Douglas Caddy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj2qrl6Q2rk Levenda is a gifted speaker whose knowledgeable discourse is full of fascinating twists and turns.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2012/12/lbjs-last-interview.html#commentsform Nixon's phone call to LBJ took place on the eve of the first Watergate trial of Hunt, Liddy, McCord and the four Cuban-Americans. The first trial ended with guilty pleas by Hunt and the Cuban Americans and by the jury's verdict of Liddy and McCord being guilty. McCord's letter to Judge Sirica a few months later exposed the "hush money" cover-up, which led to the second Watergate trial and later to Nixon's resignation from the presidency. I testified at the first Watergate trial as a voluntary witness for the defense and an involuntary witness for the prosecution. My testimony occurred the same day that LBJ died.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/us-news-blog/2012/dec/03/elisabeth-murdoch-profile-new-yorker

http://www.salon.com/2012/12/02/better_than_bourne_who_really_killed_nick_deak/

Rupert Murdoch to split News Corp early to limit fallout from hacking scandal Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation is preparing to split on December 31, as it attempts to limit the damage of the News of the World phone hacking scandal on the rest of the media empire, the Daily Telegraph can reveal. By Katherine Rushton, Media, telecoms and technology editor 7:55PM GMT 02 Dec 2012 The Telegraph Robert Thomson, managing editor of the Wall Street Journal and editor in chief of Dow Jones, is expected to be named chief executive of the publishing division, which will be separated off in the carve up. News Corp said in June that it would separate its troubled newspaper and book publishing assets from its more valuable film and television businesses, which generate 74pc of its $33.4bn a year revenues and 90pc of its profits. At the time, Mr Murdoch said he hoped to complete the process within 12 months but that he had been advised by his finance and legal times that it could take longer. However, the businesses will be separated much sooner than expected, in a move that is set to please investors. Mr Murdoch will retain his iron grip on the empire, by becoming chairman of both operations and chief executive of the entertainment arm, whose assets range from Fox Television and a 39pc stake in BSkyB to Twentieth Century Fox film studios. However, the question of who would lead the beleaguered publishing division had remained open until Mr Murdoch alighted on Mr Thomson, a former editor of the Times. The two men share a deep love of newspapers – something that some of the other contenders for the title lacked – but this is not all they have in common. Both Mr Murdoch and Mr Thomson come from Australia, share the same birthday and have Chinese wives. Mr Thomson was the only non-family member from News Corp to attend the baptism of Mr Murdoch’s youngest daughters in the river Jordan, whilst Mr Thomson made Mr Murdoch godfather to his two sons. “Robert is part of Rupert’s inner circle. He is fond of Robert in the same way he was of Rebekah Brooks [the former News International chief executive], whom he regarded as some kind of surrogate daughter,” a source told The Daily Telegraph. More importantly for News Corp, Mr Thomson shares Mr Murdoch’s combative approach to the establishment and willingness to make cuts if necessary. The question over what to do at the financially struggling New York Post will be at the top of his to-do list. Mr Thomson’s probably move to the helm of News Corp’s publishing division is also expected to trigger a shake-up of other executive roles, with sources speculating that James Harding, editor of the Times, could move across to the Wall Street Journal. However, Mr Thomson’s ascendance at News International will come as a blow to Tom Mockridge, chief executive of the company’s UK newspaper division, News International, who had also been widely tipped to lead the new publishing arm. Sources thought he would land the job partly as a reward for agreeing to swap his job as chief executive of Sky Italia to help revive the troubled newspaper business after it was left in tatters by the phone hacking scandal. Other potential contenders included Lachlan Murdoch, already a member of the News Corp board, although his father Rupert Murdoch had indicated in recent weeks that this was looking unlikely. News Corp is already facing charges of nepotism and Lachlan Murdoch has shown little interest in the newspapers, or leaving his existing job in Australia. Mr Murdoch has claimed that News Corp’s split into two divisions has nothing to do with the phone hacking or police bribery scandals in the UK, that have engulfed the entire company and left its reputation in tatters. However, the separation will allow the business to draw a clean line between its damaged publishing assets and the most valuable parts of the empire.

Tom: You are clearly laboring under a number of misimpressions although I do not blame you for doing so because many of the events you describe occurred over 58 years ago when I was under 20 years of age. Indeed to understand what actually occurred, I must start at the beginning when I was in high school in New Orleans from 1954 to being graduated in June 1956. I then enrolled in the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in September 1956. Right now I am recovering from a severe cold that apparently I caught when I accompanied a close friend, who had just started to feel badly, to a Thanksgiving dinner and afterwards to see the movie “Lincoln,” which is magnificent and not to be missed. I’ll be able to post a detailed reply to your comments in about a week. I appreciate this opportunity to shed some light on the issues you raise. Doug

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=19747

INTRODUCTION TO ST. JOHN HUNT'S BOOK By Douglas Caddy Original Attorney for the Watergate Seven Before Watergate When I first met Howard Hunt in 1970, my immediate impression was of a man who was highly intelligent, possessed perfect manners and was extremely articulate in his conversation. The occasion of our first meeting was Howard’s coming on board as an employee at the Robert Mullen & Company upon his “retiring” from the CIA. The Mullen Company was a public relations firm with its headquarters in Washington, D.C. and with offices scattered around the globe. General Foods Corporation was a Mullen Company account. I had gone to work for General Foods in White Plains, New York, not long after being graduated in 1966 from the New York University Law School. In 1969 General Foods assigned me to work out of the Mullen Company in conjunction with my job representing General Foods interests in the nation’s capital. Howard and I quickly became friends once we learned that we had another friend in common: William F. Buckley, Jr., publisher of National Review magazine. I had worked closely with Buckley in the founding of the modern conservative movement in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. I had served as the first National Director of Young Americans for Freedom, a nationwide youth organization, which had been founded in September 1960 at a gathering of young conservative activists at the Buckley family compound in Sharon, Connecticut. From Howard I learned something that I did not know: that Buckley at one time had been a CIA agent and had worked under Howard’s supervision in Mexico City for a year after being graduated from Yale University where he had been elected to Skull & Bones. As our friendship burgeoned neither Howard nor I had any prescient inkling that two years later would he become a central figure in a scandal that would change the course of history and of my life and career. A few months our initial meeting, Robert Mullen called us into his office and surprised us by saying that he desired to retire and wanted to sell the Mullen Company. He then asked if we would be interested in purchasing it. He proposed that the sale would be financed over the ensuing years by payments to him of profits from the company’s public relations accounts, which included General Foods, the Mormon Church, a lucrative federal government contract with the Department of Health and Human Services and several others. Both Howard and I were stunned by Mullen’s proposal and told him that we needed time to consider it. Mullen agreed and during the next two months we had additional meetings with him about the purchase. However, at these subsequent meetings Mullen seemed to forget key details that we had discussed previously about the purchase, causing Howard several times to query me whether I thought Mullen was suffering from the onset of dementia. Then one day Mullen announced out of the blue that he had decided to sell his company to Robert Bennett, a Mormon who was the son of the senior U.S. Senator from Utah. What I came to learn years later was that Mullen, Bennett and Hunt knew something that had been kept from me, namely that the Mullen Company had been incorporated by the CIA in 1959 and served as a front for the intelligence agency. The Mullen Company offices around the world were in fact operations of the CIA and General Foods was aware of this and a participant in the overall intelligence scheme. Although Hunt was a protégé of CIA Director Richard Helms and had been placed by Helms inside the Mullen Company, a decision had been made by the CIA that one of its other key operatives, Robert Bennett, would purchase the Mullen Company and become its president. After meeting Bennett and finding him to be an extremely strange man who exuded duplicity I chose to leave General Foods and went to work as an attorney with the Washington law firm of Gall, Lane, Powell and Kilcullen. Howard stayed with the Mullen Company as its vice president. Soon after I began work at the law firm, Howard contacted me and asked that I perform legal work for him. I readily agreed and did so along with one of the partners of the law firm, Robert Scott, who found Howard to be an intriguing client. If from this Introduction you find that my and Howard’s lives and careers were becoming intertwined, such a finding would be accurate. In mid-1971 Howard informed me that he was under consideration to work in the White House while still an employee of the Mullen Company. His sponsor for the position was Charles Colson, one of President Nixon’s closest aides and a fellow alumnus with Howard of Brown University. Howard asked if I would write a letter of recommendation for his appointment, which I promptly did. Once Howard began working for the White House, we saw each other intermittently. However, on several occasions he invited me to join him and his colleague, Gordon Liddy, for lunch at the Federal City Club. Both men were circumspect in their discussion with my being present but from what I gathered they were involved in hush-hush, sensitive work in behalf of the White House. In February 1972, John Killcullen, one of the partners of the law firm that employed me, informed me that I was being assigned to do volunteer work for the Lawyers Committee for the Re-Election of the President. I soon met with John Dean, Counsel to the President, in his White House office and he in turn, after explaining the campaign legal work I would be doing, assigned me to work with one of his assistants, another lawyer. Howard was delighted to learn of my newly assigned task and so was Gordon Liddy, who at one point asked me to do legal research for him in his position as legal counsel to the Finance Committee for the Re-Election of the President. The head of the Finance Committee was Maurice Stans, a close friend of Nixon. In April 1972 Howard asked me to join him and the General Counsel for the CIA, Lawrence Huston, at a restaurant in Maryland, not far from the CIA headquarters on the other side of the Potomac River. At the meeting the two men sounded me out as to whether I would be interested in going to work for the CIA. If I were agreeable, my assignment would be to move to Nicaragua and there build and manage a luxurious seaside hotel that would lure the Sandinista leaders. This would allow the CIA to learn more about them. I told Howard and Huston I would think about it but for certain reasons decided immediately I would not accept their job offer. Two months later Watergate broke with the arrests of the five burglars inside the offices of the Democratic National Committee. During Watergate “From there I drove to the White House Annex – the Old Executive Office Building, in bygone years the War Department and later the Department of State. “Carrying three heavy attaché cases, I entered the Pennsylvania Avenue door, showed my blue-and-white White House pass to the uniformed guards, and took the elevator to the third floor. I unlocked the door of 338 and went in. I opened my two-drawer safe, took out my operational handbook, found a telephone number and dialed it. “The time was 3:13 in the morning of June 17, 1972, and five of my companions had been arrested and taken to the maximum-security block of the District of Columbia jail. I had recruited four of them and it was my responsibility to get them out. That was the sole focus of my thoughts as I began talking on the telephone. “But with those five arrests the Watergate affair had begun…. “After several rings the call was answered and I heard the sleepy voice of Douglas Caddy. “‘Yes?’ “’Doug? This is Howard. I hate to wake you up, but I’ve got a tough situation and I need to talk to you. Can I come over?’ “’Sure. I’ll tell the desk clerk you’re expected.’ “’I’ll be there in about 20 minutes,’ I told him, and hung up. “From the safe I took a small money box and removed the $10,000 Liddy had given me for emergency use. I put $1,500 in my wallet and the remaining $8,500 in my coat pocket. The black attaché case containing McCord’s electronic equipment I placed in a safe drawer that held my operational notebook. Then I closed and locked the safe, turning the dial several times. The other two cases I left beside the safe, turned out the light and left my office, locking the door.” -- E. Howard Hunt, Undercover: Memoirs of an American Secret Agent (Berkley, 1974). About half an hour after he telephoned me, Hunt arrived at my Washington apartment located in the Georgetown House at 2121 P St., N.W., about a five-minute drive from the both the Watergate and the White House. He quickly informed me of what had occurred. Hunt then telephoned Liddy from my apartment and they both requested that I represent them as their attorney in the case as well as the five arrested individuals – McCord and the four Cuban-Americans. On June 28 – 11 days later – I was served with a subpoena to appear “Forthwith” before the grand jury. The subpoena was served on me by Assistant U.S. Attorney Donald Campbell while I was in the federal court house, who grabbed me by my arm and pulled me into the grand jury room. The prosecutors asked me hundred of questions over the next two weeks and subpoenaed my personal bank records. Ultimately I refused to answer 38 questions that I and the five attorneys representing me believed were protected by the attorney client privilege. For example, one question was: “At what time did you receive a telephone call in the early morning hours of June 17, 1972?” By answering this question, I could ultimately be forced to identify Hunt and thus incriminate him. Principal Assistant U.S. Attorney Earl Silbert argued in court that my refusal to answer the grand jury questions on the grounds of the attorney-client privilege was “specious, dilatory and….an obstruction of justice.” Judge John Sirica, who had assigned himself to try Watergate case, saw a golden opportunity to inflate his towering ego and exercise his unlimited ambition at the expense of justice and the country. At a hearing on July 12, 1972 – less than a month after the case broke – Sirica rejected outright my attorneys’ argument that the attorney-client privilege was being egregiously violated by the 38 questions. Declared Sirica to a courtroom packed with lawyers, the press and spectators: “You see, to put the matter perfectly bluntly, if the government is trying to get enough evidence to indict Mr. Caddy as one of the principals in this case even though he might not have been present at the time of the alleged entry in this place, I don’t know what the evidence is except what has been disclosed here, if the government is trying to get an indictment against Mr. Caddy and he feels that way and you feel it and the rest of you attorneys feel it, all he has to say is ‘I refuse to answer on the grounds what I say would tend to incriminate me.’ That ends it. I can’t compel him to say he know Mr. Hunt under the circumstances. He doesn’t do that, understand? He takes the other road. He says there is a confidential communication. Who is he to be the sole judge or not it is confidential or not? That is what I am here for.” The next day, after I refused to answer the 38 questions before the grand jury on the grounds that doing so would violate the attorney-client privilege, Sirica convened a court hearing to hold me in contempt. Robert Scott, one of my attorneys who later was named a District of Columbia judge, asked Sirica to honor professional courtesy by not ordering me jailed while an appeal was filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, stating: “If Your Honor please, there is nothing malicious in this refusal. It is done in good faith, good conscience, it is done because we believe it is the proper course. I would respectfully suggest this is very harsh treatment – not the finding of contempt, I don’t say that. I disagree that he should be found in contempt, but I think it is very harsh treatment that your honor would commit him when it is perfectly clear that these positions are being put forth in the utmost good faith and utmost of sincerity. This is a young man, I just think it would be as harsh as it could be to commit him at this time.” Of course, this plea fell upon the deaf ears of a judicial bully and thug who took delight in destroying the careers and lives and the innocent as well as the guilty. Sirica ordered the U.S. Marshal to take me into custody to be jailed. On July 18, 1972 the U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed Sirica’s contempt citation of me. It did so in by employing gratuitously insulting language, declaring that “Even if such a relationship does exist, certain communications, such as in furtherance of a crime, are not within the [attorney-client] privilege.” The day after the decision of the Court of Appeals, I appeared again before the grand jury and pursuant to the threat posed by the Court’s decision answered all the questions posed to me by the prosecutors. The actions of Sirica and the Court of Appeals did not go unnoticed by the White House. In an Oval Office tape of July 19, 1972, an incredulous President Nixon asked John Ehrlichman, “Do you mean the circuit court ordered an attorney to testify?” to which Ehrlichman responded, “It [unintelligible] to me, except that this damn circuit we’ve got here with [Judge David] Bazelon and so on, it surprises me every time they do something.” Nixon then asked, “Why didn’t he appeal to the Supreme Court?” What Nixon and Ehrlichman did not realize was that I and my attorneys firmly believed that we had created a strong legal record of the constitutional rights of the defendants and me as their attorney had been egregiously violated so that if Hunt, Liddy and the five arrested defendants were found guilty, their convictions could be overturned as a result of the abusive actions of the prosecutors, Judge Sirica and the Court of Appeals. However, Sirica’s vitriolic courtroom antics, aided and abetted by a biased Court of Appeals, had the effect to encouraging the defendants to embark on a “hush money” cover-up after they realized early on that the courts were not going to give them a fair trial. Hunt later wrote that “If Sirica was treating Caddy – an Officer of the Court – so summarily, and Caddy was completely uninvolved in Watergate – then those of us who were involved could expect neither fairness nor understanding from him. As events unfolded, this conclusion became tragically accurate.” Bear in mind all the above described courtroom events occurred in the first 33 days of the case. The dye has been cast by the prosecutors and the judges to deny the seven defendants a fair trial. Shortly after indictments were handed down against all seven defendants in September 1972, the prosecutors informed me that I would be a government witness at their trial and that I should review my grand jury transcripts in their office in preparation of so testifying. William Bittman, a former Justice Department prosecutor who succeeded me in representing Hunt, advised me that because the prosecutors had gone too far in their persecution of me, they had jeopardized their case and were worried about that fact. No evidence had been uncovered over the months since the case broke that I had engaged in any criminal activity. One of the prosecutors even disclosed that an examination of my personal bank records, obtained by subpoena, revealed that I was “scrupulously honest.” Bittman then instructed me that when I reviewed my grand jury transcripts I should diligently determine if any alternations had been made in them. His fear was that the prosecutors had rewritten my testimony so as to weaken the attorney-client privilege. He said that if I found any of my transcripts had been altered, he planned to call Silbert to the witness stand at the trial to question him about the alteration. He declared, “Hunt deserves a fair trial and I am going to see that he gets one.” When I did review the grand jury transcripts, I determined that a key alteration had been made by the prosecutors. This alteration dealt with my attempt to tell the grand jury on July 19, 1972, that I had been approached in early July to act as conduit for “hush money” to be distributed to the defendants. The overture was made by Anthony Ulasewicz, a former New York City police detective, acting upon the instructions of Herbert Kalmbach, President Nixon’s personal attorney. Here is the testimony of Kalmbach subsequently before the Senate Watergate Committee: “Mr. Dash: Now, what was the first instruction you received to give the money? “Mr. Kalmbach: Again, as I have tried to reconstruct this, Mr. Dash, the first instruction that I received, which I passed to Mr. Ulasewicz was to have Mr. Ulasewicz give $25,000 to Mr. Caddy. I don’t know too much of Mr. Caddy, I understand that he is an attorney here in Washington. And, as I recall it, this was probably from approximately July 1 through July 6 or 7. There were a number of calls. I would either talk to Mr. Dean or Mr. LaRue. I would then call Mr. Ulasewicz who, in turn, would call Mr. Caddy. He would have some response from Mr. Caddy, and I would call back up either Mr. Dean or Mr. LaRue. “Mr. Dash: What was the response from Mr. Caddy? “Mr. Kalmbach: Well, the sum and gist of it was that Mr. Caddy refused to accept the funds. “Mr. Dash: In that manner? “Mr. Kalmbach: That is correct. That was the end-all. There were several phone calls, but the final wrap-up won it was that he refused the funds.” My grand jury testimony was not the only one altered by the prosecutors. Alfred Baldwin, a key figure in the case, later charged that his grand jury testimony also had been altered by the prosecutors. At the first Watergate trial, Hunt and the four Cuban-Americans pleaded guilty at its beginning. This came about because about a month previously Dorothy Hunt had died in a mysterious plane crash in Chicago. For Hunt a trial following on the heels of his wife’s tragic death was more than he could bear. The four Cuban-Americans, loyal to a fault to Hunt, followed his lead. Liddy and McCord stood trial and were found guilty. Liddy appealed his conviction. The same Court of Appeals that had forced me to testify before the grand jury in its gratuitously insulting decision opined as to the defendant Liddy being denied Sixth Amendment counsel because of what the courts had done to me as his attorney: “The evidence against appellant…was so overwhelming that even if there were constitutional error in the comment of the prosecutor and the instruction of the judge, there is no reasonable possibility it contributed to the conviction.” Of course, neither Judge Sirica, who Time Magazine later named Man Of The Year, nor the U.S. Court of Appeals ever acknowledged that their abusive actions and decisions in the first month of the case relating to me and the attorney-client privilege were a principal cause of the cover-up that ensued. Sirica later wrote a book about Watergate, fatuously titled To Set the Record Straight, for which he pocketed one million dollars, which would be almost four million today’s dollars. James Jackson Kilpatrick, a nationally syndicated columnist, wrote at the time: “It would be pleasant if someone would set the record straight about this tin pot tyrant. Sirica is a vainglorious pooh-bah, an ill-tempered and autocratic as any judge since Same Chase of Maryland 180 years ago. When the Watergate criminal trials were assigned to him in the fall of 1972, he set out to enjoin the whole countryside with an encompassing gag order that perfected reflected his lust for power. The order was patently absurd – it embraced even ‘potential witnesses’ and ‘alleged victims’ and had to be watered down.” Despite the efforts of the prosecutors, Sirica and the Court of Appeals to set me up, I was never indicted, named as an unindicted co-conspirator, disciplined by the Bar or even contacted by the Senate Watergate Committee. Watergate, as Senator Sam Ervin, Chairman of the Senate Watergate Committee said at the time, was the most publicized event in American political history. It certainly was the country’s biggest criminal case of the 20th century. Post Watergate I believe the media has painted an erroneous portrait of who Howard actually was. For a fuller picture of the man I suggest the book Watergate: The Hidden History by Lamar Waldron published in 2012 that contains numerous references to Howard and his career. Waldron writes, “Some writers depict Hunt as a minor figure, bumbling his way from one small White House operation to the next. However, a review of all the evidence shows that Hunt was consistently working on important tasks for the White House, on matters that interested the President. Hunt also kept expanding (or wanting to expand) his operations, which often overlapped with other projects that he sought out or pushed. The more Nixon operations Hunt became involved in, the highest his status in the White House and the better for his future. It was also good for his mentor, Richard Helms, since it gave him access to the White House (and FBI) information and operations. The President’s White House staff was expanding its illegal operations on his behalf so rapidly that Hunt had no problem finding Nixon aides who wanted Hunt’s services, to help them achieve the illicit goals the President wanted. That symbiotic relationship would soon grow so rapidly that it would start to spiral out of control, with disastrous results for all concerned.” As I look back I have come to the conclusion that the CIA had a goal of placing Howard in the White House in 1971 and that he thought of himself more as a CIA agent than as a trusted member of the White House staff. Thus, after the Watergate “hush” money scheme was exposed, Howard was quoted in People Magazine of May 20, 1974, that “I had always assumed, working for the CIA for some many years, that anything the White House wanted done was the law of the land. I viewed this like any other mission. It just happened to take place inside this country.” Howard’s long-time friend and former CIA colleague William F. Buckley, Jr. accurately assessed him as follows: “Hunt had lived outside the law in the service of his country, subsequently of President Nixon…Hunt, the dramatist, didn’t understand the political realities at the highest level transcend the working realities of spy life.” While Howard revealed a lack of political awareness during Watergate, on another important political topic he was right on target. As the New York Post reported on January 14, 2007, he originally wrote in his memoir, “American Spy: My Secret History in the CIA, Watergate and Beyond” published in 2007 that “Having Kennedy liquidated, thus elevating himself to the presidency without having to work for it himself, could have been a very tempting and logical move on [Lyndon] Johnson’s part. “LBJ had the money and the connections to manipulate the scenario in Dallas and is on record as having convinced JFK to make the appearance in the first place. He further tried unsuccessfully to engineer the passengers in each vehicle, trying to get his good buddy, Governor [John] Connally, to ride with him instead of JFK’s car - where…he would have been out of danger” Howard pinpointed CIA agent William Harvey as playing a key role in the JFK assassination: “He definitely had dreams of becoming [CIA director] and LBJ could do that for him if he were president. [LBJ] would have used Harvey because he was available and corrupt.” Just prior the memoir’s publication, passages that dealt with advance knowledge possessed Howard of JFK’s assassination were removed at the insistence of Howard’s then lawyer. However, Howard, ever the consummate intelligence officer, clandestinely arranged that his views on Kennedy’s murder would ultimately be publicly made known by giving his son, St. John, an audio tape to be released after his death in which he described the planning of the assassination. This is why St. John Hunt’s book is an important contribution to history.

Poster's note: So in the end Lord Justice Leveson did what he was ordained to do at the time he was selected to head the investigation, which was to find Rupert Murdoch "was kept in the dark by News International executives about suspicions of wider illegal activity at News of the World between 2006 and 2008." What a sad commentary on the administration of justice. Murdoch undoubtedly from the beginning was aware of what Leveson would ultimately enunciate as his finding. ----------------------------------- Murdochs kept in dark on phone-hacking suspicions, Leveson finds News of the World and the 'bombs under the newsroom floor' By Josh Halliday The Guardian, Friday 30 November 2012 14.52 EST Rupert Murdoch was kept in the dark by News International executives about suspicions of wider illegal activity at the News of the World between 2006 and 2008, Lord Justice Leveson concluded in his report on press standards. Murdoch, chairman and chief executive of News International owner News Corporation, who gave evidence to the Leveson inquiry over two days in April, escaped the most excoriating criticism in the 2,000-page report. But the judge did express concern that several key developments on phone hacking were apparently shielded from Murdoch and his son James, as a result either of a cover-up or of a "serious failure of governance within the NoW, NI and News Corporation". Leveson said it was "revealing" that Murdoch had not seen the sentencing remarks by Mr Justice Eady after a News of the World reporter and private investigator were jailed over phone hacking in 2007. He added: "That Mr Murdoch was apparently not familiar with it says something about the degree to which his organisation engages with the ethical direction of its newspapers." The judge questioned James Murdoch's account of a key meeting in 2008 where two News of the World executives – the editor, Colin Myler, and head of legal, Tom Crone – claimed to have demonstrated to him that illegal activity was more widespread than just one reporter. At the time James Murdoch, News Corp's deputy chief operating officer, was News International chairman and chief executive. His account of the meeting differed from those of Myler and Crone when he gave evidence to the Leveson inquiry in April. Murdoch denied he was shown or told about legal advice by Michael Silverleaf QC that phone hacking was likely to have gone beyond one News of the World reporter. Crone disputed Murdoch's evidence, claiming that he probably took the Silverleaf advice to the meeting along with copies of a briefing note and the "for Neville" email, which suggested that phone hacking at the now defunct title went beyond a single reporter. Leveson said Myler and Crone had "no motive to conceal relevant facts" from Murdoch, although the judge also expressed "serious concerns" about their evidence about the meeting. "I have given careful consideration as to whether I should go further, and conclude that Mr Crone's version of events as to what occurred on 10 June 2008 should be preferred to that of James Murdoch," he said in his report. "There are aspects of the account of Mr Murdoch that cause me some concern: in particular, it is surprising if the gist of Mr Silverleaf's opinion was not communicated to him in circumstances where the potential reputational damage to the company, of which he was CEO, was likely to be great if an early settlement of the claim brought by Mr [Gordon] Taylor were not achieved." Overall, Leveson found that evidence of the two Murdochs illustrated that "one or more parts of the management at the NoW was engaged in a determined cover-up to keep relevant information about potential criminal activity within the organisation from senior management within NI". Hearing nearly 380 testimonies in 12 months, Leveson acknowledged that his inquiry afforded little opportunity for detailed cross-examination that would reveal who knew what and when at News International. He added: "In the circumstances, I do not seek to reach any conclusion about precisely what transpired at this meeting." Leveson was careful not to accuse the News of the World's 150 editorial staff even in his most disapproving passages, reserving his most trenchant criticism for executives. He repeatedly wrote of a failure of governance at the News of the World and, on occasion, at News International, that led the now-closed Sunday tabloid to "lose its way". The judge spent several hundreds of words analysing the significance of the appointment of Myler as editor of the News of the World in January 2007, after the resignation of Andy Coulson over the convictions for voicemail interceptions of the reporter and private investigator. He credited Myler, now editor of the New York Daily News, as being one of the first News International executives to publicly use the phrase "rogue" when describing phone hacking at the title – a line he said he stuck to "vigorously and forcefully" until late 2010. But he criticised Myler for failing to fully investigate his own private concerns about the "bombs under the newsroom floor" he described in evidence to the inquiry. Leveson said in his report: "In the event, he did little to assuage his own 'discomfort' except lay down rules for the future. As to the what had happened, he vigorously and forcefully followed a line which, to pursue the analogy of a bomb under the newsroom floor, simply ignored his privately held fear of an impending explosion." The judge noted in four paragraphs early in his report that News International made several improvements to its governance processes in the wake of the phone hacking scandal. News Corp and News International declined to comment on the judge's criticism. James Murdoch has previously said he "did not know about, nor did I try to hide, wrongdoing

Watergate Files Released: Once-Secret Files Published By U.S. Government (VIDEO) By STEPHEN BRAUN and RICHARD LARDNER 11/30/12 07:07 PM ET EST(AP) http://www.huffingto...html?1354309867 WASHINGTON — Watergate Judge John J. Sirica aided the prosecution in pursuing the White House connection to the Democratic headquarters break-in by providing the special prosecutor information from a probation report in which one of the burglars said he was acting under orders from top Nixon administration officials, according to once-secret documents released Friday by the National Archives. One newly public transcript of an in-chambers meeting between Sirica, the U.S. District Court judge in charge of the case, and then-Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox in July 1973 shows the judge revealed secret probation reports indicating that E. Howard Hunt had cited orders from officials high up in the Nixon administration. Several of Hunt's co-defendants had previously denied any White House involvement in court testimony, and Sirica told Cox and other prosecutors that he felt the new information "seemed to me significant." The government released more than 850 pages from the Watergate political scandal, providing new insights on privileged legal conversations and prison evaluations of several of the burglars in the case. A federal judge had decided earlier this month to unseal some material, but other records still remain off limits. The files do not appear to provide any significant new revelations in the 40-year-old case that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon and criminal prosecutions of many of his top White House and political aides. But the files provide useful context for historians, revealing behind-the-scenes deliberations by Sirica, the U.S. District Court judge in charge of the case, along with prosecutors and defense lawyers. The documents stem from the prosecution of five defendants arrested during the June 1972 Watergate break-in and two men, Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy, who were charged as the burglary team's supervisors. All seven men were convicted. In the conversations between Cox and Sirica, the special prosecutor agreed with the judge's concerns that the probation report should be sealed and thanked him for the information. Cox promised that his team would not divulge the new information unless they felt there was a prosecutorial need and returned for a hearing to make it public. "Unless we came back," Cox told Sirica, "we wouldn't reveal it." Former Nixon White House lawyer John Dean, who cooperated with prosecutors and testified against Nixon during an explosive congressional hearing in June 1973, said Friday after reviewing some of the newly released files that he believed Sirica "was very aggressive for a judge, even more than the White House was aware of at the time. No one in the Nixon White House knew exactly where he was coming from." Dean added that while Sirica's investigative zeal was well-known, his dealings with Cox and other prosecutors were "eye-opening." U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth ordered the files unsealed earlier this month after a request from Luke Nichter, a professor at Texas A&M University-Central Texas. Nichter wrote Lamberth in 2009 asking for release of the materials. Lamberth held back other sealed materials but agreed to ask the Justice department to explain the reasoning for keeping those materials secret. The documents released by the Archives also reinforce Sirica's reputation as a gruff, no-nonsense jurist. During pretrial hearings in December 1972, Hunt's defense attorney sought to delay the trial after the former CIA man's wife was killed in a plane crash. Sirica refused to put the trial on hold unless there was proof Hunt was suffering from a serious medical condition, according to the transcripts. "If he is just emotionally upset, that, in my opinion, is not a valid excuse," Sirica said. "If he gets tired during the day, I will arrange for him to go down and take a rest for two or three hours if he wishes." A doctor who examined Hunt said in a letter to Sirica in early January 1973 that he suffered from ulcers and other gastrointestinal ailments but "has sufficient present ability to consult with his lawyer." The doctor, Charles E. Law Sr., said he was worried that Hunt would weep in court, especially when questioned by prosecutors. Reports from prison psychiatrists and probation officers also show that four of Hunt's co-defendants justified their role in the Watergate break-in on national security grounds, saying they were under orders to search for evidence that Cuban government funds supported Democratic party campaigns. Dean said Friday that Hunt once told him that excuse was a ruse used to persuade the others to participate in the burglary. ___ Online: http://www.archives....us-v-liddy.html Unsealed Materials from U.S. v. Liddy On May 1, 2009, Professor Luke Nichter of Texas A&M University-Central Texas petitioned Chief Judge Royce Lamberth of the District Court for the District of Columbia to release records sealed in the case of U.S. v. Liddy, the Watergate break-in case. The sealed proceedings include evidentiary discussions held outside the jury's hearing, pretrial discussions between defendants' lawyers and the Court, and post-trial sentencing information. On November 2, 2012, the District Court for the District of Columbia ordered most of these records to be unsealed, given the passage of time, completion of the criminal proceedings, and non-invasive nature of the content. Consistent with the recommendation of the Department of Justice, the court ordered that the following categories of records remain sealed, pending further review by the court: · Personal documents regarding living individuals; · Documents regarding the content of illegally obtained wiretaps; and · Grand Jury information. Accordingly, the court directed the National Archives to release the uncontested records within 30 days from the date of the Order. The National Archives is therefore releasing the previously sealed records from U.S. v. Liddy, with the three categories of contested materials removed and marked "Court Sealed." If/when the Court later unseals additional materials, the National Archives will make them available. NARA is releasing 36 folders of documents totaling approximately 950 pages. A folder title list is below: Box 1 Kevan Hunt affidavit; 8 pages, partially sealed. Grand Jury transcript; 15 pages, partially sealed. Letters from doctors re E.H. Hunt's health; 8 pages, partially sealed. Proceedings 12/15/1972 re Times Mirror subpoena; 12 pages, open in full. (7.5 MB) #241 Proceedings 1/2/1973 discussion of how Judge Sirica would listen to the Baldwin interview tapes; 9 pages, open in full. Proceedings 1/5/1973 discussion of Baldwin testimony; 49 pages, partially sealed. (21.96 MB) #190 Proceedings 1/5/1973 discussion of serving of Exhibit A on counsel (exhibits A-C are referred to in Item #6); 9 pages, open in full. #205A Proceedings 1/17/1973 discussion of Baldwin testimony; 53 pages, partially sealed. (30.21 MB) Exhibits B & C (exhibits A-C are referred to in Item #6); 12 pages, partially sealed. Exhibit A (exhibits A-C are referred to in Item #6); 6 pages, open in full. #207 Judge Sirica opinion filed 1/18/1973 on admissibility of overhears; 8 pages, open in full. Six cassette tapes of interview of Alfred Baldwin (will be released at a later date) #159 Transcript of interview of Alfred Baldwin; 181 pages, partially sealed. Proceedings 12/4/1972 (2 copies) re concerns by burglar's counsel about possible new indictment; 5 pages, open in full. #135 Proceedings 12/4/1972 re various pre-trial tasks; 122 pages, open in full. (62.96 MB) Proceedings 12/15/1972 (2 copies) re E.H. Hunt physical and mental health after his wife's death (bench conference portion of Item #4); 4 pages, partially sealed. #189 Proceedings 1/8/1973, pp. 71-75 re E.H. Hunt physical and mental health after his wife's death; 7 pages, partially sealed. Box 2 #191 Proceedings 1/9/1973 re possible Hunt guilty plea; 12 pages, partially sealed. #197 Proceedings 1/12/1973 folder contains only the steno tape, the transcript was unsealed in 1981; 3 pages, open in full. #287 Proceedings 1/24/1973, pp. 1490-1500G Judge Sirica's suggestions as to further investigation; 21 pages, partially sealed. (10 MB) #288 Proceedings 1/26/1973 re electronic surveillance; 16 pages, open in full. #289 Proceedings 1/27/1973 re telephone message from Gary Sellers re evidence; 5 pages, open in full. #339 Proceedings 7/17/1973 new evidence re E.H. Hunt; 26 pages, open in full. (14.86 MB) #342 Proceedings 7/24/1973 re burglars and their representation; 24 pages, partially sealed. #344 Proceedings 8/7/1973 (3 copies) re sentencing of the burglars; 23 pages, open in full. (13.66 MB) #362 Proceedings 9/17/1973 (3 copies) re meeting with Bernard Barker; 16 pages, open in full. (11.64 MB) #361 Proceedings 9/17/1973 re sentencing; 14 pages, partially sealed. #385 Proceedings 10/16/1973 (2 copies) re sentencing issues; 9 pages, open in full. (7.3 MB) Box 3 Presentence reports and Bureau of Prisons evaluations on Barker, Sturgis, Martinez, and Gonzalez ; 104 pages, partially sealed. (22.93 MB) #360 Sealed addendum to Government's motion re McCord's writ of error coram nobis; 4 pages, open in full. #176 Letters and filings re McCord's writ of error coram nobis; 5 pages, open in full. #363 Proceedings 1/3/1973 re McCord's writ of error coram nobis; 9 pages, open in full. #380 Proceedings 10/11/1973 McCord's writ of error coram nobis; 7 pages, open in full. Court of Appeals receipts; 6 pages, open in full. Hunt passport, Jenkins statement, Martinez diary; 22 pages, open in full. (10.83 MB) Liddy insurance papers; 24 pages, partially sealed. (10 pages released and 14 pages withheld in full). PDF files require the free Adobe Reader. More information on Adobe Acrobat PDF files is available on our Accessibility page.

Leveson's regulator ignores 'appalling abuse' on internet, MPs warn Lord Justice Leveson has designed a regulator for the press of "20 years ago" and ignored the impact of the internet, senior MPs have warned. By Steven Swinford The Telegraph 11:45AM GMT 30 Nov 2012 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9713949/Levesons-regulator-ignores-appalling-abuse-on-internet-MPs-warn.html The Leveson report dismissed the internet as an "ethical vacuum" and said that it was up to the press to rise above it and follow higher standards. He devotes just 12 pages of the 1,987 page report to discussing the role of the internet, and concludes that online news outlets can subscribe to regulation if they wish. John Whittingdale, the Conservative chairman of the culture, media and sport select committee, said his approach was "curious". He said: "It is curious to bring in very strong controls to prevent newspapers breaking the code when it's so easy for online providers to do so. "At a time when more and more people are going online to obtain news and as a result circulation of newspapers is in steady decline, it seems strange to respond by designing a system which does very little to address new media. It's a system that is designed for the media of 20 years ago rather than today." Lord Justice Leveson said that while people will not assume that what they read on the internet is “trustworthy”, they expect newspapers to be a “quality product”. He said: “Some have called it a 'wild west’ but I would prefer to use the term 'ethical vacuum’. The internet does not claim to operate by express ethical standards, so that bloggers and others may, if they choose, act with impunity. “The press, on the other hand, does claim to operate by and adhere to an ethical code of conduct. Newspapers, through whichever medium they are delivered, purport to offer a quality product in all senses of the term. “In contrast, the internet does not function on that basis at all. People will not assume that what they read on the internet is trustworthy or that it carries any particular assurance or accuracy; it need be no more than one person’s view. Mr Whittingdale, however, said many people believe what they read on the internet. He said: "People take the interent more seriously than he [Leveson] gives it credit for. They think that if something looks professions online then it should be reliable. People have to learn how to filter out and recognise material which is properly sourced and reliable." Lord Justice Leveson also addressed the publication of naked pictures of Prince Harry and the Duchess of Cambridge on the internet. In August, Prince Harry was photographed playing strip billiards with a girl in a £5,100 eight-room suite at the Encore Wynn resort in Las Vegas. The images were widely circulated on the internet and several days later published by The Sun newspaper. The Sun published an article which stated: “It is absurd in the internet age newspapers like The Sun could be stopped from publishing stories and pictures already seen by millions on the free-for-all that is the web.” Lord Justice Leveson said that the debate about whether Prince Harry’s behaviour was in the public interest did not justify publishing the pictures. He said: “What transpired and what the photographs revealed was graphically described in print. The debate did not need the pictures.” He said that The Sun ignored the “large number of people who do not want to see the photographs”, adding: “The fact that something is on the internet does not justify its publication in a newspaper.” He compared The Sun’s decision to publish the Prince Harry pictures with the decision by British newspapers to condemn the publication of topless pictures of the Duchess of Cambridge in a French magazine. Lord Justice Leveson said: “There has to be some other public interest in publication of that image in order to justify it. For the Duchess, there clearly is not. “But that equally means that playing the card of widespread availability is not good enough in relation to the Prince Harry photos either. “If society wants them [the Royal Family] to mix with the public and in the real world, they have to be given the space to do so and their right to have a degree of privacy… must also be recognised.”

Leveson questions James Murdoch inquiry evidence on phone hacking Ex-News International chief gave differing account of 2008 meeting on hacking to those of Colin Myler and Tom Crone By Josh Halliday guardian.co.uk, Friday 30 November 2012 08.36 EST Lord Justice Leveson expressed concern in his report on the culture, practices and ethics of the press about aspects of James Murdoch's evidence to his inquiry on how much he was told about phone hacking at the News of the World. Murdoch, the News Corporation deputy chief operating officer and former chairman and chief executive of News of the World publisher News International, said he was not told that hacking went beyond a single rogue reporter at a key meeting in 2008. But Leveson said he found it "surprising" that Murdoch was unaware of damning legal advice by a senior barrister about a culture of illegal information access at the paper, and concluded: "Whatever the truth of what was discussed on 10 June 2008, the evidence outlined points to a serious failure of governance within the NoW, NI and News Corporation." Leveson's concerns are outlined in a section of his report, published on Thursday, on the 10 June 2008 meeting between Murdoch, News of the World editor Colin Myler, and the paper's head of legal, Tom Crone. Murdoch's account of the meeting differed from those of Myler and Crone when he gave evidence to the Leveson inquiry in April. He denied he was shown or told about legal advice by Michael Silverleaf QC that phone hacking was likely to have gone beyond the one News of the World reporter, who was jailed in 2007. Crone disputed Murdoch's evidence, claiming that he probably took the Silverleaf advice to the meeting along with copies of a briefing note and the "for Neville" email, which suggested that phone hacking at the now-defunct title went beyond a single reporter. Leveson said in his report: "I have given careful consideration as to whether I should go further, and conclude that Mr Crone's version of events as to what occurred on 10 June 2008 should be preferred to that of James Murdoch. "There are aspects of the account of Mr Murdoch that cause me some concern: in particular, it is surprising if the gist of Mr Silverleaf's opinion was not communicated to him in circumstances where the potential reputational damage to the company, of which he was CEO, was likely to be great if an early settlement of the claim brought by Mr [Gordon] Taylor were not achieved." He added that Myler and Crone had "no motive to conceal relevant facts" from Murdoch. The judge also expressed "serious concerns" about Myler and Crone's evidence about the meeting, saying it was "surprising" that there was no full-blown risk analysis with options for Murdoch to consider. Leveson said that the nature of his inquiry meant there had been insufficient opportunity for detailed cross-examination to get to the bottom of who knew what and when at the NoW and News International. He added: "In the circumstances, I do not seek to reach any conclusion about precisely what transpired at this meeting." Leveson's report was also critical of News International's wider response in 2008 to phone hacking. He said that evidence by Rupert and James Murdoch suggested that "one or more parts of the management at the NoW was engaged in a determined cover-up to keep relevant information about potential criminal activity within the organisation from senior management within NI". James Murdoch told the Commons culture, media and sport select committee earlier this year: "I did not know about, nor did I try to hide, wrongdoing. Whilst I accept my share of responsibility for not uncovering wrongdoing sooner, I did not mislead parliament and the evidence does not support any other conclusion." News Corporation declined to comment.

http://www.amazon.com/Bond-Secrecy-Watergate-Conspirator-Howard/dp/1936296837/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1354237569&sr=1-1&keywords=bond+of+secrecy The publisher asked me to write the book's Introduction.

A Free Press Isn’t the Problem Editorial: The New York Times November 29, 2012 Millions of Britons were justifiably outraged over last year’s serial revelations of illegal and unethical behavior by the powerful and influential tabloid press in Britain. But the regulatory remedies proposed Thursday by an official commission of inquiry seem misplaced, excessive and potentially dangerous to Britain’s centuries-old traditions of a press free from government regulation. In a nearly 2,000-page report , the commission, headed by Lord Justice Sir Brian Leveson , cataloged the glaring misdeeds of Rupert Murdoch’s sensationalist tabloid, The News of the World , which is no longer published. Noting, among other things, the tabloid’s “reckless disregard for accuracy,” and “lack of respect for individual privacy,” it called on Parliament to create an independent regulatory body with the authority to fine newspapers up to $1.6 million for violating its guidelines. This new organization, which newspapers could join voluntarily, would replace the largely ineffective Press Complaints Commission , run by the news industry itself, which is supposed to uphold a code of ethical journalistic practices agreed to by participating publications. Creating an independent regulatory body would require new legislation. To his credit, Prime Minister David Cameron seems opposed to proceeding in that direction. Conscientious members of all political parties should oppose it as well. British newspapers operate in a harsher legal environment than the American press. They must navigate an Official Secrets Act , which criminalizes the publication of classified information and a plaintiff-friendly libel law, which lacks American-style exceptions for public figures. But they have been free from government licensing since 1694 . Although that would remain true under the Leveson proposal, a regulatory panel backed by law is a big step in the wrong direction. Press independence from government is as essential a bulwark of political liberty in Britain as it is everywhere. That independence should not, and need not, be infringed upon now. Other, better remedies, are available to end abuses by Britain’s tabloid press. Much of the conduct described in the Leveson report — hacking into voice mail messages of ordinary citizens and illegally obtaining medical records — is not news gathering. They are illegal acts under British law. So are bribery, corrupt relations with police officials and political figures and other abuses attributed to the tabloid press. In such instances, newspapers can claim no shield against civil lawsuits or criminal prosecution. That approach, not government regulation, is the right response to the kind of misbehavior alleged against The News of the World. It is also the right deterrent against illegal conduct by other newspapers.

Leveson Report calls for media watchdog underpinned by law Lord Justice Leveson has condemned decades of "outrageous" behaviour by newspapers as he urged the Government to set up a new media watchdog underpinned by legislatio By Gordon Rayner, Chief Reporter, Robert Winnett and Steven Swinford The Telegragh 1:31PM GMT 29 Nov 2012 Click on link to view video http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/leveson-inquiry/9711330/Leveson-Report-calls-for-media-watchdog-underpinned-by-law.html Publishing his report into press standards, the Appeal Court judge insisted that enshrining the terms of a new regulator in statute “is not statutory regulation of the press”. He said legislation was vital to “enshrine a legal duty on the Government to protect the freedom of the press” and to reassure the public that previous transgressions by newspapers would not be repeated. But the recommendations of his 1,987-page report seem certain to lead to rows within the Coalition, with MPs split over whether any form of statutory involvement in press regulation is acceptable. David Cameron, who received the report yesterday, will make a formal response to its findings later today. As well as suggesting how a new regulator would work, the Leveson Report makes a series of recommendations about how politicians and the police should behave in future. It suggests that members of the Government and Opposition front benchers should publish details on a quarterly basis of all meetings with media proprietors, editors and executives, including “private” meetings at their homes. A summary of telephone calls, letters, emails and text messages between the parties should also be published. David Cameron is criticised in the report for undermining public confidence in politicians by creating the perception that he had become too close to newspaper proprietors. Senior police officers should also publish details of their meetings with the media, and should think carefully before drinking alcohol with them. Lord Justice Leveson found no widespread evidence of police corruption in dealing with the media, but criticises the Metropolitan Police’s decision-making during the original phone-hacking inquiry and says former assistant commissioner John Yates should have declined to review the hacking investigation because of his personal friendship with the then News of the World deputy editor Neil Wallis. It is Lord Justice Leveson’s recommendations for the future of press regulation, however, that will prove most controversial and will lead to the greatest political fall-out. He suggests an independent regulator with the power to fine newspapers up to £1m or one per cent of turnover for breaching a new code of conduct, and says it should be up to the media to agree the form and powers of the new watchdog. Crucially, however, the regulator must be underpinned by statute, to protect the freedom of the press, to reassure the public and validate the new body, he says. “The legislation would not give any rights to Parliament, to the Government or to any regulatory or other body to prevent newspapers from publishing any material whatsoever,” he says. “Despite what will be said about these recommendations by those who oppose them, this is not, and cannot be characterised as, statutory regulation of the press. “What is proposed here is independent regulation of the press organised by the press, with a statutory verification process to ensure that the required levels of independence and effectiveness are met.” The new body, he says, should have an arbitration system to enable wronged parties to seek swift redress by way of a prominent apology and fines, if appropriate. He also suggests a kite mark system for publications that are signed up to the new regulator and a whistleblowing hotline for journalists who believe they are being put under pressure to breach the new code of conduct, with legal protection to prevent them being victimised for doing so. The broadcasting regulator Ofcom should carry out reviews every two years of how the new regulator is working, he suggests, and should act as backstop regulator if publishers refuse to sign up to the new body. The Information Commissioner should also be given greater powers to prosecute newspapers for breaches of data protection. The board of the new body must comprise a majority of people independent of the press, with some former journalists but no serving editors and no MPs, according to Lord Justice Leveson. Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, is cleared of any bias in his dealing with News Corp’s bid to take over BSkyB when he was culture secretary, but he is criticised for failing properly to supervise contact between his former special adviser, Adam Smith, and the News Corp lobbyist Fred Michel. Leveson inquiry report in full: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/leveson-inquiry/9711729/Leveson-inquiry-report-in-full.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/29/cia-lawsuit-scientist-1950s-death CIA faces lawsuit over scientist's 1950s death Bioweapons expert fell from hotel room window nine days after being given LSD in a drink without his knowledge By Karen McVeigh in New York guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 28 November 2012 20.02 EST The family of a US government scientist who fell to his death from a New York hotel window six decades ago have launched a lawsuit for damages against the CIA, alleging the agency was involved in his murder and a subsequent cover-up. In one of the most notorious cases in the organisation's history, bioweapons expert Frank Olson died in 1953, nine days after he was given LSD by agency officials without his knowledge. In the lawsuit, filed in the US district court in Washington on Wednesday, Olson's sons Eric and Nils claim their father was murdered after he discovered that his biological research was being used to torture and kill suspects in Europe. The CIA has long denied any foul play, though it was forced to admit in 1975, more than 20 years after the death, that the scientist had been given LSD in a spiked glass of Cointreau. The agency, which originally told the family the death was a result of job-induced stress, has since maintained that it was a drug-induced suicide. But in a statement on Wednesday, Eric Olson said: "The evidence shows that our father was killed in their custody. They have lied to us ever since, withholding documents and information, and changing their story when convenient. "We were just little boys and they took away our lives – the CIA didn't kill only our father, they killed our entire family again and again and again." The lawsuit alleges that even when the drug details emerged, the CIA embarked on a "multi-decade cover-up that continues to this day." Olson began work at the special operations division (SOP) of the army's biological laboratory at Fort Detrick in Maryland in 1950. The CIA worked with the SOP researching biological agents and chemical weapons. In 1952 and 1953, he was focused on bioweapons that could be transmitted through the air, according to the lawsuit. In the year of his death, Olson visited Porton Down, the UK's biological and chemical warfare research centre in Wiltshire, as well as bases in Paris, Norway, and West Germany. During these trips, according to the family's lawsuit, he "witnessed extreme interrogations in which the CIA committed murder using biological agents that Dr Olson had developed". The lawsuits gives no details of the deaths or where they occurred. The family said Olson was disturbed by what he had seen and told his wife, Alice, he wanted to quit. On 19 November 1953 he was taken to a secret meeting Deep Creek Lake, Maryland, where he was given the drink laced with LSD. On 24 November, according to the lawsuit, he told a colleague he wanted to resign. But instead, on Thanksgiving weekend, he travelled to New York for a psychiatric evaluation and checked into the Statler Hotel. In the early hours of 28 November, he crashed through the window of the 13th-floor room he was sharing with a CIA doctor and plunged to his death in the street below. The family lawsuit alleges that, immediately following his death, a person in Olson's room made a phone call. The hotel operator overheard one party say "Well, he's gone." The person on the other end responded simply "That's too bad." The role of LSD in the death only emerged in 1975 during a series of post-Watergate era disclosures about CIA abuses, which revealed programmes on brainwashing, mind control and other human experiments during the early days of the cold war. The Olson case became a symbol for reckless CIA behaviour and government secrecy. Soon after the revelations, Gerald Ford apologised to the family for an experiment gone wrong, the CIA promised a "complete file" of documents into his death and they were awarded a financial settlement. But his sons, who have spent much of their adult lives searching for answers in the case, say their questions have been met with cover-ups and lies ever since. Eric Olson said the CIA had refused to provide documents to the family as recently as last year. Over the years, the Olson family has uncovered evidence they believe supports their theory. Olson's body was exhumed in 1993 and a forensic scientist, James Starrs, concluded that he had probably been struck on the head and then thrown out of the window. Later, the New York district attorney conducted an investigation into his death which was inconclusive. Scott Gilbert, lead counsel in the lawsuit, said: "It's unfathomable that our own government could stand by as its agents, operating on United States soil, killed an American citizen in cold blood, destroyed his family, and then allowed those directly responsible to walk away without so much as a blemish on their personnel files. Instead of putting its energy and resources into doing what is right, the United States – including this administration – has sought to bury this and hide the truth." Jennifer Youngblood, a spokeswoman for the CIA, said the agency did not normally comment on pending court cases. However, she added: "Without commenting on this specific legal matter, CIA activities related to MK-Ultra [a behavioral engineering programme] have been thoroughly investigated over the years, and the agency co-operated with each of those investigations. MK-Ultra was investigated in 1975 by the Rockefeller commission and the Church committee, and in 1977 by the Senate select committee on intelligence and the Senate subcommittee on health and scientific research. In addition, tens of thousands of pages related to the programme have been declassified and released to the public."

The JFK Assassination and the Lost Prospects for Peace By Prof. James F. Tracy http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-jfk-assassination-and-the-lost-prospects-for-peace/5312597

"The Mystery of Marina Oswald is republished with permission of Stratfor." http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/mystery_marina_oswald

http://www.nytimes.c...ml?ref=magazine http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2012/11/25/magazine/stone-history.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2237956/Cameron-set-defy-Leveson-law-allow-state-controlled-press--now.html

PM heads for showdown on Leveson Report Judge consults former inquiry team to make sure press regulation measures are not ignored By Jane Merrick The Independent Sunday, 25 November 2012 David Cameron is heading for a clash with the most vocal and influential members of his Cabinet over the Leveson Report when it is published this week, as the bitter battle over freedom of the press and privacy of individuals reaches its climax. The Prime Minister, who is among a tight circle of people in government who will receive Lord Justice Leveson's report 24 hours ahead of publication on Thursday, is expected to back some form of tighter regulation, despite a last-ditch campaign by newspapers and ministers to defend press freedom. In a sign that the Leveson Report will not fight shy of robust regulation with statutory backing, the judge is understood to have consulted people involved with the previous inquiry into press conduct to ensure "lessons are learnt", said a source. Lord Justice Leveson has held talks with those involved in Sir David Calcutt's 1990 inquiry which gave rise to the Press Complaints Commission, amid concerns that his tough recommendations will be cast aside by government and Parliament. Mr Cameron is facing entrenched opposition to state regulation from key Tory ministers, including the Education Secretary Michael Gove, the Chancellor George Osborne, Foreign Secretary William Hague, Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles and Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith. Mr Cameron has ringing in his ears the words of Mr Gove and Boris Johnson, the London Mayor, who both restated their defence of a free press at the Spectator awards last week. But one Conservative MP who will vote in favour of statutory regulation urged the Prime Minister not to fall for Mr Gove's comments through "erotic absorption". Downing Street insisted last night that Mr Cameron had not come to a decision on what was at present a "non-existent proposal". But ministers are fearful that the Prime Minister, faced with demands from a determined judge and 70 Tory backbenchers, plus Labour and Lib Dem MPs who want state regulation, will "cave in" to Leveson. One source likened the clash inside the Tory party to "Roundheads vs Cavaliers". Mr Cameron is being urged to back some form of "third way" to reconcile differences. A proposal, accepted in principle by all newspapers, from Lord Hunt, the PCC's current chairman, and Lord Black of Brentwood, the executive director of Telegraph Media Group, for an independent regulator backed by heavy fines, is likely to be rejected by Lord Justice Leveson. However, Mr Cameron could implement the Hunt-Black plans for a period of time, with the threat of statutory regulation down the line. Another option being suggested to Downing Street is to introduce a statutory regulator but to insert a "sunset clause" into the legislation, so that the measure would have to be renewed by a fresh parliamentary bill and could lapse if deemed unworkable. As the political and media establishment braced itself for the report, the father of a victim of the 7 July bombings said he believed the Leveson Inquiry had been "hijacked" by celebrities. Graham Foulkes, whose 22-year-old son David was killed in the London bombings and whose phone was hacked by the News of the World, told BBC2's Newsnight that the "celebrity circus" caused the inquiry to lose its "focus" and "value". He added: "There is no place for ordinary people in this media circle." When he appeared before the Leveson Inquiry in June, Mr Cameron said it was no longer the case that the press should regulate itself: "I accept we can't say it's the last-chance saloon all over again. We've done that." A No 10 source said: "People will disagree. You cannot have a discussion about a proposal which doesn't exist. He wants to wait until the full report comes out and consider that very carefully." The Prime Minister, fresh from winning alliances with Angela Merkel and other EU leaders over the European budget last week, faces a critical fortnight for his premiership. He will give a statement to the Commons following the publication of the Leveson Report on Thursday. There will be a full debate on the subject in the Commons on 3 December before what is expected to be a difficult Autumn Statement by the Chancellor on 5 December. Mr Cameron also faces opposition to his plans for gay marriage from 118 Tory MPs – although last night Downing Street insisted this was a free vote.

JFK at 49: What We Know for Sure Posted: 11/22/2012 2:02 pm Huffington Post By Jefferson Morley http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jefferson-morley/jfk-assassination_b_2175898.html November 22 marks the 49th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963. The memory of the tragedy in Dallas seems to be fading in America's collective consciousness. Few people younger than myself (I'm 54) have any memory of the day it actually happened. 9/11 has certainly replaced 11/22 as the time stamp of American catastrophic angst. Yet the JFK story still acts as a gravitational vortex in America's pop culture galaxy. ABC News released of audio tapes of First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy conversations shortly after her husband's death. The factually grounded but over the top Jesse Ventura blamed JFK's assassination on "the same old military industrial complex." Stephen King published a time-travel epiccalled November 22, 1963. Bill O'Reilly wrote an uncharacteristically wimpy JFK book. And next year, Tom Hanks plans to release a big-budget assassination drama called Parkland, the hospital where JFK died. In this media spectacle, the Internet is a mixed blessing. The Web keeps the JFK story alive by providing a platform and audience for ever more fantastical theories about the death of the 35thpresident. More constructively, the Web has made the government's troubling records about JFK's death available for the first time to millions people outside of Washington and the federal government. I believe this diffusion of knowledge is slowly clarifying the JFK story for everybody. Two years ago, I addressed the question, "What Do We Really Know About JFK?" Since then five new developments are worth noting. 1) American cultural elites continue to resist the idea that JFK was killed by a conspiracy. Some of America's headiest popular culture thinkers have started weighing in on the conspiracy question. King told documentarian Errol Morris that he found JFK conspiracy scenarios aselusive as UFOs. Malcolm Gladwell endorsed statistician Bill James' probabilistic take on Kennedy's death. Gladwell and James argue, in effect, that so many guns were fired in America in the 20th century that was only a matter of time before one of those many bullets would randomly intersect with the path of a passing president. (Thankfully Grantland editor Bill Simmons expressed some skepticism about this cheerful evasion of politics.) Robert Caro, epic biographer of Lyndon Johnson, is more judicious. With the release of his fourth volume on LBJ, Caro said he had not found "a single hint" to implicate LBJ in Kennedy's death, as one popular and (I believe, unfounded) conspiracy theory holds. Caro, however, added that he did not attempt to reach a final judgment on whether somebody else besides LBJ might have been behind JFK's assassination. 2) Conspiratorial suspicions abound in popular opinion and on the Internet, but the fact remains there is no proof beyond a reasonable doubt of specific perpetrators of JFK assassination conspiracy. The only JFK theory to have gained much attention in the past year is a variation on the unconvincing "Fidel Castro did it" theory. This scenario was first advocated by CIA sources within hours of JFK's death in 1963. Now it has been updated and modified by Brian Latell, a former Cuba specialist at the CIA. Latell's scenario is actually more a criminal negligence theory, than a conspiracy theory. The Cuban leader played a "passive but knowing" role in JFK's assassination, he alleges. As I reported in Salon last spring, corroboration for these claims is lacking. Even the CIA's own in-house publication, Studies in Intelligence, agreed. Latell is on firmer ground in suggesting that the prevailing media discourse of "conspiracy" serves to obscure other possible explanations of JFK's death, including negligence. But his allegations advertently highlighted a truth that his admirers have overlooked:. 3) There is more evidence of CIA negligence in JFK's death than Cuban complicity: A lot more. The truth is this: Lee Harvey Oswald was well known to a handful of top CIA officials shortly before JFK was killed. Read this internal CIA cable (not declassified until 1993) and you will see that that accused assassin's biography--his travels, politics, intentions, and state of mind--were known to top CIA officials as of October 10, 1963 six weeks before JFK went to Dallas for a political trip. While Latell speculates about what Castro knew, CIA records document what Langley knew. In the fall of 1963, Oswald, a 23-year old ex-Marine traveled from New Orleans to Mexico City. When he contacted the Soviet embassy to apply for a visa to travel to Cuba, a CIA surveillance team picked up his telephone calls. A tape recording indicated Oswald had been referred to a consular officer suspected of being a KGB assassination specialist. Winston Scott, the respected chief of the CIA station in Mexico City, was concerned. He sent a query to CIA headquarters, asking who is this guy Oswald? Scott's question was referred to the CIA's Counterintelligence (CI) Staff. With responsibility for detecting threats to the agency operations, the CI staff had been watching Oswald ever since he had defected to the Soviet Union in October 1959. A senior official of the CI staff named Jane Roman retrieved the CIA's fat file on Oswald, which contained dozens of documents including intercepted correspondence and FBI reports. Roman and other senior staffers drafted a response which said, in effect, don't worry: Oswald's marriage and two year residence in the Soviet Union had helped him grow up. Oswald was "maturing." This optimistic assessment was personally read and endorsed by no less than five senior CIA officers. They are identified by name on the last page of the cable. Their names--Roman, Tom Karamessines, Bill Hood, John Whitten (identified by his pseudonym "Scelso"), and Betty Egeter--were kept from the American public for thirty years. Why? Because all five reported to deputy director Richard Helms or to Counterintelligence Chief James Angleton in late 1963. Because of "national security." Their inaccurate and complacent assessment of Oswald had real world consequences. In Mexico City, Win Scott never learned about Oswald's recent arrest or the fact that he gone public with his support for Castro. He stopped investigating Oswald. In Washington, the FBI responded to the CIA cable to taking Oswald off an "alert" list of people of special interest to the Bureau. The Oswald cable contributed to the breakdown of presidential security in Dallas. After JFK's death, Angleton and Helms kept mum about their subordinates' pre-assassination interest in Oswald. They responded airily or inaccurately to inquiries from the Warren Commission. Of the CIA hands who had vetted Oswald before JFK's death only one, John Whitten, attempted to find out what had gone wrong. Whitten is a rare hero in the JFK assassination story. He was chief of the Mexico Desk in the clandestine service in 1963, and by all accounts "a good spy." His specialty was counterespionage investigations--how to determine someone's ultimate allegiances. That was exactly what the U.S. government needed to know about Oswald after JFK was killed. Whitten tried to mount an internal CIA investigation into the accused assassin, especially his contacts among pro-and anti-Castro Cubans in New Orleans. As Whitten later recounted to Congress, he was blocked by Angleton's hostility and then effectively fired by the icy Helms. Whitten retired and moved to Europe. He died in a Pennsylvania nursing home in 2001, his sacrifice in service to truth forgotten by his country. 4) There is no proof of a CIA conspiracy in JFK's death. There is much evidence of CIA negligence. The problem originated at the top of the CIA. Senior aides to Helms and Angleton had been tracking Oswald closely for years and failed to recognize the threat he posed to the president. When the Warren Commission started asking questions Helms and Angleton provided inaccurate or deceptive statements. Both men came out ahead with the succession of Lyndon Johnson to the White House. In 1966, LBJ named Helms as CIA director, a job in which he gained a well-deserved reputation as The Man Who Kept the Secrets. Helms played an inscrutable role in the Watergate scandal that brought down President Richard Nixon and later pled guilty to lying to Congress. This "gentlemanly planner of assassinations" died in 2002 leaving behind a posthumous memoir, co-written by William Hood, assuring readers that Oswald acted alone. To defend his good name, his widow, Cynthia Helms, has just published a memoir. Angleton remained chief of the Counterintelligence Staff until 1974 when he was disgraced by the revelation he had overseen a massive illegal spying program on Americans and (with the FBI) a sinister program of political harassment known as COINTELPRO. Angleton's exploits have inspired a small library of books and several Hollywood movies, including The Good Shepherd starring Matt Damon. Angleton's monitoring of Lee Harvey Oswald from October 1959 to October1963 was first documented in historian John Newman's groundbreaking 1995 book, Oswald and the CIA. I'm not expert in law but I think Dick Helms and Jim Angleton and some their aides were guilty of criminal negligence in JFK's wrongful. It is hard to say for sure because: 5. Official secrecy still shrouds the CIA's role in the JFK tragedy. One of the most promising JFK developments of the past two years is the Kennedy family's pledge to release 54 boxes of long-secret files held by Robert Kennedy, including those on Cuba. These records may well shed new light on JFK's private overtures to Castro in late 1963 and RFK's enduring suspicions of a CIA-Mafia conspiracy. Otherwise, the situation concerning JFK records has actually worsened in the past two years. The Obama administration took office with ambitious plans to declassify some 404 million long-secret government documents by 2014 -- but some 1,100 secret JFK records now held by the CIA won't be among them. The administration's National Declassification Center (NDC) announced in August that they would not declassify this batch ancient JFK assassination records -- most of the 50 years old -- any time soon.The CIA's priorities are peculiar but hardly surprising. The agency is releasing long-secret records about the Katyn Forest massacre in the Soviet Union in 1942 and UFO's -- but not an estimated 15,000 pages of material related to murder of a sitting American president. (As I reported in Salon last year, these 1,100 documents are extraordinarily sensitive. The CIA says they won't be made public until 2017 at the earliest.) The CIA's extreme -- some would say suspicious -- claims of JFK secrecy have been defended by the Obama Justice Department and the some federal judges. Nine years after it was filed myFreedom of Information Action Act lawsuit for the records of George Joannides, a deceased counterintelligence officer who reported to Helms in 1963, is still pending in federal appeals court in Washington. In a September 2012 affidavit, information coordinator Michelle Meeks said the CIA will reveal nothing about Joannides' actions in the fall of 1963 -- for reasons of "national security." Such is the state of JFK at 49. Official secrecy and conspiracy theories are prevalent. The CIA's responsibility is hidden. Accountability is thwarted. And historical truth is elusive. Jefferson Morley is a former Washington Post reporter and author of Our Man in Mexico; Winston Scott and the Hidden History of the CIA. He blogs at JFKFacts.org, a social media Web site aimed at improving online discussion of the JFK assassination story. For more information, visit "JFK at 50: Memory Truth and Meaning.

On anniversary of JFK assassination, investigator looks back Q&A with Robert Blakey, former chief counsel of House Select Committee on Assassinations G. Robert Blakey speaks about the President John F. Kennedy assassination in a video being played at the Mob Museum in downtown Las Vegas Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2012. By Tovin Lapan Las Vegas Sun Published November 22, 2012 http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2012/nov/22/49-years-have-passed-kennedy-assassination-still/ Forty-nine years ago today, on Nov. 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas’ Dealey Plaza. The assassination and subsequent slaying of shooter Lee Harvey Oswald shocked the country. In the five decades since, the assassination continues to capture the imagination of authors, filmmakers and the public. It has sparked hundreds of conspiracy theories and studies into who — if not Oswald — was behind Kennedy’s slaying. Robert Blakey, an attorney who served in the Justice Department in the 1960s and worked on drafting the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations act, served on the House Select Committee on Assassinations that was established in 1976 to investigate the assassinations of both Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. Unlike the earlier Warren Commission, which found Oswald acted alone, the House committee concluded its two-year investigation with a report stating Kennedy’s assassination was likely the result of a conspiracy. Much of the evidence tied to the report was sealed from the public for 50 years. The committee specifically noted that it did not believe the conspiracy was orchestrated by the Soviet Union, Cuba, an organized crime group or any anti-Fidel Castro group but that the involvement of individual members of any of those groups could not be ruled out. The committee consisted of 13 congressmen; Blakey served as its chief counsel and staff director from 1977 to 1979. Blakey helped draft the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 and later wrote a book about the assassination, “The Plot to Kill the President.” Blakey, in Las Vegas on Nov. 13 for a lecture at the Mob Museum, sat down with the Sun for an interview about his knowledge of the assassination. One of the things the House select committee did was review the investigations conducted at the time, including by the FBI, CIA and, later, the Warren Commission. What stuck out to you? First of all it was not a (federal) crime at that time to shoot the president, except for it being murder. So the FBI had to have a predicate in order to do an investigation. (One of the) bullets hit the car, and that’s destruction of government property. So, the whole Kennedy investigation (by the FBI) was premised on the ... destruction of government property, but that meant that the people who (oversaw) it in the bureau were from the property desk, not organized crime, and not the security people. The organized crime people were in a position to look into it, and they were never asked. They were never tasked with the investigation, and I couldn’t believe it. You worked on the legislation that allowed for electronic surveillance, which eventually led to federal wiretaps on suspected members of organized crime. What did you learn about the connections between politics and organized crime? One of the taps was set up in the Westside Democratic Club in Chicago, and they heard the whole story of what was actually going on in a phone conversation that’s really interesting. It’s a conversation between (organized crime boss) Sam Giancana and the mob there and Roland Libonati, a congressman. They are discussing how many votes Libonati should hit in the next election, how much he should win by. So Libonati says: ‘Well I want it to look a little better than that, I want it to look like a close race.” What were your thoughts about the Kennedy assassination before you started work on the committee? A lot of people working on investigating the assassination spent a lot of their time looking for a conspiracy. When I started work on the assassinations committee, I did not think the mob did it. I thought it would be too high of a risk factor for them, and I knew (FBI Director J. Edgar) Hoover had electronic surveillance on them. I said to myself: ‘I’ll be a hero to the mob. I’ll prove they didn’t do it by getting all this surveillance.’ So I got, I think, (information from) six months before and eight months after the (assassination), and the next thing you know they start talking about whacking the president. What were some of the more interesting things you heard? There is one conversation in Philadelphia where assassination is mentioned and (Philadelphia organized crime boss) Angelo Bruno says: ‘No, no. We don’t do that.’ And he tells the old Sicilian story about what happens when you take a prince out. You get his son, and the son is worse than the prince. So you live with what we have, and that was the message. That changed over time. It was very clear they were talking about it. They were thinking about it and they were very angry about it, and particularly they were angry with Kennedy and the reason they were angry with Kennedy is twofold. Giancana had gotten him votes in Chicago, and then what did he do? He put Bobby Kennedy in (as attorney general) and sicced him on them. That’s not good. And, there were romantic relationships between John Kennedy … well there were romantic relationships between Kennedy and everybody. There were two John Kennedys. There was the public John Kennedy, which everybody admires, and then there is the guy who is sick when it comes to women. But he had a relationship with a woman who was … also associated with Sam Giancana. What conclusions did you come to after it was all over? I think the mob set Oswald up as a patsy. It’s not that I think (Oswald) didn’t shoot (Kennedy), but that I think he was set up so (investigators) would focus on the Cuban connections (and not the mob). Did the mob do it? I don’t know for sure, but it explains more of the evidence than anything else. You were a part of the Justice Department when Robert Kennedy was attorney general and vigorously went after organized crime. What happened after John F. Kennedy’s death? Whether the mob killed Kennedy or not I couldn’t tell you, but they were the one element of society that profited the most by the assassination, because the (federal government’s) organized crime program basically collapsed.

I stopped listening to Cohen when about ten minutes into the interview he said -- at least I think what he said -- that Madame Nhu planned the assassination in only 20 days and that the basis of his belief of her involvement were three stories in the New York Times that were published soon after JFK was killed.