Dirty Tricks: Nixon, Watergate and the CIA

[Shane O'Sullivan]

I'm pleased to announce the publication of my book, Dirty Tricks: Nixon, Watergate and the CIA on the 'dirty tricks' used by the Nixon campaign in the 1968 and 1972 elections - the Anna Chennault affair, the Ellsberg break-in and Watergate. The book is now in stock at Amazon and I am happy to answer questions about it here. Here's a summary and some advance reviews: 

SUMMARY

The victory of Richard Nixon in the US presidential election of 1968 swung on an “October Surprise”— a treasonous plot engineered by key figures in the Republican Party to keep the South Vietnamese government away from peace talks in Paris, costing thousands of American lives. Dirty Tricks provides compelling new evidence of Anna Chennault’s Nixon-approved role in sabotaging the peace talks and ensuring a Nixon White House.

Dirty Tricks also provides the first detailed analysis of the CIA’s recently-released internal history of Watergate, documenting the backgrounds of the burglars and their associations with the Agency in unprecedented detail, and how the Nixon White House sought to implicate the CIA in the emerging scandal. CIA Director Richard Helms’ relationship with Watergate burglar E. Howard Hunt was much closer than previously disclosed and the CIA agent inside the plot was sent on a double agent mission by American intelligence after he got out of prison.

The alleged target of the Watergate break-ins was DNC chairman Larry O’Brien’s phone. Dirty Tricks reveals that the burglars didn't know where O’Brien’s office was and tapped the wrong phone with a bug that didn't work while O’Brien was in Miami preparing for the 1972 convention. Prosecutor Earl Silbert could "never determine the precise motivation for the burglary” but Dirty Tricks explains the political and sexual nature of the calls overheard on DNC official Spencer Oliver’s phone, and why no bug was found at the DNC until three months after the Watergate arrests.

Drawing on newly-declassified files and previously-unpublished documents, Dirty Tricks debunks the myths around Watergate and deepens our understanding of the “dirty tricks” that undermined democracy during the Nixon years. These scandals turn on the covert action of two powerful interest groups—the senior CIA officers around Helms, and the key advisers around Nixon – in this chilling story of political espionage and deception.

REVIEWS
“While we have fundamental disagreements about 'Watergate' and the Deep State agenda that shaped it, O’Sullivan is to be congratulated on an impeccably researched work of investigative reporting that adds greatly to our understanding of the affair and its mysteries" - Jim Hougan (author, Secret Agenda). 

“Dirty Tricks goes well beyond anything yet published, in revealing the mysterious links between the Watergate scandal and the CIA. Was the bungled burglary part of an internecine effort to topple President Nixon? Was the cover-up for fear of secrets being divulged, from a Washington call-girl ring to the Kennedy assassination? This meticulously-researched book draws upon never-before-seen documents in addressing such questions, in a spy-versus-spy story that fills in major gaps in our recent history" - Dick Russell (author, The Man Who Knew Too Much).

“Shane O’Sullivan’s new book on Watergate, Dirty Tricks, draws on the millions of records that have become available since 2016, chiefly from the CIA. Anyone interested in comparing that crisis with the present needs to consult the fresh information and perspectives in this well-researched and timely book" - Peter Dale Scott (author, The American Deep State: Big Money, Big Oil, and the Struggle for U.S. Democracy).

“This brilliantly researched book will bring back fond memories to those of us who, as was said at the time, wallowed in Watergate.  It provides a new generation with the opportunity to relive this intense experience" - Alan Galbraith (attorney for the Democratic National Committee, 1972).

Edited November 9, 2018 by Shane O'Sullivan

[Kirk Ross]

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Edited November 26, 2018 by Kirk Ross
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[Shane O'Sullivan]

Just adding my two recent articles for the Washington Post here, based on my book: 

The Cuban spy and Watergate burglar who won a presidential pardon

The national security adviser who colluded with foreign powers — decades before Michael Flynn