Douglas Caddy

Bob Woodward reviews ‘The Nixon Defense,’ by John W. Dean By Bob Woodward July 31, 2014 The Washington Post Bob Woodward is an associate editor of The Washington Post, where he has worked for nearly 43 years. He is the author or co-author of 17 books. Four are about Watergate, including “All the President’s Men” and “The Final Days,” both co-authored with Carl Bernstein. Evelyn Duffy contributed to this review. President Richard Nixon’s decision to install a secret recording system — and then to retain the tapes — perhaps ranks as the most consequential self-inflicted political wound of 20th-century America. The criminality, abuse of power, obsession with real and perceived enemies, rage, self-focus, and small-mindedness revealed on those tapes left him abandoned by his own party and forced him to resign 40 years ago. To date, the dissemination of some 250 White House conversations has defined his presidency and its corruption. Now comes John W. Dean, Nixon’s White House counsel and later his chief accuser, to transcribe and analyze at least 600 new conversations in his book “The Nixon Defense.” The title is misleading, because it suggests there is a case for Nixon’s innocence. Dean quickly clears that up when he writes in the preface, “Fortunately for everyone, his defense failed.” The new material reveals further examples of the administration’s contempt for the law. It provides a detailed narrative of precisely what happened inside the Nixon White House beginning three days after the June 17, 1972, burglary when five men were arrested in the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate, and continuing until the taping system was shut down after aide Alexander Butterfield revealed it 13 months later. I never doubted that Nixon was the ringleader and driving force behind the Watergate crimes and mind-set. The evidence on previous tapes, the testimony at hearings and trials, and the memoirs of his closest aides made that clear. But Dean’s book seals that conclusion, perhaps forever. He brings the microscope as close to the Nixon of Watergate as anyone has, and he has done so in a generally dispassionate presentation of hundreds of pages of content from the tapes, plus quotations and scenes from previously released recordings, including conversations in which he participated. “Watergate,” Dean concludes, “as the overwhelming evidence revealed, was merely one particularly egregious expression of Nixon’s often ruthless abuses of power. Had Richard Nixon not encouraged his aides to collect political intelligence by any means fair or foul, or insisted from the moment of the [Watergate] arrests that there must be no coverup, neither would have taken place. Nixon was not only responsible for all that went amiss during his presidency, he was in almost every instance the catalyst, when not the instigator.” The new tapes depict a White House full of lies, chaos, distrust, speculation, self-protection, maneuver and counter-maneuver, with a crookedness that makes Netflix’s “House of Cards” look unsophisticated. Dean himself was eventually charged with obstruction of justice and served four months in prison. Describing himself and Nixon’s other top aides in the spring of 1973, he writes: “We had become something of a criminal cabal, weighing the risks of further criminal action to prevent the worst while hoping something might unexpectedly occur that would resolve the problems. Watergate conversations had become like the devil’s merry-go-round with the same basic tune played over and over while various people climbed on and off.” The book contains no new blockbusters, but the new tapes suggest that the full story of the Nixon administration’s secret operations may forever remain buried along with their now-deceased perpetrators. For example, on Oct. 10, 1972, Carl Bernstein and I wrote in The Washington Post that Watergate was not an isolated operation but only part of a massive campaign of political espionage and sabotage run by the Nixon reelection committee and the White House. Dean writes that the story “reframed Watergate as more than a mere bungled burglary at the DNC.” The broad extent of the malfeasance was evident in a conversation that Charles W. Colson had with the president the same day, according to the book. Colson, Nixon’s shadowy operative and special counsel, told him almost gleefully that “nothing in that article this morning has anything to do with my office. The things that I have done that could be explosive in the newspaper will never come out, because nobody knows about them. I don’t trust anybody in my office.” Nixon did not ask what these might be. Three months later, after the president won reelection, Colson bragged to his boss: “I did a hell of a lot of things on the outside, and you never read about it. The things you read about were the things I didn’t do, Watergate” and the sabotage and espionage operations against the Democrats run by California lawyer Donald Segretti. “But you see, I did things out of Boston,” Colson said, referring to his home town. “We did some blackmail and — ” “My God,” Nixon interrupted. Even he was apparently surprised. “I’ll go to my grave before I ever disclose it,” Colson continued. “But we did a hell of a lot of things and never got caught. Things that — ” Colson abruptly stopped, and Nixon inquired no further. In a footnote, Dean writes that he had a similar conversation with Colson, who said that his “secret activities” could send him to jail if they were ever revealed. Colson died in 2012. Dean shows White House chief of staff H.R. “Bob” Haldeman and the top domestic adviser, John D. Ehrlichman, at one moment denying to the president any role in clandestine, criminal activities, then acknowledging it. The tapes also capture Nixon shading the truth after admitting knowledge of the activities. On April 14, 1973, Ehrlichman told the president that, based on his own investigation of the Watergate cover-up, “there were eight or 10 people around [the White House] who knew about this, knew it was going on.” He told Nixon that “Bob [Haldeman] knew, I knew, all kinds of people knew.” “Well, I knew it, I knew it,” Nixon replied. But then he quickly tried to backtrack. Dean writes: “Realizing what he had just confessed, and possibly realizing that it had been recorded, the president immediately tried, rather awkwardly to retract it.” Nixon is then heard on the tape saying, “I knew, I must say though, I didn’t know it.” This type of classic doubletalk appears time and again on the new tapes. “The Nixon Defense” offers tantalizing hints that White House aides were gleaning information from the telephone wiretap that had been secretly placed in the DNC’s Watergate headquarters. On March 16, 1973, Ehrlichman told the president that it was his “hunch” that key campaign and White House aides, including former attorney general John Mitchell, were receiving reports from the wiretap. “And there’s some pretty juicy stuff in there,” Ehrlichman said. The fruits of the bug have not been made public. Dean notes that the National Archives is holding back some material, citing privacy and because it was obtained using an illegal wiretap. On April 9, 1973, three months before the secret White House recording system was revealed publicly, Nixon instructed Haldeman to get rid of all the tapes. “I think we should take all that we’ve got and destroy them,” the president is heard saying on tape. “I don’t want to have in the record the discussions we’ve had in this room about Watergate.” As Dean writes, “Had he destroyed the tapes he would have survived, tarnished but intact.” But the order was not carried out. Nine days later, Nixon repeated his request. “I would like you to take all these tapes, if you wouldn’t mind,” he said, as if he were asking Haldeman to perform a routine task. He wanted Haldeman to destroy most of the tapes. “Would you do that?” “Sure,” Haldeman said. But Nixon did not pursue the matter. The White House was chronically prone to insufficient follow-through, and Nixon was often indecisive as he tried to untangle himself from the Watergate crimes. Not only did the tapes escape the trash bin, but the president kept the secret recording system going through the spring of 1973 while he directed the cover-up. During those months he developed another, deeper illegal obstruction of justice — the cover-up of the cover-up. After White House aide Butterfield publicly disclosed the existence of the secret recordings to the Senate Watergate committee on July 16, 1973, Nixon told his new chief of staff, Alexander Haig: “Al, I’ve thought about this all night. Maybe Alex Butterfield has done us a favor. These tapes will be exculpatory. I know I never said anything to anybody that could be interpreted as encouragement to cover things up. Just the opposite.” This is preposterous and indicative of Nixon’s state of denial. Although an abundance of tape material now exists, it is likely that still more evidence is on the horizon. Some tapes or key sections are inaudible and defy reliable transcription. Improved technology could someday retrieve additional content. In addition the National Archives, which houses the tapes, may eventually release more of them. Dean, as always the model of precision and doggedness, has performed yeoman service in this more-than-700-page monster of a book. Even for someone who has covered Watergate for 42 years, from the morning of the burglary through the investigations, confessions, denials, hearings, trials, books and attempts at historical revisionism, Dean’s book has an authoritative ring. Page after page of taped dialogue reveals the rambling, ugly fog of scandal as Nixon and his top aides scramble to deceive one another and save themselves. The new tapes provide even more incontrovertible evidence of the administration’s illegal conduct. Look no further than a May 23, 1973, tape in which Nixon addressed his initial authorization of Tom Charles Huston’s top-secret 1970 plan to expand break-ins, wiretapping and mail openings. “I ordered that they use any means necessary, including illegal means, to accomplish this goal,” Nixon told Haig. “The president of the United States can never admit that.” He just had, of course, and the new tapes show him making admissions of criminality again and again. Bob Woodward is an associate editor of The Washington Post, where he has worked for nearly 43 years. He is the author or co-author of 17 books. Four are about Watergate, including “All the President’s Men” and “The Final Days,” both co-authored with Carl Bernstein. Evelyn Duffy contributed to this review.

Two Former Senior Murdoch Editors Charged Over UK Phone-Hacking By REUTERS JULY 30, 2014, 8:57 A.M. E.D.T. LONDON — Two more senior journalists from Rupert Murdoch's defunct British tabloid the News of the World have been charged with phone-hacking, prosecutors said on Wednesday, weeks after the paper's former editor was jailed for the crime. Neil Wallis, the paper's former deputy editor, and former features editor Jules Stenson, have been charged with conspiracy to intercept voicemails on mobile phones of well-known figures or people close to them, the Crown Prosecution Service said. Andy Coulson, who edited the paper from 2003 until 2007 before working as Prime Minister David Cameron's media chief, was jailed on July 4 for 18 months for encouraging staff to hack phones in a bid to get exclusive stories. His trial, one of the most expensive of its kind in British legal history, heard that thousands of victims from celebrities to politicians and victims of crime were targeted by the paper. Minutes after he was convicted, Cameron apologised for employing him. Outrage at the paper's activities forced Murdoch to close the paper in 2011 when the scale of the crimes came to light, since when dozens of reporters from his British tabloids have been arrested over allegations of criminal activity. Four other former journalists and a private detective have also admitted phone-hacking while working for the News of the World. A week ago, the CPS decided not to take action against six other staff. Prosecutors are still considering whether corporate charges should be brought against News Corp.'s British arm, formerly known as News International (NI). "I'm devastated that more than three years after my initial arrest, this swingeing indiscriminate charge had been brought against me," Wallis said on Twitter. "Perhaps it is inevitable that after being such an outspoken critic of the collateral damage and pain caused by this needlessly vindictive and enormously costly investigation, the ire has been turned on me for something that occurred at NI of which I knew nothing and which I have always said was wrong." News UK, as Murdoch's British paper business is now known, said it had no comment on the charges while Stenson could not be reached for comment. Wallis and Stenson are due to appear at London's Westminster Magistrates' court on Aug. 21.

If you want to understand what is happening in the world today, you must view this video. Russia recognizes that the U.S. is aiming for a World War, one that will be fought with nuclear weapons. From what Putin’s Economic Adviser says, it is almost inescapable but to conclude that this may occur before year’s end. Putin’s Economic Advisor Warns WW3 Has Begun, States Russia Must Defeat US Nazism to Solve Ukranian Crisis!

THE NIXON DEFENSE What He Knew and When He Knew It By John W. Dean 746 pages. Viking. $35. Review by Robert Dallek The New York Times July 27, 2014 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/28/books/in-the-nixon-defense-john-w-dean-returns-to-watergate.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0

Andy Coulson faces questions over 'hidden assets' as court seeks to recoup phone hacking trial costs Former News of the World editor is being asked to pay back a proportion of the cost of his trial but prosecutors want to investigate whether he has hidden any assets Telegraph July 26, 2014 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/phone-hacking/10991099/Andy-Coulson-faces-questions-over-hidden-assets-as-court-seeks-to-recoup-phone-hacking-trial-costs.html

Book Review: 'The Nixon Tapes' by Douglas Brinkley and Luke A. Nichter The Wall Street Journal By John Lewis Gaddis July 25, 2014 http://online.wsj.com/articles/book-review-the-nixon-tapes-by-douglas-brinkley-and-luke-a-nichter-1406322741

Unclassified JFK Assassination Database Still Stored In Top Secret Vault -- for Convenience By Aliya Sternstein July 23, 2014 www.nextgov.com The master database cataloging material related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy has always been housed in a Top Secret vault, much of the time on a personal computer, according to National Archives and Records Administration officials. The index -- which does not hold physical artifacts -- was set up in a stand-alone computer in the early 1990s in response to the 1992 JFK Assassination Records Collection Act. The law does not require Fort Knox-like protection. It's just handy for the Archives personnel who use the system to have the JFK database close to other caseloads that include classified records http://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2014/07/unclassified-jfk-assassination-database-still-stored-top-secret-vault-convenience/89435/

Google must not be left to 'censor history', Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales warns Jimmy Wales says that "right to be forgotten laws" must not mean that a private company such as Google is in charge of deciding what parts of history are recorded and which are erased http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/10990414/Google-must-not-be-left-to-censor-history-Wikipedia-founder-Jimmy-Wales-warns.html

BEBE THE BAGMAN Secret Manipulations of President's Crony Still Pose Question Mark http://quixoticjoust.blogspot.com/2014/07/bebe-rebozo-and-his-pan-american.html

http://crooksandliars.com/gordonskene/e-howard-hunt-and-william-f-buckley-19

Mark Lane interviewed by William F. Buckley, Jr. on December 1, 1966

Published on Mar 22, 2013 by Justin Lozoff ... in politics. In his own words, the soon to be President-elect records verbal notes, presumably for a future book. The dictabelt tape recordings were never intended for public consumption, it's just JFK thinking aloud to himself. 3 minutes were shaved off of mispronunciations, errors in speaking, "ah's", long pauses, etc. The only downside to that is that you can't hear the wheels in his head turning as much, which is interesting. *For HD click on 480p & expand screen, for an intimate experience.

You can listen to Robert Merritt and the NY Times reporter, Michael Powell, being interviewed today on The Power Hour in hours 2 and 3 below. Merritt claimed that only 18 percent of "Watergate Exposed" was his writing. He said that the rest were "lies" fabricated by me. Moderator Joyce Riley cut him off quickly about this. He also declared that 100 of the 200 pieces of candy that he distributed to the anti-war protesters in the early 1970s at their parade in Washington resulted in many people dying from the poison placed in the candy and many of these protesters permanently losing their minds due to the chemicals placed in the candy. He said that he only recently had thought about the havoc by him that occurred on those involved. http://archives2014.gcnlive.com/Archives2014/jul14/PowerHour/0717142.mp3 http://archives2014.gcnlive.com/Archives2014/jul14/PowerHour/0717143.mp3 http://jimhougan.com/wordpress/?p=230

THURSDAY - JULY 17, 2014: EXCLUSIVE POWER HOUR INTERVIEW: Former confidential informant ROBERT MERRITT, and New York Times Reporter MICHAEL POWELL will be sharing information on the secret life of working for the government. Learn more about Michael's exclusive interview with Robert Merritt in his latest article: Takeover of Kenmore Hotel: Informer Recalls His Complicity. ** This is a Power Hour exclusive interview and the only place you will hear details from Robert Merritt and Michael Powell's interview. This will also be the last radio interview ever that Robert Merritt will be giving. The show can be listened to over the Internet. http://www.thepowerhour.com/schedule.htm

Rupert Murdoch Is Trying To Buy Time Warner For A Huge Price http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/16/rupert-murdoch-time-warner-merger_n_5590787.html

James: This is extremely good news indeed. For the sake of transparency, could you provide forum members with the names of those who comprise your group that has valiantly stepped forward and saved this valuable resource? Many thanks in this regard. Doug

The August 2014 issue of Vanity Fair came in the mail today. I immediately read the eagerly-awaited article, “Nixon Unbound”, by Douglas Brinkley and Luke A. Nichter. Their article is adapted from their new book being published this month, The Nixon Tapes, which draws up 3,700 hours of Nixon White House tapes. The bulk of the tapes in Vanity Fair are devoted to Nixon and his inner circle discussing global affairs. Frequently the discussion is between Nixon and his national-security adviser, Henry Kissinger. Kissinger comes off as the classic ass-kisser. He almost invariably agrees with any foreign policy opinion expressed by Nixon. If he strays off the reservation in these discussions, he quickly retreats from his own opinion and loses no time in embracing Nixon’s. The Vanity Fair article runs from pages 68 to 76. There are no great bombshells revealed in the article. For example, Nixon’s opinions on homosexuality and gays have been broadcast before, so there is nothing new here. I look forward to reading the authors’ new book that will be in the bookstores by month’s end. Undoubtedly there will be insightful and valuable material in the book that is not covered in Vanity Fair. As an aside, I am writing an article based on Nixon’s and John Ehrlichman’s discussions in the Oval Office on June 21, 1972, and July 19, 1972, about me. These discussions can be found in Prof. Stanley Kutler’s book, Abuse of Power: The New Nixon Tapes, published in 1997. My article will make a new and major revelation about Watergate, based on the Nixon-Ehrlichman Oval Office discussions. http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2014/07/nixon-secret-white-house-audio-tapes

If you do this, the NSA will spy on you http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2014/07/if-you-do-nsa-will-spy-you/88054/

Trove of KGB Secrets Smuggled Out of Russia by Defector in 1992, Made Public http://time.com/2960752/soviet-defectors-kgb-secrets-public-russia-communism/

JFK: HOW THE MEDIA ASSASSINATED THE REAL STORY By Robert Hennelly and Jerry Policoff Published 2002 http://www.assassinationresearch.com/v1n2/mediaassassination.html

Mort Sahl on the 50th Anniversary of the JFK Assassination Published June 5, 2014

INTERVIEW with GAYLE NIX by ROBERT WILSON A Gary Revel Investigative News Web Site July 7, 2014 New York, New York http://garyrevel.com/jfk/gaylenix.html Gayle Nix- Jackson’s new book "Orville Nix: The Missing Assassination Film" (Semper Ad Meliora Publishing, 2014), details the story of her grandfather Orville Nix and how he came to record the assassination of JFK.

Ex-CIA employee seeks release of hidden, secret documents http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/cia-employees-quest-to-release-information-destroyed-my-entire-career/2014/07/04/e95f7802-0209-11e4-8572-4b1b969b6322_story.html?hpid=z1 http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/documents/world/list-of-documents-the-cia-was-sued-to-release/1079/?hpid=z2

Andy Coulson jailed for 18 months for conspiracy to hack phones Sentencing of former News of the World executives over phone hacking shows no one is above the law, says David Cameron • Sentencing remarks of Mr Justice Saunders (pdf) http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jul/04/andy-coulson-jailed-phone-hacking By Lisa O'Carroll theguardian.com, Friday 4 July 2014 06.32 EDT The disgraced former No 10 spin doctor Andy Coulson has been jailed for 18 months for plotting to hack phones while he was in charge of the News of the World. The 46-year-old was found guilty last week of conspiring to intercept voicemails at the now-defunct Sunday tabloid following an eight-month trial at the Old Bailey. The offence carries a maximum sentence of two years' imprisonment, but Coulson received a discount of several months for his previous good character. He could be out in less than nine months because, as a non-violent offender, he is required to serve just half his sentence. Mr Justice Saunders told the court the evidence heard in the trial revealed that Coulson clearly thought it was necessary to use phone hacking to maintain the News of the World's "competitive edge". He said the paper's delay in telling police about hacking the voicemail of the missing Surrey schoolgirl Milly Dowler in 2002 showed the motivation was to "take credit for finding her" and sell the maximum number of newspapers. Saunders described that delay as "unforgiveable". The judge said: "Mr Coulson has to take the major share for the blame of phone hacking at the News of the World. He knew about it, he encouraged it when he should have stopped it." The judge said there was "insufficient evidence to conclude that he started phone hacking at the News of the World" but there was "ample evidence that it increased enormously while he was editor". Dressed in the grey suit and white shirt combination he has frequently worn during the trial, Coulson arrived with his QC, Timothy Langdale, in a London taxi and pushed through the scrum of photographers to enter the court. Coulson's wife Eloise was not present. One of his legal team took his small black holdall to the dock where large suitcases belonging to the other defendants who are also being sentenced sat. He will be taken to HM Belmarsh prison near Woolwich at lunchtime where he will be assessed before being sent to an open prison in a few days. The high-security prison is home to terrorists and other category A prisoners, but has a separate wing dealing with local offenders sentenced at the Old Bailey, which is where Coulson and his co-defendants will go. David Cameron, who employed Coulson as his director of communications after he left the News of the World, said the jail sentence showed that "no-one is above the law". Asked about the outcome on a visit to Scotland, the prime minister said: "Well, what it says is that it is right that justice should be done and no one is above the law, which is what I have always said." The Labour leader, Ed Miliband, said the case amounted to a verdict on Cameron's judgment. "My thoughts today are with the victims of phone hacking, the victims of Andy Coulson's behaviour," he said. "I think it's right that justice has been done. "I think, once again, it throws up very serious questions about David Cameron's judgment in bringing a criminal into the heart of Downing Street despite repeated warnings. This is a verdict on Andy Coulson's criminal behaviour but it is also a verdict on David Cameron's judgment." Three former news editors of the paper – all of whom pleaded guilty to taking part in a conspiracy to intercept voicemail messages of royals, celebrities, politicians, sports stars and victims of crime between 2000 and 2006 – were also sentenced. Greg Miskiw, 64, who hired the private investigator-turned phone hacker Glenn Mulcaire to work for the paper in 2001, was jailed for six months. Neville Thurlbeck, 52, the paper's former chief reporter and news editor who conspired to hack the phone of former home secretary David Blunkett, also got six months. James Weatherup, 58, who joined the paper in 2004 and admitted tasking Mulcaire to hack phones, was handed a 12-month suspended sentence. The paper's former specialist hacker, Glenn Mulcaire, 43, a footballer-turned-investigator who had been jailed for hacking the phones of royal aides in 2007, was also sentenced. He had pleaded guilty to a second set of charges last year, including the hacking of Milly's phone. Coulson, Miskiw and Thurlbeck looked emotionless during their sentencing and the public gallery was silent. Weatherup and Mulcaire were able to walk free from court. Three court security staff sat in the dock with the defendants for the first time, escorting Coulson and his two former colleagues after the judge ordered them to be "taken down". Saunders rejected the argument offered by Mulcaire's lawyers in mitigation that he thought he was helping the police by hacking her phone. But he was allowed home after he recieved a six-month sentence that was suspended for 12 months. Saunders said: "Mr Mulcaire, you are truly the lucky one", telling him it would be "wrong" to send him back to prison as he had already served time in 2007 for phone hacking. He added that it was not his fault that the authorities did not conduct a full investigation and undercover the full extent of hacking at the time. The judge also said: "All the journalists in the dock are distinguished. There was no need for hacking. Their achievements now count for nothing". Saunders gave the maximum one third discount to Thurlbeck, who had hacked David Blunkett's phone, and Miskiw, the executive who hired Mulcaire, because they had pleaded guilty early. He said the previous good character of Thurlbeck, Miskiw and Weatherup counted for very little. "They were able to get away with this criminal conduct for so long because of the respect in which they were held as senior journalists," Saunders said. He said all three had expressed remorse for what they had done but he felt it "had the appearance of regret for the consequences … of getting caught". The sentencing of the five comes three years to the day since the Guardian revealed that someone acting on behalf of the News of the World had hacked Milly's phone in 2002. During the trial, Coulson denied being party to hacking or knowing that Milly's phone had been hacked by Mulcaire. However, he admitted listening to the hacked messages Blunkett left on a married woman's phone – an admission that is likely to have been central to the jury's decision to find him guilty. He also said he did not know at the time that hacking was a crime and that if he knew any of his staff were involved in the unlawful activity he would have viewed it as "intrusive" and "lazy journalism". Hacking was made an offence under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, which was drawn up to govern law enforcement agencies' use of surveillance. The prosecution said that Coulson and the news editors had "utterly corrupted" the News of the World and turned it into a "thoroughly criminal enterprise". Crown prosecutor Andrew Edis QC said the phone-hacking victims of the now-defunct Sunday tabloid "read like a Who's Who of Britain in the first five years of this century". After sentencing, the court returned to the issue of the £750,000 costs the crown is seeking to claw back from those convicted. All five face financial ruin if costs are awarded against them in what the judge described as a "unique" case, which will be heard later this year. Prosecutor Andrew Edis said it was still not clear if Coulson's costs would be indemnified against costs. Jonathan Laidlaw, QC for Rebekah Brooks said if she were to give a detailed breakdown of the costs it would take her three months. Seven of the 11 jurors returned to see Coulson sentenced.

Takeover of Kenmore Hotel: Informer Recalls His Complicity JULY 2, 2014 The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/03/nyregion/takeover-of-kenmore-hotel-informer-recalls-his-complicity.html?_r=0 [Photo: Earl Robert Merritt seen last week. He was an informer known as Tony when the government seized the Kenmore Hotel in 1994. Credit Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times] By MICHAEL POWELL It was as if the Fifth Infantry Division had come marching down East 23rd Street. Late in the morning of June 8, 1994, police officers, federal marshals and F.B.I. agents invaded one of New York City’s grand temples of dysfunction: the 22-story, 641-room ulcer known as the Kenmore Hotel. They ran into the lobby, which stank of mildew and urine. They ran up the stairs, as crack vials crackled beneath their feet. They battered down doors and rousted residents in that vast rabbit warren. They arrested 18 tenants on charges of drug dealing; the tenants sat, dazed, in handcuffs on the sidewalk. The takeover of the Kenmore was at the time the largest federal forfeiture to fight drug dealing in American history. “The Kenmore Hotel has been permeated by violence and become a virtual supermarket of crack cocaine,” Mary Jo White, then the United States attorney in Manhattan, told reporters. Gov. Mario M. Cuomo visited the scene and Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani held an all-points press conference. Why not? It was liberation. The hotel, a warren of 641 rooms on East 23rd Street in Manhattan, was notorious for drug dealing. Credit John Sotomayor/The New York Times There is another, more unsettling version. Two police informers now claim that the conquest of the Kenmore was a dirty victory, another chapter in an era in which the police and prosecutors fought a blood tide of homicides, crack and heroin, and too often took disturbing liberties. We love to congratulate ourselves on New York’s global reputation as a safe, even pasteurized metropolis. The informer’s tale suggests that the trail the city traveled had more disquieting byways than we realized. A confidential informer, a man whose career in snitching for the police and federal agencies extends back to the Watergate era, said the assault on the Kenmore was constructed of illegalities. This informer, Earl Robert Merritt, described how he had worked with narcotics officers — before and after the takeover — to frame more than 150 Kenmore residents as dealers. “I planted drugs, I planted guns, I made false reports,” Mr. Merritt said. “I was given a list — little stars by the list of tenants who I was supposed to set up.” “I helped send hundreds of people out in handcuffs,” he added, “and I’d say 80 percent were innocent.” Mr. Merritt, 70, who hobbles about with wrecked hips and two black canes, was an informer for nearly 40 years, according to federal and police records. The Manhattan district attorney confirmed that he had worked at the Kenmore; two officers said he was an excellent informer. He named dozens of people he said he had set up. Some served prison terms, records show. After the takeover of the Kenmore, he said, he undermined its tenants’ association, again at the direction of federal agents. Mr. Merritt took his accusations to the Manhattan district attorney last year. He said an assistant prosecutor in the mid-1990s had directed him to swear falsely that he had witnessed certain crimes. A public-corruption prosecutor interviewed Mr. Merritt and pulled court files. “Senior prosecutors have done extensive interviews with this informant, and followed several potential leads, but to date have not found provable allegations,” a law enforcement official familiar with Mr. Merritt’s allegations said. “But the file is open, and if more information comes to light it will certainly be taken seriously.” The district attorney’s investigation appears to have been confined to pulling court files. In eight months of interviewing dozens of people connected with the Kenmore, including former tenants, those arrested and police officers, I did not find one who had been questioned anew. Mr. Merritt’s charges can be difficult to verify. Many former Kenmore tenants — impoverished, haunted by addictions and bouncing along the river bottom of life — have disappeared from the public record. By his own account, those whom Mr. Merritt fingered as drug dealers and illegally set up ran the gamut, from actual dealers to low-level drug users with mental health issues to tenant leaders who angered him or federal and city agents but were not dealing drugs at all. Five people — two former tenants, a caseworker, a former lawyer and another police informer — confirmed Mr. Merritt’s core accusations. Three of the five spoke on the record. “He’d tell us a tenant was going to be arrested and the next day, out they went, out in handcuffs,” the former caseworker said. “They wanted to clean the place out, and they gave him lists, and he’d be swearing to God people were drug dealers.” I reached Dominick Crispino, the former lawyer and tenant — who has since been disbarred and done time for larceny. “We kept saying Merritt was a tool of the government and told the courts he was setting people up,” he said. “If he’s coming clean, you can count on every word. He was one of the smartest people I ever tangled with.” A quick-witted fellow with owlish eyes, Mr. Merritt lived in an ethical netherworld. He was a crack addict, and in the 1980s had been convicted of felony fraud and became a fugitive. (A judge later tossed out the conviction.) In long interviews at his apartment off Fordham Road in the Bronx, however, Mr. Merritt rarely contradicted himself. Court records confirmed his mastery of details. He insisted that I portray him as deeply flawed. “You cannot paint me with a halo on my head,” he said. “I’m a nasty son of a bitch.” Three law enforcement agents described Mr. Merritt as a cunning informer. If there was a hero at the Kenmore Hotel, it was Scott Kimmins, a tall patrolman known to lawbreakers as Stretch. Before the federal takeover, he walked the hotel stairs alone. He rousted and arrested dealers and comforted marooned innocents. He came to know Mr. Merritt, who accused him of no illegalities. “He was on the money, for the most part,” noted Mr. Kimmins, now operations director for the Flatiron 23rd Street Business Improvement District. “He’d mention a room, and sure enough, you’d see drug activity.” Mr. Kimmins emphasized that he did not know the narcotics officers or their relationship with Mr. Merritt. He saw no need for illegal subterfuges. “That’s ridiculous,” he said. “You could be deaf and dumb and make a bust there.” He said Mr. Merritt loved to tell tall tales of his supposed connections to intelligence agencies and Watergate. But as it happened, those tales were true. Federal records confirm that Mr. Merritt worked with the Washington police and the F.B.I. to infiltrate left-wing groups in Washington in the early 1970s; that his police handler apprehended the Watergate burglars; and that he was interviewed by investigators for the Watergate special prosecutor, Archibald Cox. Told of this, Mr. Kimmins chuckled ruefully. Years ago, he noted, he assumed the charges against the police officers accused of abusing Abner Louima were absurd. Those accusations, too, proved true. “I don’t believe Tony,” he said. “But I’ve been surprised before.” Mr. Merritt offers his own caution: “A confidential informant is a very powerful character. We don’t need a badge or gun. And we ruin lives.” THE KENMORE HOTEL had a seedy literary pedigree. It was a Gramercy Park refuge for Dashiell Hammett; Nathanael West worked as a night manager. Its decline was baroque. In 1985, Tran Dinh Truong, a shipping magnate who prospered mysteriously during the Vietnam War, arrived in the United States with suitcases full of gold bars. He bought the Kenmore as a tax shelter, and ran it with no regard for safety. He filled the place with ex-convicts, prostitutes and addicts. He hired security guards who waved in anyone for a few dollars. Mr. Merritt, a moth to that flame, got a job. “My main job was to hand out cash envelopes to the building and elevator inspectors,” Mr. Merritt said. “The only thing they inspected was their envelopes.” Conditions inside grew hideous. An 86-year-old was murdered in the communal bathroom. A woman was strangled in her room. For residents of Gramercy Park, an embattled middle-class pocket, the hotel visited miseries from burglaries to drug dealing. By the early 1990s, federal officials had set their eyes on Mr. Truong and his wayward hotel. Narcotics officers and federal agents made more than 100 arrests and, records show, they relied on an informer: Mr. Merritt. He is gifted at ingratiating himself. He could laugh with a dealer, buy vials of crack and smoke it. Then he would point out that man for the police. “If I didn’t like you, or the police wanted you gone, you were gone,” he said. It was as if he was inhaling chutzpah. “It was too outrageous for even dealers to think he’d come right back the next day,” the former caseworker said. Robert Chaney also worked there as a confidential informer. As pressure increased, narcotics officers plotted. “They would get really upset when they busted into a room and found nothing there,” he said. “They gave him drugs and maybe a gun and he’d plant it.” Asked about this, Mr. Merritt nodded. “They would tell me which rooms to target, and I would slip crack behind a mattress or under the sink.” Detectives taught him to set small fires, he said. Firefighters would batter down doors; the police would find crack and guns. He got $50 per arrest, and $100 every time he testified to a judge. Prosecutors guaranteed Mr. Merritt that he would not have to testify in public. They had suspects over a barrel: Serve six months in jail and leave the hotel — or we’ll imprison you for 20 years. SEEN from the remove of a safer city, those dark years now reveal signs of a dirty war. Too often, swaggering detectives and prosecutors eager for any victory broke rules and framed people. And confidential informers were given enormous latitude to set up people. Eugene O’Donnell, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, was a beat officer before he became a prosecutor. The occupational hazard in dealing with informers, he said, was that “your ears are open to what you want to hear.” It was perilously easy, Mr. O’Donnell said, for an officer working with an informer to think nothing of setting up a hapless character with minor convictions. “It dovetails with the problem of false convictions,” he said. “The real danger is that we get your rap sheet, and we see a track record of minor drug abuse, and no one loses sleep over your conviction. The ends justify the means.” Mr. Merritt described being driven to the Manhattan district attorney’s office on a rainy evening. A prosecutor was typing statements for him, which he was going to swear to before a judge. “Read this carefully and don’t stray from the statement,” the prosecutor told him, he said. “You’re going to have to swear to this. Do you have a problem, Tony?” He said he looked at the prosecutor and asked: “So you want me to commit perjury?” “I don’t want to hear that,” the prosecutor replied, according to Mr. Merritt. After the takeover, Mr. Merritt said, federal marshals and the police told him to disrupt the tenants’ association. He and Mr. Chaney tore down notices and interrupted meetings and shrieked. An officer, he said, told him to vandalize Mr. Crispino’s car. “He was very skilled and very scary; he could get you arrested in about five minutes,” said Sal Martinez, a tenant leader. “I complained and a federal agent yelled at me: ‘Merritt is working for us. Don’t get in our way.’ ” There is no doubt the Kenmore is a safer, better-run place. Social services are provided; security is insistent. Maybe we’ll never know if more than 100 New Yorkers got walked out in cuffs and convicted on the basis of planted evidence and false testimony. Or perhaps the ends justified the means, and it’s a door better left closed. Except that similar raids occurred at other single-room-occupancy hotels throughout the city. Mr. Merritt worked as a confidential informer at a couple of those, too. This story, you see, may not end on East 23rd Street. “This is not just a Kenmore story,” Mr. Merritt said. “This was happening everywhere.” Email: powellm@nytimes.com Twitter: @powellnyt A version of this article appears in print on July 3, 2014, on page A19 of the New York edition with the headline: Takeover of Hotel: Informer Recalls His Complicity.