Watergate and the Assassination of JFK

[John Simkin]

I have never accepted the traditional story concerning Watergate. Nixon was a shrewd operator who would never have got himself involved in such an affair. True, he definitely took part in the cover-up, however, that was inevitable after Nixon discovered that the burglars were linked to the White House.

I believe Richard Nixon diary entry in June, 1972, is an accurate account of events:

“I got the disturbing news from Bob Haldeman that the break-in of the Democratic National Committee involved someone who is on the payroll of the Committee to Re-elect the President. Mitchell had told Bob on the phone enigmatically not to get involved in it, and I told Bob that I simply hoped that none of our people were involved for two reasons - one, because it was stupid in the way it was handled; and two, because I could see no reason whatever for trying to bug the national committee.”

I believe Nixon was set-up. So does Peter Dale Scott. In his book Deep Politics and the Death of JFK (1993) he argues: “The Watergate break-in of 1972 (in which, I have always been convinced, Nixon was not so much a guilty perpetrator as a guilty victim) followed Nixon's secret negotiations with Hanoi for disengagement from Vietnam, significantly advanced by his May 1972 visit to Moscow, where he signed the first Strategic Arms Limitation Agreement.”

Scott seems to believe that Nixon was set up by the same people (Military Industrial Complex) as assassinated JFK. I think this is highly unlikely. Nixon’s negotiations posed no real threat to the MIC. They knew the game was up in Vietnam. This was no real problem for them. All they needed to do was create similar threats in other parts of the world. Nixon was at heart a Cold War warrior and it would not have needed much to persuade him to identify new problems in Latin America, etc.

Who was then behind the setting up of Nixon? What was their motive?

I think a major clue concerns the people who took part in the break-in. It involved several figures linked to the assassination of JFK: Frank Sturgis, Virgilio Gonzalez, Eugenio Martinez, Bernard L. Barker and E.Howard Hunt. They were breaking into the offices of Larry O’Brien. He is himself closely linked to JFK. O’Brien had managed JFK’s successful campaigns for the Senate in 1952 and 1958. O'Brien also played a significant role in JFK being elected president in 1960. JFK appointed O'Brien as its special assistant in 1961. O'Brien was also in the Presidential Motorcade in Dealey Plaza when JFK was assassinated. Were the burglars looking for information that O’Brien had on the assassination? Interestingly, O’Brien was one of the few JFK men who was promoted by LBJ (he served as Postmaster General between 1965-68).

O’Brien also provides another link to the assassination. After the Democratic Party lost power in 1968, O’Brien worked for Howard Hughes, as his man in Washington. Hughes is also linked to the assassination. In the 1960s Hughes used Robert Maheu for undercover work. So also did the CIA. On 25th September, Maheu arranged for two CIA agents to meet Johnny Roselli and Sam Giancana, at the Fountainebleau Hotel on Miami Beach. Maheu told Roselli and Giancana that the CIA was willing to pay $150,000 to have Castro killed.

Maheu began full-time work for Hughes in 1966. He moved to Las Vegas where he ran Hughes's casinos.

Hughes had for a long-time been linked to Nixon. In 1956 the Hughes Tool Company had provided a $205,000 loan to Nixon Incorporated, a company run by Richard's brother, F. Donald Nixon. The money was never paid back. Soon after the money was paid the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) reversed a previous decision to grant tax-exempt status to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

This information was revealed by Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson during the 1960 presidential campaign. Nixon initially denied the loan but later was forced to admit that this money had been given to his brother. It was claimed that this story helped John F. Kennedy defeat Nixon in the election.

One only has to read Eugenio Martinez’s account of the break-in to realize that the person behind it wanted these men caught.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=1329

They also knew that Watergate could be linked back to the White House (via E. Howard Hunt).

Nixon would also have probably have got away with it if it was not for Deep Throat. The identity of this person has never been revealed. Was it the same person who had set up Nixon? Was this person trying to get the information about the JFK out into the public domain? Did they expect Frank Sturgis, Virgilio Gonzalez, Eugenio Martinez, Bernard L. Barker and E.Howard Hunt to talk? Did it fail because the person behind the JFK assassination was forced to pay large sums of money to keep these people from talking?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[James Richards]

John,

When you look at all of this, we have some very high profiles in the likes of Sturgis and Hunt being common denominators but the one who gets very little press is Virgilio Gonzalez aka Raoul Godoyn aka Roman Gonzalez aka Rene Lomalru.

In Martinez's letter, he paints Gonzalez as a humble locksmith who was recruited for the break-in. This is clearly untrue as if anyone would know who Gonzalez was, it was Eugenio Martinez. Both of these men participated on the Bayo-Pawley mission and before that when Gonzlez was back in Cuba, he was Major Felipe Vidal Santiago's personal assistant and driver. Gonzalez was also present at a Florida sniper's camp in the late summer of 1963 after he supposedly went missing from the Bayo mission. Below is a photograph of Gonzalez at that camp (foreground), a photograph that I was warned not to post by an anonymous emailer some time back.

BTW, in an unconfirmed report, Gonzalez was in Mexico City in 1975 where Mexico claimed he was a member of the Domestic Operations Division, the one that was once headed by Tracy Barnes.

At the end of the day, guys like Gonzalez and Martinez don't talk, they follow orders. Martinez makes this point when he says in his letter that his parents died in Cuba after he was told not to bring them out - he was following orders. Remember that Martinez and Gonzalez were not assets, they were actual employee's of the CIA.

FWIW.

James

[Ron Ecker]

I believe the best explanation for the Watergate break-ins was given in the book Silent Coup. Liddy read the book and was convinced that this explanation was correct. He discusses it in the appendix of his book When I Was a Kid, This Was a Free Country.

The first break-in was to bug the telephone of the DNC's Spencer Oliver, because that phone was used to set up important Democratic visitors with call girls. IOW the purpose of the break-in was to expose a call-girl ring being run out of the DNC.

John Dean subsequently found out that one of the photographs of call girls that were kept in the desk of Spencer's secretary to show visitors may have been of his fiance Mo Biner. Dean ordered the second break-in in order to get rid of anything that would damage his own reputation and Mo's. Apparently the CIA made sure the burglars were caught in the process, for whatever reason they wanted to bring down Nixon. But the break-ins themselves were, to quote Bill Clinton fans, "just about sex."

The key that was taken from Eugenio Martinez upon his arrest was the key to the secretary's desk, and, in Liddy's words, "the key to Watergate."

[David Boylan]

I'd also recommend Secret Agenda by Jim Hougan. He pioneered much of the work that Silent Coup was based.

Dave

[David Boylan]

James,

Also Reinaldo Pico. He was working for Bernard Barker in the summer of 1963. I believe that Pico travelled with Paulino Sierra to visit Artime's Latin America bases. I wonder in what capacity Pico was acting?

Dave

[James Richards]

James,

Also Reinaldo Pico. He was working for Bernard Barker in the summer of 1963. I believe that Pico travelled with Paulino Sierra to visit Artime's Latin America bases. I wonder in what capacity Pico was acting?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hi David,

Indeed, Pico is of much interest. He was a part of some deal post BOP for tractors or something. That always sounded pretty strange to me. At this point, he was mixed up with a guy named Ulises Carbo who is another one with some interesting connections which include our old friend Bernardo De Torres. Pico was very much a part of the dirty tricks team which was mostly made up of Cubans who came through Fort Benning in 1963.

I also have Pico mixing it with Jose Perdomo (possibly someone Sturgis reported to in 1959) and who ended up working at the Dakota building as a doorman when John Lennon was shot, and who was seen intensely conversing with Chapman moments before the incident.

I'm sure it's only a coincidence though.

James

[James Richards]

Also Reinaldo Pico. He was working for Bernard Barker in the summer of 1963. I believe that Pico travelled with Paulino Sierra to visit Artime's Latin America bases. I wonder in what capacity Pico was acting?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

For David,

Regarding Pico, I mentioned he was involved in some tractor deal post BOP. Here is the contingent of 'negotiators' below. Reinaldo Pico Ramon is 4th from the right. I may have sent you this before. If I have, my apologies for doubling up.

Also, someone (I can't remember who), asked me about Felix Eloy Perez Tamayo. That is him on the far right.

James

Edited August 6, 2004 by James Richards