Douglas Caddy

Dawn: Thank you for asking these questions that are framed in a professional manner. I am pleased to answer them to the best of my ability. (1) Taken as a whole, I think that much of the truth about Watergate was aired during the Watergate Committee hearings. However, two subjects that should have been covered but were omitted were (i) the alterations of my grand jury testimony and the sworn testimony of Alfred Baldwin by the original prosecutors; and (ii) Robert "Butch" Merritt's allegations about how the FBI and the Washington, D.C. police department recruited him as an informant on the activities of the New Left and the gay community and of me as an attorney in Watergate. The lengthy article about Merritt published in the Advocate in 1977 reproduced a photograph of a signed receipt of money given to Merritt by the Washington, D.C. police to cover costs of his role as an informant. So the story he told was not something that he made up out of thin air. (2) All I can say about the death of Dorothy Hunt in the plane crash in 1972 is that the circumstances of the crash remain highly suspicious. (3) I do not believe that we have a free press in the U.S. today. Operation Mockingbird may not be in place at the present time but instead the mass media is controlled by a small number of corporations. These corporations bend when the government asks them to do in curtailing the dissemination of news. The most encouraging develop in the last year has been the rise of the bloggers, who are like bloodhounds on the scent of government corruption and controlled news. The biggest challenge facing the successors of Operation Mockingbird is how to control the Internet (which they are now trying to do through proposed legislation) and rein in the bloggers. (4) Bob Woodward is known to have had close ties to the Pentagon even before Watergate. His role in trying to downplay the Plame investigation has led to allegations that he engaged in some sort of coverup. Woodward today gives the appearance of someone heavily influenced by government authorities. Contrast him with Seymour Hersh and the difference between a controlled newsman and a free one becomes quite evident. Thank you very much Mr. Caddy. I think I have another question or two for you, and some thoughts on what you posted, but have to get out the door for a trial. (Fortunately for me it will be short: a parole revocation hearing with a mentally ill inmate. ) Sometime perhaps we can discuss the legal bus...off this forum... I know that you and Barr are close as are Barr and I. (email daily, of late, re Nathan Darby's death, and the work he is doing now, about which I will PM you, later.) Dawn Thank you again Doug. As you know from my prior questions to you my interest is in the JFk assassination. Not to say I am not deply interested in Watergate, but I want to go back to 11/22/63. I believe I may have already asked you this, so forgive me if I did, but 1. How did Billie sol Estes come to pick you to rep. him? (Or at least to write to AG Trott). 2. (If you know) how did Trott become the person to whom you wrote? I ask this because as soon as HSCA ended and it got turned over to the Justice Dept. I began calling and called every year on 11/22 . The name of the AG in charge - or so I was told- was Cubbage. I spoke with him several years in a row. Not that I ever thought under Reagan there was a prayer that Justice WOULD follow-up, I called none the less. Got nowhere. 3.Do you have an opinion on who killed JFk? 4. Do you have an opinion as to why he was killed? 5. I am curious as to what lead you here. The why of it? (I got here by goglging a name of one of my favorite researchers (also probably the nicest): -Atty Vince Salandria in 10/04- and life has not ever been the same:)) Again, with much appreciation. I also have some comment re your answers above but want to just check in here, then have a ton of legal work to get done....Do you ever miss practicing law? I doubt I will ever retire as I love it still, after now 21 years. Dawn ps Your answer re the Mac Wallace press conference is the same as Barr's. It's J who had it wrong then. J -God rest his soul- thought/told me- there was to be a joint press conf in DC with you and Barr. Guess Barr did not get around to asking you til later. Sounds like Barr! I am mailing him a picture packet today, of different times we were all here in Austin. The town where Mac Wallace's first murder was fixed. JFK's next stop if Dallas did not "work out". Dawn: In answer to your questions:: (1) As I have recounted previously, Billie Sol was in federal prison in Big Spring, Texas. He telephoned Shearn Moody, Jr., one of the three trustees of the billion-dollar Moody Foundation of Galveston, Texas, upon the advice of one of the inmates, a former Austin, Texas lobbyist for Moody who had committed a federal crime after he moved to Washington that was unrelated to any work that he had done for Moody. Billie Sol asked Moody for a Moody Foundation grant in order to tell what he knew about LBJ. Moody, who was a history buff, was enthusiastic and asked me to go the prison where Billie Sol was incarcerated and talk to him. I advised Billie Sol that the best way to get his story out was by writing a book. Billie Sol upon his release from prison in December 1983 again contacted Moody and said that he wanted to write the book and needed a Moody Foundation grant to do it. I visited Billie Sol in Abilene, Texas and we went together to see the president of Abilene Christian University, a Church of Christ institution. Billie Sol was a life-long member of that church. The university president was receptive to the idea of a Moody Foundation grant to assist Billie Sol to tell his story as the university had previously received grants from the Foundation. It was both Shearn Moody’s and Billie Sol’s decision that I represent him in getting his proposed book published. Billie Sol’s first needed to get both federal and state immunity before he could tell his story. (2) Edward Miller, a former Assistant Director of the FBI, was already working with me on another Moody Foundation grant. Miller and Mark Felt had both convicted and then pardoned by President Reagan for engaging in “black bag” jobs against the New Left in the early 1970's. Miller knew Stephen Trott, the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division, in the U.S. Dept. Of Justice, who had arranged for the presidential pardon. This led to my writing Trott and visiting him several times in the U.S. Dept. of Justice, accompanied by Miller in order to obtain immunity for Billie Sol so that he could tell his story. (3) My personal opinion as to who killed JFK counts for nothing. If one is to believe Billie Sol, Mac Wallace was instrumental in doing it upon the orders of LBJ. (4) Who stood the most to gain by JFK’s murder? LBJ. The historical record shows that LBJ was facing a potential criminal investigation and indictment for his involvement with Billie Sol Estes and Bobby Baker in their respective scandals in the months leading up to the assassination. Had JFK not been killed, LBJ’s political career at the minimum would have come to an abrupt halt. (5) As to why I joined the Forum, I would state that occasionally I google my name to see what new has been posted about me. Earlier this year I saw that John Simkin had started a thread about me, apparently as a result of the article about me that was published in the Advocate in August 2005. He noted that my name surfaced in both Watergate and the JFK assassination. I was hesitant to join at first because John’s biography of me and comments were somewhat negative. But after I saw that Alfred Baldwin had joined the forum, I decided to do so also. Until recently I thought that I might attempt to contact John Dean to see if he were interested in joining the Forum. However, in light of the destructive postings of Ashton Gray, I have decided that encouraging Dean or anyone else who has a direct knowledge to join the Forum is not a viable option. You are correct in the general assertion that grand jury testimony is secret. However, there is a recognized exception to this legal rule that permits any witness who has appeared before the grand jury to disclose publicly what transpired during that witness's appearance, including testimony and queries posed by the prosecutor and jury members. This is applicable even if the witness is a defendant, although in most cases a defendant decides not to speak out. I talked to Billie Sol within a few days following his grand jury appearance in March 1984 in Robertson County, Texas. He had received transactional immunity from the prosecutor before testifying. The grand jury appearance had been arranged with Billie Sol's consent by U.S. Marshal Clint Peoples. It was my impression in talking to Billie Sol afterwards that he wanted his testimony before the grand jury to be made public and had so authorized public discussion by the prosecutor, U.S. Marshal Peoples, and his own attorney. There were a number of press reports at the time, so it would be impossible now to state which exact source of information about Billie Sol's testimony was used by the writer of a particular press report. Billie Sol desired to set the record straight publicly about murders commissioned by LBJ and wisely employed the grand jury system to accomplish this end. Doug: Thanx for the reminder here. We discussed the highly suspicious death of the great US Marshall- (and former TX Ranger)- Clint Peoples privately, some time ago, for which I remain most appreciative. 1. What do you think of the print evidence? (Mac Wallace known prints from murder conviction of Kinsner, to latent print on 6th floor, matched by Nathan Darby and others (one wishing to remain private, and one by an expert in France). 2. Do you have a personal opinion as to why Billie sol was not killed? (Especially given that the brave men who investigated Billie sol's evidence/testimony to Grand Jury : Henry Marshall, and Clint Peoples were, in my opinion, murdered. Again I appreciate your reply. Dawn In response to your questions, (1) I have full faith in Nathan Darby’s expert analysis of Mac Wallace’s fingerprint that was left on a box on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository Building. (2) In light of the murders of so many persons directly involved in the Billie Sol Estes –LBJ relationship, I am surprised that Billie Sol’s name has not been added to the list of those who are no longer with us. I have no personal opinion why this is the way it has turned out.

Authors on Discovery Channel, July 17th at 1pm... on a documentary about the book called "Conspiracy Files: JFK Assassination," produced by NBC. Lamar Waldron and Thom Hartmann are featured, along with the first televised interview with ex-Secret Service agent Abraham Bolden. http://ultimatesacrificethebook.com/node/16 Many new files cited in the book are online at maryferrell.org, on a page devoted to "Ultimate Sacrifice," http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/...imate_Sacrifice The web page also contains exclusive video clips of Lamar Waldron talking about the new revelations in the book. Mary Ferrell was one of the leading researchers in the field and the Foundation continuing her legacy contains a wealth of information, including a huge number of declassified files you can view online.

Some members have complained that they see this as a threat to Ashton. As I have met you I know that this is not the case. However, I can understand why they have interpreted it in that way. I think it would be a good idea to delete this comment. I would hate people to think that this is part of a strategy to drive Ashton from the Forum. After all, he has given you and Ray an intellectual beating. When Pat posted his invitation I began wondering how Ashton Gray could escape from having his fake cover blown. Now we know: John, our moderator, rushes to the rescue. It is amazing the lengths that Gray and John will go to make sure that Gray is not exposed for what he is. Why doesn’t Gray accept Pat’s invitation? Could it be that he would be shown for what he is? I guess that I shall have to take Maj. Ed Dames’ course on remote viewing to ascertain Gray’s real identity. I always listen to Dames when he is interviewed on the radio show www.coasttocoastam.com. Of course, in the age of the Internet there are other ways to trace and find a person’s true identity merely through the posting that the person has made. Law enforcement and private detectives do this all the time. So sooner or later forum members will learn the truth about Mr. X, a/k/a Ashton Gray, and exactly who is pulling his strings, John’s coverup for Gray notwithstanding. In the interim maybe the forum should sponsor a contest on who Gray really is. Could he be operating at the behest of the CIA in a disinformation program? Is he someone who is bitter for having been kicked out of the Church of Scientology for having heretical views? The possibilities are endless, based on the ravings that Gray has made in the Forum.

I have been contacted by several members of the forum who are working on manuscripts on specialized topics covered in the forum that they would like to have published in book form. I personally have been impressed, or should I say overwhelmed, by the depth of research and knowledge displayed by forum members in their postings. For this reason, as the author of five published books, I thought it might be helpful if I were to describe for all forum members on how you can get your manuscript published by a recognized publishing house. Actually, there already exists a book that provides you with everything you need to know. I cannot praise it highly enough. Its title is the “2006 Guide to Literary Agents.” It tells you everything you need to know – from A to Z - in getting your manuscript published. Selling your writing and getting a good contract often require help beyond your persistence and diligent work – you need an agent. But know how to find an appropriate person that you can trust to represent your work is the key. The 2006 Guide to Literary Agents is your essential roadmap to finding that agent – without fear of being scammed – and making a lucrative deal for your work. Each listing has been verified and updated, putting the most current information at your fingertips. Inside the 2006 Guide to Literary Agents you’ll find: 1) Comprehensive contact information for more than 600 literary and script agents – more than any other source – who adhere to the ethical guidelines established by the Association of Authors’ Representatives and the Writers Guild of America. 2) Detailed contact information for publicists, production companies, script contests and writers’ conferences. 3) Over 60 pages of exclusive articles and interviews with top agents. Nowhere else is this completely updated and reliable information available in one place. The 2006 Guide to Literary Agents will advise you on how to write a query letter and make the perfect pitch. It even covers the subject of what your contract with your publisher should contain to protect your rights. The 2006 Guide to Literary Agents is published by Writers Digest Books, in Cincinnati, Ohio. Its price is US $24.99, UK 15.99 pounds, Canada $34.99. Below are three links. The first takes you to the Writers Digest Book Club. The second takes you to the page in the Book Club’s web site that contains information on ordering the 2006 Guide to Literary Agents. The third takes you to writersmarket.com that provides you information updated almost daily on developments in the publishing field, including new agents and editors. I cannot stress enough that the 2006 Guide to Literary Agents, with its 362 pages, is indispensable in advising you how to get your book published. http://www.writersdigest.com/ http://www.writersdigest.com/store/booksea...#39;s+Reference http://writersmarket.com/index_ns.asp

Dawn: Thank you for asking these questions that are framed in a professional manner. I am pleased to answer them to the best of my ability. (1) Taken as a whole, I think that much of the truth about Watergate was aired during the Watergate Committee hearings. However, two subjects that should have been covered but were omitted were (i) the alterations of my grand jury testimony and the sworn testimony of Alfred Baldwin by the original prosecutors; and (ii) Robert "Butch" Merritt's allegations about how the FBI and the Washington, D.C. police department recruited him as an informant on the activities of the New Left and the gay community and of me as an attorney in Watergate. The lengthy article about Merritt published in the Advocate in 1977 reproduced a photograph of a signed receipt of money given to Merritt by the Washington, D.C. police to cover costs of his role as an informant. So the story he told was not something that he made up out of thin air. (2) All I can say about the death of Dorothy Hunt in the plane crash in 1972 is that the circumstances of the crash remain highly suspicious. (3) I do not believe that we have a free press in the U.S. today. Operation Mockingbird may not be in place at the present time but instead the mass media is controlled by a small number of corporations. These corporations bend when the government asks them to do in curtailing the dissemination of news. The most encouraging develop in the last year has been the rise of the bloggers, who are like bloodhounds on the scent of government corruption and controlled news. The biggest challenge facing the successors of Operation Mockingbird is how to control the Internet (which they are now trying to do through proposed legislation) and rein in the bloggers. (4) Bob Woodward is known to have had close ties to the Pentagon even before Watergate. His role in trying to downplay the Plame investigation has led to allegations that he engaged in some sort of coverup. Woodward today gives the appearance of someone heavily influenced by government authorities. Contrast him with Seymour Hersh and the difference between a controlled newsman and a free one becomes quite evident.

I appreciate your above comments. Until the arrival of Ashton Gray and the ensuing chaos in the Forum, I had attempted to answer all questions posed to me about Watergate and the Kennedy assassination to the best of my ability. Apparently Mr. Gray, with the tacit encouragement of our moderator, has seen fit the change the character of the questions posed so that they are initially framed on false premises. I have neither the time nor energy nor inclination to answer such questions, which any objective observer would readily see are unprofessional and designed to mislead the reader. I shall continue to answer questions posed by other Forum members to the best of my ability when such questions reflect an honest intention to elicit any information that I may possess about these two historical events. In case you missed the recent posting I made in the Watergate topic under the thread dealing with Ashton Gray's violations of the Board's Guidelines, I am reproducing this below. My posting reflects another reason why the questions posed by Mr. Gray are not deserved of my answers: Forum members and readers of this thread are invited to contrast what Ashton Gray has written about the first break-in at Watergate and the documents below from Wikipedia. The dates of Huntley Troth writing on this topic in Wikipedia and those of Ashton Gray in our Watergate Forum appear to be suspiciously aligned. Huntley Troth even makes note in Wikipedia of the virus that appeared in the Spartacus Forum on virtually the same day of its appearance. In Wikipedia an alert observer who apparently can spot a phony writes about Huntley Troth: “What I forgot to mention: The already dubiously looking name given by the original author is nothing but an unimaginative anagram of "Only the Truth". I leave it to others to check out how reliable Wikipedia contributions are whose authors claim that they possess the truth.” In the Watergate forum reference has been made that Ashton Gray is the name of Canadian porn star. I leave it to the readers to draw their own conclusions of whether Ashton Gray may actually be Huntley Troth or whether both of these are made-up names for someone who actually may be an undisclosed third party. Or whatever or however the bizarre case may be. In any event the credibility of Ashton Gray and Huntley Troth is being questioned in the Watergate Forum and in Wikipedia. From Wikipedia:: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contr...s/Huntley_Troth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Watergate_first_break-in

Forum members and readers of this thread are invited to contrast what Ashton Gray has written about the first break-in at Watergate and the document below from Wikipedia. The dates of Huntley Troth writing on this topic in Wikipedia and those of Ashton Gray in our Watergate Forum appear to be suspiciously aligned. Huntley Troth even makes note in Wikipedia of the virus that appeared in the Spartacus Forum on virtually the same day of its appearance. In Wikipedia an alert observer who apparently can spot a phony writes about Huntley Troth: “What I forgot to mention: The already dubiously looking name given by the original author is nothing but an unimaginative anagram of "Only the Truth". I leave it to others to check out how reliable Wikipedia contributions are whose authors claim that they possess the truth.” In the Watergate forum reference has been made that Ashton Gray is the name of Canadian porn star. I leave it to the readers to draw their own conclusions of whether Ashton Gray may actually be Huntley Troth or whether both of these are made-up names for someone who actually may be an undisclosed third party. Or whatever or however the bizarre case may be. In any event the credibility of Ashton Gray and Huntley Troth is being questioned in the Watergate Forum and in Wikipedia. From Wikipedia:: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contr...s/Huntley_Troth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Watergate_first_break-in

I have obviously upset you by not deleting Ashton Gray’s membership. As I have explained many times on this Forum, I am fully committed to the idea of free speech. One of the most important aspects of this is the freedom to ask questions. Ashton is not always as polite as he should be. He has apologised for this and hopefully he will adjust his style in future. However, he is clearly very knowledgeable about Watergate and has raised some very important questions. Hopefully, in time, Ashton will also be able to answer them. Just because I have not deleted his membership does not mean that I always agree with him. (I am not sure what you are implying by the comment the “John Simkin-Ashton Gray tag team”) In fact, as the threads on “What was Watergate all about?” and “John Paisley” will eventually show, we probably disagree fundamentally about several issues. http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=7253 http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=3017 You originally contacted me because you wanted me to make changes to my web page on you. It is the main reason why most of the people involved in the assassination of JFK and Watergate stories make contact with me, including Alfred Baldwin, is that anyone who does a web search for the names of these people they quickly find themselves on my website. (For example, if you do a search at Google for “Douglas Caddy” my page on you comes up 1st out of 301,000 pages.) People are understandable concerned that in future my interpretation of their life could be quite significant. In your case, you wanted me to add that you had abandoned your previous right-wing views on politics. I was quite willing to do this as it was clearly true. You also agreed to answer questions on the Forum (as did Alfred Baldwin). As people like Gerry Hemming have discovered, this is a risky strategy as members cannot control the questions they are being asked. Gerry left leaving the questions unanswered. That in itself tells members a great deal. That is why I confidently predicted on the forum, in response to Ray Carroll assertion that Alfred and you would leave the forum if I allowed Ashton to remain as a member, that you would indeed stay and answer questions. I am sure that you are right that the published documents show that you have never been an employee of the CIA. I doubt very much if you ever fell into this category. What I do believe is that William Buckley recruited you as a CIA asset in 1960 when you began to play a key role in the Young Americans for Freedom organization. Buckley had been a member of the CIA where he worked under E. Howard Hunt in Mexico. I suspect the CIA also asked you to carry out tasks for the organization. I don’t think it is a coincidence that E. Howard Hunt contacted you to help out the Watergate burglars. He did this because he knew that investigators would eventually find the links between you and the CIA via Robert Mullen. In other words, you were part of the set-up. As you rightly say, the Watergate burglars were caught because of James McCord’s tape. However, the reason that journalists connected up the burglary with the CIA was McCord’s statement in court on the morning after his arrest. McCord voluntarily told the court that he had been a former employee of the CIA. He did not need to do that. That triggered off a series of events that eventually brought down Richard Nixon. I know this is pure speculation and that we will never discovery documentary evidence that this is the case. However, unless we assume that McCord was a complete idiot (and his previous record shows this was not the case), his main role was to implicate Nixon in the break-in. The same goes for E. Howard Hunt. I think you were an innocent victim of these events. I also understand why you are unwilling to admit to being a CIA asset. John, you are right. What you have written is pure speculation. The truth is that I have never been recruited by the CIA to carry out any tasks for that organization. I was never an employee of the Mullen Company. I was a General Foods employee. As I have disclosed previously Robert Mullen did at one time approach Howard Hunt and myself about purchasing his company as he wanted to retire. But out of the blue Mullen suddenly announced that he was selling the company to Robert Bennett. One must remember that it was the CIA that incorporated the Mullen Company. While Robert Mullen had run the company for a number of years and was entitled to sell it, the CIA still had to approve the purchaser. That is why Robert Bennett chosen. He was then and is now, as the Republican U.S. Senator from Utah, a CIA asset. When he purchased the Mullen Company his father was the U.S. Senator from Utah. It was the CIA’s decision, for whatever reason, to have the Mullen Company sold to Bennett and not to Hunt and myself. As to James McCord, I was surprised at the arraignment hearing later in the day after the arrests on June 17, 1972 when he disclosed he was formerly a CIA employee. All I knew at the time was that he was the Security Director for the Committee for the Re-Election of the President. My best guess is that he chose to reveal his CIA background because he realized that it would soon become public knowledge once his name was published in the newspapers. In the succeeding days I received calls from a number of persons at the National Security Agency who knew McCord personally and wanted to help him in his time of difficulty. In short, his CIA background would have become public knowledge probably sooner than later and he may have decided to make a pre-emptive strike by announcing it at the arraignment hearing. Your statement that I am unwilling “to admit being a CIA asset” is pure McCarthyism. I have never been a CIA asset and never will be. I wholeheartedly concur with Paul Craig Roberts, the former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration and in recent years a syndicated columnist, who wrote in his July 3, 2006 newspaper column: “It is proof of the collapse of American morals and the fallen character of the American people that the American public and its elected representatives in Congress refuse to rein in the Bush regime and to hold it responsible for its monstrous crimes. “America has become a land of evil. The rest of the world hates and despises us. And we are going to pay a terrible price for it. “Bush’s belief that our superpower status makes us immune to the opinion of others goes beyond hubris into insanity.” In short, because I hold the same opinion as Paul Craig Roberts, I would make a terrible CIA asset.

It is true that I sometimes cite my sources in my postings. On other occasions I do not do this. This is no conspiracy. It all depends on if the posting is part of a book I am writing. The story about Shofler, Chung and Merritt does appear in Jim Hougan’s Secret Agenda. In my opinion it is the best book written so far on Watergate. However, Hougan did make mistakes in the book and like other investigators was unable to fully explain what Watergate was really about. For example, on page 321 he writes that he does not believe the Merritt story because: "If we are to believe the disaffected informant, Shoffler told him to establish a homosexual relationship with Douglas Caddy, stating falsely that Caddy was gay and a supporter of Communist causes. In fact, Caddy was about as conservative as they come, and there was no reason to suspect that he was anything but heterosexual.” Hougan was wrong about your homosexuality. Those on the right would no doubt say that you are now a “supporter of Communist causes”. Maybe it is time to reassess the information supplied by Merritt. I also find Captain Edmund Chung’s testimony very interesting. Why did Sam Ervin and his committee believe Shofler over Chung? Why did they not ask any questions about Operation Sandwedge? Is it possible that like the Warren Report, Ervin was part of the cover-up? Countless books have been written about Watergate and yet, to the best of my recollection, not a single author ever contacted me to get my views on the scandal – including Jim Hougan. I was also surprised that I was never interviewed by the Senate Watergate Committee. It may have been that the Committee, as well as the Watergate Special Prosecutor, wanted to steer clear of gathering information and testimony that might have destroyed the U.S. Department of Justice and the judiciary branch of government in the eyes of the public. I refer to the alteration of my grand jury testimony, given under penalty of perjury, by the court reporter at the instigation of the original Watergate prosecutors (Silbert, et. al) and by the alteration of Alfred Baldwin’s sworn testimony. These are both discussed in my article published by the Advocate. I believe that even today in cases of paramount significance the practice of alteration of grand jury testimony still takes place. One hypothetical example that has occurred to me is the Enron case. Ken Lay was very, very close to Texas Governor George Bush and later to President George Bush. It was Lay who used Enron’s resources to help secure the victory for Bush in Florida after the voting controversy erupted there in 2000. If any grand jury testimony were taken that linked Bush to Lay in the events that led up to the collapse of Enron, I believe that such grand jury testimony would likely have been altered or even deleted to protect Bush. You write that “Maybe it is time to reassess the information supplied by Merritt.” I could not agree more. That is why I approached the Advocate to publish my Watergate article. In 1977 the Advocate published a two-part interview with Robert “Butch” Merritt that detailed the Nixon Administration’s covert war against the New Left and the gay community, which included his recounting of the role of the FBI and of Washington, D.C. police officer Carl Shoffler in targeting me because I was gay. The present editor of the Advocate, an extremely talented individual who is under 30 years of age, was unfamiliar with the 1977 article. It was only after he assigned a staff person to search the magazine’s archives, which led to the discovery of the article, that the Advocate placed great emphasis on publishing my piece. http://www.advocate.com/special_feature.asp?id=19186 I have obviously upset you by not deleting Ashton Gray’s membership. As I have explained many times on this Forum, I am fully committed to the idea of free speech. One of the most important aspects of this is the freedom to ask questions. Ashton is not always as polite as he should be. He has apologised for this and hopefully he will adjust his style in future. However, he is clearly very knowledgeable about Watergate and has raised some very important questions. Hopefully, in time, Ashton will also be able to answer them. Just because I have not deleted his membership does not mean that I always agree with him. (I am not sure what you are implying by the comment the “John Simkin-Ashton Gray tag team”) In fact, as the threads on “What was Watergate all about?” and “John Paisley” will eventually show, we probably disagree fundamentally about several issues. http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=7253 http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=3017 You originally contacted me because you wanted me to make changes to my web page on you. It is the main reason why most of the people involved in the assassination of JFK and Watergate stories make contact with me, including Alfred Baldwin, is that anyone who does a web search for the names of these people they quickly find themselves on my website. (For example, if you do a search at Google for “Douglas Caddy” my page on you comes up 1st out of 301,000 pages.) People are understandable concerned that in future my interpretation of their life could be quite significant. In your case, you wanted me to add that you had abandoned your previous right-wing views on politics. I was quite willing to do this as it was clearly true. You also agreed to answer questions on the Forum (as did Alfred Baldwin). As people like Gerry Hemming have discovered, this is a risky strategy as members cannot control the questions they are being asked. Gerry left leaving the questions unanswered. That in itself tells members a great deal. That is why I confidently predicted on the forum, in response to Ray Carroll assertion that Alfred and you would leave the forum if I allowed Ashton to remain as a member, that you would indeed stay and answer questions. I am sure that you are right that the published documents show that you have never been an employee of the CIA. I doubt very much if you ever fell into this category. What I do believe is that William Buckley recruited you as a CIA asset in 1960 when you began to play a key role in the Young Americans for Freedom organization. Buckley had been a member of the CIA where he worked under E. Howard Hunt in Mexico. I suspect the CIA also asked you to carry out tasks for the organization. I don’t think it is a coincidence that E. Howard Hunt contacted you to help out the Watergate burglars. He did this because he knew that investigators would eventually find the links between you and the CIA via Robert Mullen. In other words, you were part of the set-up. As you rightly say, the Watergate burglars were caught because of James McCord’s tape. However, the reason that journalists connected up the burglary with the CIA was McCord’s statement in court on the morning after his arrest. McCord voluntarily told the court that he had been a former employee of the CIA. He did not need to do that. That triggered off a series of events that eventually brought down Richard Nixon. I know this is pure speculation and that we will never discovery documentary evidence that this is the case. However, unless we assume that McCord was a complete idiot (and his previous record shows this was not the case), his main role was to implicate Nixon in the break-in. The same goes for E. Howard Hunt. I think you were an innocent victim of these events. I also understand why you are unwilling to admit to being a CIA asset. John, you are right. What you have written is pure speculation. The truth is that I have never been recruited by the CIA to carry out any tasks for that organization. I was never an employee of the Mullen Company. I was a General Foods employee. As I have disclosed previously Robert Mullen did at one time approach Howard Hunt and myself about purchasing his company as he wanted to retire. But out of the blue Mullen suddenly announced that he was selling the company to Robert Bennett. One must remember that it was the CIA that incorporated the Mullen Company. While Robert Mullen had run the company for a number of years and was entitled to sell it, the CIA still had to approve the purchaser. That is why Robert Bennett chosen. He was then and is now, as the Republican U.S. Senator from Utah, a CIA asset. When he purchased the Mullen Company his father was the U.S. Senator from Utah. It was the CIA’s decision, for whatever reason, to have the Mullen Company sold to Bennett and not to Hunt and myself. As to James McCord, I was surprised at the arraignment hearing later in the day after the arrests on June 17, 1972 when he disclosed he was formerly a CIA employee. All I knew at the time was his role as the Security Director for the Committee for the Re-Election of the President. My best guess is that he chose to reveal his CIA background because he realized that it would soon become public knowledge once his name was published in the newspapers. In the succeeding days I received calls from a number of persons at the National Security Agency who knew McCord personally and wanted to help him in his time of difficulty. In short, his CIA background would have become public knowledge probably sooner than later and he may have decided to make a pre-emptive strike by announcing it at the arraignment hearing. Your statement that I am unwilling “to admit being a CIA asset” is pure McCarthyism. I have never been a CIA asset and never will be. I wholeheartedly concur with Paul Craig Roberts, the former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration and in recent years a syndicated columnist, who wrote in his July 3, 2006 newspaper column: “It is proof of the collapse of American morals and the fallen character of the American people that the American public and its elected representatives in Congress refuse to rein in the Bush regime and to hold it responsible for its monstrous crimes. “America has become a land of evil. The rest of the world hates and despises us. And we are going to pay a terrible price for it. “Bush’s belief that our superpower status makes us immune to the opinion of others goes beyond hubris into insanity.” In short, because I hold the same opinion as Paul Craig Roberts, I would make a terrible CIA asset.

John, are you not aware that I covered this subject in this very thread on February 5, 2006? Why your sudden discovery of this information? I notice that your tag team partner, Ashton Gray, wasted no time, based on your posting, of spinning a new fantasy that I knew Washington police officer Carl Shoffler and Robert “Butch” Merritt. I knew neither of these of men. If you and he wish to delude yourselves otherwise, be my guest. I am beginning to be thoroughly amused of your and Ashton’s wide-of-the-mark postings. The more outlandish the accusations and insinuations, the greater the chance that the monetary advance on my new book will be increased as you and Ashton jointly transform me into a major “key player” in the Watergate scandal. However, don’t expect me to share my monetary advance with you both as a result of your adversarial public relations work in my behalf, especially since the Forum’s credibility is the ultimate victim of your tag team fantasy strategy. Almost all of your posting in question draws directly upon the writing of Jim Hougan in his book, Secret Agenda: Watergate, Deep Throat and the CIA. I invite Forum members and readers of this thread to contrast pages 320 to 323 in Hougan’s book with what you have posted. In the past in your scholarly writings in the Forum you have been fastidious in citing source materials to support statements that you make, which is why they are so widely read with anticipation. Why then did you omit attribution to Hougan of what you wrote above? Below is the February 5, 2006 posting that I made in this thread on this subject, which somehow escaped your attention: Not only is Mark Felt's role as Deep Throat left out of the FBI memorandum of 5/23/1973 but also omitted is the evidence that Felt was the primary cause of the Watergate coverup. The evidence is as follows: I was retained by Hunt and Liddy on June 17, the day of the burglary. On June 28, 11 days later, while I was in the U.S. Court House working on my clients' case, I was served with a subpoena to appear Forthwith before the federal grand jury. Assistant U.S. Attorney Donald Campbell physically pulled me by my arm into the grand jury room. Over the next three weeks I was to testify five times before the grand jury. I refused to answer a number of questions that I believed violated the attorney-client privilege but did so ultimately after being held in contempt of court by Judge Sirica and the contempt citation being affirmed by the U.S. Court of Appeals. All of these events so early in the case were reported by Woodward and Bernstein in the Washington Post. These events had the effect of convincing my clients that they could not receive a fair trial if I as their attorney were being so badly treated. So they embarked on the coverup. Operating behind the scenes and as an instigator of my being served with a subpoena on June 28, 1972, was Mark Felt. The role of the FBI towards me, under Felt's direction, is described in a two-part article in The Advocate of Feb. 23 and March 9, 1977 titled, Revelations of a Gay Informant: I Spied for the FBI. The article is part-interview with and part-reporting concerning the gay informant, Carl Robert 'Butch' Merritt. Merritt had been employed by the FBI, under Felt's direction, and by the Washington, D.C. police, to infiltrate and spy on the New Left, which was then engaged in vocal dissent against the Vietnam war. (Felt was subsequently indicted and convicted for some of his activities against the New Left. More on this later.) The following is excerpted from the 1977 Advocate article: Two days after the Watergate burglary, Carl Shoffler (one of Merritt's former police contacts) turned up with Sgt. Paul Leeper (these officers had been two of the three to have arrested the burglars) with what Merritt recalls as an offer of ˜the biggest, most important assignment" he'd ever had. The officers, Merritt said, asked if he knew one of the Watergate attorneys. ˜They said he was gay." Merritt did not. They asked if I could get to know him. I asked them why. We'd like you to get as close as possible, they said, to find out all you can about his private life, even what he eats. Merritt says he explained that even if the attorney was gay, it wouldn't be likely that he could arrange to meet him. They said I would be paid quite well, that they weren't talking about dimes and quarters, that they were talking about ˜really big money". Merritt says that he refused the offer, but that police kept returning to him with the same request, as late as December 1972, months after the city's police claimed to have ended their Watergate investigation. Police, Merritt says, also tried to recruit him to inform on the gay community. He says he refused these offers as well. The police and the FBI, Merritt charges, began to harass him soon after he was dropped by the bureau. ˜They threatened my life, broke into my apartment at least three times, they tried to plant drugs on me, they tapped my phone," Merritt charges. Jim Hougan, in his 1984 book Secret Agenda: Watergate, Deep Throat and the CIA, wrote about Merritt's allegations: "If we are to believe the disaffected informant, [police officer] Shoffler told him to establish a homosexual relationship with Douglas Caddy, stating falsely that Caddy was gay and a supporter of Communist causes." Further information can be found on the following links: http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_...16/ai_n15396922 http://www.advocate.com/special_feature.asp?id=19186

John Simkin wrote in the final posting in the Kennedy Assassination topic of the thread titled “Ashton Gray: His repeated violations of Board Guidelines,” which thread he then closed down: “I have found Doug very helpful with my investigations into Lyndon Johnson. Hopefully he will continue to answer our questions. However, I do not expect hm to fully explain his relationship with the CIA during the Watergate scandal. Maybe he is saving this for his forthcoming book.” Anyone who has read the Forum’s thread “Douglas Caddy: Question and Answer” will find that I have previously answered all questions posed to me about the CIA: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=7253 John Simkin, in his remarks above, apparently intends to leave with the reader a tantalizing smear that I have been somehow had a relationship with the CIA. One is reminded of the interrogation method of which Senator Joseph McCarthy was accused. It is said that he would pose the question to a witness “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Community Party?” When the witness denied that he had ever so been associated, it is said that Senator McCarthy would retort, “Are we merely to take you word on this?” in an attempt to harm the witness’s reputation. Substitute John Simkin for Senator McCarthy and we have him asking me, in essence: “Are you now or have you ever been employed by the CIA or knowingly participated in any of its activities?” When I state that I have not, he merely gratuitously retorts, “I do not expect [you] to fully explain [your] relationship with the CIA.” In the mid-1970's I employed the Freedom of Information Act in an attempt to obtain from the CIA any records that it had on me. I was stonewalled for a long period of time. I then appealed to Senator Barry Goldwater, whom I knew personally and who was on the Senate Intelligence Committee, to intervene with the CIA to release this information. He agreed to write the CIA in my behalf. A short time later I received from the CIA one document of several pages that was heavily redacted. It appeared to have been prepared as a summary of what the CIA knew about Watergate, before and after the break-in arrests on June 17, 1972. The only part that was not heavily redacted was one sentence that stated in essence “Michael Douglas Caddy has never been an employee of the CIA.” I cannot quote the exact sentence as the CIA document is in my personal and professional files in the Library Archives of the University of Oregon, in Eugene, Oregon. This is some 2000 miles from where I reside. Even if I were to retrieve the CIA letter and quote exactly from it, most likely this would still not satisfy the John Simkin-Ashton Gray tag team. If the latter wish to engage in a fantasy that I was somehow had a relationship with the CIA, they are merely deluding themselves and adversely affecting the credibility of the Forum. The historical record rebuts their assertion. My own thought on the CIA’s involvement in Watergate is this: There is no doubt that the June 17, 1972 arrests stemmed from the discovery by Frank Wills, a security guard, of a piece of tape on a door in the Watergate complex building that housed the Democratic National Committee. Does this clear the CIA of any involvement in Watergate? I would answer in the negative. There is ample evidence posted by Forum members that the CIA knew something was afoot, which stemmed from the contacts made with it by White House personnel and by Hunt and Liddy prior to June 17, 1972. The CIA is in the information gathering business. Thus, sooner or later the CIA might have made the strategic decision to act somehow on whatever information it had of Hunt’s and Liddy’s activities, perhaps adversely to Nixon’s interest. Or it might have saved the information for purposes of blackmailing or threatening Nixon. However, it did not have to reach a decision. Frank Wills, the security guard at the Watergate complex, saved the CIA from having to do this by finding the piece of tape and sounding the alert, which led to the arrests of the five burglars and the subsequent unraveling of the Nixon administration.

Dear Jack: Your valued comments are most appreciated. My thanks go to you. Below is the posting that I just made in the Watergate thread on the subject of the violations of Board Guidelines by Mr. Ashton Gray. My posting was in reply to Mr. Pat Speer on the matter. Pat: I am indebted to you and Mr. J. Raymond Carroll for posting your incisive comments on Mr. Ashton Gray’s gratuitously insulting remarks directed towards his fellow members, Mr. Alfred Baldwin and myself. I can assure you that if persons who have direct knowledge of historical events come to believe that by participating in the Forum they will be subjected to character assassination, the Forum will become the “kiss of death” to be avoided at all costs. This will result in all of John Simkin’s skillful diplomacy over the years in getting persons with direct historical knowledge to join the Forum going down the drain, obviously through no fault of Mr. Simkin but as the result of one or more members with malevolent and destructive tendencies. I may be mistaken but it appears that Mr. Baldwin has already been driven from the Forum and from participating in the thread that bears his name as the direct result of the offensive actions of Mr. Ashton Gray. That Mr. Gray now belatedly is editing his past posted remarks of character assassination against Mr. Baldwin probably will do little to correct the situation. I can categorically state that the only reason I decided to join the Forum was when I saw that Mr. Baldwin had joined and through the well-meaning inquiries posed by Mr. Simkin and other members was providing new information. Mr. Baldwin’s role in Watergate had always piqued my interest and I found his replies of great interest. And by the way, I apologize for mistakenly labeling you as Mr. Pat Gray in your June 23 reply and will edit the posting to correct this. This mistake on my part will probably cause some question to be posed later on in the Forum as to whether I ever knew or had a conversation with Patrick Gray while he was FBI director, knowing as I do now how some members think. In regard to the matter of my telephone conversations with the wife of Bernard Barker in the early days of Watergate, I already covered this subject in my posting of Feb. 6, 2006, which can be found in the Douglas Caddy: Question and Answer thread. It is my intention to do no more posting, besides the immediate one, until John Simkin returns from Sicily next week when he will undertake an investigation of the Record that I filed with him and Administrator Walker of a large number of violations of the Board Guidelines by Mr. Ashton. I may be old-fashioned but I believe that if the Board Guidelines are repeatedly violated by a member, then the appropriate disciplinary measure should be invoked. If not, of what purpose are the Board Guidelines and why should they be observed? For the historical record, to be placed in the Forum’s archives, I am posting below an article by me about my role in Watergate that was published by The Wall Street Journal in 1998. The Wall Street Journal Editorial Page March 24, 1998 WHAT IF JUDGE SIRICA WERE WITH US TODAY? By Douglas Caddy (Mr. Caddy is a Houston lawyer) The Clinton scandals, with all the claims of coverup and executive privilege, are certainly reminiscent of Watergate. But there is a crucial difference: This case lacks a John Sirica, the chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia who played such a crucial role in Watergate. The untold historical record reveals that the early actions of Sirica, who assigned the Watergate case to himself, helped spur the subsequent coverup and obstruction of justice that ultimately led to the resignation of President Nixon and the criminal convictions of many Watergate figures. The Watergate scandal began at 2:30 a.m. on June 17, 1972, when Washington, D.C. police arrested five men on burglary charges at the Watergate office building. At 3:05 a.m. E. Howard Hunt phoned me from his White House office and asked if he could come immediately to my Washington residence. I had been Hunt’s personal attorney for several years. Hunt arrived half an hour later and informed me what had transpired earlier at the Watergate. He retained me to represent him in the case and then called G. Gordon Liddy, who also hired me. At that time, about two hours after the burglary, both Hunt and Liddy requested I also represent the five people arrested, four Cuban-Americans and James McCord, who were then incarcerated in the D.C. jail. On June 28 – 11 days later – while working on the case in the federal courthouse in Washington, I was served with a subpoena bearing the name of Chief Judge Sirica, to appear “forthwith” before the federal grand jury investigating the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Donald Campbell grabbed me by the arm and pulled me into the grand jury room. From June 28 until July 19 I was to appear before the grand jury on six occasions and answer hundreds of questions. I drew the line, however, on the advice of my own legal counsel, at answering 38 questions we felt invaded my clients’ Sixth Amendment right to counsel and the attorney-client privilege. A typical question: “Between the hours of Friday at midnight, June 16, and 8:30 a.m. Saturday, June 17, did you receive a visit from Mr. Everett Howard Hunt?” We believed answering such questions would incriminate Hunt and Liddy, who had not been arrested, and would violate their constitutional rights. Judge Sirica, rejecting such arguments out of hand, threatened to jail me for contempt of court. When I went before the grand jury on July 13, I refused to answer the 38 questions. Within an hour I was back before Judge Sircia, who immediately held me in contempt of court and ordered me to jail. Five days later, on July 18, the U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the contempt citation and ordered me to testify under threat of being jailed again. The opinion, which I found gratuitously insulting, declared: “Even if such a relationship does exist, certain communications, such as consultation in furtherance of a crime, are not within the privilege.” In his July 19, 1972, Oval Office tape, Nixon is recorded as expressing dismay to John Ehrlichman: “Do you mean the circuit court ordered an attorney to testify?” Ehrlichman replied, “It [unintelligible] me, except that this damn circuit that 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?” The answer is that my attorneys and I believe we had built a strong enough court record that if Hunt, Liddy and the five arrested individuals were found guilty, their convictions could be overturned on appeal because of Sirica’s and the appeals court’s abuse of me as their attorney. However, Judge Sirica’s actions had an unintended consequence. Hunt and Liddy, seeing their attorney falsely accused by Judge Sirica of being a participant in their crime, realized early on that they were not going to get a fair trail, so they embarked on a coverup involving “hush money.” As Hunt has written: “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.” Liddy appealed his conviction to the U.S. Court of Appeals, claiming that my being forced to testify denied him his Sixth Amendment right to counsel. The court upheld his conviction: “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 trial judge, there is no reasonable possibility it contributed to the conviction.” Neither Judge Sirica nor the appeals court acknowledged that their assault on the attorney-client privilege helped spur the ensuing coverup and obstruction of justice. I was never indicted, named an unindicted co-conspirator, disciplined by the Bar or even contacted by the Senate Watergate Committee or the House Judiciary Committee, whose staff included a young lawyer named Hillary Rodham. Now the issue of the attorney-client privilege is again being raised, this time by Monica Lewinsky’s first lawyer, Francis D. Carter, who has been subpoenaed to appear before the grand jury and bring the notes he took while representing Ms. Lewinsky. Mr. Carter got involved when Vernon Jordan referred Ms. Lewinsky to him in January. On March 4, Mr. Carter’s attorney, Charles Ogletree, argued before Chief Judge Norma Hollaway Johnson that the subpoena should be quashed: “Once you start to allow the government to intrude on the attorney-client relationship and allow them to pierce the attorney-client privilege, clients will no longer have a sense of confidence and respect that lawyers should have.” Coming days will reveal how Mr. Carter fares in his fight to protect Ms. Lewinsky’s constitutional rights and what effect this will have on the case’s ultimate outcome. To date, at least, Judge Johnson has shown a restraint that her predecessor Judge Sirica did not.

Pat: I am indebted to you and Mr. J. Raymond Carroll for posting your incisive comments on Mr. Ashton Gray’s gratuitously insulting remarks directed towards his fellow members, Mr. Alfred Baldwin and myself. I can assure you that if persons who have direct knowledge of historical events come to believe that by participating in the Forum they will be subjected to character assassination, the Forum will become the “kiss of death” to be avoided at all costs. This will result in all of John Simkin’s skillful diplomacy over the years in getting persons with direct historical knowledge to join the Forum going down the drain, obviously through no fault of Mr. Simkin but as the result of one or more members with malevolent and destructive tendencies. I may be mistaken but it appears that Mr. Baldwin has already been driven from the Forum and from participating in the thread that bears his name as the direct result of the offensive actions of Mr. Ashton Gray. That Mr. Gray now belatedly is editing his past posted remarks of character assassination against Mr. Baldwin probably will do little to correct the situation. I can categorically state that the only reason I decided to join the Forum was when I saw that Mr. Baldwin had placed membership and through the well-meaning inquiries posed by Mr. Simkin and other members was providing new information. Mr. Baldwin’s role in Watergate had always piqued my interest and I found his replies of great interest. And by the way, I apologize for mistakenly labeling you as Mr. Pat Gray in your June 23 reply and will edit the posting to correct this. This mistake on my part will undoubtedly cause some question to be posed later on in the Forum as to whether I ever knew or had a conversation with Patrick Gray while he was FBI director, knowing as I do now how some members think. [Hint: the answer is no.] In regard to the matter of my telephone conversations with the wife of Bernard Barker in the early days of Watergate, I already covered this subject in my posting of Feb. 6, 2006, which can be found in the Douglas Caddy: Question and Answer thread. It is my intention to do no more posting, besides the immediate one, until John Simkin returns from Sicily next week when he will undertake an investigation of the Record that I filed with him and Administrator Walker of a large number of violations of the Board Guidelines by Mr. Ashton. I may be old-fashioned but I believe that if the Board Guidelines are repeatedly violated by a member, then the appropriate disciplinary measure should be invoked. If not, of what purpose are the Board Guidelines and why should they be observed? For the historical record, to be placed in the Forum’s archives, I am posting below an article by me about my role in Watergate that was published by The Wall Street Journal in 1998. The Wall Street Journal Editorial Page March 24, 1998 WHAT IF JUDGE SIRICA WERE WITH US TODAY? By Douglas Caddy (Mr. Caddy is a Houston lawyer) The Clinton scandals, with all the claims of coverup and executive privilege, are certainly reminiscent of Watergate. But there is a crucial difference: This case lacks a John Sirica, the chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia who played such a crucial role in Watergate. The untold historical record reveals that the early actions of Sirica, who assigned the Watergate case to himself, helped spur the subsequent coverup and obstruction of justice that ultimately led to the resignation of President Nixon and the criminal convictions of many Watergate figures. The Watergate scandal began at 2:30 a.m. on June 17, 1972, when Washington, D.C. police arrested five men on burglary charges at the Watergate office building. At 3:05 a.m. E. Howard Hunt phoned me from his White House office and asked if he could come immediately to my Washington residence. I had been Hunt’s personal attorney for several years. Hunt arrived half an hour later and informed me what had transpired earlier at the Watergate. He retained me to represent him in the case and then called G. Gordon Liddy, who also hired me. At that time, about two hours after the burglary, both Hunt and Liddy requested I also represent the five people arrested, four Cuban-Americans and James McCord, who were then incarcerated in the D.C. jail. On June 28 – 11 days later – while working on the case in the federal courthouse in Washington, I was served with a subpoena bearing the name of Chief Judge Sirica, to appear “forthwith” before the federal grand jury investigating the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Donald Campbell grabbed me by the arm and pulled me into the grand jury room. From June 28 until July 19 I was to appear before the grand jury on six occasions and answer hundreds of questions. I drew the line, however, on the advice of my own legal counsel, at answering 38 questions we felt invaded my clients’ Sixth Amendment right to counsel and the attorney-client privilege. A typical question: “Between the hours of Friday at midnight, June 16, and 8:30 a.m. Saturday, June 17, did you receive a visit from Mr. Everett Howard Hunt?” We believed answering such questions would incriminate Hunt and Liddy, who had not been arrested, and would violate their constitutional rights. Judge Sirica, rejecting such arguments out of hand, threatened to jail me for contempt of court. When I went before the grand jury on July 13, I refused to answer the 38 questions. Within an hour I was back before Judge Sircia, who immediately held me in contempt of court and ordered me to jail. Five days later, on July 18, the U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the contempt citation and ordered me to testify under threat of being jailed again. The opinion, which I found gratuitously insulting, declared: “Even if such a relationship does exist, certain communications, such as consultation in furtherance of a crime, are not within the privilege.” In his July 19, 1972, Oval Office tape, Nixon is recorded as expressing dismay to John Ehrlichman: “Do you mean the circuit court ordered an attorney to testify?” Ehrlichman replied, “It [unintelligible] me, except that this damn circuit that 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?” The answer is that my attorneys and I believe we had built a strong enough court record that if Hunt, Liddy and the five arrested individuals were found guilty, their convictions could be overturned on appeal because of Sirica’s and the appeals court’s abuse of me as their attorney. However, Judge Sirica’s actions had an unintended consequence. Hunt and Liddy, seeing their attorney falsely accused by Judge Sirica of being a participant in their crime, realized early on that they were not going to get a fair trail, so they embarked on a coverup involving “hush money.” As Hunt has written: “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.” Liddy appealed his conviction to the U.S. Court of Appeals, claiming that my being forced to testify denied him his Sixth Amendment right to counsel. The court upheld his conviction: “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 trial judge, there is no reasonable possibility it contributed to the conviction.” Neither Judge Sirica nor the appeals court acknowledged that their assault on the attorney-client privilege helped spur the ensuing coverup and obstruction of justice. I was never indicted, named an unindicted co-conspirator, disciplined by the Bar or even contacted by the Senate Watergate Committee or the House Judiciary Committee, whose staff included a young lawyer named Hillary Rodham. Now the issue of the attorney-client privilege is again being raised, this time by Monica Lewinsky’s first lawyer, Francis D. Carter, who has been subpoenaed to appear before the grand jury and bring the notes he took while representing Ms. Lewinsky. Mr. Carter got involved when Vernon Jordan referred Ms. Lewinsky to him in January. On March 4, Mr. Carter’s attorney, Charles Ogletree, argued before Chief Judge Norma Hollaway Johnson that the subpoena should be quashed: “Once you start to allow the government to intrude on the attorney-client relationship and allow them to pierce the attorney-client privilege, clients will no longer have a sense of confidence and respect that lawyers should have.” Coming days will reveal how Mr. Carter fares in his fight to protect Ms. Lewinsky’s constitutional rights and what effect this will have on the case’s ultimate outcome. To date, at least, Judge Johnson has shown a restraint that her predecessor Judge Sirica did not.

In accordance with the instructions of Administrator Andy Walker in his June 24, 2006 posting in the Kennedy Assassination thread under the topic of Infiltrators, Saboteurs and Fifth-Columnists, I have used the Report facility to file a number of violations of Board Guidelines by Mr. Ashton Gray. The Board Guidelines state: “You are responsible for what you post on this board. You will not use this bulletin board to post any material which is knowingly false and/or defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, or otherwise violative of any law”. Mr. Gray, who only joined the Forum on May 26, 2006, has repeatedly violated the Board Guidelines by being abusive, hateful, and harassing in his postings against two Forum members: Mr. Alfred Baldwin and myself. Mr. Gray has also used vituperative and threatening language against other members who find his postings to be in violation of Board Guidelines. From the Alfred Baldwin thread on Watergate: Less than a month after his joined the Forum membership, Mr. Ashton in his posting in the Alfred Baldwin thread of Watergate wrote on June 21, 2006 at 05:04 AM: “Well, you’ve made your record. Just keep sticking to your story, Mr. Baldwin. I’m walking away for now. I’ve had all of your brand of truth I can take at the moment without puking on the keyboard.” That same day, on June 21, 2006 at 6:06 P.M., Mr. Ashton wrote in the Alfred Baldwin thread: “I’m done, Mr. Baldwin. You made your record. I’ve made mine. I’m done with you, with your soul-less, conscienceless, lying co-conspirators, and with the entire evil hoax.” In his posting on the Alfred Baldwin thread, Mr. Ashton wrote on June 22 at 11:51 P.M.: “ 1. Hunt and Liddy both lied. 2. You lied. 3. All three of you lied.” Member Pat Speer replied on June 21, 2006 at 10:40 PM by posting: “Mr. Gray, what is your purpose here? You came to this Forum for exactly what? You didn’t come here to gain information, that is for certain. I doubt that Mr. Caddy or Mr. Baldwin even respond to your insulting rants.” From the Douglas Caddy, Hunt, Liddy, Mullen and the CIA thread on Watergate: Mr. Ashton in his posting on June 16, 2006 at 10:46 AM, falsely accused me of having a conversation with my client that never took place. It is a complete fabrication by Mr. Ashton, who wrote: “Surely you'll recall that you couldn't hold a conversation after June 13, 1971 in Washington, D.C. that wasn't "almost entirely consumed with" talk about the Pentagon Papers and Daniel Ellsberg. Right? “And surely, surely you'd recall if you, Barker, and Hunt discussed the Pentagon Papers and Daniel Ellsberg just a couple of months before Hunt and Barker were involved in the Fielding op that gave Ellsberg his "get out of jail free" card. Right? I mean, Hunt was your client at the time.” Mr. Ashton in his posting of June 16, 2006 at 6:56 PM wrote of myself: “1) Hunt Lied, 2)You lied, 3)You both lied..” Mr. Pat Speer replied to Mr. Ashton on June 16, 2006 at 8:21 P.M.: “Ashton, might I request you tone down your questions? While you have done a good job of demonstrating that Mr. Caddy, in order to keep Hunt's involvement secret, probably lied to a newspaper about a phone call from Barker's wife--(geez, isn't that what lawyers do, protect their clients?)--the relevance is not immediately apparent to some of us on the outside, who value Mr. Caddy's contributions to this forum. Your desire to play "gotcha" with Caddy is understandable, but not altogether appropriate, as he has repeatedly tried to answer any and all questions on his role in history. Ask the questions in a nice manner and I suspect he'll provide you with a response. Point out an inconsistency and he'll offer an explanation if he has one. Ditto with Mr. Baldwin, who has been nothing but a gentleman. I do sympathize with your desire to play "gotcha" however...However long the list you have for Caddy about what appears to be inconsistencies in his statements, I guarantee you it positively PALES in comparison to the mental list of questions I have for Robert Maheu, should I ever be able to ask him a question. “Please play nice.” Mr. Ashton in his posting of June 22 at 3:50 PM, addressed to Mr. Pat Speer, appeared to borrow the malevolent lines of Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs: “And you can take the rest of your non-sequitur, irrelevant, disruptive, off-topic, red-herring bag'o'crap message and shove it anywhere you want, as long as you don't try shoving it in my face again. “I might stop being so polite. You wouldn't want that.” Mr. Pat Speer on June 23, 2006 at 9:12 PM replied to Mr. Ashton’s latest threat against him: “As far as you reporting me to the authorities, give me a break. You come to this Forum, start insulting its members--yes, that's right, Mr. Caddy and Mr. Baldwin are members and not just visitors propped up here for your abuse--and even do a victory dance after insulting Mr. Baldwin off a thread bearing his name. And then you CRY like a child when I won't let you control the thread. Earth to Mr. Gray, this Forum was not created for your sole benefit. You decided to confront Mr. Baldwin on some possible holes in the record, and have accused him and others of being part of an ongoing conspiracy to hide the fact that the Watergate break-in was a CIA coup designed to put Gerald Ford in power. Never mind that this was many months before Ford was even in a position to reap the benefits of this coup. Never mind that Ford was not a friend of the CIA, but a friend of their political rival, the FBI, and that Ford's regime oversaw the most exhaustive investigation of the intelligence agencies in our history, spurred on in part by his own big mouth. While there is almost certainly more to the Watergate story than in the public record, your theory, frankly, appears a bit looney. Those coming to this Forum and wishing to read about Mr. Baldwin should not be subjected to reading your diatribes and ramblings without seeing that at least one member of this Forum found your distortions a bit looney, IMO. Sorry to rain on your hostility parade.” Mr. J. Raymond Carroll in his posting on June 24, 2006 at 1:04 PM wrote: “Mr. Ashton Gray is accusing Mr. Douglas Caddy, directly or by implication, of being a xxxx. This is a clear violation of forum rules. Mr. Gray is clearly a truth-seeker, but throughout this thread he shows every evidence of falling into the fallacy of guilt by association. I do not have the slightest doubt that Mr. Caddy is an honest man. If he was not, then he would avoid this forum like the plague. “I gather it is true that Mr. Caddy had the misfortune to be retained to represent some unsavory characters connected to the Watergate break-in. I would guess that he now regrets that experience, and wishes he had confined himself to representing widows and orphans. It is no wonder that not everyone wants to be a lawyer, despite what they see on TV. “But it is a logical fallacy to assume, as Mr. Gray seems to do, that you can attribute the client's knowledge to his lawyer.” Mr. J. Raymond Carroll, later that same day of June 24, 2005 at 5:24 PM wrote of Mr. Ashton’s repeated attacks on me: “In this case, I see no reason to suggest that a valued fellow forum member is lying. I suggest you take off that cowboy hat and replace it with your thinking cap.” The evidence would seem to indicate that Mr. Ashton Gray, who entered membership only recently on May 26, 2006, did so with a hidden agenda. No one can know what is in his mind, but his actions do meet the signs of an Infiltrator, Saboteur and Fifth-Columnist as denoted in my topic of the same title posted June 23. “Among the tell-tale signs of these infiltrators, saboteurs and fifth-columnists are unbridled, unwarranted, unprovoked and vicious attacks on other forum members and the postings of so-called ‘information’ that is essentially mis-information or trivia designed to affect adversely the Forum’s credibility.” Mr. Ashton always closes his postings with his favorite motto: “Fiction doesn't leave a paper trail.” However, even in this assertion he is wrong. The fiction that he has posted since joining the Forum less than a month ago has left tell-tale paper trail, one which indicates that his actions are malevolent and destructive in their nature. My Reports of the violations of the Board Guidelines by Mr. Ashton Gray are now in the hands of the Administrator and Moderator. At stake is whether the Forum will continue to be a valuable and credible source of research information or whether it will be reduced to its lower common denominator, that of character assassination by one of its members. I am placing this topic on the Watergate and J.F. Kennedy Assassination threads of the Forum because of my past postings in each thread due to my involvement in both historical events in my capacity as an attorney.

In accordance with the instructions of Administrator Andy Walker in his June 24, 2006 posting in the Kennedy Assassination thread under the topic of Infiltrators, Saboteurs and Fifth-Columnists, I have used the Report facility to file a number of violations of Board Guidelines by Mr. Ashton Gray. The Board Guidelines state: “You are responsible for what you post on this board. You will not use this bulletin board to post any material which is knowingly false and/or defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, or otherwise violative of any law”. Mr. Gray, who only joined the Forum on May 26, 2006, has repeatedly violated the Board Guidelines by being abusive, hateful, and harassing in his postings against two Forum members: Mr. Alfred Baldwin and myself. Mr. Gray has also used vituperative and threatening language against other members who find his postings to be in violation of Board Guidelines. From the Alfred Baldwin thread on Watergate: Less than a month after his joined the Forum membership, Mr. Ashton in his posting in the Alfred Baldwin thread of Watergate wrote on June 21, 2006 at 05:04 AM: “Well, you’ve made your record. Just keep sticking to your story, Mr. Baldwin. I’m walking away for now. I’ve had all of your brand of truth I can take at the moment without puking on the keyboard.” That same day, on June 21, 2006 at 6:06 P.M., Mr. Ashton wrote in the Alfred Baldwin thread: “I’m done, Mr. Baldwin. You made your record. I’ve made mine. I’m done with you, with your soul-less, conscienceless, lying co-conspirators, and with the entire evil hoax.” In his posting on the Alfred Baldwin thread, Mr. Ashton wrote on June 22 at 11:51 P.M.: “ 1. Hunt and Liddy both lied. 2. You lied. 3. All three of you lied.” Member Pat Speer replied on June 21, 2006 at 10:40 PM by posting: “Mr. Gray, what is your purpose here? You came to this Forum for exactly what? You didn’t come here to gain information, that is for certain. I doubt that Mr. Caddy or Mr. Baldwin even respond to your insulting rants.” From the Douglas Caddy, Hunt, Liddy, Mullen and the CIA thread on Watergate: Mr. Ashton in his posting on June 16, 2006 at 10:46 AM, falsely accused me of having a conversation with my client that never took place. It is a complete fabrication by Mr. Ashton, who wrote: “Surely you'll recall that you couldn't hold a conversation after June 13, 1971 in Washington, D.C. that wasn't "almost entirely consumed with" talk about the Pentagon Papers and Daniel Ellsberg. Right? “And surely, surely you'd recall if you, Barker, and Hunt discussed the Pentagon Papers and Daniel Ellsberg just a couple of months before Hunt and Barker were involved in the Fielding op that gave Ellsberg his "get out of jail free" card. Right? I mean, Hunt was your client at the time.” Mr. Ashton in his posting of June 16, 2006 at 6:56 PM wrote of myself: “1) Hunt Lied, 2)You lied, 3)You both lied..” Mr. Pat Speer replied to Mr. Ashton on June 16, 2006 at 8:21 P.M.: “Ashton, might I request you tone down your questions? While you have done a good job of demonstrating that Mr. Caddy, in order to keep Hunt's involvement secret, probably lied to a newspaper about a phone call from Barker's wife--(geez, isn't that what lawyers do, protect their clients?)--the relevance is not immediately apparent to some of us on the outside, who value Mr. Caddy's contributions to this forum. Your desire to play "gotcha" with Caddy is understandable, but not altogether appropriate, as he has repeatedly tried to answer any and all questions on his role in history. Ask the questions in a nice manner and I suspect he'll provide you with a response. Point out an inconsistency and he'll offer an explanation if he has one. Ditto with Mr. Baldwin, who has been nothing but a gentleman. I do sympathize with your desire to play "gotcha" however...However long the list you have for Caddy about what appears to be inconsistencies in his statements, I guarantee you it positively PALES in comparison to the mental list of questions I have for Robert Maheu, should I ever be able to ask him a question. “Please play nice.” Mr. Ashton in his posting of June 22 at 3:50 PM, addressed to Mr. Pat Speer, appeared to borrow the malevolent lines of Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs: “And you can take the rest of your non-sequitur, irrelevant, disruptive, off-topic, red-herring bag'o'crap message and shove it anywhere you want, as long as you don't try shoving it in my face again. “I might stop being so polite. You wouldn't want that.” Mr. Pat Speer on June 23, 2006 at 9:12 PM replied to Mr. Ashton’s latest threat against him: “As far as you reporting me to the authorities, give me a break. You come to this Forum, start insulting its members--yes, that's right, Mr. Caddy and Mr. Baldwin are members and not just visitors propped up here for your abuse--and even do a victory dance after insulting Mr. Baldwin off a thread bearing his name. And then you CRY like a child when I won't let you control the thread. Earth to Mr. Gray, this Forum was not created for your sole benefit. You decided to confront Mr. Baldwin on some possible holes in the record, and have accused him and others of being part of an ongoing conspiracy to hide the fact that the Watergate break-in was a CIA coup designed to put Gerald Ford in power. Never mind that this was many months before Ford was even in a position to reap the benefits of this coup. Never mind that Ford was not a friend of the CIA, but a friend of their political rival, the FBI, and that Ford's regime oversaw the most exhaustive investigation of the intelligence agencies in our history, spurred on in part by his own big mouth. While there is almost certainly more to the Watergate story than in the public record, your theory, frankly, appears a bit looney. Those coming to this Forum and wishing to read about Mr. Baldwin should not be subjected to reading your diatribes and ramblings without seeing that at least one member of this Forum found your distortions a bit looney, IMO. Sorry to rain on your hostility parade.” Mr. J. Raymond Carroll in his posting on June 24, 2006 at 1:04 PM wrote: “Mr. Ashton Gray is accusing Mr. Douglas Caddy, directly or by implication, of being a xxxx. This is a clear violation of forum rules. Mr. Gray is clearly a truth-seeker, but throughout this thread he shows every evidence of falling into the fallacy of guilt by association. I do not have the slightest doubt that Mr. Caddy is an honest man. If he was not, then he would avoid this forum like the plague. “I gather it is true that Mr. Caddy had the misfortune to be retained to represent some unsavory characters connected to the Watergate break-in. I would guess that he now regrets that experience, and wishes he had confined himself to representing widows and orphans. It is no wonder that not everyone wants to be a lawyer, despite what they see on TV. “But it is a logical fallacy to assume, as Mr. Gray seems to do, that you can attribute the client's knowledge to his lawyer.” Mr. J. Raymond Carroll, later that same day of June 24, 2005 at 5:24 PM wrote of Mr. Ashton’s repeated attacks on me: “In this case, I see no reason to suggest that a valued fellow forum member is lying. I suggest you take off that cowboy hat and replace it with your thinking cap.” The evidence would seem to indicate that Mr. Ashton Gray, who entered membership only recently on May 26, 2006, did so with a hidden agenda. No one can know what is in his mind, but his actions do meet the signs of an Infiltrator, Saboteur and Fifth-Columnist as denoted in my topic of the same title posted June 23. “Among the tell-tale signs of these infiltrators, saboteurs and fifth-columnists are unbridled, unwarranted, unprovoked and vicious attacks on other forum members and the postings of so-called ‘information’ that is essentially mis-information or trivia designed to affect adversely the Forum’s credibility.” Mr. Ashton always closes his postings with his favorite motto: “Fiction doesn't leave a paper trail.” However, even in this assertion he is wrong. The fiction that he has posted since joining the Forum less than a month ago has left tell-tale paper trail, one which indicates that his actions are malevolent and destructive in their nature. My Reports of the violations of the Board Guidelines by Mr. Ashton Gray are now in the hands of the Administrator and Moderator. At stake is whether the Forum will continue to be a valuable and credible source of research information or whether it will be reduced to its lower common denominator, that of character assassination by one of its members. I am placing this topic on the Watergate and J.F. Kennedy Assassination threads of the Forum because of my past postings in each thread due to my involvement in both historical events in my capacity as an attorney.

Pat: There has been some hostility, but it has been between both you and Ashton. Ashton's writing style employs sarcasam. Only after pointing out discrepancies in what Hunt says vs. what Atty Caddy says does Ashton say one of the "realities" cannot be true. Doug Caddy could just answer the questions and be done with all this....Perhaps he is too busy, but since he posted the thread on"inflitrators" in both Watergate and JFK assasination, that tells me he read the posts, thus the questions and has chosen not to answer. So we have to wonder why? This does not mean that his reply would reveal something sinister. Said reply could be perfectly innocent. We know that Mr. Hunt in all likelihood has a GREAT deal to hide.. I would like to see these questions answered as one who watched every second of the Watergate hearings, read every article and knew we were only getting a part of the truth. I wish we had others here TO ask questions of. Don't you think it would be terrific to have, for example Haldeman to ask him WHY- (what basis)- he told us in "The Ends OF Power" Nixon's use of the tern "whole Bay of Pigs thing" (6/23/72 tape) was a term Nixon employed when referring to the assassination of JFK? But he's dead and gone, so we cannot ask. I am sure there are many questions you would have of other participants as well. Ashton is merely asking questions of those participants in the event we call "Watergate" in an effort to arrive at a deeper knowledge. If you don't believe there was more to Watergate than we got, then you may not be interested in questioning anyone else. But from where I sit, I see the two events linked and have LOTS of questions. IN fact I shall ask one myself: My Caddy: How did Billie Sol come to ask you to represent him before the Grand Jury in 1984? Given that your law practice was not in criminal defense, this seems to be a legitimate question. Were you hired by Barr McClellan in May 1998 to attend a press conference in DC, re the fingerprint match? You did not go. IF you recall could you tell me why not? I realize that this was several years ago but I have been curious about these two questions since then. I appreciate your reply. (And I promise that I WON"T utilize sarcasm, regardless what your response may be.) Dawn You state, "In fact I shall ask one myself:" However, in fact you asked two questions. Why the imprecise language by you, an attorney? In answer to the two questions: (1) Billie Sol never asked me to represent him before the Grand Jury in 1984 in Robertson County. We never discussed his proposed appearance. He was represented by two attorneys, Mr. Alan Brown and Mr. Mark Stevens, both of San Antonio, Texas. On March 20, 1984 Mr. John Paschall, District-County Attorney for Robertson County, Texas wrote a letter to Messrs. Brown and Stevens. The letter's first paragraph states, "This letter is to confirm our previous oral agreement regarding transactional immunity for your client, Billie Sol Estes." Thus, your question is based on a false premise. I covered this topic previously in the Douglas Caddy: Questions and Answers topic in the Kennedy Assassination thread on Feb. 5, 2006 at 09:44 A.M. At that time I stated: "I talked to Billie Sol within a few days following his grand jury appearance in March 1984 in Robertson County, Texas. He had received transactional immunity from the prosecutor before testifying. The grand jury appearance had been arranged with Billie Sol's consent by U.S. Marshal Clint Peoples. It was my impression in talking to Billie Sol afterwards that he wanted his testimony before the grand jury to be made public and had so authorized public discussion by the prosecutor, U.S. Marshal Peoples, and his own attorney. There were a number of press reports at the time, so it would be impossible now to state which exact source of information about Billie Sol's testimony was used by the writer of a particular press report." (2) I was never hired by Barr McClellan to attend a press conference in Washington, D.C. in March 1998 on the fingerprint match issue. I wish I had been invited as I certainly would have attended. I am a strong supporter of Barr McClellan's on-going efforts to get to the bottom of the Kennedy assassination and the role played by a key figure in his former law firm. In fact, I am mentioned as a source in his book, Blood, Money and Power: How LBJ killed JFK. Mr. McClellan states on p. 338, "Billie Sol Estes' attorney Doug Caddy was very helpful in his legal analysis and comments. I had many contacts with him in Houston and emailed him as needed." I previously answered this question in the Douglas Caddy: Questions and Answer topic in the Kennedy Assassination thread on Jan. 24, 2006 at 08:40 A.M. At that time I posted the following: "I was not asked to attend the press conference in May of 1998 regarding the fingerprint match by print expert Nathan Darby. Barr McClellan had informed me of Mr. Darby's conclusion about the fingerprint but I did not learn about the press conference until some time afterwards. "Based on Mr. Darby's superb professional credentials, I have every reason to believe his conclusion about the fingerprint is accurate." I don't mind answering questions posed by fellow forum members whose intent is to bring truth to light. However, answering questions again that have previously been answered by me wastes my time. I am in the midst of writing a new book, which will be my sixth published book, and do not have the time, energy or inclination to answer questions that pose an inaccurate premise or are abusive in nature.

These concerns are very valid, though how to fashion steps to deal with them is difficult. John Simkin has a very deep committment to free speech, but the forum will lose its value if any Tom, Dick or Harry can join and post any kind of nonsense, as Brendan Slattery does. All prospective members have to first submit a biography and an avatar photograph of themselves before they are allowed to post. Members are supposed to be either teachers, educators or researchers (hence the name of the forum), but we are pretty flexible about that. On signing up they tick the box to agree to our Board Guidelines. If they break these guidelines repeatedly we get rid of them. The chances of any "Tom Dick or Harry" or indeed "Sue, Trish or Mary" joining are fairly remote Dear Mr. Walker: This is request that you, as Administrator, review all the postings in the Watergate section from June 1, 2006 to the present date to ascertain whether there have been violations of the Board Guidelines by any member of the Forum. Sincerely yours, Douglas Caddy

Historians and the world’s citizenry in general owe a debt of gratitude to John Simkin for creating the J. F. Kennedy Assassination and Watergate sections on Spartacus. The contributions of material and information by Forum members have created a treasure trove that will be mined for years to come. So valuable have the Kennedy Assassination and Watergate archives become in disseminating this information on a world-wide basis that the Forum’s members need to face the real possibility that the Forum may soon be targeted for some form of annihilation or destruction, if it is not already. On this past Monday I attended a special event in Houston sponsored by Pacifica radio station KPFT at which Greg Palast of the BBC and The Guardian newspaper spoke. Palast is the author of Armed Madhouse, which last week hit the New York Times Best-Seller list, and of a previous best-seller, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. KPFT in Houston is one of five Pacifica non-commercial radio stations in the United States, situated in major cities, whose daily public affairs programming is a constant thorn in the side of the authoritarian Powers That Be who control all three branches of the government and most of the mass media in the U.S. today. At the reception preceding the Palast lecture to a packed auditorium audience, one of the KPFT directors recounted to me how over the years the Powers That Be have sent infiltrators, saboteurs, and fifth-columnists into the Pacifica community in an attempt to take it over or at a minimum neutralize its effectiveness. These Trojan horse efforts have been repulsed successfully by the mobilization of more than a million listeners, volunteers and financial contributors who make possible the on-going educational and non-profit work of Pacifica. A similar effort in my opinion is or soon will be mounted against the Forum. Members of the Kennedy Assassination and Watergate sections of the Forum should be on guard to spot those who join our ranks whose motivation is to end the effectiveness of the Forum as a group effort in gathering and posting valuable information. Among the tell-tale signs of these infiltrators, saboteurs and fifth-columnists are unbridled, unwarranted, unprovoked and vicious attacks on other forum members and the postings of so-called “information” that is essentially mis-information or trivia designed to affect adversely the Forum’s credibility.

Historians and the world’s citizenry in general owe a debt of gratitude to John Simkin for creating the J. F. Kennedy Assassination and Watergate sections on Spartacus. The contributions of material and information by Forum members have created a treasure trove that will be mined for years to come. So valuable have the Kennedy Assassination and Watergate archives become in disseminating this information on a world-wide basis that the Forum’s members need to face the real possibility that the Forum may soon be targeted for some form of annihilation or destruction, if it is not already. On this past Monday I attended a special event in Houston sponsored by Pacifica radio station KPFT at which Greg Palast of the BBC and The Guardian newspaper spoke. Palast is the author of Armed Madhouse, which last week hit the New York Times Best-Seller list, and of a previous best-seller, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. KPFT in Houston is one of five Pacifica non-commercial radio stations in the United States, situated in major cities, whose daily public affairs programming is a constant thorn in the side of the authoritarian Powers That Be who control all three branches of the government and most of the mass media in the U.S. today. At the reception preceding the Palast lecture to a packed auditorium audience, one of the KPFT directors recounted to me how over the years the Powers That Be have sent infiltrators, saboteurs, and fifth-columnists into the Pacifica community in an attempt to take it over or at a minimum neutralize its effectiveness. These Trojan Horse efforts have been repulsed successfully by the mobilization of more than a million listeners, volunteers and financial contributors who make possible the on-going educational and non-profit work of Pacifica. A similar effort in my opinion is or soon will be mounted against the Forum. Members of the Kennedy Assassination and Watergate sections of the Forum should be on guard to spot those who join our ranks whose motivation is to end the effectiveness of the Forum as a group effort in gathering and posting valuable information. Among the tell-tale signs of these infiltrators, saboteurs and fifth-columnists are unbridled, unwarranted, unprovoked and vicious attacks on other forum members and the postings of so-called “information” that is essentially mis-information or trivia designed to affect adversely the Forum’s credibility.

I reiterate my previous statement about this matter, which indeed is trivial as to a specific date over 30 years ago about a meeting that was thoroughly examined at the time by the appropriate Watergate law enforcement authorities: I stand by my prior reply as to the circumstances under which I met Barnard Barker. This was the only occasion prior to June 17, 1972 that I met him. I testified before the Watergate grand jury under oath, with the penalty of perjury. My bank records were subpoenaed and thoroughly examined. The FBI conducted an investigation of me. I testified under oath at the first Watergate trial. I was interviewed by the Office of the Watergate Special Prosecutor on a number of occasions. The law enforcement authorities who investigated Watergate never disputed or contradicted the veracity of any statement that I made to them under oath or made to them otherwise in their official capacity. It is extremely likely that Barker was also questioned by the law enforcement authorities about the circumstances of our one and only meeting before June 17, 1972. Since the issue has never been raised as being significantly relevant, one can safely assume that what he told the law enforcement authorities did not conflict with my sworn testimony.

Ouch. I hate to interrupt you, but can we stop right there for just a moment? I had asked you about "the circumstances under which you had met Bernard Barker about a year before you ended up representing him." You've responded about an incident you characterize as being "some months prior to June 17, 1972." Sung: "You say 'to-may-to' and I say 'to-mah-to'..." (Wait; that's the wrong song. Gimme a sec. I'm getting it... I know!) Sung: "What a difference a day makes... ." Dinah Washington just tore that up, didn't she? And what a fitting name. And if a day can make such a big difference, just imagine what "some months" can mean. I realize that a year is made up of "some months," but I'm trying to verify what I understand to be your own testimony. Please correct me if I'm wrong. The cite I'm using for the "year" time period, in this exchange, is your own article: "Gay Bashing and Watergate." In it, you quote U.S. Attorney Earl Silbert in his closing argument, to wit: "Mr. Caddy told you, oh yes, he was going to be in the case. He was going to be in the case of those five. He never met them before except for Barker a year before. He was going to represent those five." I realize that lawyers feel and exercise a certain sense of latitude in their practice, but closing arguments, after all, are crafted with considerable care—I'm sure you'll agree—and are not a very strategic place to be attempting to make material alterations to the trial evidence. Mr. Silbert, in authoring his closing arguments in this world-watched case, represented that you had met Bernard Barker "a year before" you announced that you were going to represent him (Barker) and the others—which, as you point out, was on June 17, 1972. That would put the date of your Army-Navy Club lunchtime rendezvous with Mr. Hunt and Mr. Barker sometime in June 1971. Did Mr. Silbert misrepresent the facts in evidence during his closing argument? I ask that with the full understanding that you, at the time—as you characterized in your article—felt that your hands were "tied" by your attorney-client relationships. But surely no significant distortion of material fact regarding your attorney-client relationship with Mr. Barker, or the time and conditions of your first having met him in the company of Mr. Hunt, would have been allowed into the record without objection—especially with Hunt's own attorney, William O. Bittman, there during your role as a witness for the prosecution. And your hands certainly were not "tied" at the time you authored your article—electing, in doing so, to quote Mr. Silbert's representation that you had met Bernard Barker "a year before" your taking Barker on as a client. Therefore, I'm relying entirely on your own record to conclude and state that you in fact met Bernard Barker, in the company of E. Howard Hunt, at the Army-Navy Club in Washington, D.C. in or about the month of June, 1971. If that's not the case, if your own record is wrong, if Mr. Silbert misrepresented an important material fact without objection during his closing argument—which you repeated in your own article without objection or correction—right now would be a very timely time to emphatically and specifically correct the record as to date. And I don't mean with a vague, airy "some months before." Trust me on this one. Now I'm going to go find my Dinah Washington collection; my singing is scaring the cat. Ashton Gray When I testified before the Watergate grand jury and was asked if I had ever met Bernard Barker, I answered that I had and described the circumstances as outlined in my immediate prior reply. I previously answered this question Feb. 6, 2006 when it was posed to me by Chris Newton. His question and my answer can be found in the Forum section “Douglas Caddy: Questions and Answers.” My prior reply of June 15, 2006 and that of Feb. 6, 2006 are consistent. It is my recollection that the Washington Post, as part of its contemporary stories about my grand jury appearance, quoted me about this meeting with Barker. I was not asked by Prosecutor Silbert to provide the exact date of the meeting. I am not certain that even my personal and professional records, now in the Library Archives of the University of Oregon, provide the exact date. Prosecutor Silbert himself used the general phrase, “...a year before” and did not denote a specific date. I certainly shall not vouch for the veracity of all the statements Silbert made in closing argument. I attended his closing argument in court and found myself is sharp disagreement with some of his remarks. Closing argument in court is generally reserved for sweeping statements, designed to sway the jury with emotion. Clearly this was the purpose of Silbert’s closing argument, which highlighted my role and carefully and purposely omitted any mention that there was a larger conspiracy involving higher-ups. I stand by my prior reply as to the circumstances under which I met Barnard Barker. This was the only occasion prior to June 17, 1972 that I met him. I testified before the Watergate grand jury under oath, with the penalty of perjury. My bank records were subpoenaed and thoroughly examined. The FBI conducted an investigation of me. I testified under oath at the first Watergate trial. I was interviewed by the Office of the Watergate Special Prosecutor on a number of occasions. The law enforcement authorities who investigated Watergate never disputed or contradicted the veracity of any statement that I made to them under oath or made to them otherwise in their official capacity. It is extremely likely that Barker was also questioned by the law enforcement authorities about the circumstances of our one and only meeting before June 17, 1972. Since the issue has never been raised as being significantly relevant, one can safely assume that what he told the law enforcement authorities did not conflict with my sworn testimony.

It's I who must thank you, now, for your extraordinarily gracious and comprehensive reply, and also must beg your indulgence, in turn, while I give it all due and thorough consideration. Pending a more responsive response to your response, I'll say that on its face it clears up quite a lot in broad strokes. One thing it specifically did pique my curiosity about, though, is the circumstances under which you had met Bernard Barker about a year before you ended up representing him. Was that through association with Mr. Hunt, or just one of those "happy accidents" that make life endlessly entertaining? I know you're busy with your book, but if you get a chance. Meanwhile, I hope you'll also find an opportunity to visit an article I just posted here, There was no "first break-in" at the Watergate, which you may find of some interest in relation to your representation of the co-conspirators in the early going. Ashton Gray As to my meeting Bernard Barker on one occasion some months prior to June 17, 1972, this was the subject of a question posed to me when I testified before the Watergate grand jury. As I related at that time, Howard Hunt asked me to join him and an undisclosed guest at the Army-Navy Club in downtown Washington, D.C. for lunch. When I arrived Hunt was already there with his guest, Bernard Barker. Hunt made the introductions. The luncheon conversation was almost entirely consumed with Hunt and Barker recounting their involvement in the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. Of the five arrested individuals at Watergate on June 17, the only one that I knew was Bernard Barker, based on the above described meeting. I look forward to reading the article that you have just posted.

Hi, Mr. Caddy. I read your article with a great deal of interest, and while it and your posts that I've read in this forum seem to focus mainly on those dramatic events following the fateful night of 16-17 June 1972, I wonder if you would be able to shed some light on parts of the backstory that are intriguing, but--well, "sketchy." I'll try to be as specific as possible on some of the things I'm curious about, which the available literature doesn't seem to address in any measurable depth. When CIA veteran E. Howard Hunt was hired at the Mullen Company on 1 May 1970, pursuant to a recommendation from DCI Richard Helms, the Mullen company had been cooperating with CIA, including providing overseas cover for CIA agents, for at least seven years. The Stockholm, Sweden office of Mullen was "staffed, run, and paid for by CIA." According to the available record, at least eight people in the D.C. Mullen office, where you worked, had been "cleared and made witting of Agency ties."Were you cleared and witting of the Mullen company's involvement with CIA? If so, what was the nature and scope of your clearances? Who else at Mullen was "witting and cleared"? If you know, did Hunt, or you, or anyone at the Mullen company have any contact, directly or through an intermediary, with Daniel Ellsberg? From my understanding of the record, not many months after Hunt arrived at Mullen--in or around November 1970--you moved from Mullen to Gall, Lane, Powell and Kilcullen (hereinafter "Gall Lane"), and at about the same time, Hunt became a client a Gall Lane, and you were one of the attorneys working with Hunt. You've said you consulted with Hunt regarding probate and "other matters."What were the "other matters"? Did you have CIA clearances or other clearances from any intelligence branch or agency at any relevant time? If so, why? Did the probate matters include Dorothy Hunt's probate? What was Meade Emory's role? Were persons employed at or by Gall Lane "cleared and witting" of Mullen ties to CIA? If so, who? If you know, was Gall Lane in any sort of relationship with CIA that was similar to the relationship that the Mullen company enjoyed? Please bear with me in establishing a brief history for these next questions, but still focusing on November 1970 and your move to Gall Lane: Around the same time as your move to Gall Lane, Robert Mardian approached G. Gordon Liddy and asked Liddy to take an undescribed position that Liddy says was "super-confidential." Liddy had already been granted "special clearances" by CIA a year earlier, in December 1969. Carrying forward to 1971: Hunt (your client) and Liddy had secure lines in Room 16 for communicating directly to Langley. In July 1971, E. Howard Hunt (your client) met privately with CIA's Lucien Conein, CIA's Edward Landsdale, and Deputy Director of CIA Robert Cushman, and was supplied by CIA with phony ID and other items. In August 1971, Hunt (your client) and G. Gordon Liddy met at least twice with CIA psychiatrist Bernard Malloy. In August 1971 G. Gordon Liddy--working closely with your client, Hunt--was in regular communication "with State and the CIA," including direct conversations with DCI Richard Helms, and was briefed by CIA on "several additional sensitive programs in connection with his assignment to the White House staff." Liddy received similar phony ID from CIA as had been provided by CIA to your client, Hunt. In October 1971, your client, Hunt, was in telephone contact with CIA Chief European Division John Hart, had several telephone conversations with CIA Executive Officer European Division John Caswell, and met with CIA Director Richard Helms. Continuing into February 1972, Liddy and Hunt (your client) met with a "retired" CIA doctor to discuss indetectable means of assassination. Liddy met on 22 February 1972 with undisclosed CIA officials in relation to the "special clearances" he was carrying. Within only about a week of that meeting--on or around 1 March 1972--you started doing unspecified "legal tasks" for G. Gordon Liddy leading up to the Watergate activities, so were involved in a legal relationship with both "commanders" of everything Watergate: Liddy and Hunt. Therefore, in regard to the foregoing:What was the nature of the "legal tasks" you were doing for Liddy? Were you doing similar legal tasks for your client, Hunt? Did any of the "legal tasks" you performed for either party require any kind of clearances from CIA and/or any other intelligence branch, organization, or agency? Did any of your legal tasks for either Liddy or Hunt include arranging for possible overseas travel? Did you have any clearances, special or otherwise, from CIA or any other intelligence branch, organization, or agency at relevant times? If so, what was the nature and scope, and why? Taking you back now in time, if I may, to E. Howard Hunt's move, in May 1970, from CIA Central to the Mullen company, he hadn't been "retired" from CIA for more than a month before a special Covert Security Approval was requested through CIA for him under "Project QK/ENCHANT." You were still at the Mullen branch with him.Did you have a clearance for QK/ENCHANT at any relevant time? Do you know anything about why the "retired" Howard Hunt almost immediately needed this special clearance? I'm sorry for having had to include as much establishing information as I did, but it's scattered throughout so many different sources that I thought others here may not be entirely familiar with the context given above, and I didn't want you to have to spend the time explaining it. I'd rather you just be able to focus on the questions themselves, and any light you can shed would be of inexpressible value. Thanks so much for your time. Ashton Gray Thank you for your inquiries into Watergate that are concerned with the back history before the arrests of the five burglars on June 17, 1972. Here are my responses to the questions posed by you in four sections: First section: (1) No, I was not cleared and witting of the Mullen Company’s involvement with the CIA. I only learned for certain of such involvement when I read Senator Howard Baker’s supplemental lengthy statement that was released about the same time that the final Senate Watergate Committee report was promulgated. Senator Baker, as you know, was a member of that Committee. (2) Thus, at no time did I possess any clearance of any type as part of the Mullen Company’s involvement with the CIA. Second section: (1) As part of the grand jury investigation into Watergate and in my capacity as a subpoenaed witness before that jury, I was forced to disclose the legal work that I performed for Howard Hunt when I was employed as an associate with the Washington, D.C. law firm of Gall, Lane, Powell and Kilcullen. This work was performed in conjunction with a partner of that law firm, Robert Scott, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney, who later became a judge. At Hunt’s request, we prepared a will for him, analyzed his proposed business relationship with the Mullen Company after Robert Bennett assumed its ownership (no mention was made then by Hunt of the CIA’s involvement with the Company), and contacted various book publishers to ascertain whether they would be interested in publishing a novel that Hunt, a prolific writer, had completed. None of this legal work involved probate matters. (2) I have at no time received a clearance from any branch of the U.S. government. (3) At no time was I involved in any probate matters dealing with Dorothy Hunt. After I was subpoenaed in late June 1972 to appear before the Watergate grand jury, under the law I could no longer legally represent Hunt or his wife. My role was transformed from being Hunt’s attorney to being an involuntary witness in the criminal case against him. Thus, in the Watergate case I was both an attorney for the defense and a witness for the prosecution. Dorothy Hunt died in late 1972, subsequently to the date that I was forced to withdraw from legal representation of the Hunts due to my grand jury subpoena. I do not know who handled the probate of Dorothy Hunt’s estate. (4) I do not recognize the name of Meade Emory, and for that reason am unaware of any role that he played in whatever matter you apparently have in mind. Third section: Your preface to the inquiries posed in this section contains information about which, on the whole, I was unaware. For example, I never heard of Room 16. Also, I had no knowledge that Liddy possessed a relationship with the CIA or that Hunt apparently had a continuing working relationship with the CIA after his retirement from that organization in 1970. (1) In March, 1972, George Webster, chairman of Lawyers for the Re-Election of Nixon-Agnew, contacted John Kilcullen, a partner of the law firm that employed me, and asked for a lawyer to do voluntary campaign work in John Dean’s office. I was “volunteered” by John Kilcullen. I did several legal research assignments given to me by Dean and one of his associates. Some weeks later Webster asked that I contact Gordon Liddy at the Finance Committee of the Nixon-Agnew campaign to do a legal research on campaign finance laws then in effect. At Liddy’s request, I undertook such research and subsequently presented Liddy with a written legal memorandum on the subject. This was the sole work that I performed for Liddy. (2) As stated above, I have at no time received a clearance from any branch of the U.S. government, which includes the CIA. Fourth section: (1) This is the first time that I have heard of Project QK/ENCHANT. As such, I obviously never received a clearance to work on this project. (2) I have no knowledge of Howard Hunt’s work on this project or why he needed a special clearance from the CIA to do so. I believe that above responses cover the inquiries posed by you. I wish to add the following observations. Had I ever applied for a clearance with the CIA or any branch of government in 1972 or in the years preceding, I most likely would have been denied such clearance. This is because of my sexual orientation, being a gay male. As Robert “Butch” Merritt disclosed publicly in 1977, within one day after the arrests of the burglars at Watergate on June 17, 1972 the FBI and the Washington, D.C. Police Department recruited him in his on-going undercover capacity to strike up a relationship with me because we both were gay males. The FBI and Police Department wanted to gather as much personal information about me that they could, even what food I ate. Merritt failed in this assignment. In 1972 and the years preceding, gay males were deemed potential security risks. The privilege/dishonor of betraying the United States was reserved exclusively for certified heterosexuals, some of whom managed to do great harm to the country in their treasonous endeavors in the cases that were publicly disclosed. Undoubtedly some treasonous heterosexuals were never discovered and probably have lived quite comfortably in their retirement on government pensions, courtesy of the unwitting American taxpayers, which include gays and lesbians. Even today, discrimination against gays and lesbians persists. For some unknown reason many gays and lesbians excel in linguistics and quickly master foreign languages, both oral and written. (Unfortunately, I am not among them.) Although there is a dearth of persons who can read and speak arabic languages, gays and lesbians who possess this rare ability continue to be drummed out of the U.S. military language school at Monterey, California. Some progress has been made since the days of Alan Turing, but much still remains to be done.

I have a complete salt block set aside for each of the co-conspirators. And speaking of blocks, I'm beginning to wonder now if the prolific Mr. Caddy has developed sudden writer's block over these few simple questions I've asked (now in their own thread). Ashton Gray I apologize for the delay in responding to various recent inquiries about Watergate that have been posted in the Forum. The fault is all mine. I am in the midst of writing a new book and have been caught up in the initial work involved. The book will contain a reference to the Forum to encourage its readers to consult the invaluable information that has been posted by Forum members about both the Kennedy assassination and Watergate. Since I am lagging at the present time in responding to a number of these inquiries in the Forum, please give me two or three days to read these thoroughly, which will be followed by my detailed replies. Again, my apologies. No slight was intended by my recent failure to respond.

Political Amnesia Is the Enemy By Danny Schechter, MediaChannel.org Posted on May 27, 2006, Printed on May 28, 2006 http://www.alternet.org/story/36743/ We all know, all of us in America anyway, that Memorial Day weekend marks the start of summer. It's about the downtime ahead, the vacation that's coming, the shutting down of the serious in anticipation of fun in the sun. Officially, it is also about honoring the dead, and there will be parades by veterans and flags flying on TV newscasts. Most of it is set in the present with little referencing of the past or memory itself. Memories work on us on every level, especially when they slip out of mind. A memory exhibit at San Francisco's Exploratorium museum touches on the usual: "You get to school and realize you forgot your lunch at home. You take a test, and you can't remember half the answers. You see the new kid who just joined your class, and you can't remember his name. Some days, it seems like your brain is taking a holiday -- you can't remember anything!" But memories are not just individual properties. Societies have memories, or should. And our news world and information technologies could or should have the capacity to keep us in touch with our collective memory, our recent history, the only context in which new facts find meaning. I like to joke about my own "senior moments," but cultures have them too -- and often, not always by accident. In our culture, it is often by design. The frequent references we hear to "political amnesia" is not just commentary but an allusion to a social pathology, a deliberate process of actually disconnecting us from our past and history. The blogger Billmon writes: "I don't know if it's a byproduct of decades of excessive exposure to television, the state of America's educational system, or something in the water, but the ability of the average journalist -- not to mention the average voter -- to remember things that happened just a few short months ago appears to be slipping into the abyss. "If this keeps up, we're going to end up like the villagers in "One Hundred Years of Solitude," who all contracted a rare form of jungle amnesia, so virulent they were reduced to posting signs on various objects -- 'I AM A COW. MILK ME' or 'I AM A GATE. OPEN ME' -- just so they could get on with their daily lives." A 1991 science fiction film called Total Recall pictured political amnesia, in the words of Michael Rogin as "an essential aspect of the 'postmodern American empire.'" A book by Andreas Huyssen takes another tack, arguing, "Rather than blaming amnesia on television or the school, "Twilight Memories" argues that the danger of amnesia is inherent in the information revolution. Our obsessions with cultural memory can be read as re-representing a powerful reaction against the electronic archive, and they mark a shift in the way we live structures of temporality." But whatever the causes, the consequences are truly frightening. When 63 percent of young people can't find Iraq on a map after three years of war and coverage, you know that the institutions that claim to be informing us are doing everything but. Our amnesia about recent developments seems to be induced and reinforced by the very fast-paced entertainment-oriented formats that we have become addicted to as sources of news and knowledge. They keep us in the present, in the now, disconnected from any larger ideas or analytical framework. No wonder some studies find that news viewers rapidly forget what they have just seen. That is what is intended to happen. No wonder, as Jay Leno shows when he contrasts a photo of a cultural icon with an elected official, that the public recognizes the former, not the latter. We recognize Mr. Peanut, not Jimmy Carter. More people vote for the best performer on American Idol than for our presidents. The architects of TV news know this from their market surveys and studies. It is this very media effect that they hype to lure advertisers to their real business: selling our eyeballs to sponsors, not deepening our awareness. Depoliticizing our culture is a media necessity in a society driven by consumerism. Every programmer knows the drill. It's a market logic called KISS: Keep It Simple and Stupid. A national curriculum, "Lessons From History," on the teaching of the past realizes that this phenomenon threatens democracy, warning, "Citizens without a common memory, based on common historical studies, may lapse into political amnesia, and be unable to protect freedom, justice, and self-government during times of national crisis. Citizens must understand that democracy is a process -- not a finished product -- and that controversy and conflict are essential to its success." So even as this dialectic is deplored, it is, sadly, quite functional. "We're forgetting the past," says historian Howard Zinn, "because neither our educational system nor our media inform us about the past. For instance, the history of the Vietnam War has been very much forgotten. I believe this amnesia is useful to those conducting our present foreign policy. It would be embarrassing if the story of the Vietnam War were told at a time when we are engaged in a war which has some of the same characteristics: government deception, the killing of civilians through bombing, scaring the American people (world communism in that case, terrorism in this one)." So on Memorial Day and in the season ahead, think of how to encourage remembering, not just about the dead but for the living. Our future depends on how we understand the past. Political amnesia is the enemy in our ADD culture. Please don't forget. Oh, too bad, you already have … Danny Schechter writes a blog for MediaChannel.org. He is the author of "Embedded: Weapons of Mass Deception: How the Media Failed to Cover the War on Iraq" (Prometheus). View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/36743/