Douglas Caddy

I recognize that members of the forum are justifiably going to be outraged and upset with this article based on a new book. But I believe it is better to be forewarned about this news story that may gain greater currency in the days ahead. Already the Daily Mail (U.K.) and the New York Post are giving it big play. Was JFK a meth addict? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2312412/Was-JFK-meth-addict-Outlandish-claims-doctors-secret-vitamin-formula-given-President-fact-methamphetamine.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/sep/08/usa.russia

Former Nixon adviser John Dean talks about the Watergate legacy April 16, 2013 12:17 am By Joyce Gannon / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette John Dean, the former White House counsel whose riveting testimony before the Senate Watergate Committee in 1973 linked President Richard Nixon to the scandal that would bring down his presidency, was fired from his White House post and pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice for his actions related to the political cover-up. Four decades later, the disbarred attorney spends much of his time talking to lawyers about legal ethics. Mr. Dean believes that the events surrounding Watergate forever changed professional conduct standards for lawyers and that if tougher disclosure rules for attorneys had been in place before the crimes occurred, "It could have made a real difference ... to stop some of the nonsense." His experiences as a young attorney caught up in that historic affair serve as the backdrop for his appearance in Pittsburgh on Friday at a Zittrain forum, "How Watergate Revolutionized Legal Ethics." The event runs 8:30 a.m.-12:15 p.m. at the Omni William Penn Hotel, Downtown, and is coordinated by the Allegheny County Bar Association. Also on Friday, Mr. Dean will speak about Watergate as a guest of Duquesne University's 61st Annual Law Alumni Reunion Dinner at the school's Uptown campus. During an interactive presentation at the bar association forum, which includes clips from a tape of the conversation during which Mr. Dean warned Nixon about a "cancer on the presidency," Mr. Dean and James Robenalt, a Cleveland lawyer and author who teaches ethics, will zero in on how attorney-client privilege and confidentiality is tested when an organization engages in wrongdoing. Watergate -- in which numerous lawyers associated with the Nixon administration, including Mr. Dean, knew about illegal acts but didn't disclose them -- is their case study. "It goes to the core debate in any attorney-client relationship: What is your duty of confidentiality ,and how does it conflict with your duty to disclose fraud?" said Mr. Robenalt, a partner and business litigator with Thompson Hine. He describes Mr. Dean as "the ultimate in-house lawyer for the ultimate organization working for the ultimate CEO." After Watergate, the legal profession began attempts to beef up ethics policies and educate lawyers about their responsibilities to report misconduct by those they represented. In 1977, for example, the American Bar Association created the Commission on Evaluation of Professional Standards, which led to the model rules of professional conduct. Though early versions of the rules did not allow lawyers representing organizations to disclose fraudulent acts because of confidentiality issues, individual states began adopting disclosure provisions. In 2003, the Bar Association amended its rules to allow -- but not require -- attorneys to report illegal activities if the organizations' top executives declined to address the problems. "The rules changed because of Watergate," said Mr. Robenalt. Mr. Dean and Mr. Robenalt met through their mutual interest in Ohio-born President Warren Harding. Mr. Dean, who was born in Akron, spent some of his youth in Marion, Ohio. Harding had been the owner and publisher of the local newspaper in Marion. In 2004, Mr. Dean wrote a book on the 29th president and Mr. Robenalt invited him to speak on a panel at Case Western Reserve University on presidents from Ohio. A few years later, the men decided to collaborate on a legal education seminar on Watergate. The one they will present here this week is the second in a series. "I can do it with considerable detachment today," Mr. Dean, 74, said in a telephone interview from his home in southern California. "We can use this history for a really great learning tool. The impact is powerful." Mr. Dean, who pleaded guilty to a felony charge for his role in Watergate, cooperated with the prosecution as a key witness but was disbarred. He was sentenced to one to four years in prison but served only four months in a "safe house" facility "because they were more interested in keeping me alive," he said. In the years since Watergate, he has lived with his wife, Maureen, in Beverly Hills and worked as an investment banker, writer and lecturer. Asked why he never pursued reinstatement of his law license, he said, "I never had the desire to practice. I've been there, done that. I didn't want to mess with the politics of it all. ... I never had a problem making a living." Though Mr. Dean was raised mainly in Ohio, he said he has strong family links to Pittsburgh: His parents met here while his father attended what was formerly known as Carnegie Institute of Technology, now Carnegie Mellon University, and his mother attended Chatham College, now Chatham University. His son resides in the Pittsburgh area. Registration for the forum is closed. Walk-ins may attend if they arrive by 8:30 a.m. The event at Duquesne is sold out.

The New York Post: the game is up for Murdoch's plaything Murdoch's once-mighty tabloid toy is out of time By Michael Wolff guardian.co.uk, Monday 15 April 2013 09.59 EDT The power vacuum in New York City that will be left by Michael Bloomberg's departure from public office will likely be compounded by another unfillable hole: the loss of the New York Post. The Post has been in business since 1801, and owned since 1976 by Rupert Murdoch (other than for a five-year hiatus when regulatory requirements forced him to sell the paper – that is, until he arranged to be exempted from those rules and buy it back). It's been Murdoch's money-losing personal instrument for all manner of trouble-making, political power-brokering, and punishment and reward. When it was not being bent to his personal will, it was to that of his editors, picking the paper's enemies and friends for both personal and institutional benefit. To say the Post is self-serving would be beside the point. It is the last of the great bully-boy newspapers. This joie de guerre has cost Murdoch as much as $80m a year in unstoppable losses – perhaps more than $1bn over 35 years. Murdoch's attachment to the paper has long been more sentimental than strategic. Once, it was the seat of his power in the US, electing Ed Koch mayor and making Murdoch the most feared publisher in the nation. But that was decades ago. Its truer recent purpose has been as a model for what he thinks newspapers ought to be: a semi-lawless, unrepentant, sometimes quite joyful agent of the carrot-and-stick of publicity. The Post newsroom has been his retreat in New York – a half-fantasy world where, when the burdens of running a big corporation and a fractious family became too much, he could repair. I urged my daughter to try to work there after she finished college. There would not be an opportunity, I advised, to experience something like the Post much longer. Now, as Murdoch gets ready to separate his newspapers from his richer entertainment holdings in a move that will force the papers to pay their own way, the Post's day of reckoning nears. The new newspaper company will be backed by a several billion-dollar dowry from the entertainment company, but that dough will be needed for cash flow-positive investments. The present assets, including the Wall Street Journal, more than 70 papers in Australia, and the Sun, the Times, and Sunday Times in London, will all need to become productive and ever-more-profitable members of the company. Many will struggle to get there. There is, however, no scenario in which the Post will reach that point; there is no scenario in which, even with cuts, it doesn't keep losing more. Murdoch himself, since has acquisition of the Wall Street Journal, in 2008, has reluctantly distanced himself from the Post, letting it become an increasingly sclerotic and gothic enterprise, full of aging figures. It's editor, Col Allan – an Australian of the Murdoch old school – has alternatively been trying to retire, or fighting efforts to make him retire, for half a decade. Its once-feared gossip columnist, Richard Johnson, long having forsaken a diligent day, is working out his rich contract in Los Angeles. Keith Kelly's column about print media, which, in its heyday held the city's media power brokers in its thrall (always a particular Murdoch goal), now reads more like the shipping news – with Kelly still one of Murdoch's highest paid reporters. The hacking scandal in London has made the Post's characteristic behavior – its bar-tab relationship with the New York City police; the payoffs the paper has admitted taking (not least of all by Johnson for favorable Page Six coverage); and its standard operating procedure of pressuring its opponents with attacks in the paper – a red flag to the company's lawyers in New York. Indeed, Robert Thompson, the Wall Street Journal editor, who will be the CEO of the new newspaper company, is openly contemptuous of Col Allan and the paper's low-rent, cowboy atmosphere. The paper's publisher is now Jesse Angelo, a high school friend of Murdoch's son James – and James' personal proxy on the Murdoch family trust. Angelo,whose own father is a significant investor in the Tribune Company, which owns the LA Times that Murdoch would like to buy – was the No 2 editor at the Post and long promised the No 1 job on Allan's retirement. Instead, reportedly eager to get out of the Post, he was moved to run Murdoch's tablet news project, the Daily. When that failed, Angelo was moved back to the Post, over Allan, where, by all accounts, he is being warehoused for a top job at the new news company. (Angelo was a guest at Murdoch's 82nd birthday party last month – Allan was not.) "If you have any juice inside of News Corp, you are negotiating yourself out of the Post," said a senior News Corp source last week. The competition has not been kind, either. Where once the Post had only the less aggressive Daily News to consider in the tabloid world, now it is up against a free-form internet world of gossip, crime, and political coverage, as well as a local start-up, DNAinfo, comprising many former Post reporters, which regularly beats the Post on crime and political stories. And, as well, there is Wall Street Journal itself, with its metro section now competing with the Post for advertising. Everything about the paper – advertising, circulation, staff, and even its once-outsized influence – has been shrinking. Inside News Corp, the strategy has long been described as "closing the Post without the old man having to admit that it's closed". Still, it can yet rouse itself. It would be hard to imagine an Anthony Weiner running for mayor without the Post. And, reflecting Murdoch's views, the Post has recently become a loud, if peculiar, proponent of gun control laws. But the end is surely here. It is just one more jarring adjustment for the 82-year-old Murdoch. The Post will not outlive him. • Editor's note: the spelling of Col Allan's name was amended at 1.30pm ET on 15 April

My friend Alice Widener, the newspaper columnist, interviewed General Douglas MacArthur in his residence in the Towers of the Waldorf Astoria shortly after he started to "fade away" as he said old soldiers inevitably do. He told her that his greatest frustration in waging the Korean War was that his strategies and plans were constantly being leaked to the Communist enemy by a spy whom he did not identify. . Many years later Walter Trohan of the Chicago Tribune wrote a news article that was reprinted in the Houston Chronicle. In the article he stated that it had been determined that the British spy George Blake was the double agent who leaked MacArthur's military strategies for winning in Korea. Le Carre in his above piece mentions George Blake. Six decades later the U.S. is still paying for Blake's treachery as witness the current threats by Stalinist North Korea to use a nuclear weapon.

John le Carré: 'I was a secret even to myself' After a decade in the intelligence service, John le Carré's political disgust and personal confusion 'exploded' in The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. Fifty years later he asks how much has changed The Guardian, Friday 12 April 2013 16.01 EDT http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/apr/12/john-le-carre-spy-anniversary I wrote The Spy Who Came in from the Cold at the age of 30 under intense, unshared, personal stress, and in extreme privacy. As an intelligence officer in the guise of a junior diplomat at the British Embassy in Bonn, I was a secret to my colleagues, and much of the time to myself. I had written a couple of earlier novels, necessarily under a pseudonym, and my employing service had approved them before publication. After lengthy soul-searching, they had also approved The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. To this day, I don't know what I would have done if they hadn't. As it was, they seem to have concluded, rightly if reluctantly, that the book was sheer fiction from start to finish, uninformed by personal experience, and that accordingly it constituted no breach of security. This was not, however, the view taken by the world's press, which with one voice decided that the book was not merely authentic but some kind of revelatory Message From The Other Side, leaving me with nothing to do but sit tight and watch, in a kind of frozen awe, as it climbed the bestseller list and stuck there, while pundit after pundit heralded it as the real thing. And to my awe, add over time a kind of impotent anger. Anger, because from the day my novel was published, I realised that now and forever more I was to be branded as the spy turned writer, rather than as a writer who, like scores of his kind, had done a stint in the secret world, and written about it. But journalists of the time weren't having any of that. I was the British spy who had come out of the woodwork and told it how it really was, and anything I said to the contrary only enforced the myth. And since I was writing for a public hooked on Bond and desperate for the antidote, the myth stuck. Meanwhile, I was receiving the sort of attention writers dream of. My only problem was, I didn't believe my own publicity. I didn't like it even while I was subscribing to it, and there was in the most literal sense nothing I could say to stop the bandwagon, even if I'd wanted to. And I wasn't sure I did. In the 60s – and right up to the present day – the identity of a member of the British Secret Services was and is, quite rightly, a state secret. To divulge it is a crime. The Services may choose to leak a name when it pleases them. They may showcase an intelligence baron or two to give us a glimpse of their omniscience and – wait for it – openness. But woe betide a leaky former member. And anyway I had my own inhibitions. I had no quarrel with my former employers, quite the contrary. Presenting myself to the press in New York a few months after the novel had made its mark in the States, I dutifully if nervously mouthed my denials: no, no, I had never been in the spy business; no, it was just a bad dream – which of course it was. The paradox was compounded when an American journalist with connections told me out of the corner of his mouth that the reigning chief of my Service had advised a former director of the CIA that I had been his serving officer, and that he had told nobody but his very large retinue of best friends, and that anyone in the room who was anyone knew I was lying. Every interview I have faced in the 50 years since then seems designed to penetrate a truth that isn't there, and perhaps that's one reason why I have become allergic to the process. ❦ The Spy Who Came in from the Cold was the work of a wayward imagination brought to the end of its tether by political disgust and personal confusion. Fifty years on, I don't associate the book with anything that ever happened to me, save for one wordless encounter at London airport when a worn-out, middle-aged military kind of man in a stained raincoat slammed a handful of mixed foreign change on to the bar and in gritty Irish accents ordered himself as much Scotch as it would buy. In that moment, Alec Leamas was born. Or so my memory, not always a reliable informant, tells me. Today I think of the novel as a not-very-well-disguised internal explosion after which my life would never be the same. It was not the first such explosion, or the last. And yes, yes, by the time I wrote it, I had been caught up in secret work off and on for a decade; a decade the more formative because I had the inherited guilt of being too young to fight in the second world war and – more importantly – of being the son of a war-profiteer, another secret I felt I had to keep to myself until he died. But I was never a mastermind, or a mini-mind, and long before I even entered the secret world, I had an instinct towards fiction that made me a dubious fact-gatherer. I was never at personal risk in my secret work; I was frequently bored stiff by it. Had things been otherwise, my employers would not have allowed me to publish my novel, even if later they kicked themselves for doing so: but that was because they decided it was being taken too seriously by too many people; and because any suggestion that the British Secret Service would betray its own was deemed derogatory to its ethical principles, bad for recruitment, and accordingly Bad for Britain, a charge to which there is no effective answer. The proof that the novel was not "authentic" – how many times did I have to repeat this? – had been delivered by the fact that it was published. Indeed, one former head of a department that had employed me has since gone on record to declare that my contribution was negligible, which I can well believe. Another described the novel as "the only bloody double-agent operation that ever worked" – not true, but fun. The trouble is, when professional spies go out of their way to make a definitive statement about one of their own, the public tends to believe the opposite: which puts us all back where we started, myself included. And if the spies hadn't had me at that age, some equally luckless institution would have done, and after a couple of years I'd have been digging my way out. ❦ And the deep background of the novel? The sights, smells and voices that, 15 years after the end of the war, continued to infest every corner of divided Germany? The Berlin in which Leamas had his being was a paradigm of human folly and historical paradox. In the early 60s I had observed it mostly from the confines of the British Embassy in Bonn, and only occasionally in the raw. But I watched the Wall's progress from barbed wire to breeze block; I watched the ramparts of the cold war going up on the still-warm ashes of the hot one. And I had absolutely no sense of transition from the one war to the other, because in the secret world there barely was one. To the hard-liners of east and west the second world war was a distraction. Now it was over, they could get on with the real war that had started with the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, and had been running under different flags and disguises ever since. No wonder then if Alec Leamas found himself rubbing shoulders with some pretty unsavoury colleagues in the ranks of western intelligence. Former Nazis with attractive qualifications weren't just tolerated by the Allies; they were positively mollycoddled for their anti-communist credentials. Who was America's first choice to head West Germany's embryonic intelligence service? General Reinhard Gehlen, former chief of Hitler's Foreign Armies East (Russian theatre) where he had made himself a corner in the Soviet order of battle. Anticipating Germany's defeat, the General had assembled his files and his people, and at the first opportunity turned them over to the Americans, who accepted them with open arms. Recruited, Gehlen tactfully dropped the "General" and became Herr Doktor instead. But where to house this precious asset and his crown jewels? The Americans decided to install Gehlen and his people in the cosy Bavarian village of Pullach, eight miles outside Munich and handy for their intelligence headquarters. And whose handsome country estate, now vacant, did they select for the Herr Doktor? Martin Bormann was Hitler's most trusted confidant and private secretary. When the Führer established himself at his Eagle's Nest just up the road, his buddies scurried to set up house nearby. Gehlen and his people were settled in Bormann's villa, now the subject of a conservation order issued by the Bavarian government. Just a few years ago, in circumstances of extraordinary courtesy, one of the Bundesnachrichtendienst's [German intelligence service's] latter-day luminaries gave me a personal tour. I recommend the 1930s furniture in the conference room, and the Jugendstil statues in the gardens at the back. But the main attraction must surely be the great dark staircase winding into the cellars, and the fully furnished bunker, just like the Führer's, but smaller. Was Alec Leamas a regular visitor to Pullach? He had no choice. Few secret operations into East Germany could take place without the connivance of the BND. And did Leamas, on his regular visits, perhaps come across the Herr Doktor's valued chief of counter intelligence, Heinz Felfe, formerly of the SS and Sicherheitsdienst [Nazi intelligence service]? He must have done. Felfe was a legendary operator. Had he not single-handedly unmasked a raft of Soviet spies? Of course he had, and no wonder. When he was finally unmasked himself, he got 14 years for spying for Moscow, only to be traded for a bunch of hapless West Germans held there. Did Leamas enjoy access to the ultra-secret "special material" obtained by Operation GOLD, the hugely costly quarter-mile-long, Anglo-American audio tunnel that tapped into Russian cables a couple of feet below the surface of a road in the Eastern Sector of Berlin? Before the first spade went into the ground, GOLD had been comprehensively blown by a Soviet agent named George Blake, the heroic ex-prisoner of North Korea and pride of the British Secret Service. Yet to this day, many of GOLD's architects would have us believe that their operation was not merely an engineering triumph but an intelligence coup as well, on the questionable grounds that, so reluctant were the Russians to blow their agent, they let communications flow as usual. Dissolve to a couple of years later and Kim Philby, once in line for chief, was also revealed as Moscow's man. No wonder poor Leamas needed that stiff Scotch at London airport. The Service that owned his unflinching allegiance was in a state of corporate rot that would take another generation to heal. Did he know that? I think deep down he did. And I think I must have known it too, or I wouldn't have written Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy a few years down the line. ❦ The merit of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, then – or its offence, depending where you stood – was not that it was authentic, but that it was credible. The bad dream turned out to be one that a lot of people in the world were sharing, since it asked the same old question that we are asking ourselves 50 years later: how far can we go in the rightful defence of our western values, without abandoning them along the way? My fictional chief of the British Service – I called him Control – had no doubt of the answer: "I mean, you can't be less ruthless than the opposition simply because your government's policy is benevolent, can you now?" Today, the same man, with better teeth and hair and a much smarter suit, can be heard explaining away the catastrophic illegal war in Iraq, or justifying medieval torture techniques as the preferred means of interrogation in the 21st century, or defending the inalienable right of closet psychopaths to bear semi-automatic weapons, and the use of unmanned drones as a risk-free method of assassinating one's perceived enemies and anybody who has the bad luck to be standing near them. Or, as a loyal servant of his corporation, assuring us that smoking is harmless to the health of the third world, and great banks are there to serve the public. What have I learned over the last 50 years? Come to think of it, not much. Just that the morals of the secret world are very like our own. • The 50th anniversary edition of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, with "Fifty Years Later", John le Carré's introduction, will be published by Penguin at £25 on 1 August. © David Cornwell 2013.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2307792/Inside-assassins-wallet-Never-seen-pictures-Lee-Harvey-Oswalds-personal-items-display.html

A BBC interview of April 4 in which Stone talks about America's misuse of its power http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-22031196

Oliver Stone met with Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London on Thursday, April 4th. Does Stone have a new project in mind, one that could be really interesting, such as the Untold Recent History of the World as revealed in the classified documents in Assange's possession?

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=19698

Part 1 of the interview with Oliver Stone http://therealnews.c...74&jumival=9987 Part 2 of the interview: http://therealnews.c...4&jumival=10042 STONE (part 2): But you couldn't have--could you have predicted that Eisenhower would become such a Cold Warrior after having been the general in World War II? Did Dulles have a nefarious influence on him? Why when Stalin died did he not make an effort to respond more positively to the Soviets? Or John Kennedy's death in Dallas in 1963 is a freaky, freaky, but well-planned assassination. But he was--if he had paid an iota of attention to having a bubble on the limousine, to taking better care of himself, to not going to Texas with Lyndon Johnson, who wanted him to go, and not going to--because Adlai Stevenson had been attacked in Dallas a couple of weeks before. There had been attempts on Kennedy's life in Miami, in Chicago. He knew he was in the crosshairs. I don't know why he was so--a little bit--how would you say?--I used the word in the series aloof from fear.

http://www.france24.com/en/20130319-revolt-against-city-londons-medieval-elders

http://www.icij.org/offshore/who-uses-offshore-world

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2304361/Was-Robert-Maxwell-Soviet-spy-FBI-files-reveal-US-fears-reveal-media-mogul-working-Russia.html

Phil's book, White House Call Girl, the real story of Watergate, will be released in about three months.

Detective Rothstein was interviewed for today on The Power Hour primarily about Ihsan Barbouti and his role in the first World Trade Center bombing, the Pan Am 103 crash and the Oklahoma City bombing. To listen to the interview, click on the first link below. http://www.thepowerhour.com/schedule.htm http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,151282,00.html

Note: This is worth reading because of the information about Alexander Butterfield, who revealed publicly that Nixon had made secret audiotapes: ----------------------------------------------------------- 40 Years After Watergate, It's Almost Impossible to Hold Government Accountable Many believe it will take another scandal the size of Watergate, or worse, to get us back on track. March 30, 2013 | From BIllMoyers.com: At moments, “The Lessons of Watergate” conference, held a couple of weeks ago in Washington, D.C. by the citizen’s lobby Common Cause, was a little like that two-man roadshow retired baseball players Bill Buckner and Mookie Wilson have been touring. In it, they retell the story of the catastrophic moment during the bottom of the last inning of Game Six of the 1986 World Series, when the Mets’ Wilson hit an easy ground ball toward Buckner of the Red Sox, who haplessly let it roll between his legs. That notorious error ultimately cost Boston the championship. As The New Yorker magazine’s Reeves Wiedeman wrote of the players’ joint public appearance, ”It is as if Custer and Sitting Bull agreed to deconstruct Little Bighorn.” Or those World War II reunions where aging Army Air Corps men meet the Luftwaffe pilots who tried to shoot them down over Bremen. So, too, in Washington, four decades after the Watergate break-in scandal that led to the downfall of President Richard Nixon. Up on stage was Daniel Ellsberg of Pentagon Papers fame, one of the first victims of Nixon’s infamous “plumbers,” the burglars who went skulking into the night to attempt illegal break-ins — including one at the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist. “I want to add something to the history here that I’ve never told,” Ellsberg said, then asked. “Is Alex Butterfield still alive?” A voice shouted from a corner of the room, “I’m over here.” And sure enough, it was Alexander Butterfield, former deputy to Nixon chief of staff H.R. “Bob” Haldeman, and a pivotal if accidental notable in the Watergate saga. In July 1973, Butterfield let slip to the Senate Watergate committee that Nixon made secret audiotapes of all his meetings at the White House, a revelation that cracked the scandal wide open. We never did hear the story Ellsberg wanted to tell; he decided he needed to clear it with Butterfield before he went public. The Common Cause event was filled with such slightly surreal moments, kind of like a Comic Con for history buffs and policy wonks. Just moments before Ellsberg spoke, I had been chatting with former Brooklyn Congresswoman Liz Holtzman, when Butterfield walked over, introduced himself and told Holtzman, “I was in love with you even when I was at the White House.” Holtzman was a prominent member of the House Judiciary Committee that in July 1974 passed three articles of impeachment against Nixon. He resigned less than two weeks later. I was there in the hearing room that summer — briefly — while they debated one of the articles. My first TV job was working for public television in Washington, and while most of the time I was in the office or studio, a colleague lent me her credentials to see a bit of the action. The day Nixon quit, I was in Lafayette Park across from the White House taping promos for our coverage (somewhere I have a color slide of me working with our correspondent while Tom Brokaw teeters on an orange crate next to me, doing a standup). I returned to the park that night, after Nixon’s resignation speech, where a jubilant crowd celebrated his departure. When a garbage truck rolled past, they began chanting, “The moving men are here!” Washington was a smaller town then and Watergate had become a cottage industry. Everyone you met had a rumor to spread or a story to tell. Books about the mess sold like crazy — everything from Woodward and Bernstein’s best-selling All the President’s Men to transcripts of the White House tapes to collections of Watergate “recipes.” A friend of mine and I led Watergate tours and peddled bumper stickers on the side: one read, “Nixon Bugs Me, Too.” The other was the simpler yet eloquent “Impeach Nixon.” In those days, D.C. didn’t have cable television to entertain us. It didn’t matter: We had Nixon. Yet make no mistake — for all the general hilarity (and remember, to many, Richard Nixon had been the butt of jokes for decades before; Watergate was just the ultimate punchline), this was a true constitutional crisis. The abuse of presidential power was staggering, from the soliciting of illegal corporate campaign contributions used for hush money and delivered by bagmen, to the illicit actions of the aforementioned plumbers — an operation, by the way, that traced its roots all the way back to the early months of Nixon’s first term. Combined with the ongoing tragedy of Vietnam — including the secret bombing of Cambodia and the violent squelching of antiwar protest — Watergate shook the public’s confidence in government as it hadn’t been since the bleakest days of secession and the Civil War. But as several participants at the conference noted, the nation and its institutions did something about it. Committees in both the Senate and House, members of both parties cooperating with one another (!), conducted thorough investigations. In a more competitive, less consolidated news environment, a free press went on the attack (once the reporting of Woodward and Bernstein at The Washington Post, Sy Hersh at The New York Times, Jack Nelson at the Los Angeles Times and others awoke a moribund White House press corps). And the courts worked, from John Sirica, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, who cracked down on the Watergate burglars and demanded the White House turn over those audiotapes, to the highest court in the land. As Fred Wertheimer of the reform group Democracy 21 remarked at the conference, “The Supreme Court understood that citizens had a constitutional right to protect their democracy from corruption.” People went to jail, lots of them — even the former attorney general of the United States, John Mitchell. Think about that. Many of them did hard time. Today, we couldn’t even get miscreant bankers to resign in exchange for their billions in bailouts, much less prosecute them for criminal behavior. The briefly restored public trust that followed Nixon’s departure started turning back to the cynicism that endures today almost immediately, when his successor Gerald Ford absolved Nixon of his sins with a full presidential pardon. In the years that followed, the erosion has continued. The bagmen have become the banks and Wall Street. Gridlock and intolerance have replaced bipartisanship. The efforts at campaign finance reform that followed Watergate – crushed by Citizens United and other court rulings — have dwindled to the point where, as conference panelist Trevor Potter of the Campaign Legal Center observed, we are “shockingly close again to no contribution limits.” And with 9/11 and the war on terror, including ongoing drone attacks and threats to civil liberties, Morton Halperin noted, “The public is once again accepting an imperial presidency.” During its conference, Common Cause presented what it called Uncommon Heroes awards to members of the House Judiciary Committee who served during the crisis, and saluted an Uncommon Heroes of Watergate Honor Roll, a bipartisan collection of “individuals from Richard Nixon’s Enemies List, members of the prosecution team, journalists and House and Senate Committee staff.” All could look back 40 years and be proud they took a stand. But the Lessons of Watergate are lessons learned and lost. We’ve got to organize, get our government back and make it accountable. Many believe it will take another scandal the size of Watergate, or worse, to get us back on track. Let’s hope not. Instead, four decades in the future, let there be changes for the good America can celebrate, so we don’t wind up like those old ballplayers on the road, reliving an unforced error, again and again. Michael Winship is senior writing fellow at Demos and a senior writer of the new series, Moyers & Company, airing on public television.

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/01/09/opinion/abroad-at-home-jfk.html

This is a case study of what happens when independent investigators try to ferret out public corruption. The police raid in 1969 upon the gay bar named Stonewall in Greenwich Village, which caused a famous riot among gays outside the bar and ultimately led to the gay revolution, did not take occur because it was a gay bar. It took place because the Mafia ran the bar, which made payoffs to stay open as it was unlicensed and operated after hours. The real purpose of the raid, which was devised by Detective Rothstein, was to identify and monitor the bar’s payoff to the bagman for a high NYPD police official, the First Deputy Commissioner, who had arranged that the bar could operate illegally. After Rothstein received the signal from his informant inside the bar that the payoff to the bagman had taken place and then watched the bagman depart, the raid was commenced although only Rothstein and one or two others knew what was behind the raid, which was an out-and-out attack by the honest cops againt the dishonest cops and the Mafia. When the cops rushed into the bar they destroyed almost everything inside, confiscated the liquor, arrested the management (except for Rothstein’s informant) and subjected the gays inside to abuse and harassment. The gays were well aware that Stonewall was Mafia operated and that it stayed open because of payoffs to the police. They had come to believe that the only places safe for them to congregate in New York City were of this type. However, the gays were outraged and felt betrayed as they watched what was happening to their favorite bar. They had no knowledge that Rothstein’s intent to monitor the Mafia’s payoff to the bagman for the high police official was a prelude to launching a public investigation into police corruption. The ensuing controversy over Stonewall and other illegal establishments run by the Mafia through payoffs to the police led to the creation of the Knapp Commission in 1970. The Knapp Commission’s stated purpose was to investigate corruption in NYPD. It was headed by Whitman Knapp. Maurice Nadjari was named the Special Prosecutor in 1972. From the beginning, the Commission and Special Prosecutor’s office were compromised. Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau had a spy in the commission as did Matty “The Horse” Ianniello, a mobster. A few days before Nadjari was fired or resigned from the special prosecutor’s office, Detective Rothstein and John Rubenstein of the New York State Select Committee on Crime met with Nadjari at a bar and restaurant next to his office. Rothstein informed him that Nadjari’s right hand assistant had met with Matty “The Horse” and had sold him out. Nadjari asked Rothstein if he would make those statements in the assistant’s presence. Rothstein replied, “Absolutely.” When Nadjari’s assistant showed up a few minutes later, Rothstein repeated what he knew. The assistant never denied the allegations. This was because Detective Rothstein had a high level informant who attended the meeting with Nadjari’s assistant and Matty “The Horse.” The end result was that the Knapp Commission never achieved its potential to successfully investigate and end corruption in the police department. http://en.wikipedia....napp_Commission

Additional information about Detective Jim Rothstein can be found in the link below: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=20008

Note: Should a member of the forum desire to contact Mr. Viken, I can supply his email address upon request. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: January 23, 2010 To: Bob Guimond From: James P. Viken , Ph .D., Psychologist Emeritus Re: Detective James Rothstein , NYPD (retired) Dear Mr. Guimond, I understand that a certain Deputy Sheriff Weiss told you that the Stearns County Sheriff’s Department which he represents has not found Detective Rothstein to be a very reliable source of information in the past and encouraged you to check into what he has told you about himself to see if he is trustworthy and you can believe him. Mr. Guimond, I am going to help you out with some background on Mr. Rothstein, things that I know of first hand. First, let me tell you who I am. I have been a resident of Minnesota all my life and live in the Twin Cities. I am a retired psychologist. I was a licensed Psychologist and licensed Marriage and Family Therapist for 28 years. I retired with a perfectly clean record from my profession. I do not drink alcohol or use drugs and have never been convicted of any crime. During the many years I practiced I had several difficult cases in which my clients were victims of compromised and corrupt law enforcement. After contacting a certain congressman’s office for help with one difficult case, I was told by his investigator that I should contact retired Detective James Rothstein, because it was their belief that he knew more about these issues than anyone else. Before I contacted Detective Rothstein, I called the personnel office at the NYPD to check his references. After the usual runaround, I told them I was referred by the Congressman's office and then I was placed in contact with a higher up. He told me that yes, Detective Rothstein was with the NYPD for 15 years, that he was a Gold Shield plainclothes detective, that he worked on special investigation squads that handled many very sensitive cases, and that he retired honorably with a very esteemed career to his credit. I then contacted Detective Rothstein who was very helpful. He also put me in contact with a County Sheriff that also uncovered the same corruption that had ties to Minnesota who was investigating that corruption. Over the years I have contacted Detective Rothstein many times for information that has proved to be very accurate and quite helpful. On one difficult case I was greatly assisted by Congressman Charlie Rose's chief investigator who also worked very closely with Detective Rothstein on some very difficult corruption cases. This man always spoke very highly of Detective Rothstein and told me that Detective Rothstein had helped many citizens over the years. As you may know Detective Rothstein moved back home to Minnesota and became the Mayor of St. Martin. Over the years I had contact with a number of high level law enforcement that knew Detective Rothstein very well because of their knowledge of him coming to Minnesota to investigate pedophile networks and the "Minnesota Connection" affair. Detective Rothstein is considered by many in federal law enforcement to be the top expert in high level pedophile crimes in the country and fortunately for us he just happens to have retired back in Minnesota, his childhood home. Certainly there is no other retired law enforcement person in Minnesota at this time with his credentials and level of experience who is respected as much as he is. Let me give you a little background on Detective Rothstein so that you have a better understanding of what he is all about. Detective Rothstein testified in Federal Court many, many times as a witness for the prosecution. He did special investigations for the New York State Select Committee on Crime. He was one of only two detectives who answered directly only the Committee at the request of Governor Hugh Carey. I know for a fact that Detective Rothstein worked on some of the most sensitive investigations you could ever imagine. He was part of a very special fifteen man squad in the NYPD, part of which was a special five man detail that worked on ultra sensitive cases. And in fact on the very most sensitive cases, Detective Rothstein was the sole detective assigned and reported only directly to a chief in the NYPD. Let me give you a little background on the NYPD , most folks in law enforcement have no idea just how big it really is and how many cities it operates out of. This information is not generally known, but I think it would be helpful for you to know about it. The NYPD is the largest, most powerful police department in the world. It has an intelligence and special operations units that work in almost every major city of the world, including every major city in the USA. New York considers itself the capital of world finance and is tasked with additional responsibilities because of that, responsibilities which I will not go into here for sake of brevity. Detective Rothstein and members of his squad were often task to work in many major US cities. When they would come to a city, let's say Minneapolis, their support staff would arrange for local cooperation and support from law enforcement as it became needed. I know for a fact that Detective Rothstein worked on cases that intersected with Minneapolis Police Officers Al Palmquist and Gary McGaughy and other Minneapolis Police Officers who often worked the Lake Street vice issues. Detective Rothstein was a legend among many police involved in these sensitive investigations across the country, such as renowned DC Detective Karl Schoffler and others of his stature. Detective Rothstein does have one issue, however, which I view as very valuable to the community. He is of the belief that once a law enforcement person retires, he still maintains an obligation to help the community out in any way possible using his experience and knowledge for the benefit of the community and its citizens. When folks are in trouble and can't get help from their local police, either due to incompetence or in some cases corruption or compromise of the local police, folks are often referred to Detective Rothstein for suggestions on what they can do and how to approach the problem in order to get needed help, that is, how to work around that corruption to obtain justice at a higher governmental level. And that is how I was referred to him. It was in the process of my trying to obtain help for one of my clients who could not get justice through normal channels. Detective Rothstein had a reputation for helping folks in the community when he was active in the NYPD. He developed a very large system of informants because of this and was always a "stand up guy" (street term you may be aware of and know what it means). This reputation of being willing to help folks in the community who were victims of crime stuck with him and followed him even after he retired, often with referrals being made by some of the informants he had while working for the NYPD. Over the years Detective Rothstein’s reputation for helping the citizens who had trouble obtaining justice in their community continued to follow him largely because he usually was able to provide excellent help to those in such need. A number of Congressman referred folks to him for these reasons. Quite a few well known and highly esteemed attorneys such as Phyllis Cox (daughter of Archibald Cox) also consulted with Detective Rothstein in regard to sensitive cases in order to help their clients obtain justice otherwise denied. Well known and highly respected attorney Mike Johnston was one I know of that always spoke very highly of Detective Rothstein. There are many more names of esteemed public figures that consulted with Detective Rothstein and referred citizen victims to him that were denied justice in their communities. One such individual was Dr. Harold D. Lasswell of the Policy Science Institute in NYC, one of the most esteemed professors of law and political science in the world (Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Chicago, became a Professor of Law at Yale University and a Distiguished Professor at Temple University—he received many, many awards and was one of the few sociologists that studied traditional psychoanalysis in Europe). Dr. Lasswell was often a consultant to the highest levels in the Federal Government and travelled in very high circles. Dr. Lasswell met with Detective Rothstein many, many times and spoke of him very highly. He used to tell others that Detective Rothstein was the kind of honest and ethical law enforcement officer we needed in this country at every level. I know that Dr. Lasswell was very concerned with finding solutions to major social and community problems and often used to asked Detective Rothstein his opinion on how best to address these issues. I know that Dr. Lasswell paid very close attention to what Detective Rothstein told him, occasionally making references in his classes and speeches about him and his work. I know for a fact that Dr. Lasswell believed that Detective Rothstein could not be compromised and that he was well aware that Detective Rothstein believed that everyone, even the least powerful citizens, deserved justice in their communities. Even to this day Detective Rothstein has many informants across the United States that still keep in contact with him and provide useful information, and this includes some in Minnesota. It is a well known fact that for years numerous alphabet agents have come to Detective Rothstein for help and guidance with their careers and sensitive investigations. I could go on and on about the many high level cases that Detective Rothstein worked on while at the NYPD . Some of this work is very well documented such as his arrest of Frank Sturgiss (aka the very dangerous Frank Fiorini , an Op40 "company wetboy ", also one of the Watergate "Plumbers"). Detective Rothstein saved the life of Marita Lorenz that day with that arrest and this story became legendary because once again Detective Rothstein proved he was a "stand up guy". Detective Rothstein is of the highest moral character, honest to a fault, and has always been committed to honest law enforcement at every level. I would testify as a character witness for him anytime, anywhere because I know what a fine individual he is firsthand. And I also know others who are more esteemed than I am who also feel the same way about Detective Rothstein. You may not realize that Detective Rothstein has been consulted, with great success, on several sensitive cases in Minnesota. He usually prefers to stay in the background and never desires any glory or credit for himself. What he does want is for "justice to be done", especially for the little people that are often abused and ignored by the system. His work has been included in several investigative reports by Television stations in the Twin Cities. I know for a fact that Detective Rothstein is highly respected by reporters and producers at one of these stations due to his work which proved to be 100% accurate, because I was told this by one of these individuals first hand when he worked at a particular station on a certain very sensitive investigation. An honest law enforcement person is always concerned with cleaning up corruption in the local community he serves and seeing that the drug traffickers and pedophiles are brought to justice. I can tell you emphatically that NO ONE, not a single person has ever brought more pedophiles to justice in the USA than Detective James Rothstein. That is what he was legendary for when he worked at the NYPD. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions about the esteemed Detective Rothstein. He has been a treasure to the citizens of Minnesota ever since he moved back here. I would sincerely question the motives or level of knowledge of anyone in law enforcement that suggests Detective Rothstein is not what he says he is, or in any way tries to discredit him or treat his work with disrespect. Either they are compromised or are very inept, very ignorant, or did not do their homework. What I have written here is all public information. Feel free to share it with anyone you chose including any politicians, Stearns County police officials or Deputy Sheriff Weiss. Anyone who tries to spread wrong information about Detective Rothstein for whatever motive, ignorance or other, or who attempts to discredit his reputation and outstanding service to the community of many years is barking up the wrong tree and certainly will get nowhere with such efforts. Of this I can assure you. Sincerely, James P. Viken , Ph .D. Psychologist Emeritus Minneapolis, Minnesota

Some background material to the posting below can be found in these prior topics: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=19973 http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=20038 In the morning of October 31, 1977, Halloween day, Det. Rothstein received a call from Paul Meskil, a reporter for the New York Daily News. Meskil was beside himself. Monica Lorenz, the daughter of Marita Lorenz, had just been arrested in front of her apartment on York Avenue in possession of a loaded gun. She was to be the last line of defense for Marita. Monica was hiding in the bushes in front of the apartment building on Eighty Eighth Street and York Avenue; she was going to ambush Sturgis when he showed up to kill Marita. Meskil knows that the only two Detectives he can trust are Rosenthal and Rothstein; he knows they will not back down or be stopped. The Detectives notified members of the New York Senate Select Committee on Crime, their present assignment, of the call. They jump into action. They first call the arresting officer of Monica and verify that the arrest had been made for possession of a gun. They then set up a meeting with Marita Lorenz and Paul Meskil at a small restaurant on the East Side. They all meet at the restaurant at approximately 1100 am. Marita verifies what Meskil had told the Detectives. She was very up-set, anxious, and scared. She feared for her and her children’s lives. Marita tells the Detectives that she is scheduled to testify at the House Assassination Hearings in Washington, DC, concerning the assassination of John F Kennedy. Meskil tells the Detectives that he is in possession of a tape recording made of a conversation between Marita Lorenz and Frank Sturgis; the tape is hidden at his residence in Nassau County, New York. In the tape Sturgis tells Marita, “You know what the rules are and what happens if you talk.” Meskil tells the Detectives to pick up the tape at his house and that his son would give the Detectives the tapes. Meskil tells the Detectives that he will be leaving for the Far East as soon as our meeting is over. At approximately 100 pm, the Detectives leave the restaurant with Marita and go to her apartment on Eighty Eighth Street and York Avenue. When Detectives Rosenthal, Rothstein, and Marita enter the apartment, the detectives do a quick canvass of the apartment. They see 10 to 15 boxes sitting against the wall in the dining room. The rest of the day and early evening were spent interviewing Marita in preparation for the arrival of Sturgis. Marita tells the detectives that the boxes contain documentation concerning OP40, the Cuban invasion, Castro, planning for the Kennedy assassination, and other covert operations that she had knowledge of. These documents were going to be delivered to the House Assassination Hearings. The Detectives believe they have more than sufficient evidence to arrest Sturgis. On October 31, 1977, at approximately 2130 hours Det. Mathew Rosenthal and Det. Jim Rothstein arrested Frank Sturgis when he came to assassinate Marita Lorenz, a witness to the planning of the Kennedy assassination. When Sturgis rang Marita to gain entry to the building, Rosenthal and Rothstein assumed their position. They crouched low next to the door with their guns drawn and their shields pinned to their suit jackets. When Sturgis entered the premises, Rothstein placed his gun in Sturgis’ mouth and shouted, “Police! You’re under arrest mother xxxxer; don’t move.” Sturgis mumbles, “I hope you’re Detectives.” Rosenthal had his gun put to Sturgis’ chest and identified himself as a Police Officer. The Detectives searched Sturgis. Once the Detectives knew that the scene was under control, Rothstein congratulates Sturgis for assassinating John F Kennedy. Rothstein tells Sturgis that he was present when Kennedy ordered the bombing and support to stop, just as the invasion of the Bay of Pigs began. Sturgis says, “The only way you can know that is if you were on the Essex.” Rothstein replies, “Yes, I was.” Rothstein and Sturgis shook hands; they were both professionals and were doing their job. Detectives Rothstein and Rosenthal questioned Sturgis for approximately two hours at Marita’s apartment before taking him for booking at the local precinct. During this time, Sturgis was very frank with the Detectives. He admitted that he was on the Grassy Knoll at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, when Kennedy was assassinated and that he was one of the shooters from the Grassy Knoll. The Detectives received valuable information from Sturgis. Sturgis tells the Detectives that OP40’s mandate was “to protect our country at all costs.” When Sturgis was asked why Kennedy was assassinated, he told the Detectives that there were three reasons. Number one was that Kennedy had double-crossed OP40 in the Bay of Pigs Invasion by pulling back the support. Number two was that he (Kennedy) had been told to stay away from the women, especially the Russian woman, Ellen Rometsch, because he would be compromised and jeopardize national security. Number three was that Kennedy was destroying the black community through his liberal social programs. The second part of the questioning was about his involvement in the Watergate Break-in that occurred on June 17, 1972. Sturgis was one of the five burglars arrested by Sgt. Paul Leeper, Det. Carl Shoffler, and Det. John Barrett, of the Washington D.C. Police Department. Sturgis said it was a set-up from the start, there had to have been a rat on the inside who sold them out. Sturgis said the break-in was to get the “book” that had the names of clients who used the prostitution and pedophile ring operating out of the Democratic National Headquarters. This information was to be used to compromise both Republican and Democratic clients who used the ring. The break-in led to the fall of President Richard Nixon on August 8, 1974. President Nixon had nothing to do with the planning of the break-in. In fact he had no prior knowledge that the break-in was going to occur. Later Shoffler would tell Rothstein that he had somebody on the inside and had received information that the break-in was going to happen. Shoffler’s tour had ended one and a half hours before he made the arrest. In 2012, Robert Merritt called retired Det. Rothstein and stated that he was Shoffler’s informant. In a book written by Robert Merritt, Watergate Exposed, he tells the tale of the break-in. When Sturgis was taken to the local precinct the Detectives identified themselves and told the desk lieutenant that they were booking Frank Forini (Sturgis’ real name). They took Sturgis to the Detectives room and began processing the arrest. That’s when things got strange. Rosenthal advises Sturgis of his rights. Sturgis asks to make a call, which Rothstein does. He tells Rothstein to call Gaeton Fonzi, the investigator in the House Assassination Hearings. Rothstein is surprised, that a suspect would call the investigator and he is the suspect. When Fonzi answers the phone, Rothstein identifies himself and tells Fonzi that Sturgis is under arrest and wants to talk to him. Fonzi was dumbfounded. (See The Last Investigation, by Gaeton Fonzi, page 103). Shortly after the call was made the desk officer calls the Detectives to inform them that a Frank Nelson (CIA and Organized Crime in Cuba) was at the desk and was looking for Frank Sturgis, and, if in, fact Forini was Sturgis. The answer was yes. Within minutes all hell broke loose. Every big boss in the Police Department was calling to find out what happened. The Detectives finished booking Sturgis and were requested to report to the offices of John Guido and Harold Hess, two of the top bosses involved in this type of case. When the Detectives arrive at Guido and Hess’s office they are asked if they had anything eat. The Detectives said no. Hess sends out one of his staff to get a six pack of beer and sandwiches. He asks the Detectives, “Is it good and clean arrest?” The Detectives say, “Yes, it is and it is solid.” Hess replies, “Good that is all I want to know.” The Detectives advise Guido and Hess of what happened. Rosenthal and Rothstein are asked to arraign Sturgis and go home and get some rest. At the arraignment of Frank Sturgis in Manhattan Criminal ADA Broomer is assigned to the case. The Detectives inform Broomer of the tape corroborating the allegations made by Marita and Meskil. Broomer asks the Detectives where the tape is. They inform Broomer that they will pick up the tape at Meskils residence in Nassau County on their way back to the city from their residences. Early the next morning all hell breaks loose again. Unknown members of the New York City Police Department went to Meskil’s residence to get the tapes. When Meskil’s son answers the door, he sees that it is not Detectives Rosenthal and Rothstein. The son calls the Nassau County Police Department and tells them that somebody was at his door trying to take evidence of the Kennedy assassination. Nassau County Police responded in full force. The New York City Cops were sent packing. Detectives Rosenthal and Rothstein are notified by Guido and Hess of what happened; somebody had sand-bagged them and they should immediately proceed to the Meskil residence and retrieve the tapes. Rosenthal and Rothstein meet with the son at Meskil’s residence and the son was so proud that he had protected the tapes for Rosenthal and Rothstein, as his father had told him to do. The son gives the tapes to the Detectives. The detectives knew what was coming; the cover-up was started. Detectives Rosenthal and Rothstein take the tape to ADA Broomer’s office and the tape is played. Marita and Meskil were right. Sturgis is heard telling Marita, “You know what the rules are and what happens if you talk.” Broomer and the powers to-be decide that is not a threat. The Detectives argue vehemently that it is clearly a threat and you have to be totally stupid if you don’t understand that. The Detectives know the fix was in. The charges against Sturgis were dropped. The boxes of files in Marita’s apartment were hand delivered to the House Assassination Hearings in Washington DC by Marita Lorenz and retired Det. Bobby Polachek, who had been a partner of Det. Rothstein at the 26 Precinct. Subsequently, Rosenthal, Rothstein, and the City of New York were sued by Sturgis for $16 million for making a false arrest. The case was tried by Judge Leonard Sand in the Federal Court in the Southern District of New York. Sturgis was represented by Henry Rothblatt. Rothstein was called as the last witness late in the day. He was sworn in by the judge and the case was adjourned till the next day. As Det. Rothstein was getting ready to leave the court house, he was warned by unnamed sources that his life was in danger and that he should not go home. Det. Rothstein called one of his informants, who lived in the neighborhood near the court house, and asked her for assistance. She was connected to organized crime figures in the same area. Det. Rothstein left through the back door and was safely taken to an apartment by his informant and her friends. The next morning, Det. Rothstein took the stand to testify. Before anything was said, Judge Sand was summoned to his chambers. After an hour or so, Det. Rothstein was called to the Judge’s Chambers. Det. Rothstein was asked what it would take for him not to testify. Everybody in the courtroom, especially the media, knew Det. Rothstein was going to let it all hang out. An agreement was reached that the City Of New York was going to pay $2,500.00 to Sturgis and Det. Rosenthal and Det. Rothstein were to be commended for acting above and beyond the call of duty. Judge Sand advised Det. Rothstein that he would be called in front of the bench and, if Det. Rothstein wanted to make a statement, he could say anything he wanted to say. Det. Rothstein realized it was in his best interest to keep his big mouth shut. As Rothstein turns to leave the courtroom, Sturgis and Rothblatt shake Rothstein’s hand and asked if he would be part of their organization. Rothstein replies, “It is an honor for you to ask, but I cannot do that.” He left the courthouse. THE AFTERMATH: Sometime during the summer of 1983, Retired Detective Rothstein was sitting at the bar in Georgia’s Bar and Restaurant at 722 South Wellwood Avenue, Lindenhurst, New York talking to customers. A well-dressed man, wearing typical “spook” attire, came in and sat next to Rothstein. He introduced himself as a former New York City, police officer who had moved to Florida. During an hour conversation he told Rothstein that when Detectives Rosenthal and Rothstein arrested Frank Sturgis he was sent with a “bag of money” from Florida to get Sturgis out of jail. He did not say where the money came from. He knew all the facts about Sturgis. Rothstein has never seen or heard from him again and never knew why he came in the first place.

Mark, your quote: Perhaps, the following is a better phrasing of the question to poll: "Watergate was a plot by elements of the US intelligence community and their political allies to depose Nixon". It has a little less punch than simply saying "the CIA", but it is more accurate. ------------------------------ I think that is fine. It covers all bases.

Nixon has won Watergate By Jonathan Turley 2:50p.m. EDT March 26, 2013 USA Today http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/03/25/nixon-has-won-watergate/2019443/ Barack Obama's imperial presidency is just what his controversial predecessor wanted. In 2013, Obama wields those very same powers openly and without serious opposition. Long after Watergate, not only has the presidency changed. We have changed. This month, I spoke at an event commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Watergate scandal with some of its survivors at the National Press Club. While much of the discussion looked back at the historic clash with President Nixon, I was struck by a different question: Who actually won? From unilateral military actions to warrantless surveillance that were key parts of the basis for Nixon's impending impeachment, the painful fact is that Barack Obama is the president that Nixon always wanted to be. Four decades ago, Nixon was halted in his determined effort to create an "imperial presidency" with unilateral powers and privileges. In 2013, Obama wields those very same powers openly and without serious opposition. The success of Obama in acquiring the long-denied powers of Nixon is one of his most remarkable, if ignoble, accomplishments. Consider a few examples: Warrantless surveillance Nixon's use of warrantless surveillance led to the creation of a special court called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA). But the reform turned out to be more form than substance. The secret court turned "probable cause" into a meaningless standard, virtually guaranteeing any surveillance the government wanted. After hundreds of thousands of applications over decades, only a couple have ever been denied. Last month, the Supreme Court crushed any remaining illusions regarding FISA when it sided with the Obama administration in ruling that potential targets of such spying had to have proof they were spied upon before filing lawsuits, even if the government has declared such evidence to be secret. That's only the latest among dozens of lawsuits the administration has blocked while surveillance expands exponentially. Unilateral military action Nixon's impeachment included the charge that he evaded Congress' sole authority to declare war by invading Cambodia. In the Libyan "mission," Obama announced that only he had the inherent authority to decide what is a "war" and that so long as he called it something different, no congressional approval or even consultation was necessary. He proceeded to bomb a nation's capital, destroy military units and spend more than a billion dollars in support of one side in a civil war. Kill lists Nixon ordered a burglary to find evidence to use against Daniel Ellsberg, who gave the famed Pentagon Papers to the press, and later tried to imprison him. Ellsberg was later told of a secret plot by the White House "plumbers" to "incapacitate" him in a physical attack. It was a shocking revelation. That's nothing compared with Obama's assertion of the right to kill any U.S. citizen without a charge, let alone conviction, based on his sole authority. A recently leaked memo argues that the president has a right to kill a citizen even when he lacks "clear evidence (of) a specific attack" being planned. Attacking whistle-blowers Nixon was known for his attacks on whistle-blowers. He used the Espionage Act of 1917 to bring a rare criminal case against Ellsberg. Nixon was vilified for the abuse of the law. Obama has brought twice as many such prosecutions as all prior presidents combined. While refusing to prosecute anyone for actual torture, the Obama administration has prosecuted former CIA employee John Kiriakou for disclosing the torture program. Other Nixonesque areas include Obama's overuse of classification laws and withholding material from Congress. There are even missing tapes. In the torture scandal, CIA officials admitted to destroying tapes that they feared could be used against them in criminal cases. Of course, Nixon had missing tapes, but Rose Mary Woods claimed to have erased them by mistake, as opposed to current officials who openly admit to intentional destruction. Obama has not only openly asserted powers that were the grounds for Nixon's impeachment, but he has made many love him for it. More than any figure in history, Obama has been a disaster for the U.S. civil liberties movement. By coming out of the Democratic Party and assuming an iconic position, Obama has ripped the movement in half. Many Democrats and progressive activists find themselves unable to oppose Obama for the authoritarian powers he has assumed. It is not simply a case of personality trumping principle; it is a cult of personality. Long after Watergate, not only has the presidency changed. We have changed. We have become accustomed to elements of a security state such as massive surveillance and executive authority without judicial oversight. We have finally answered a question left by Benjamin Franklin in 1787, when a Mrs. Powel confronted him after the Constitutional Convention and asked, "Well, Doctor, what have we got — a republic or a monarchy?" His chilling response: "A republic, if you can keep it." We appear to have grown weary of the republic and traded it for promises of security from a shining political personality. Somewhere, Nixon must be wondering how it could have been this easy. Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University.

Prime suspect in Georgi Markov 'umbrella poison' murder tracked down to Austria Thirty four years on, the murder of Georgi Markov - the Bulgarian dissident poisoned by the tip of an umbrella in central London - remains one of the great unsolved mysteries of the Cold War. By Nick Holdsworth, in Moscow, and Robert Mendick, Chief Reporter The Telegraph 2:00PM GMT 23 Mar 2013 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9949856/Prime-suspect-in-Georgi-Markov-umbrella-poison-murder-tracked-down-to-Austria.html#mm_hash The writer, who was living in the capital, was assassinated on the orders of the Bulgarian secret service as he waited for a bus on Waterloo Bridge in September 1978. While his killers have never been found, a suspect in the case has emerged: a spy known in Bulgarian files as Agent Piccadilly. He was named in Bulgaria eight years ago as Francesco Gullino, a Danish national of Italian origin, who worked for the then Communist regime using his business as an antiques dealer as a cover. Mr Gullino’s whereabouts have remained unknown. But finally he has been tracked down to an obscure Austrian town where he has admitted working for the Bulgarian secret service, Darzhavna Sigurnost (DS), but denied any involvement in Mr Markov’s murder. Now that he has been located, Scotland Yard, whose file on the Markov murder remains open, are likely to want to question Mr Gullino. Now in his 60s, he was traced to his home by a film-maker for a new documentary, entitled: Silenced: Georgi Markov and The Umbrella Murder. In it, Mr Gullino, asked if he was still in touch with his old Bulgarian secret service handler, replied: “Yes I know him, but this is an intimate question because I was really in that [secret service] branch.” He was then challenged about his role in the assassination, to which Mr Gullino responded: “I have got nothing to do with this story. "I’m sorry, I wish I could give you a straight answer but… but think for a moment: If I was, if I were the murderer, you think I should, I just say it? You know my theory about the truth.” Mr Gullino earns his money as an antiques dealer with a supplementary income from the Danish state pension. But around 1978, he was paid thousands of pounds by the Bulgarian secret service. Between then and the collapse of Communism in 1990, he received a total of £30,000 from the DS, according to official files. It is alleged that Mr Gullino was ordered by the DS to live in Copenhagen in 1978 - the year Mr Markov was murdered - and set up an antiques business as a cover. The assassination of Mr Markov, a constant thorn in the side of Bulgaria’s Communist regime, was one of the most chilling episodes of the Cold War. He had lived in political exile in London since the late 1960s and was married to Annabel Markova, a novelist who writes under the name Annabel Dilke. The couple had a daughter Alexandra, who was just two when her father, then aged 49, was killed. Mrs Markova,70, said in the documentary: “I wish, that, when people talk about it in the west, they wouldn't say ‘Oh the guy, that got stuck by an umbrella’, they'd say ‘oh the great writer’, you know. The writer was so brave, that he risked his life to tell the truth, this would be fantastic.” Mr Markov, who worked for the BBC, was standing on Waterloo Bridge when he felt a sharp pain in thigh. He thought little of it but three days later he was dead. The killer had stabbed him with an umbrella, which had injected under his skin a pellet containing the poison ricin. Mr Gullino was outed as a suspect by a Bulgarian journalist who had spent six years combing the archives of Bulgaria’s secret service. It was claimed in 2005 that Mr Gullino had entered Britain, driving an Austrian-registered caravan, having been sent to London to 'neutralise’ Mr Markov on the direct orders of the country’s then hardline ruler Todor Zhikov. Working under the codename Agent Piccadilly, it is alleged that Mr Gullino helped to arrange the assassination before leaving London the day after to travel to Rome, where he met his handler. In 1993, Mr Gullino was detained in Denmark after a tip off by MI6 and held for questioning for 11 hours by Danish intelligence services before being released due to a lack of evidence. Klaus Dexel, the investigative journalist who tracked down the suspect, said: “Gullino received £30,000 from the DS between 1978 and 1990 and was frequently invited to security service events in Bulgaria. I think that means he had an important role in this murder but there is no evidence he was trained to be a killer, trained in the 'wet arts’. He is, however, a very well trained xxxx and able to cover his trail.” Mr Dexel believes another Bulgarian agent, nicknamed The Woodpecker, flew into London the day before the killing and flew out the day after. “This Woodpecker could have been the murderer, or been used to carry the murder weapon in, or indeed Gullino may have played that role,” Mr Dexel said. The documentary-makers traced Mr Gullino after months of research in Sofia, Copenhagen, and Budapest – another city with which Mr Gullino has long been associated. He was eventually tracked down to Wels, a town in northern Austria about a two-hour drive from Vienna. City records show that Gullino has a tenancy on a shabby apartment block there. The two-storey building, situated in a part of the small Austrian town that houses antique yards and warehouses, is a warren of small apartments and corridors. Mr Markov’s friend and colleague Dimitar Botchev, 68, told The Sunday Telegraph that to see the key suspect in the murder living happily on an Danish state pension in a pretty little town in Austria left him feeling sickened and angry. He said: “There is plenty of evidence against Gullino; it is clear that his hands are not clean. There is sufficient evidence that he was involved in some way in the murder of Markov. But not a finger has been raised against him. “Georgi Markov was my best friend. It is very painful that all these years after his death, with all the facts and evidence, we are no closer to solving his murder.” Sources at Scotland Yard said it was aware of Mr Gullino. A spokeswoman said: “We can confirm that the inquiry remains open and has been a particularly complex investigation. “We continue to work with the appropriate international authorities to investigate any new information that is passed or made available to police.” It is thought UK detectives last travelled to Bulgaria about 12 months ago in the hunt for Mr Markov’s killer. Files from the time were largely destroyed making the search more difficult. Mr Gullino’s role as a DS agent was revealed after the collapse of the Bulgarian communist regime in 1989, when a file was found containing false passports in his name, his agreement work under the codename Piccadilly, as well as receipts for thousands of pounds in cash, dating to the period around September 1978. The file was one of few to have escaped destruction when the DS incinerated nearly all its files as the Communist regime fell apart. The film suggests the assassination involved a team of up to five agents, including the driver of a London cab that Scotland Yard was never able to trace. It also suggests that the KGB were involved in supplying the poison and draws parallels between Mr Markov’s murder and that of former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko, who died in London in November 2006 after drinking tea laced with radioactive polonium-210.