

From the excerpts Hougan quotes, A Piece of Tape appears to be a somewhat bizarre little book. IMO, Secret Agenda pretty convincingly shows all the falsehoods in the stories of both McCord and Hunt. Hunt's protestations of "retirement" from the CIA are very convincingly debunked. I don't think I'll be capable of taking McCord's writings on his supposed motivation seriously after reading Hougan's carefully documented and argued book. If McCord's role in history is diminished, then it is deservedly so.



Secret Agenda doesn't absolve Nixon from blame at all. Nixon gets full credit for the cover-up (which is all he is credited with in the standard story). Hougan accepts Nixon's guilt as established and refers readers to Lukas' Nightmare for the details of the cover-up. He thinks the Watergate break-ins themselves have been overlooked, and sets about remedying the situation. I had originally thought that looking for "another curtain" was silly, but eventually decided to read Secret Agenda and was very impressed by it. Its a surprisingly cautious and careful book; it doesn't even propose a Deep Throat candidate. I get the impression that you haven't read the book, just the summaries.

If you are permitted, is it your (or other parties currently unknown) agenda to drive Mr. Baldwin off of this Forum. Do your "associates" fear that he might make some untoward remarks as to the realities of the "Watergate Affair"??

James - I did use the name Bill Johnson in order to obtain some information and while working for McCord, however, it was not at his suggestion Actually, Bill J was a cousin of mine in Connecticut who was an Assistant Fire Chief in West Haven, Connecticut, who I felt would not be angered at my use. I hope this answer is satisfactory.

1. Between 1966 and 1972 I worked as the Director of Security for a multi-state trucking firm. I left this position to work for a retired Naval Admiral who was creating a college degree program for law enforcement personnel who desired a college degree in the police administration and law enforcement field. I was hired as his assistant with the task of hiring adjunct professors as well as teaching law related subjects. The college was the University of New Haven located in New Haven. Yes, there are other colleges/universities other than Yale located in New Haven.




2. Prior to 1972 I did not know James McCord, but I was aware of the fact that he was a former Special Agent with the FBI.




3. No





4. No




5. You will have to define operation Gemstone. The files I complied were referred to as Gemstone. No with respect to Operation Sandwedge.




6. I have my own personal opinion based on my conversations with McCord at that time, and I should add this opinion hasn't changed in any way even with all the information and data that has come forth since 1972.




7. Will leave this for a future reply because it might require a lengthy explanation.




8. Gordon can state whatever he wants. I worked for McCord who may not have Liddy's viewpoint.




9. I really cannot make a judgement call on what Mr. Baker did or didn't do because my communications where with McCord. Now if McCord gave his unit to Baker your statement might be relevant.




10. True Hunt on arriving at my room did make a call to someone who I realized was a lawyer due to the nature of the conversation coming from Hunt. No name was ever used so I can not name that person.

Thank you very much for answering these questions. It is great that you are willing to provide information that will enable historians to write more accurate accounts of Watergate in the future.




Gemstone was the operation being run by James McCord/Gordon Liddy. Sandwedge was the operation being run by Jack Caulfield/Anthony Ulasewicz. It seems that Gemstone concerned itself with fairly low level matters. Sandwedge on the other hand, dealt with the more serious issues, such as taking Edward Kennedy and George Wallace out of the 1972 presidential election. My view is that Nixon took the rap on Gemstone in order to avoid the more serious crimes associated with Sandwedge.




I would be very interested to hear what your opinion is on this matter.




I look forward to your reply.

Owen, you need to understand that writers like Hougan have their own Secret Agenda. To sell a theory of what happened and sell lots of books... I have Secret Agenda, but only skimmed through it. I read a lot more of Silent Coup (The Dean's wife is a whore book that Liddy found so attractive). I didn't find either one very credible. Their operating thesis seems to be that Nixon and his cronies were too smart to bug the Watergate, and too smart to get caught. I just don't see them as all that smart...true believers rarely are. In order to get into the muck, IMO, you need to read the memoirs of those involved...In McCord's book he announces that he is planning on writing a series of books exposing corruption in government. His lawyer was Bernard Fensterwald, one of the leaders of the assassination research community. In other words, McCord had thrown in with the research community. I just don't see him doing that if the whole expose-Nixon op was a plan hatched by the CIA. Would the CIA want their money to go to Fensterwald, who was personally lobbying Congress for a new investigation? Would they let Fensterwald use his involvement in Watergate as a platform to expose his views on the assassination? Besides, by the time McCord's book came out Helms was long gone and had been replaced by Nixon's hatchet man Schlesinger--so who was giving McCord his orders? In McCord's book and testimony he makes it clear that he'd heard from Hunt's wife that Nixon was going to try and pin the break-in on the CIA, and that this disgusted and horrified him. He decided to expose the whole thing right there. I totally understand why he would do this and fail to see what the mystery is. Yeah, it's possible he had a talk with Helms somewhere and that strengthened his decision. But that doesn't make his actions a CIA operation, merely a political act by a former member of the CIA. I suppose it's easy for me to relate to McCord because I was in a similar position once. I was a long-time employee of a company where I witnessed mass embezzlement; I stayed at the company a year or so longer than I enjoyed simply because I wanted to help catch the crooks (Despite the involvement of the FBI and the IRS, no one was arrested.) Something about their behavior offended me to my core. I suspect McCord had the same response to Nixon's behavior. Another book you should skim through, written by a long-time government official who was similarly offended by Nixon's behavior (and who took very damaging notes on his meetings with Nixon's lackeys in order to help nail Nixon and protect the CIA), is Vernon Walter's book, Silent Missions.

People like McCord and Baldwin are the reason why mass conspiracies often collapse. There are people out there who have a low tolerance for what they perceive to be unethical behavior and who will find a way to help the truth come out. I suspect Mark Felt is in this same kind of person. It doesn't make these men saints, just more complicated than the Yes Mr. Helms Yes Mr. Hoover robots so many imagine them to be. I was recently at a National Park taking in the view when a Park Ranger came up to me and started telling me about a scam he was aware of involving the National Park Service. He told me that he would write letters to every newspaper in the country if he wasn't a Federal employee. And he told me this WHILE I WAS FILMING. He clearly wants the truth to come out. While it's always possible McCord got caught on purpose, my instinct tells me that if this was the case, it was by his own doing, and not Helms'.

Ironically, in your belief that the CIA was behind the exposure of Watergate, you have something in common with one or two of the conspirators, including Nixon himself. According to Haldeman, Colson convinced Nixon that the CIA, through Hunt, McCord, and (current Senator from Utah) Bob Bennett, had prchestrated his downfall. Haldeman, to his credit, wouldn't take this plunge...

Oh, come on. This is the same garbage that gets thrown at JFK assassination researchers and witnesses. Whenever some one disagrees with you, they are out for money. I think this is a bit *inappropriate* since you haven't ever met or talked with Hougan and have only "skimmed" through his book. You are not in a position to pass judgements on his character. Why don't you try seriously reading and engaging with his book and leave out the character assassination? In addition, I find your attitude a bit condescending, like I wouldn't understand that people can have ulterior motives.



Yes, I know all about Fensterwald and McCord. Hougan's book goes over it (he actually defends Fensterwald from allegations that he was CIA, something McCord perpetuated). I suggest you seriously read Hougan's book before talking about its "credibility" and "operative thesis." In addition, Helms is pretty much a peripheral character in the book. It is the Office of Security that gets most of the credit, if I recall (its been over a month since I finished reading the book and returned it to the library).



Please read Hougan's book before building this strawman. Hougan's book does not hold that the ensuing scandal was a CIA "op." He thinks Nixon's bad press was fully deserved. He does not impute ulterior motives to either Woodward or Bernstein. The CIA was involved only to the extent of dissuading speculation about their own involvement. Bob Bennet did drive Woodward off the path of the CIA, as shown in CIA memos reprinted in full in one of Hougan's appendices. Also, Hougan cites numerous investigations by both the FBI and the phone company (one of which was immediately after the break-in), which demonstrate pretty conclusively that the phones of R. Spencer Oliver and Larry O'Brien were never tapped in the first place.



Secret Agenda depicts McCord acting much more autonomously and in his own self interest than you seem to think it does.

Anyway, I'm going to stop here because I don't have the book with me. I can only really rebut what you think the book is about from memory. Its a better position than your own, but I'm not comfortable with it.

Owen, you've convinced me that Secret Agenda is quite different than I remember. I'll have to dig it out and re-read it... Over the years, and even on this Forum, I've come across those who hold that Nixon was set up by the CIA. I was of the mistaken belief that this theory, which originated with Colson, Thompson, and Nixon, was put into book form by Hougan. Obviously, I was wrong. As far as Hougan's credibility, I didn't mean to sound like I was accusing him of anything beyond what all writers do--present their theory in its best possible light. Quite often this means leaving out important details. If you liked Secret Agenda, might I suggest you check out Hougan's book Spooks, (a book I actually read). Merry Christmas.

P.S. In McCord's book, he gets into the details of the actual bugs, and explains that one of the bugs wasn't found for months afterwards. He cites this as but one example of the terrible work performed by the prosecution. Which brings me to another point (which may or may not have any bearing on Secret Agenda)... in McCord's book he goes on and on about the corruption of the Watergate prosecutors. If the CIA was in any way orchestrating his statements I would think they'd have made him focus on Nixon and would have asked him to avoid a fight with the Justice Department, if possible. But that's just speculation...

I am a great admirer of Secret Agenda. I have read virtually all the books available on Watergate and believe Jim Hougan gets the closest to explaining what really went on. There is still a lot more to be told. Especially concerning Operation Sandwedge.

As Ron points out, McCord clearly sabotaged the Watergate break-in. Who was he really working for? In my opinion, he was still working for the CIA. Deep Throat was a collection of different sources but was largely CIA (Richard Ober/ Robert F. Bennett).

Pat, I agree with most of what you post, but the two areas you have got wrong concerns the way that the CIA use the media (Watergate/Operation Mockingbird). You have also fallen for the Bob Woodward "Mark Felt" story.

The CIA got rid of Richard Nixon, not the Washington Post. If George Bush is eventually impeached, it will be the CIA and not the New York Times that will be behind his removal.

I never did any work for Operation Gemstone or Sandwedge. The only knowledge I have of Gemstone is that was the name assigned to all the "logs" that were being typed with respect to overheard conversations at the DNC.



Regarding the nature of the material being collected from those wire-taps the courts have "sealed" the records and the only thing that I am allowed to say is that the "explicitly intimate" contents may not be publicly divulged.

Read the chapter "The September Bug" for the story McCord won't tell you about this.

Great Thread!
Welcome Alfred Baldwin and thanks for the information
so many of us have read the books here and were curious
about your minor, but pivotal and central, role in the Watergate.........

Mr. Baldwin,

"How sexual were the phone conversations? Were they graphic to the point of
call girl or madam conversations, were you listening to a sexual procurement operation?"


Welcome to the Forum

((((((((((((

Mr. Baldwin wrote:

Regarding the nature of the material being collected from those wire-taps the courts have "sealed" the records and the only thing that I am allowed to say is that the "explicitly intimate" contents may not be publicly divulged.

This statement certainly seems consistent with the premise of "Silent Coup".

Looks like a bilateral pair of espionage and blackmail operations.

One, a capital city sex entrapment program operated by Philip Mackin Bailey apparently,

(really a cut out for Haig, Paisley and Osborn?)

and one run by Hunt, Liddy and McCord.
One was eminently professional and effective,
the MODINE trick book ring with its political "johns"

and one, "the Watergate Burglary"
a bungling farce featuring Hunt, Barker, Sturgis, Gonzalez and Martinez.

An eternal puzzle, that link between May 1972 and November 1963.........

Best

There are still a few questions outstanding (I have added an extra one):

(1) Welcome, Mr. Baldwin. I guess the first question would be who you felt you were working for. While it seems clear to me that the "burglars" were working for Magruder and Mitchell and that the break-in to the DNC was on behalf of Colson, there's this alternative theory now espoused by Liddy that it was all Dean's doing. Similarly, there are a lot of people who put CIA and CIA together and get CIA, and assume that McCord got caught on purpose to set-up Nixon. I'm skeptical of this one as well. Your views on these issues will be much appreciated. (Pat Speer)


(2) Mr. Baldwin, thanks for coming here to clear up some of these points. It's important that the story be told as straight as can be, so that people can come to informed decisions. I take from your comments on Hougan that you dispute the Liddy theory that Dean was behind it all. If I'm wrong, please let me know. One minor point, however. Did a lawyer ever tell you that your actions were legal? As Liddy's operation was approved when Mitchell was still A.G., on the surface it might appear you were in the clear. But as the break-in itself was never approved by Mitchell, and as the break-ins and phone-tapping were conducted after Mitchell left to run CREEP, it could certainly be disputed. I believe you did the right thing by coming forward, even if it was to protect yourself. I'm wondering if Liddy, or anyone else, ever threatened you. Any comments appreciated. (Pat Speer)


(3) Are you aware of the real reason why the Watergate offices were burgled? (John Simkin)

I have my own personal opinion based on my conversations with McCord at that time, and I should add this opinion hasn't changed in any way even with all the information and data that has come forth since 1972. (Alfred Baldwin)

I would be very interested to hear what your opinion is on this matter. (John Simkin)

(4) How sexual were the phone conversations? Were they graphic to the point of call girl or madam conversations, were you listening to a sexual procurement operation?" (Shanet Clark)

"5) On May 7, 1990, in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, Frank Sturgis acknowledged: "the reason why we robbed in Watergate was because (Richard) Nixon was interested in stopping the news leaks related to the photos of our role in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy." Were you aware of any connection between Watergate and the assassination of JFK?" Simkin

"If you are permitted, is it your (or other parties currently unknown) agenda to drive Mr. Baldwin off of this Forum. Do your "associates" fear that he might make some untoward remarks as to the realities of the "Watergate Affair"?? Hemming

Messrs. Baldwin/Hemming,

Could either of you please comment if you saw or heard anythng to corroborate the Sturgis quote, above? Also, If the reason for the "robbing" at Watergate was, as Sturgis states, because of Nixon's concerns regarding fallout from the Dealey Plaza 'tramp' photos, could one of you - Gary in particular - comment on the judiciousness of the use of any operatives from that group and the likelihood of such assignment(s) if indeed some were photographed among the 'tramps'?

Regards,
John Gillespie

[quote name='John Simkin' date='Jan 18 2006, 08:12 AM' post='51642']
There are still a few questions outstanding (I have added an extra one):

(1) Welcome, Mr. Baldwin. I guess the first question would be who you felt you were working for. While it seems clear to me that the "burglars" were working for Magruder and Mitchell and that the break-in to the DNC was on behalf of Colson, there's this alternative theory now espoused by Liddy that it was all Dean's doing. Similarly, there are a lot of people who put CIA and CIA together and get CIA, and assume that McCord got caught on purpose to set-up Nixon. I'm skeptical of this one as well. Your views on these issues will be much appreciated. (Pat Speer)

On 12-23-05 Mr. Baldwin sent me a personal message explaining that, even though he was hired by McCord, he was employed by CRP, and that there had been a court case where he'd sought to prove as much. He says he was pleased with the result.


(2) Mr. Baldwin, thanks for coming here to clear up some of these points. It's important that the story be told as straight as can be, so that people can come to informed decisions. I take from your comments on Hougan that you dispute the Liddy theory that Dean was behind it all. If I'm wrong, please let me know. One minor point, however. Did a lawyer ever tell you that your actions were legal? As Liddy's operation was approved when Mitchell was still A.G., on the surface it might appear you were in the clear. But as the break-in itself was never approved by Mitchell, and as the break-ins and phone-tapping were conducted after Mitchell left to run CREEP, it could certainly be disputed. I believe you did the right thing by coming forward, even if it was to protect yourself. I'm wondering if Liddy, or anyone else, ever threatened you. Any comments appreciated. (Pat Speer)

In a subsequent correspondence, Mr. Baldwin told me that he disputed the theory that Dean was behind the break-in. He was of the belief that the break-ins were approved by Attorney General Mitchell. As such he believed his actions were legal. He said he'd never consulted a lawyer on this point because he was himself a lawyer and had even taught U.S. Constitutional law. He acknowledged that this point has been much-debated.

Will answer your questions in the next few days.

I believe I have already answered the question as to who I felt I was working for, but I will expand further. When I was initially hired there was no doubt in my mind that I was being hired for a position with the Committee To Re-Elect the President, which in turn was being chaired by the then Attorney General John Mitchell. I was also told that once Nixon was re-elected I would be re-instated as a Special Agent with the FBI with White House backing, and even told with the President's intervention should Hoover object to my re-instatement. In May, 1972, on my return to Washington from a short visit to Connecticut and immediately prior to my monitoring duties at the Howard Johnson I was told that I would be engaged in "activities", such as surveillance, counter-terrorism, etc., and that such activities came with the approval of the Attorney General and the White House at "the highest level".

I really can’t speak to what other individuals are espousing to as the reasons for Watergate, and with regards to McCord's reason for doing what he did I feel it would be more appropriate for him to state his position. I do know for a fact that I made a promise to him that I would allow him to state his position/reasons, however, if he did not do so prior to is demise than I would be free to comment should I be asked that question. His book "A Piece of Tape" does not truly furnish the answers.





2. I definitely dispute ANY theory that places John Dean as the one responsible for Watergate.

With respect to whether or not a lawyer advised me as to my actions I believe I had previously answered that question. Again, I will expand somewhat on my previous answer. One must understand that at the time of this event in 1972 I was an attorney/lawyer and had been a Special Agent with the FBI. Thus I felt capable of making the decisions that I was making and I in no way felt it was necessary to seek legal advice on what was taking place. Also, remember that I felt we were acting with the approval of the Attorney General and the White House. What lawyer/attorney could trump that? Also, keep in mind that what you may term are break-ins are still occurring today; however, they most likely are be done under terms of "National Security".

Last issue on question 2 is that I am not coming forward to protect myself, and yes, I did learn of threats but they were never direct threats.





3. I am not sure that anyone can answer the question as to "the real reason why the Watergate offices were burglarized". I do know that one of the reasons was to correct one of the listening devices that was not transmitting. One has to remember that it was known to all that O'Brien was not in D.C. and would be out of town for several months. Thus no one can truly assert that the device in O'Brien's office had to be corrected unless that devise was in O'Brien's office but was there for a different purpose. I also know that the devise in Spencer Oliver’s office that was working was being left in place. As to other reasons, I am still awaiting Jim McCord's answers before I elaborate further.




4. Sorry, based on our current federal statutes I can not discuss the essence of the conversations overheard.




5. Since Frank is now deceased I truly believe it is inappropriate for me to comment on anything Frank has said or done. I would state that I have been asked a similar question as to my personal knowledge of any connection between Watergate and the assassination of JFK. I can state without hesitation that I have no knowledge of any facts of any nature that would result in a connection between those two events.

Messrs. Baldwin/Hemming,

Could either of you please comment if you saw or heard anythng to corroborate the Sturgis quote, above? Also, If the reason for the "robbing" at Watergate was, as Sturgis stated, because of Nixon's concerns regarding fallout from the Dealey Plaza 'tramp' photos, then comments from either of you would be welcomed regarding the judiciousness and the likelihood of the use of some or all of the same operatives at Watergate.


5. Since Frank is now deceased I truly believe it is inappropriate for me to comment on anything Frank has said or done. I would state that I have been asked a similar question as to my personal knowledge of any connection between Watergate and the assassination of JFK. I can state without hesitation that I have no knowledge of any facts of any nature that would result in a connection between those two events.
[/quote]


Thank you, Mr. Baldwin. It is refreshing and enlightening to read your correspondence. It's noble of you to come here and volley a bit with us. Nice to have you along. I know that I and others hope you had a nice holiday season.
A couple of more questions: Were you ever approached by Mr. Woodward or Mr. Bernstein during the early to mid seventies to go on or off the record? Did you ever know either of them? Do you believe Mark Felt was Deep Throat? Why did you assent to an interview with the Los Angeles Times? Thanks again.
Regards,
John G

John - I was never directly approached by either Woodward or Bernsten, however, I did learn at a latter date that they had contacted my lawyers who refused to have anything to do with them for reaons that were never disclosed to me. Thus I can say that I did not know either of them. As to whethern or not Mark Felt was Deep Throat I can honestly say that I have my doubts especially since I had been in contact with the FBI in July, 1972 yet there is no mention of me by either Bernstein or Woodward in he early (post July, 1972) days. So if Felt was reading all the FBI 302s (interview reports) why didn't he alert those writers to the act that John Mitchell had been named in my very first interview with the FBI, So in July 1972 the government had a "trail" to Mitchell, which would have been termendius news at that period of time. Lastly, believe it or not the interview was given to the Los Angeles Times reporters (two of them) for basically two reason. The first was that they were present on a daily basis at my lawyer's office in West Haven, Connecticut for weeks into months presenting themselves by saying that "if and when he (myself) decides to tell his story they would be present to take it". The second reason was they were perfect gentlemen and never pressed the issue and agreeded to print everything that I said with no exceptions, deletions, or comments. Their honsty and sincerity impressed me, and my lawyers knew that I had "been left out to hang in the wind with no support or backing from ANYONE in Washington, D.C.". Then add the fact that I had been told " you won't find a job anywhere, not even driving a truck" and you have the partial answer to that interview with those reporters.

I hope this answers your questions and thank you for your comments. - Al Baldwin

Jim Hougan in Secret Agenda dismisses Felt as a possible Deep Throat for much the same reason. Since Deep Throat failed to tell Woodward about Baldwin, and Felt knew about Baldwin, Felt can't be Deep Throat... I think what has been missed is that, according to Woodstein, Deep Throat rarely provided information; he mostly confirmed information that they'd already uncovered. And even this was done in vague terms, sometimes so vague he was misunderstood. Remember the screw-up regarding Haldeman's pre-knowledge? That almost got Woodstein pulled off the story.

"Their honsty and sincerity impressed me..."

Mr. Baldwin,

Thank you very much. Your apparent honesty and sincerity are equally impressive.

Yours Truly,

John Gillespie

John: Or Mr Baldwin

What can you tell us about Operation Sandwedge. Ever since the George Wallace shooting I have believed that Nixon's dirty tricks people were behind it. This operation is a very underreported/ under studied event.

Thanx,

Dawn

Hi Dawn. I'm neither of the people you invoked, but a) I agree with you about the George Wallace shooting having been relatively lost in the intense compaction of events that happened in that pregnant month of May, 1972, and, b ) Sandwedge has also been of considerable interest to me, for related and for different reasons, and, c) I'd very much like to ask Mr. Baldwin about some of the events in early-mid May 1972--but he appears to have left the building.

I realize I'm responding to a message that is six months old, but since it's a discussion about one or more unsolved mysteries that are over 30 years old, I'll forge ahead.

On Sandwedge, I don't believe that it simply was a failed precursor to the various versions of the "Gemstone" plans. I've also found evidence that the Sandwedge proposal was completed in July 1971--considerably earlier than most sources claim.

On the Wallace shooting, there is an odd concatenation of events beginning 1 May 1972 culminating in the Wallace shooting on 15 May 1972, not the least of them involving McCord having issued a .38 revolver to Alfred Baldwin on 1 May 1972, which purportedly was turned back in by Baldwin to McCord on 12 May 1972--three days before Wallace was shot in Laurel, Maryland with a .38 revolver. Even more curious is that on 10 May 1972, McCord is on record as having been in Rockville, Maryland, which is only about 6 miles from Laurel, and on that date, Baldwin--still in possession of the McCord-issued .38--purportedly had traveled back to his home in Connecticut to "get more clothes." This extraordinary sequence of coincidences is part of what I'd like to gain more understanding of from Mr. Baldwin, particularly why he took the .38 with him on a trip home to "get more clothes."

There's more about this, and a very comprehensive timeline I've been referred to that has all of this information, including the Sandwedge documentation, laid out uniquely in very detailed and fully cited sequence. If you'd like to discuss this further, let me know. And if anyone can reach Mr. Baldwin and ask if he would return and help clarify some of these points, that would be very beneficial.

I am sorry I missed this question when it was originally asked by Dawn. Thank you Ashton Gray for bringing it to my attention.

There is evidence that Operation Sandwedge was the name given to Nixon’s really dirty tricks campaign. The two people at the head of this operation were Jack Caulfield and Tony Ulasewicz. Both men had been recruited from the NYPD's Bureau of Special Service and Investigation (BOSSI).

According to Caulfield: "My multi-faceted, twelve-year BOSSI experience convinced me in late 1967 that Richard Nixon was going to run and likely win the Presidential election in 1968. I subsequently approached the Nixon people from the 1960 Presidential campaign (with whom I had worked as a BOSSI detective) and made it known I was available for candidate/staff security purposes during the 1968 campaign." After being interviewed by H. R. Haldeman and Rose Mary Woods he was appointed as Chief of Security for the Nixon Campaign Staff.

Richard Nixon defeated Hubert Humphrey in the 1968 presidential election and in April, 1969, Caulfield was appointed as Staff Assistant to the President. Soon afterwards Nixon decided that the White House should establish an in-house investigative capability that could be used to obtain sensitive political information. After consulting Ehrlichman and Haldeman the job was given to Caulfield.

Caulfield now appointed an old friend, Tony Ulasewicz, to carry out this investigative work. Over the next three years Ulasewicz traveled to 23 states gathering information about Nixon's political opponents.
Ulasewicz's first task was to investigate the links between Bobby Baker and leading Democratic Party politicians. He was also ordered by Caulfield to set up a round-the-clock surveillance of Edward Kennedy.
According to Ulasewicz, on 19th July, 1969, he received a phone call from Caulfield: "Get out to Martha's Vineyard as fast as you can, Tony. Kennedy's car ran off a bridge last night. There was a girl in it. She's dead." This phone call took place less than two hours after the body of Mary Jo Kopechne, the former secretary of Robert Kennedy, had been found in a car that Caulfield suspected Edward Kennedy had been driving.

It is my view that this story is not accurate. I believe Ulasewicz was in Chappaquiddick before Kopechne died. Whatever the truth of this is, we know that Ulasewicz was able to interview several key witnesses before the police got to them. This included Sylvia Malm who was staying in Dike House at the time. Dike House was only 150 yards from the scene of the accident. Malm told Ulasewicz that she was reading in bed on the night of the accident. She remained awake until midnight but no one knocked on her door.

Ulasewicz also discovered that the request for an autopsy by Edmund Dinis, the District Attorney of Suffolk County, had been denied. Dinis was told that the body had already been sent to Kopechne's family. This was untrue, the body was still in Edgartown. Ulasewicz also interviewed John Farrar, the scuba diver who pulled Mary Jo Kopechne out of Kennedy's car. Farrar told Ulasewicz that the evidence he saw suggested that she had been trapped alive for several hours inside Kennedy's car.

He also discovered that the "records of Edward Kennedy's telephone calls in the hours after the accident at Chappaquiddick were withheld by the telephone company from an inquest into the death of Mary Jo Kopechne without the knowledge of the Assistant District Attorney who asked for them". He leaked this information to various newspapers but it was only taken up by the Union Leader of Manchester, New Hampshire. It was not until 12th March, 1980, that the New York Times published the story.

I believe it is possible that Nixon was behind Edward Kennedy’s problems in Chappaquiddick. It was his most successful dirty trick as it made sure that Kennedy was not the Democratic candidate in 1972.
According to the Nixon camp, on 17th September, 1971, John Dean and Jeb Magruder asked Caulfield to establish a new private security firm. Caulfield was told that Tony Ulasewicz and his associates would be required to carry out "surveillance of Democratic primaries, convention, meetings, etc.," and collecting "derogatory information, investigative capability, worldwide." Caulfield was told that this was an "extreme clandestine" operation. Given the name Operation Sandwedge, its main purpose was to carry out illegal electronic surveillance on the political opponents of Richard Nixon.

I don’t believe this story. I believe that Sandwedge dates back to April 1969 and that it involved the removal of the two people who posed the main threat to Nixon’s reelection in 1972, Edward Kennedy and George Wallace.

On 15th May, 1972, Arthur Bremer tried to assassinate George Wallace at a presidential campaign rally in Laurel, Maryland. Wallace was hit four times and as a result had to pull out of the race to become president. The person who most benefited from this assassination attempt was Richard Nixon. If Wallace had gone on to become the third party candidate, the right-wing vote would have been split and Nixon would have lost in 1972.

The removal of Wallace from the campaign was part of Operation Sandwedge. If you remember, Tim Gratz was a normal member of this Forum until I posted this passage from Richard E. Sprague’s, The Taking of America (1985):

In 1972 the Power Control Group was faced with another set of problems. Again the objective was to insure Nixon's election at all costs and to continue the cover-ups. Nixon might have made it on his own. We'll never know because the Group guaranteed his election by eliminating two strong candidates and completely swamping another with tainted leftist images and a psychiatric case for the vice presidential nominee. The impression that Nixon had in early 1972 was that he stood a good chance of losing. He imagined enemies everywhere and a press he was sure was out to get him.

The Power Control Group realized this too. They began laying out a strategy that would encourage the real nuts in the Nixon administration like E. Howard Hunt, G. Gordon Liddy and Donald Segretti to eliminate any serious opposition. The dirty tricks campaign worked perfectly against the strongest early Democratic candidate, Edmund Muskie. He withdrew in tears, later to discover he had been sabotaged by Nixon, Liddy and company.

George Wallace was another matter. At the time he was shot, he was drawing 18% of the vote according to the polls, and most of that was in Nixon territory. The conservative states such as Indiana were going for Wallace. He was eating into Nixon's southern strength. In April the polls showed McGovern pulling a 41%, Nixon 41% and Wallace 18%. It was going to be too close for comfort, and it might be thrown into the House - in which case Nixon would surely lose. There was the option available of eliminating George McGovern, but then the Democrats might come up with Hubert Humphrey or someone else even more dangerous than McGovern. Nixon's best chance was a head-on contest with McGovern. Wallace had to go.

Once the group made that decision, the Liddy team seemed to be the obvious group to carry it out. But how could it be done this time and still fool the people? Another patsy this time? O.K., but how about having him actually kill the Governor? The answer to that was an even deeper programming job than that done on Sirhan. This time they selected a man with a lower I.Q. level who could be hypnotized to really shoot someone, realize it later, and not know that he had been programmed. He would have to be a little wacky, unlike Oswald, Ruby or Ray.

Arthur Bremer was selected. The first contacts were made by people who knew both Bremer and Segretti in Milwaukee. They were members of a leftist organization planted there as provocateurs by the intelligence forces within the Power Control Group. One of them was a man named Dennis Cossini.

Bremer was programmed over a period of months. He was first set to track Nixon and then Wallace. When his hand held the gun in Laurel, Maryland, it might just as well have been in the hand of Donald Segretti, E. Howard Hunt, G. Gordon Liddy, Richard Helms, or Richard Nixon.

With Wallace's elimination from the race and McGovern's increasing popularity in the primaries, the only question remaining for the Power Control Group was whether McGovern had any real chance of winning. The polls all showed Wallace's vote going to Nixon and a resultant landslide victory. That, of course, is exactly what happened. It was never close enough to worry the Group very much. McGovern, on the other hand, was worried. By the time of the California primary he and his staff had learned enough about the conspiracies in the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King that they asked for increased Secret Service protection in Los Angeles.

If the Power Control Group had decided to kill Mr. McGovern the Secret Service would not have been able to stop it. However, they did not, because the election was a sure thing. They did try one more dirty trick. They revealed Thomas Eagleton's psychiatric problems, which reduced McGovern's odds considerably.

What evidence is there that Bremer's attempt on Wallace was a directed attempt by a conspiratorial group?

Bremer himself has told his brother that others were involved and that he was paid by them. Researcher William Turner has turned up evidence in Milwaukee and surrounding towns in Wisconsin that Bremer received money from a group associated with Dennis Cassini, Donald Segretti and J. Timothy Gratz. Several other young "leftists" were seen with Bremer on several occasions in Milwaukee and on the ferry crossing at Lake Michigan.

J. Timothy Gratz was our own “Tim Gratz”. He immediately went into attack mode and threatened me with legal action. He also phoned William Turner and made such unpleasant threats to him that caused him to withdraw from the Forum (I was later able to reassure him that Gratz did not have the power to carry out his threats).

As I pointed out at the time, if Sprague had published lies about him in “The Taking of America”, why did he not take him to court when he made the accusations in 1985?

The record shows that Gratz was connected to Tony Ulasewicz via Donald Segretti. According to the Nixon camp’s story, Ulasewicz visited Gratz on 18th December, 1972, to talk about his relationship with Segretti. In his book, The President's Private Eye (1990), Ulasewicz claims he visited Gratz in order to stop the Segretti dirty tricks campaign. I have never found this account very convincing, especially as Ulasewicz was part of another, far more serious, dirty tricks campaigns, Operation Sandwedge.

Sam Ervin and the Senate Watergate Committee began on 17th May, 1973. One of the first witnesses to appear was Jack Caulfield who admitted the role that he and Tony Ulasewicz had played in Operation Sandwedge. Ulasewicz appeared before the committee on 23rd May, 1973. To his surprise (according to his autobiography), the senators did not ask any specific questions of his work for Richard Nixon. Instead they concentrated on how he delivered the money to the Watergate burglars.

If you read the transcripts of Ervin’s committee it becomes clear that Operation Sandwedge was not to be discussed. As a result, Nixon’s dirty tricks campaign against Edward Kennedy and George Wallace was never revealed. Instead the investigation concentrated on the minor case of Operation Gemstone.

In 1977 Ulasewicz had a meeting with Richard Nixon at his home at San Clemente. They had a "heart to heart" talk. Nixon asked him: "What was it, Tony? What did it? What do you think caused Watergate? Ulasewicz replied: "You had a lot of guys around you who were trying to protect their own future at your expense." He admitted in his autobiography, The President's Private Eye (1990) that he did not tell him the full truth.

What was the full truth? My view is that the CIA got rid of Richard Nixon by setting him up over Watergate. The main reason for this was Nixon was trying to create an intelligence agency that was under his own control. When he discovered what the CIA had done, he tried to blackmail Richard Helms with what he knew about Operation 40 and the assassination of JFK. Here is a passage from Haldeman’s The End of Power:

So we had failed in our one previous attempt to obtain CIA co-operation, and now in Ehrlichman's office on June 23, 1972, the C.I.A. was stonewalling me again: 'Not connected.' 'No way.' Then I played Nixon's trump card. 'The President asked me to tell you this entire affair may be connected to the Bay of Pigs, and if it opens up, the Bay of Pigs may be blown....'

Turmoil in the room. Helms gripping the arms of his chair leaning forward and shouting, 'The Bay of Pigs had nothing to do with this. I have no concern about the Bay of Pigs.'

Silence. I just sat there. I was absolutely shocked by Helms' violent reaction. Again I wondered, what was such dynamite in the Bay of Pigs story? Finally, I said, 'I'm just following my instructions, Dick. This is what the President told me to relay to you.'

Later, Haldeman reveals that “The Bay of Pigs” was code for the assassination of JFK.

Richard Helms continued to resist Nixon’s attempt at blackmail and as a result he was sacked as director of the CIA.

James Schlesinger now became the new director of the CIA. Schlesinger was heard to say: “The clandestine service was Helms’s Praetorian Guard. It had too much influence in the Agency and was too powerful within the government. I am going to cut it down to size.” This he did and over the next three months over 7 per cent of CIA officers lost their jobs.

On 9th May, 1973, James Schlesinger issued a directive to all CIA employees: “I have ordered all senior operating officials of this Agency to report to me immediately on any activities now going on, or might have gone on in the past, which might be considered to be outside the legislative charter of this Agency. I hereby direct every person presently employed by CIA to report to me on any such activities of which he has knowledge. I invite all ex-employees to do the same. Anyone who has such information should call my secretary and say that he wishes to talk to me about “activities outside the CIA’s charter”.

There were several employees who had been trying to complain about the illegal CIA activities for some time. As Cord Meyer pointed out, this directive “was a hunting license for the resentful subordinate to dig back into the records of the past in order to come up with evidence that might destroy the career of a superior whom he long hated.”

The CIA was in serious trouble. They had to get rid of Nixon as soon as possible. They did this through Deep Throat (Richard Ober) and two key assets at the Washington Post, Ben Bradlee and Bob Woodward.

If this was the case, why did Nixon not reveal what he knew about the CIA and the assassination of JFK? The reason is that a deal was done. Nixon agreed not to tell about the CIA role in the assassination of JFK. The CIA agreed not to tell about Nixon’s role in destroying the political careers of Edward Kennedy and George Wallace. Can we really be surprised that Nixon accepted the deal and took the punishment for the Watergate break-in. The alternative was far, far, worse.





I am sorry I missed this question when it was originally asked by Dawn. Thank you Ashton Gray for bringing it to my attention.

There is evidence that Operation Sandwedge was the name given to Nixon’s really dirty tricks campaign. The two people at the head of this operation were Jack Caulfield and Tony Ulasewicz. Both men had been recruited from the NYPD's Bureau of Special Service and Investigation (BOSSI).

According to Caulfield: "My multi-faceted, twelve-year BOSSI experience convinced me in late 1967 that Richard Nixon was going to run and likely win the Presidential election in 1968. I subsequently approached the Nixon people from the 1960 Presidential campaign (with whom I had worked as a BOSSI detective) and made it known I was available for candidate/staff security purposes during the 1968 campaign." After being interviewed by H. R. Haldeman and Rose Mary Woods he was appointed as Chief of Security for the Nixon Campaign Staff.

Richard Nixon defeated Hubert Humphrey in the 1968 presidential election and in April, 1969, Caulfield was appointed as Staff Assistant to the President. Soon afterwards Nixon decided that the White House should establish an in-house investigative capability that could be used to obtain sensitive political information. After consulting Ehrlichman and Haldeman the job was given to Caulfield.

Caulfield now appointed an old friend, Tony Ulasewicz, to carry out this investigative work. Over the next three years Ulasewicz traveled to 23 states gathering information about Nixon's political opponents.
Ulasewicz's first task was to investigate the links between Bobby Baker and leading Democratic Party politicians. He was also ordered by Caulfield to set up a round-the-clock surveillance of Edward Kennedy.
According to Ulasewicz, on 19th July, 1969, he received a phone call from Caulfield: "Get out to Martha's Vineyard as fast as you can, Tony. Kennedy's car ran off a bridge last night. There was a girl in it. She's dead." This phone call took place less than two hours after the body of Mary Jo Kopechne, the former secretary of Robert Kennedy, had been found in a car that Caulfield suspected Edward Kennedy had been driving.

It is my view that this story is not accurate. I believe Ulasewicz was in Chappaquiddick before Kopechne died. Whatever the truth of this is, we know that Ulasewicz was able to interview several key witnesses before the police got to them. This included Sylvia Malm who was staying in Dike House at the time. Dike House was only 150 yards from the scene of the accident. Malm told Ulasewicz that she was reading in bed on the night of the accident. She remained awake until midnight but no one knocked on her door.

Ulasewicz also discovered that the request for an autopsy by Edmund Dinis, the District Attorney of Suffolk County, had been denied. Dinis was told that the body had already been sent to Kopechne's family. This was untrue, the body was still in Edgartown. Ulasewicz also interviewed John Farrar, the scuba diver who pulled Mary Jo Kopechne out of Kennedy's car. Farrar told Ulasewicz that the evidence he saw suggested that she had been trapped alive for several hours inside Kennedy's car.

He also discovered that the "records of Edward Kennedy's telephone calls in the hours after the accident at Chappaquiddick were withheld by the telephone company from an inquest into the death of Mary Jo Kopechne without the knowledge of the Assistant District Attorney who asked for them". He leaked this information to various newspapers but it was only taken up by the Union Leader of Manchester, New Hampshire. It was not until 12th March, 1980, that the New York Times published the story.

I believe it is possible that Nixon was behind Edward Kennedy’s problems in Chappaquiddick. It was his most successful dirty trick as it made sure that Kennedy was not the Democratic candidate in 1972.
According to the Nixon camp, on 17th September, 1971, John Dean and Jeb Magruder asked Caulfield to establish a new private security firm. Caulfield was told that Tony Ulasewicz and his associates would be required to carry out "surveillance of Democratic primaries, convention, meetings, etc.," and collecting "derogatory information, investigative capability, worldwide." Caulfield was told that this was an "extreme clandestine" operation. Given the name Operation Sandwedge, its main purpose was to carry out illegal electronic surveillance on the political opponents of Richard Nixon.

I don’t believe this story. I believe that Sandwedge dates back to April 1969 and that it involved the removal of the two people who posed the main threat to Nixon’s reelection in 1972, Edward Kennedy and George Wallace.

On 15th May, 1972, Arthur Bremer tried to assassinate George Wallace at a presidential campaign rally in Laurel, Maryland. Wallace was hit four times and as a result had to pull out of the race to become president. The person who most benefited from this assassination attempt was Richard Nixon. If Wallace had gone on to become the third party candidate, the right-wing vote would have been split and Nixon would have lost in 1972.

The removal of Wallace from the campaign was part of Operation Sandwedge. If you remember, Tim Gratz was a normal member of this Forum until I posted this passage from Richard E. Sprague’s, The Taking of America (1985):

In 1972 the Power Control Group was faced with another set of problems. Again the objective was to insure Nixon's election at all costs and to continue the cover-ups. Nixon might have made it on his own. We'll never know because the Group guaranteed his election by eliminating two strong candidates and completely swamping another with tainted leftist images and a psychiatric case for the vice presidential nominee. The impression that Nixon had in early 1972 was that he stood a good chance of losing. He imagined enemies everywhere and a press he was sure was out to get him.

The Power Control Group realized this too. They began laying out a strategy that would encourage the real nuts in the Nixon administration like E. Howard Hunt, G. Gordon Liddy and Donald Segretti to eliminate any serious opposition. The dirty tricks campaign worked perfectly against the strongest early Democratic candidate, Edmund Muskie. He withdrew in tears, later to discover he had been sabotaged by Nixon, Liddy and company.

George Wallace was another matter. At the time he was shot, he was drawing 18% of the vote according to the polls, and most of that was in Nixon territory. The conservative states such as Indiana were going for Wallace. He was eating into Nixon's southern strength. In April the polls showed McGovern pulling a 41%, Nixon 41% and Wallace 18%. It was going to be too close for comfort, and it might be thrown into the House - in which case Nixon would surely lose. There was the option available of eliminating George McGovern, but then the Democrats might come up with Hubert Humphrey or someone else even more dangerous than McGovern. Nixon's best chance was a head-on contest with McGovern. Wallace had to go.

Once the group made that decision, the Liddy team seemed to be the obvious group to carry it out. But how could it be done this time and still fool the people? Another patsy this time? O.K., but how about having him actually kill the Governor? The answer to that was an even deeper programming job than that done on Sirhan. This time they selected a man with a lower I.Q. level who could be hypnotized to really shoot someone, realize it later, and not know that he had been programmed. He would have to be a little wacky, unlike Oswald, Ruby or Ray.

Arthur Bremer was selected. The first contacts were made by people who knew both Bremer and Segretti in Milwaukee. They were members of a leftist organization planted there as provocateurs by the intelligence forces within the Power Control Group. One of them was a man named Dennis Cossini.

Bremer was programmed over a period of months. He was first set to track Nixon and then Wallace. When his hand held the gun in Laurel, Maryland, it might just as well have been in the hand of Donald Segretti, E. Howard Hunt, G. Gordon Liddy, Richard Helms, or Richard Nixon.

With Wallace's elimination from the race and McGovern's increasing popularity in the primaries, the only question remaining for the Power Control Group was whether McGovern had any real chance of winning. The polls all showed Wallace's vote going to Nixon and a resultant landslide victory. That, of course, is exactly what happened. It was never close enough to worry the Group very much. McGovern, on the other hand, was worried. By the time of the California primary he and his staff had learned enough about the conspiracies in the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King that they asked for increased Secret Service protection in Los Angeles.

If the Power Control Group had decided to kill Mr. McGovern the Secret Service would not have been able to stop it. However, they did not, because the election was a sure thing. They did try one more dirty trick. They revealed Thomas Eagleton's psychiatric problems, which reduced McGovern's odds considerably.

What evidence is there that Bremer's attempt on Wallace was a directed attempt by a conspiratorial group?

Bremer himself has told his brother that others were involved and that he was paid by them. Researcher William Turner has turned up evidence in Milwaukee and surrounding towns in Wisconsin that Bremer received money from a group associated with Dennis Cassini, Donald Segretti and J. Timothy Gratz. Several other young "leftists" were seen with Bremer on several occasions in Milwaukee and on the ferry crossing at Lake Michigan.

J. Timothy Gratz was our own “Tim Gratz”. He immediately went into attack mode and threatened me with legal action. He also phoned William Turner and made such unpleasant threats to him that caused him to withdraw from the Forum (I was later able to reassure him that Gratz did not have the power to carry out his threats).

As I pointed out at the time, if Sprague had published lies about him in “The Taking of America”, why did he not take him to court when he made the accusations in 1985?

The record shows that Gratz was connected to Tony Ulasewicz via Donald Segretti. According to the Nixon camp’s story, Ulasewicz visited Gratz on 18th December, 1972, to talk about his relationship with Segretti. In his book, The President's Private Eye (1990), Ulasewicz claims he visited Gratz in order to stop the Segretti dirty tricks campaign. I have never found this account very convincing, especially as Ulasewicz was part of another, far more serious, dirty tricks campaigns, Operation Sandwedge.

Sam Ervin and the Senate Watergate Committee began on 17th May, 1973. One of the first witnesses to appear was Jack Caulfield who admitted the role that he and Tony Ulasewicz had played in Operation Sandwedge. Ulasewicz appeared before the committee on 23rd May, 1973. To his surprise (according to his autobiography), the senators did not ask any specific questions of his work for Richard Nixon. Instead they concentrated on how he delivered the money to the Watergate burglars.

If you read the transcripts of Ervin’s committee it becomes clear that Operation Sandwedge was not to be discussed. As a result, Nixon’s dirty tricks campaign against Edward Kennedy and George Wallace was never revealed. Instead the investigation concentrated on the minor case of Operation Gemstone.

In 1977 Ulasewicz had a meeting with Richard Nixon at his home at San Clemente. They had a "heart to heart" talk. Nixon asked him: "What was it, Tony? What did it? What do you think caused Watergate? Ulasewicz replied: "You had a lot of guys around you who were trying to protect their own future at your expense." He admitted in his autobiography, The President's Private Eye (1990) that he did not tell him the full truth.

What was the full truth? My view is that the CIA got rid of Richard Nixon by setting him up over Watergate. The main reason for this was Nixon was trying to create an intelligence agency that was under his own control. When he discovered what the CIA had done, he tried to blackmail Richard Helms with what he knew about Operation 40 and the assassination of JFK. Here is a passage from Haldeman’s The End of Power:

So we had failed in our one previous attempt to obtain CIA co-operation, and now in Ehrlichman's office on June 23, 1972, the C.I.A. was stonewalling me again: 'Not connected.' 'No way.' Then I played Nixon's trump card. 'The President asked me to tell you this entire affair may be connected to the Bay of Pigs, and if it opens up, the Bay of Pigs may be blown....'

Turmoil in the room. Helms gripping the arms of his chair leaning forward and shouting, 'The Bay of Pigs had nothing to do with this. I have no concern about the Bay of Pigs.'

Silence. I just sat there. I was absolutely shocked by Helms' violent reaction. Again I wondered, what was such dynamite in the Bay of Pigs story? Finally, I said, 'I'm just following my instructions, Dick. This is what the President told me to relay to you.'

Later, Haldeman reveals that “The Bay of Pigs” was code for the assassination of JFK.

Richard Helms continued to resist Nixon’s attempt at blackmail and as a result he was sacked as director of the CIA.

James Schlesinger now became the new director of the CIA. Schlesinger was heard to say: “The clandestine service was Helms’s Praetorian Guard. It had too much influence in the Agency and was too powerful within the government. I am going to cut it down to size.” This he did and over the next three months over 7 per cent of CIA officers lost their jobs.

On 9th May, 1973, James Schlesinger issued a directive to all CIA employees: “I have ordered all senior operating officials of this Agency to report to me immediately on any activities now going on, or might have gone on in the past, which might be considered to be outside the legislative charter of this Agency. I hereby direct every person presently employed by CIA to report to me on any such activities of which he has knowledge. I invite all ex-employees to do the same. Anyone who has such information should call my secretary and say that he wishes to talk to me about “activities outside the CIA’s charter”.

There were several employees who had been trying to complain about the illegal CIA activities for some time. As Cord Meyer pointed out, this directive “was a hunting license for the resentful subordinate to dig back into the records of the past in order to come up with evidence that might destroy the career of a superior whom he long hated.”

The CIA was in serious trouble. They had to get rid of Nixon as soon as possible. They did this through Deep Throat (Richard Ober) and two key assets at the Washington Post, Ben Bradlee and Bob Woodward.

If this was the case, why did Nixon not reveal what he knew about the CIA and the assassination of JFK? The reason is that a deal was done. Nixon agreed not to tell about the CIA role in the assassination of JFK. The CIA agreed not to tell about Nixon’s role in destroying the political careers of Edward Kennedy and George Wallace. Can we really be surprised that Nixon accepted the deal and took the punishment for the Watergate break-in. The alternative was far, far, worse.

While it is true that Nixon benefitted from the Wallace shooting (on an awfully temporary basis), there was an entirely different set of very deep undercurrents throughout 1971-1972, but that had been developing for decades. These factors remained completely out of sight until 1995, and even then only the vaguest, and very dishonest hints were dropped by CIA. In the last 10 years a great deal more has been dug out of the mud and muck about it: it was a very secret program that the CIA started on Sunday, 1 October 1972--only two weeks after the "burglars" had been indicted and all the fingers were already pointing directly at the White House--to develop parapsychology for military intelligence purposes.

There is no indication that Nixon ever knew anything about it. When the CIA started the secret program, Nixon's White House was already under heavy fire, and Watergate absolutely riveted media attention.

From all indications, this program was, and had been, an extremely high priority and a major focus for CIA leading up to and throughout everything known as Watergate.

There is no doubt that Wallace could have become a very big impediment indeed to the CIA plans for this program in a variety of ways. So could Hoover (who was found dead 15 days before Wallace was shot), and L. Patrick Gray filled Hoover's vacated shoes just long enough to destroy evidence from the safe of CIA's golden boy, E. Howard Hunt.

The development of CIA's secret program precisely parallels Watergate in time, and it presents a massive amount of data--and motives--that have never been analyzed and evaluated against Watergate. I believe its omission--or, really, its cover-up--has completely crippled any chance of a complete investigation of Watergate, and that it is the reason why so many questions have gone unanswered to this day.

Ashton Gray

I have sent this question to Alfred Baldwin. Hopefully we will get a reply.

At this point of time I would only state that the sequence of events as to the 38 and when it was obtained and turned back to McCord can ony be verified by the FBI interview as recorded on their 302 interview document. With the passage of years I am now relucant to state a fact from my memory when it comes to precise dates. There is nothing unusual with the fact that I travelled to Connecticut with the weapon. As an FBI agent one always carried one's weapon 24/7. Thus having been issued the weapon and with further possible deployment where the weapon could be used for personal defense it woul have been and was normal for the weapon to remain on my person at all times after it had been issued to me. It is a fact I went to Connecticut to obtain more personal items, such as clothing, and to meet with my personal friend and later attorney Robert Mirto. I did fly to Connecicut and back from Connecticut that weekend and remained there the entire weekend, which has been verified by the FBI.

Hi, Mr. Baldwin. Thanks very much for your reply. I appreciate your citing the 302 document, but I don't know of any easy availibility.

I do, though, have access to your sworn congressional testimony, which I hope will be agreeable to you as a means of refreshing your memory, and which is reasonably contemporary with the events at issue. Referencing that source, perhaps I could be more specific than I was when I wasn't certain whether you could be reached.

According to that testimony, there were two incidents within about a month when you went back to your home in Connecticut, and just to obviate any possible confusion about the two separate incidents, the first occured on 9 May 1972, with your returning on 12 May 1972. That's the trip we've been discussing in which you carried the gun. In the second event, you left D.C. on 23 May 1972, and returned on 26 May 1972--the same day as the purported Ameritas "first attempt" at a "first break-in."

Focusing, with your indulgence, on the first event, I'm still a bit perplexed, and please allow me to explain why.

In your reply to me, above, you said you kept the .38 because: "with further possible deployment where the weapon could be used for personal defense it woul have been and was normal for the weapon to remain on my person at all times after it had been issued to me." The "further possible deployment" you are referring to, according to your congressional testimony, was a possible second assignment to travel in the capacity of a bodyguard with Martha Mitchell. You already had done so once according to your record, leaving on 2 May 1972, arriving back in D.C. on 9 May 1972--the same day you left for Connecticut.

I was a bit surprised to hear that you flew to Connecticut on your 9-12 May trip to collect some personal things (since you had driven to D.C. originally, and you drove yourself on the second trip), and learning that you flew also actually compounds, a bit, my confusion concerning this trip you took, and your carrying the gun with you, for these reasons:

1) In your sworn testimony you said that the trip that was scheduled for Martha Mitchell on which you might have a possible second assignment of traveling with her, leaving from D.C.--the supplied reason for keeping the gun with you--was scheduled for 11 May 1972. Yet you didn't return to D.C. until the day after her scheduled departure from D.C.: 12 May 1972. If you and the gun were in Connecticut on 11 May 1972, the day she was scheduled to leave on her trip, how could you (and the gun) have been factored in for a possible bodyguard assignment?

2) I'm sorry, but I still don't understand any rationale for having the gun in Connecticut, when the assignment for which it purportedly was issued would be departing from D.C. You didn't have Martha Mitchell with you in Connecticut. You took no gun with you on your second trip to Connecticut (23-26 May). Why, then, did you need one with you on the first trip there--especially when you didn't return at all until the day after Martha Mitchell already had left, on 11 May, with Fred LaRue instead of you? I can't make this make any sense to me.

3) If you flew, did you buy a round trip ticket with a return date a day later than your possible assignment?

4) Did you take the gun on the plane, and if so, did you have to report that to anyone?

5) Did you have a permit for carrying the gun?

I'm sorry to be a pest, but the details have been pestiferous for me, and I cannot easily express my gratitude for this opportunity to lay these nagging questions to rest.

Thank you again, and in advance, for your help.

Ashton Gray

"I'm sorry to be a pest, but the details have been pestiferous for me, and I cannot easily express my gratitude for this opportunity to lay these nagging questions to rest."

______________________________________________

Mr. Gray,

I like your style. Nice work.

JG

1. Originally, for my interview with McCord for a job position, I did not drive I flew to D.C. and of course had no weapon on my person.

2. Yes, I had a round trip ticket and before I left I was told by McCord that a specific date fo the next Martha trip had not been finalized but it would be in the middle or later part of the week of my return. McCord had not been told or given any reason for my replacement on her next trip prior to my departure to Connecticut, and I had meet with John Mitchell himself prior to my leaving for Connecticut. He "de-briefed me" and thanked me, and left me with the impression there was further work to be done on my part.

3.Yes I had the weapon on the plane and had to report this fact at the ticket counter. Since I was not active in the law-enforcement field the ticket manger was called and I provided him with a phone number to call to verify the fact that I was working in a security position with the re-election committee. He called the number and then cleared me to board with the weapon. The number was for the Security Office of Jim McCord at the Committee and what he told the manger has never been explained or told to me. You must remember this was the early 70's prior to any of the threats that this nation faces today, but there was an air marshall program in effect at that time different I am sure to the programs in effect today.

4. No I did not have a permit for the weapon at any time and when I advised McCord of this fact and that I would not be acting in any official law enforcement capacity while carying the gun he furnished me a business card with his name and a telephone number, His exact words were "if you have any difficulty or if anyone questions your having this weapon have them call this number". I believe that on two occassions that I had to utilize that business card and in both instances I was allowed to proceed with the weapon on my person.

Of course that's correct, and I should have recalled the specific point you had made in your Senate testimony that you were flying Allegheny Airlines. I've gone into the vaults and pulled the whole transcript now instead of using just the excerpts I'd been referring to before, and I'll quote that part of your testimony in a moment, but I owe you a public apology up front for having let that slip by.



Thanks for that explanation. I don't quite know where to put it, though, because I can't fit all that anywhere onto the May 1972 calendar, particularly with the way you explained the same events in detail to Senator Weicker during your sworn testimony. Why don't I just get out of the way here for a moment and let you review the relevant sections of that testimony regarding your only trip with Martha (and I bet traveling with her was a trip), your return from that, and your subsequent trip to Connecticut--for which you had gotten the round-trip ticket after your meeting with John Mitchell. If you'll permit me, I'll put a few of my own brief annotations in italic, and a few phrases from the testimony in bold for clarity:

SENATOR WEICKER: ...Now: as your first assignment, did you make a trip to Detroit and Westchester County as a bodyguard for Mrs. Mitchell?

ALFRED BALDWIN: That's correct. The--

SENATOR WEICKER: And did you return from that trip on May the 8th? [May 8th is Monday.]

ALFRED BALDWIN: That's correct. We did.

SENATOR WEICKER: ...did you return to Connecticut after the 8th--

ALFRED BALDWIN: I returned approximately the 9th to Connecticut-- [May 9th is Tuesday.]

SENATOR WEICKER: --and come back to Washington on May the 12th? [May 12th is Friday.]

ALFRED BALDWIN: That's correct.

SENATOR WEICKER: ...Now, can you tell me what eventually happened to that weapon?

ALFRED BALDWIN: I retained possession of that weapon through the trip [with Martha Mitchell]. When I returned to Washington I had possession of that weapon. There was another trip scheduled on the Thursday of the week we returned. I believe we returned on May 8th, and I believe Mrs. Mitchell was scheduled to go out on another trip that Thursday. [May 11th is Thursday of that week.] I was told that the decision whether or not I would go with her hadn't been reached yet, but in all likelihood I would be going with her, to keep the weapon in my possession. I had to leave to go to-- [sic] back to Connecticut to get more clothing, so the weapon stayed with me back to Connecticut.

Well, I'll just say "Thanks for the Memories"--neither of us would want me to sing it--and I'll try to make some sense out of this.

You empathize with my difficulty here, don't you? You arrived back in D.C. with Martha Mitchell on Monday, May 8th, and met with John Mitchell according to the new information you've just supplied. (There's another interesting little side note here: on the day you arrived back in D.C., Liddy gave your boss, McCord, at least $4,000 in cash.)

Martha Mitchell was scheduled to leave D.C. again that Thursday, May 11th, on another trip. You "in all likelihood" would be going with her, and for that reason you say you had been instructed to keep the gun.

Then on Tuesday, May 9th--the day after your arrival back in D.C. with Martha--you went through a good deal of trouble and risk to board an Allegheny commercial plane on your way home to Connecticut, carrying a snub-nosed .38 revolver for which you had no permit, and you were traveling on a round-trip ticket that wouldn't put you back into D.C. until Friday, May 12th--the day after Martha was scheduled to leave D.C.

Is there any way at all to untangle this?

(If anybody can help me figure this out any better, I won't have to keep sitting here wondering, for instance, if this has anything to do with why Martha Mitchell wound up one night just a few months later thrown forcefully down on a bed in a California hotel with a butt full of drugs pumped into her after she was rash enough to call a reporter saying she knew "dirty things" and that she was a "political prisoner.")

I'll just move along and see if things clear up:



Allegheny must have been the most down-home, good-ol'-boy, howdy-neighbor airline in the skies at the time, then, to allow you to board one of their planes--on the strength of nothing a business card and a phone call--carrying a gun for which you had no permit. After eight airliners had been hijacked to Cuba in 1969, the FAA had created the Task Force on the Deterrence of Air Piracy. Metal detectors and profiling were being implemented, and by September 1970 Nixon had announced a comprehensive anti-hijacking program that included the Federal Marshal program you've alluded to. The first passenger death in a U.S. hijacking had occurred less than a year earlier than your trip to Connecticut, in June 1971. And not two months before you were getting onto a plane with a gun for which you had no permit, bombs had been discovered on three airliners. So you done good. You done real good getting that gun to Connecticut and back on a commercial plane.

I have to tell you, though, Mr. Baldwin, that I still can't think of a single justifiable reason why you'd bother. I'm sorry, but I have to ask you again: why would you go to all that trouble to carry that gun on a plane to Connecticut and back, since the one and only need you purportedly would have for a gun at all would be if and when you departed from D.C. again on a trip with Martha Mitchell?

According to your testimony, when you originally were issued the gun on Tuesday, May 2nd, it was no more formal than McCord taking it out of a drawer of a file cabinet at CREEP:

SENATOR WEICKER: Now, at the time that-- Or, after, rather, you were hired, on that particular day, were you given a weapon?

ALFRED BALDWIN: That's correct. I was issued a .38 snub-nosed revolver; Smith & Wesson.

SENATOR WEICKER: Would you describe to the committee that particular incident? Was this on the same day, May the 2nd?

ALFRED BALDWIN: That's correct--after we left Mr. LaRue's office. This occurred in the Security Office adjacent to the main reception room on the third floor of the Republican headquarters there on Pennsylvania Avenue. Mr. McCord went over to a file cabinet and removed the weapon either from the first or second drawer of the weapon--[sic] uh, of the file cabinet--and stated: "You will need this while you are with Mrs. Mitchell. You know how to use one of these?"

SENATOR WEICKER: So, in other words, it's your testimony to this committee that Mr. McCord gave you the .38.

ALFRED BALDWIN: That's correct; he did.

So the still-grawing question I have is why you didn't just drop the .38 back into the "first or second drawer" of the file cabinet on your return to the CREEP offices on Monday, May 8th, where you say you met with Mr. Mitchell. The gun would have been right there where you could have picked it back up before leaving on another trip with Martha Mitchell--if that even became necessary--and you wouldn't have been subjecting yourself (and CREEP) to possible severe liability that could arise from your carrying a gun for which you had no permit across state lines on a commercial carrier.

If you had left it, the gun also would have been available for Fred LaRue (or whoever) to carry with them if replacing you as a "bodyguard" for Mrs. Mitchell--and you've always assterted that there was some doubt about you going with her at all on the May 11th trip. So why didn't you just leave the gun there in D.C.?

I also have to express my sense of wonder that your fellow Connecticut resident, Lowell Weicker, didn't ask you these same rather obvious and pertinent questions--unless he had been reading from a script.

I'm also still trying to come to an understanding of why in your sworn testimony you made it sound as though you had taken that gun on a plane quite a few times. Let me flip back to the transcript and show you what I mean:

ALFRED BALDWIN: I had no authority to carry the weapon, so when I flew home to Connecticut I would declare the weapon, and I was flying Allegheny Airlines, so that every time I would fly I would have to declare the weapon. And they would verify the fact; they would call right in front of me. The ticket agent and the manager would come out, usually, of the office. They would make a call, and they would say, "No problem." They would hand the gun back to me.

Maybe that's why that Allegheny thing just went out of my head momentarily: I might have gone temporarily unconscious trying to figure out why, when talking about carrying the gun on a commercial plane, you said things like "every time I would fly I would have to declare the weapon" and "usually" and "they would."

According to your testimony, you only could have been carrying the gun on a plane--illegally, as I understand it--twice: once to Connecticut and once back.

I briefly tried to rationalize this by thinking, "Could he have gone through this rigamarole while traveling with Martha Mitchell?" Surely not. And then I thought, no: she more likely was being flown top drawer, in one of the fleet in the stables out at Andrews. (I'm going to make an educated guess here and say it was the Jetstar 61-2492--the one that had no government markings and was used for some clandestine missions. Let me know if I've missed the mark on that.)

Anyway, after all that trouble to lug that revolver all the way to Connecticut and back--for no reason I can fathom--you said in testimony that you handed it over to McCord in front of the barber shop in the Roger Smith hotel when you got back to D.C. (I sure hope nobody was getting a straight-razor shave when you did that. That could have resulted in a nasty nick.)

Here's your testimony on that:

ALFRED BALDWIN: When I returned from Connecticut [Friday, May 12th], Mr. McCord advised me that Mr. LaRue would be going with Mrs. Mitchell, and he, uh, had other work for me to do, and at that time he said, uh-- I believe it was, "You've still got the weapon?" I said yes. We went downstairs of the Roger Smith hotel. Outside the barber shop--he took it.

SENATOR WEICKER: So the weapon was returned, then, to Mr. McCord.

ALFRED BALDWIN: That's correct.

I won't even approach trying to figure out why you say McCord asked you if you still had the weapon, or the Moebius Time Strip where McCord told you Fred LaRue "would be going" on a trip that LaRue must have left on the day before.

But I will, with your kind indulgence, approach this: is there anybody besides you and CIA veteran McCord--standing there in that Copalla-esque moment in front of a barber shop--who could corroborate the fact that the gun ever got turned back in at all? Is there any kind of a paper trail for the gun? Is there any evidence anywhere on the face of the earth of what became of that weapon? It isn't a personal issue, Mr. Baldwin; it's an issue of evidence and verifiable fact about a loose-cannon .38 revolver, the last account of which we have from you as being slipped nonchalantly into James McCord's pocket in front of a hotel barber shop, just three days before Govenor George Wallace, a presidential candidate, was shot with a .38 revolver not many miles away. Surely as an ex-FBIer, you understand this completely.



I sure wish my business cards had that kind of mojo.

Okay, seriously: according to your testimony, McCords words were considerably more long-winded than your description of his "exact words" above, and using the business card was what you described in testimony as a "last resort." Here's your sworn testimony on that point:

ALFRED BALDWIN: Well, I was instructed that if any time I was stopped by any government agency or law enforcement body regarding the weapon, or regarding my presence in a particular area, that I was to do two things: number one, advise them that I worked for the Committee to Re-Elect the President, that I was in the security office at that-- of that department, and if that didn't work to go on and then say that I was working for the former Attorney General, John Mitchell, and then as a last resort I had Mr. McCord's business card that said "James McCord, Director of Security, Committee to Re-Elect the President," and a telephone number. I was to give the person that card, and that they would call and verify. So on at least three or four occasions, that process had to be followed, where I had to identify myself.

I've tried in good faith to take your current explanation of the facts concerning the gun and the various trips into fair and prudent account, and compare the current explanation fairly to the sworn record you made for the Senate--which came only after you had made the same record for the US Attorneys, according to your opening statement read into the record at the Senate hearings. (I'm going to post my transcript of your Senate testimony into this thread, because I believe it's crucial, and that everyone should have it available.)

But after a good deal of effort on my part, I have to speak frankly to you, Mr. Baldwin, and say that I still can't make any sense out of why you took the gun to Connecticut at all, or out of your supplied and contradictory timelines of events surrounding Martha Mitchell's trips.

I still can't conceive why Senator Weicker or the US Attorneys didn't raise these crucial issues with you concerning the gun and its disposition, but that's not all Senator Weicker seemed to give a lick-and-a-promise to after the other senators had deferred to him for your questioning. Some of the things he skirted completely in his questioning I find almost as troubling as this issue of the gun.

In an effort to keep this message from going far too long, I'm going to post the other questions arising from your testimony in a separate message, and will urge you to please continue to do all you can to help clarify, and to help everyone interested in healing this supperating wound on our nation's history to a better understanding of things for which no understanding, so far, has been possible. You, of all people, given your crucial role in important events, are in a unique position to do just that.

I respectfully thank you for the time you already have invested in such laudable effort, and if my tone at any point seems at all argumentative or adversarial, it arises not from disrespect toward you, but solely from the inability to resolve severely conflicting information.

Ashton Gray

Mr. Baldwin,

I feel you've been given short shrift in one of the most crucial and pivotal incidents related to Watergate, one in which you must have had a key role--since you drove six hours back from Connecticut on a holiday weekend just to participate--and I, for one, think you ought to get the recognition for it you deserve.

Of course you must know I'm talking about the infamous purported "first break-in" at the Watergate building on Memorial Day weekend 1972, and the two purported failed attempts that same weekend.

I've read every single account of that fateful weekend by every one of the other co-conspirators, and I'm sad to report that in their accounts you are the Invisible Man. You're like a non-person. You aren't in even a single one of those legendary accounts by name. It's a stunning omission. The few times that, e.g., Hunt or Liddy mention you at all in relation to that weekend, it's just as "McCord's monitor" and similar dehumanizing, impersonal, dismissive references. (Of course Hunt and Liddy both claim they never met you at all until after that weekend, while you testified that you met both of them that Friday, 26 May 1972, but that gets so complicated it's another message entirely.)

Then when you were testifying before the Senate Watergate committee, even Senator Lowell Weicker, in his questioning, seemed intent on leaving you entirely out of the picture regarding the "first break-in" and the failed attempts on that Memorial Day weekend. He did ask you about a trip to McGovern headquarters in the early morning hours on Friday night, 26-27 May 1972. But he seemed to go out of his way to entirely avoid any mention of or question about the purported break-in attempts and the purported successful break-in at the Watergate that weekend. He skipped entirely over anything having to do with the Watergate offices that weekend and went right to the first week of June in his questioning.

I can't tell you how long the realization of his seemingly purposeful avoidance of that crucial part of your role in Watergate made me sit with my forehead in my hands trying to make sense of it. Maybe I could almost wrap my wits around some justification for the other co-conspirators being coy about your whereabouts and activities that crucial weekend. But Weicker? He was supposed to be investigating Watergate!

It's extremely strange. I find it unkind and unfair. After all, as you testified, you had driven on that ponderously important Friday, 26 May 1972, all the way from your home in Connecticut to D.C., on McCord's orders, to be involved in something (that you say you knew nothing about), so your presence must have been of considerable importance:

SENATOR WEICKER: Now, Mr. Baldwin, to keep on giving the continuity here--you interrupt me or state if I'm incorrect--that you returned to Connecticut on May the 23rd and came back to Washington on May the 26th. Is that correct?

ALFRED BALDWIN: That's correct; Friday.

SENATOR WEICKER: And you returned to room 419 at the Howard Johnson's on May 26th. Now, when you entered room 419 on May the 26th, what did you see?

ALFRED BALDWIN: When I entered the room, there was numerous items of electronic equipment in the room. When I entered the room it was approximately 2:00 p.m. in the afternoon--I believe about that hour. Mr. McCord was operating one of the receiver units. At that time I didn't know what it was, he explained it.

SENATOR WEICKER: ...And as you entered the room, Mr. McCord was in the process of what--experimenting with this equipment? What did he indicate to you at the time that you entered the room?

ALFRED BALDWIN: He was tuning the equipment. The unit was operating and he was working the tuning dials. There's several tuning dials on the piece of equipment--

SENATOR WEICKER: Did you have any questions of him as to exactly what was going on at that time?

ALFRED BALDWIN: No. I'd just driven approximately six hours, and he said, "As soon as you get unpacked and relaxed I'll explain this," and I said, "All right. I'll take a shower and shave and join you."

So there you were, after a long drive, with no idea why you had been summoned back to D.C. except that McCord had told you that you "would have to work that weekend"--and there was a bunch of strange equipment in the room.

And that night--Friday, 26 May 1972--there was the infamous Ameritas dinner failed attempt at breaking into the Watergate, and nobody has ever said a syllable about where you were and what you were doing that night. (I mean other than the McGovern headquarters event you say took place at 1:00 or 2:00 a.m. that night, but that wasn't related to the Watergate).

And the next night--Saturday, 27 May 1972--there purportedly was a second failed attempt at breaking into the Watergate, but not a single soul involved in it ever has mentioned a word saying what your part was, if any.

And the night after that--Sunday, 28 May 1972--was the event that changed the world as we know it forever: the purported "first break-in" at the Watergate. And after all the trouble you had gone to so you could be there in D.C. for such a momentous historical event, there isn't a single thing anywhere in the record even to suggest what your role was, or why you were in D.C. at all. (Assuming, of course--arguendo--that you actually were in D.C. that weekend.) There just are vague references to some anonymous, unnamed "monitor" somewhere, with no explanation of what this "monitor" was monitoring, or why.

It would be such a relief to have this giant vacuum filled in, and you are in such a unique position to do so here, with an audience that I'm sure is every bit as interested as I in where you were and what you were doing at relevant times that historic Memorial Day weekend in 1972.

What were you doing all that time?

Ashton Gray

The best way, and I'm not trying to avoid a direct answer, would be to review the FBI 302 interview documents given during July, 19 72. Now with the passage of time every single attempt to review specific events might lead tp misleading answers. Another source would be the interview I gave during October to the Los Angeles newspaper. I am sure these sources given immediately after the event would be more helpful than my failing memory of that time.

QUOTE (Alfred C. Baldwin @ Jun 17 2006, 09:33 PM)

The best way, and I'm not trying to avoid a direct answer, would be to review the FBI 302 interview documents given during July, 19 72. Now with the passage of time every single attempt to review specific events might lead tp misleading answers. Another source would be the interview I gave during October to the Los Angeles newspaper. I am sure these sources given immediately after the event would be more helpful than my failing memory of that time.

Shit, what a letdown. Can you tell us what LA newspapers, at least.

Or even if it's not precisely what you may have said in 72, it surely would be nice to

have some of the above questions answered, on this the 34th anniversary of such a momentous

event that it brought down a president. (Totally deserving I thought, but I too noticed how often the

Watergate questioners stopped short, just when it seemed to be getting very exciting. It was obvious

that the investigation was just one more layer to the cover-up).

Dawn

Okay, Mr. Baldwin. I understand, and thank you. I realize that I went to some specific details that you don't feel qualified to answer based on your recollection of those events 30+ years ago.

So I'm going to bypass all those troublesome details entirely. I'm just going to ask you very frankly a few very simple, direct, unambiguous questions based on my understanding of information I've been supplied with, and that I've encapsulated in the article in this forum, There was no "first break-in" at the Watergate (and its foundational articles). And my questions are simply these:

1) Were you actually in Washington, D.C. throughout the Memorial Day weekend—26, 27, and 28 May 1972—engaged in two failed attempts at breaking into the Watergate building, and in one successful "break-in," as has been claimed in testimony and accounts by you and by your co-conspirators, or were you at any relevant time during that holiday weekend outside of Washington, D.C. on a clandestine mission with some number of the other co-conspirators?

2) Did you actually spend the first two weeks of June 1972 monitoring and making electric-typewriter records of conversations intercepted by "bugs" planted in the Wategate, as has been claimed in testimony by you and by your co-conspirators, or is it in fact true that there were no "bugs" at all planted by McCord, that the electronic equipment was all part of a giant hoax, and that you made no logs at all—which instead were dictated as whole cloth fiction by G. Gordon Liddy to his secretary, Sally Harmony?

These are simple questions, Mr. Baldwin. They require no address to 302s or newspaper articles, all of which are crafted to reflect and support the story of a "first break-in." There's no possibility, Mr. Baldwin, that you don't recall whether you were involved in the purported "first break-in" and its purported failed attempts or not, or that you can't recall whether you actually typed "almost verbatim" transcripts of intercepted oral conversations, as you described in great detail to the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities.

Either you were there and you participated as you testified to the U.S. Attorneys and to congress, or you weren't. You made "logs" of electronic bugs and gave them to McCord to pass on to Liddy, or you didn't.

I'm genuinely, deeply sorry to have to be asking these questions at all, but the preponderance of evidence that now has been supplied to me (and quite a few others), as I've laid out in the articles I've linked to for your easy reference, suggests very strongly, to me, that the extremely contradictory testimony on record is false on its face, and that there was no "first break-in" on Memorial Day weekend or any "bugs" planted in the DNC at all.

Whatever the superficial appearance might be, whatever my tone might have seemed in asking any questions, I take no personal joy at all in asking them, and I don't ask them with any personal animosity toward you. I do not ask them to be either accusatory or gratuitously adversarial. I don't ask them to play "gotcha" as another member of this forum has suggested in another thread. I ask them in all sincerety and good faith because I simply cannot reconcile the facts as I now know them to be with your own prior claims, and I am in all earnestness asking you to clear a clouded record.

I don't know if you will elect to answer responsively, Mr. Baldwin. I genuinely, and with no malice toward you, hope that you will. Not to satisfy me, personally; I have no importance in this. I hope you'll answer simply to clear and confirm the record. These are very, very troubling issues. And while you owe no answer to me, it's my best information and belief that these same ponderous questions now are going to be repeated until they are answered with finality, and not just in a pat-a-cake public forum.

I appreciate your patience with me, and, no matter what, I wish you Godspeed, but I don't have any questions for you beyond the two above.

Ashton Gray

1. Yes, I was there in Wash., D.C.through ouit the Memorial Day week-end on each and every day of that week-end (not off on some other clandestine work), and did work that I have testified about including being at the HJ on the break-in (prior to the June 17 break-in), which I have testified about under oath and have stated in numerous interviews. I am speaking about the break-in prior to the 17th of June where I actually saw Jim McCord come to one of the windows in the DNC. I have testified to the prior entry, that is prior to the 17th, not only in court under oath, FBI interviews, and congressinal hearings under oath. If at any time I had lied I would have faced serious legal, professional, and personal consquences.

2. Yes, I did monitor conversations for those days in June up to the 17th, and did turn most of the logs over to Jim, other than the ones that were delivered to the DNC. I have testified to this and to the contents of the conversations not only to the FBI, but also to a Federal Judge. Also, there were "bugs" in the DNC because I would monitor some conversations when I saw the phone being used in that office and the conversations would start and end with different individuals using the phone in that office. Thus watching those individuals there is no doubt that the "bug" in that office was working. Also, Jim actually displayed some of the "bugs" to me prior to installation. The logs, and copies of the logs, are a fact that cannot be denied or questioned by anyone.