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. 

Many of the key players in Watergate are also central to the debate about the JFK assassination. The book includes a lot of new information on the CIA and post-CIA work of Howard Hunt, Rolando Martinez and James McCord and reveals that one of the Watergate burglars claimed to have been in Dallas on 11.22.63. The book documents a double agent mission one of the burglars was sent on by American intelligence after he got out of prison and sheds a whole new light on Antonio Veciana and the Maurice Bishop story. 

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).

[Joe Bauer]

Do you write about our own Doug Caddy in your book?

Do you comment on latter day dirty trickster Roger Stone who perversely brags about his sinister unethical doings as if they are some type of acceptable political art form?

Could you put names to the fellows in the photo? Of course we recognize Frank Sturgis ( birth name Frank Fiorini. )

Is it just a photo angle anomaly or are the hands of the fellow on the far left in that photo freakishly huge?

Good luck with your book. Your positive reviewers are impressive.

 

Edited November 9, 2018 by Joe Bauer

[Shane O'Sullivan]

Thanks, Joe. Mr. Caddy is mentioned, Roger Stone is not as he was peripheral to Watergate in my view. The men in the photo are (left to right) locksmith Virgilio Gonzalez, Frank Sturgis (the "look-out" for the second break-in), Henry Rothblatt (attorney for the Miami burglars), Bernard Barker (the "team captain" of the operation) and Rolando Eugenio Martinez, whose role was to photograph documents given to him by Barker. I think the anomaly you mention is the result of a wide-angle lens in the original photo. 

[Steve Thomas]

4 hours ago, Shane O'Sullivan said:

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.

 

Shane,

 

In his review of your book, Dick Russell wrote, " Was the cover-up for fear of secrets being divulged, from a Washington call-girl ring to the Kennedy assassination? "

 

In your view, what secrets relating to the Kennedy assassination was the cover-up designed to conceal?

 

Steve Thomas

[Paz Marverde]

9 hours ago, Shane O'Sullivan said:

I'm pleased to announce the publication of my book

Hi, Shane. How are you? Really happy to see you here. Haven't already read this book, but I can for sure recommend Shane O'Sullivan as an absolutely excellent researcher 

[Paz Marverde]

Let me please add he gave a really wonderful, and important interview to my friend Michele Metta. You can read it here:

https://medium.com/@pazmarverde/a-conversation-with-shane-osullivan-c059aa736d56

 

[Shane O'Sullivan]

Thanks for the recommendation, Paz. I hope you're well, too.

Steve, I think Dick Russell and Jim Hougan are very interested in tracing the links between the JFK assassination and Watergate and the shadow world behind both events and much in-between. I assume Dick feels Hunt and Helms were party to such secrets and I trace how close their relationship was in the book. Helms was pitching Hunt's novels to Hollywood studios until weeks before the first break-in. I also detail a very important contact between Antonio Veciana and Cuban intelligence re the Maurice Bishop story, which was not mentioned in Veciana's recent book.

 

[Anthony Thorne]

Shane, have you and John Newman been communicating your recent discoveries about Veciana to each other? I gather JN looks quite closely at Veciana in his imminent volume 3, INTO THE STORM.

[Shane O'Sullivan]

Anthony, I'm in touch with John and will let him know, though I write about Veciana around the time of his HSCA testimony and I think John's still working through the early sixties. 

[Steve Thomas]

14 minutes ago, Shane O'Sullivan said:

Anthony, I'm in touch with John and will let him know, though I write about Veciana around the time of his HSCA testimony and I think John's still working through the early sixties. 

Shane,

 

In your work, or in Dick Russell's, were you able to pinpoint the exact date Veciana was in Dallas and met with "Bishop"?

I have been trying, unsuccessfully I might add, to establish a cross-reference between the Veciana/Bishop meeting and a picnic held for Cuban exiles at White Rock Lake Park in September of 1963.

Weinstein questioned the Castorrs about this picnic and showed them still pictures taken from TV outtakes which allegedly show Oswald being at this picnic.

 

Steve Thomas

[Paz Marverde]

10 hours ago, Shane O'Sullivan said:

Thanks for the recommendation, Paz. I hope you're well, too.

My pleasure, Shane 

[Shane O'Sullivan]

Steve, I don't go deeply into the Bishop story but the bait for Cuban intelligence in the later op was alleged photographs of Oswald at a DRE meeting in Dallas in 1963 where Veciana spoke. You can watch a 2006 interview I did with Veciana below.

 

 

Edited November 10, 2018 by Shane O'Sullivan

[Joe Bauer]

The Veciana interview is fascinating.

When asked why he won't reveal the identity of Maurice Bishop he says he made a promise to Maurice Bishop not to reveal this information.

Even after Bishop has been dead for years?  Preposterous.

Common life experience logic more strongly suggests there must be another reason for him keeping this promise.

Veciana turns totally away from the interviewer when asked about this promise.

The only time in the interview he is shown doing this.

In my opinion this more animated body language reveals an uncomfortable evasiveness on Veciana's part.   Veciana is still holding back much vital information.

My guess is that Veciana has always been under death threats, even after Bishop has passed, and that may include his family as well.

If so, and Veciana feels that this threat could still be implemented, then it suggest that those who would make such threats are still in control ... in Veciana's mind anyway.

Veciana does say cryptically that maybe "after he dies" he will reveal Bishop's true identity. A confession to be released after death?

At the end point of the interview Veciana states clearly and firmly that there was a conspiracy to kill JFK.

That leads you to assume he knows who was involved more than not knowing this.

Veciana and what he shares about the entire Cuban/CIA/JFK affair just adds more weight to the consideration of a conspiracy to kill JFK, especially the more his story and the details in this check out ( as much as they can be ) as true.

 

 

 

 

 

[Joe Bauer]

I keep thinking about Veciana's promise to "Maurice Bishop" not to reveal his true identity even until his own death as stated in Sullivan's interview of him.

I am trying to understand the loyalty logic of keeping a promise like this until both parties involved are dead. 

This type of mutual death secrecy vow is quite extreme but makes sense in certain situations imo.

Let's say that a beloved spouse, or child or other relative or even great friend revealed a deeply personal secret to another mutually beloved other before they died.  Perhaps a secret that would shame and or harm surviving loved ones the dying person was trying to protect from such?

Beyond the expected loving bonds of family that would justify and validate keeping such secrets until the surviving secret holding person died themselves, what other non-family bond could be so strong to honor such a vow?

I could see a soldier who is the last person to speak to a fellow soldier who is dying in combat making and keeping a vow like this.

Or perhaps someone who the secret sharing person did something incredibly remarkable for, like personally "physically" saving them or their child or other loved one from drowning or some other life and death harm situation.

But what could have "Maurice Bishop" have personally done for Veciana that would be so powerfully giving and/or redeeming to inspire such an extreme "till death" loyalty vow?

Veciana indicates he had no great love or devotion to the CIA. He was willing to accept their offer of help when they first contacted him but only if he was not hired by them. He said they didn't trust his Alpha 66 group.

Veciana's extreme "till his own death" loyalty vow to Bishop makes sense only on a personal level, or a death fearing one.

Veciana actually said something in this interview like "what does it matter" now that so much time has passed regards revealing Maurice Bishop's true identity. That it wouldn't change things?

Mind blowing.  Bishop's true identity would potentially fit so many super important pieces of the JFK truth puzzle together. And regards 11,22,1963 what is more important than the truth about that event?

Mr Veciana...please...before you die...give us the "full" truth of who Bishop really was and why you believe JFK'S murder was a conspiracy?

 

Edited November 10, 2018 by Joe Bauer

[Kirk Ross]

On 11/9/2018 at 3:06 AM, Shane O'Sullivan said:

Quote

 

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. 

 

Thanks, Shane.  Great work!  I still have a few chapters to go and it's already one of my favorite Watergate books.