Ashton Gray

Until the arrival of Ashton Gray and the ensuing chaos in the Forum

Just for those marking their scorecards at home: "the ensuing chaos," strangely enough, only swirls around four people: you and Alfred Baldwin (both Watergate figures), and two forum members who have uniformly attacked and attempted to smear me without provocation, while sabotaging threads related to you and Baldwin where I've been trying to get some straight answers to straight simple questions, both of those posters uniformly CIA apologists and naysayers for any CIA involvement in Watergate, when the evidence is clear that it was a CIA black domestic op from the "leak" of the Pentagon Papers straight through your representation of the "burglars." I just don't want anyone to get lulled into falsely believing there's been other "chaos." That's really a pretty small set where "chaos" has been concerned.

Other correspondence I've had with others member of this forum has been respectful and pleasant, and has dealt with relevant issues. Apparently you find it offensive that that happens to include John Simkin. Okay. Get over it. Or don't.

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.

Heh. Well, yes: they're framed on the false premises built into your own self-conflicted testimony, and its relationship to testimony of co-conspirators of yours, Hunt and Liddy, with which it clashes like plaid and polka dots.

If you want to keep being in a snit with me just because you can't get your own conflicting stories to make sense, and if you want to continue to refuse to answer any questions that I've written just becaue I have the unmitigated gall to bring these contradictions to your attention for your disposition, that's all right. I don't mind.

Comparing my writing style to Huntley Troth's, though: well, that's just a little bit catty if you ask me. That just cuts to the quick.

Ashton Gray

And do you know what you've just done? ... You've just shattered the last shred of cover Hunt ever had. You've just irrevocably tried and convicted him of working directly for and with CIA at the exact crucial point in time where he has invested lie after lie after lie, in autobiography and "sworn" testimony, swearing up and down, and getting other liars to swear up and down, that he was having nothing whatsoever to do with CIA.

Ashton Gray

I don't know where you've been, but Hunt testified under oath more than 30 years ago that, throughout his time working in the White house, he was reporting to Richard Helms through an intermediary at CIA

Now, this is not a reply to Mr. Carroll, because I would not tell him the directions to Hades if he had nowhere else to go, and a hot date waiting there. I've yet to see him contribute any single thing of substance; apparently he is far too busy authoring sideline carping criticisms of other people's hard-won contributions, while back-channel tag-teaming (I've got it on record in the Diem cables thread in the Watergate forum) with Pat Speer, who posted sworn testimony there that he had subtley fudged to suit his own purposes (I've got it on record in the Diem cables thread).

However: I hate seeing good people being willfully deceived, and so I have quoted Mr. Carroll's covert deception, above, that he posted in reply to my post concerning Douglas Caddy having outed E. Howard Hunt (with a little help from a few friends) as having been working directly with CIA during a period in February and March 1972, when Hunt and the CIA swear he was not working with or for CIA at all.

I'd like you to note that Mr. Carroll doesn't quote any relevant testimony. He just tells you about it with his interpretation. This is part of his pro-CIA disinformation technique, and that's exactly what it is. He, of course, will deny this. So has Speer denied it. So has Caddy denied ever working or cooperating with CIA in any of its interests. Deny, deny, deny. Fine. Over to you.

Meanwhile, I'm going to post actual relevant testimony that also contains blatant CIA denial. It is the sworn testimony of Richard Helms, who had been Director CIA at all relevant times. Helms is being questioned by Watergate Committee counsel Fred Thompson regarding events just days after the "burglars" had been caught—specifically, a conversation between Acting Director FBI L. Patrick Gray and Richard Helms on Thursday, June 22, 1972. At the time, E. Howard Hunt has left the city, but is a suspect who the FBI has been trying to locate and interview. And here is the sworn testimony:

• FRED THOMPSON: "Director Helms said"—again reading from the Walters memorandum [General Vernon Walters, Deputy Director CIA]—"he had talked to Gray on the previous day, made plain to him the Agency was not behind the matter, and it was not connected with it. None of the suspects was working for it [CIA], nor had worked for the Agency in the last two years." ...Did you tell him [Acting FBI Director L. Patrick Gray] that none of the suspects was working for the CIA nor had worked for the Agency in the last two years?
  RICHARD HELMS: Yes.
  

Now, please note carefully that nowhere in this message do I call anybody "xxxx." My momma raised me better. She did, now and then, though, say, "Get away from that skunk!"

Ashton Gray

Wait, wait a moment....Ashton...I do not take Mr. Caddy's word at face value and have not stated what I think he was or was not. Further I was not saying you were badgering him. I was simply stating what I was stating - nothing more, nothing less. Please don't read into it. I have no sway with him and have never met nor emailed nor even exchanged any Forum emails about him but two...

Okay, Peter. Sorry. I really don't blame you at all for not wanting to get in the middle of this.

At least my questions are in the record here, and I think anybody with a modicum of sense can see that they certainly are not some kind of gratuitous abuse—as they've falsely been portrayed. They are serious questions in an attempt to resolve serious issues.

And I completely agree with you (and more than a few others) about the importance of Watergate. I believe that when it falls, the truth about the JFK assassination will topple into the world's lap. And right now, what's left of Watergate is being propped up with a few toothpicks, and those are showing heavy strain. It's why I'm concentrating so much effort on it. As I said in that forum, there is all the evidence needed sitting in that forum right this minute showing it to have been nothing but a CIA domestic black op against the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States during time of war. And that is Treason, by statute, on its face.

.........and I was totally against anyone with such a nice hat ever being considered for removal from the Forum.

Ahhh, it's just some old stuff CIA had left over from disguising Hunt and Liddy. It's to keep people from finding out that I'm really L. Patrick Gray.

Ashton

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.

Hey, Doug: I have a great idea! Since you've admitted now that you in fact have read my articles about the CIA hoax of a "first break-in," and since you're a lawyer and I'm not, how about you come and join me in that thread that has the article you've read:

There was no "first break-in" at the Watergate

Now that we all know that you have read it, you'll know that I said the following at the end of that message:

If you do just that minimal homework, and still would like to return here and attempt to make the case that there was a "first break-in"—as all of us were duped into believing three decades ago and have accepted as an article of faith ever since—I will be more than happy to debate and discuss any evidence you're able to scrape up in support of a "Watergate First Break-in."

Personally, I'd rather have the Augean stables to shovel out.

Now I ask you: who better in the entire world to pick up that gauntlet than you? Hell, you represented most of the cruds who claimed to have been in Washington, D.C. over Memorial Day weekend breaking into the Watergate (when they weren't), so you not only have done the "minimal homework," you're probably the world's greatest expert! In fact, you're probably the only one in the world who might have even a ghost of a chance.

So come on, Doug: just you and me, keyboard to keyboard. Come on into that thread with me, and you make your case for the Phabulous Phantasy Phirst Break-In! Think of the victory you can have over your Moriarity!

I've just finished incinerating Pat Speer's "case" for the Phabulous Phantasy "Diem Cables" that never existed. He's over there by himself talking to the ghosts of Nixon and his press secretary right now trying to figure out where they went. I didn't even work up a sweat on that one.

So come on, Doug. Now's your big moment. Now you can "slap me down big time." You can dance away in total victory, having proven that there really, really was a "first break-in." Think of the glory!

So what are you waiting for? Make your case. I'll type with one hand tied behind my back. And I'm not even a lawyer—just a wannabe writer. How can you possibly lose, Doug? It's a sure thing. Right?

Doug? Shall we dance? Let's tango.

I'm calling you out.

Ashton Gray

Whatever Mr. Caddy was or was not, is or is not, he has been kind enough to be here on the Forum and tell what he knows/thinks of real events and real players in Watergate and other events connected and I'd personally hope that persons wouldn't badger him so much as to induce him to leave the Forum. We would be better served if there were more persons actually involved in the events we talk about here - not less!

All right, Mr. Lemkin. I'm going to defer completely to your seniority here, and to your own wisdom on this. I'm posting below the 52 questions I have asked Mr. Caddy in one of the threads I started in the Watergate forum: Who was Douglas Caddy Representing, and When? While many of these questions go, obviously, directly to who Mr. Caddy was representing, and when, several of them also go to a possible, and in my view very likely, hidden links between Mr. Caddy and CIA—which he has steadfastly denied, which denials I understand you to accept at face value.

Accepting, arguendo, your presumptions, I am submitting these questions not to Mr. Caddy, but to you, with the respectful request that you act as an ambassador of good will and good faith; and that you, in your sole discretion, comb through these 52 questions, filtering them for "badgering," halitosis, or any other offensive vestige; and, having bowlderized and disinfected them to your complete satisfaction, that you select any number, however small—out of 52 possibilities—that you think might have enough merit to place on a velvet cushion and 'umbly submit to his personage.

The reason I am submitting this respectful request to you is that these questions have been lying fallow in the field of the Watergate forum now for over two weeks, and Douglas Caddy, central to Watergate, and central to every last one of these 52 questions, has not deigned to answer a single one. Not one.

Now, I realize that we have a resident "Questions Exorcist" in the forum who is a great protector and defender of Mr. Caddy, and who has already attempted an exorcism on these questions in the originating thread, apparently in an effort to justify Mr. Caddy not going anywhere near this demon work. So you also have my permission to sprinkle them with Holy Water, just in case.

Therefore, I 'umbly tender these questions to your charge and trust, with only this one fervent request: that you do not, under any circumstance, desecrate, profane, or contaminate any of these questions, or insult my intelligence beyond reparation, by accepting a no-answer or evasion on any of them, then misrepresenting that as having been an "answer." This includes any form or version of "I already answered this before" worm-outs, because if he had, I wouldn't have asked them. He hasn't. Period.

With that:

This message combines all the questions I asked Douglas Caddy in three separate messages at the beginning of the above captioned thread. The questions arise out of clear contradictions and omissions in the record regarding when and under what circumstances Mr. Caddy purportedly was hired to represent various actors in Watergate.

In the original three messages where these questions reside, I include comparative testimony and accounts on these events from Douglas Caddy, E. Howard Hunt, and G. Gordon Liddy, which clearly demonstrate significant contradictions. I recommend reading those articles for a better understanding of the questions.

Quite a few of the questions below go to those contradictions. There is a fundamental principal at work: when two "facts" are contradictory, one is false, or both are false. Both can't be true. Both might be false. To assume either is true is a fool's game. (We are honored to have a grand master of that game in this thread. He also styles himself as a masterful critic of questions. And where would civilization be today without someone to keep a constant vigilant watch on questions?)

On other important points, the record is silent, and I have asked some questions in an effort to solicit the cooperation of Mr. Caddy, with his unique percipient knowledge, to provide information to fill in those gaps.

QUESTIONS FOR DOUGLAS CADDY SET I

These questions arise from the article containing Douglas Caddy's own statements and accounts of events related to Watergate, in which there are contradictions and incongruous events that seem to have no explanation (such as knowing which aliases the arrested men had given to police, or knowing what Liddy's role had been in order to brief Caddy's law partner).

1. Since the five men were using aliases with the police, and there is no record of Hunt or Liddy having given you the aliases, how did you and Rafferty know what names to look for on the arraignment sheet, and which names to use when making phone calls to find the men?
   
2. How were you able to brief Robert Scott on Liddy's role in the break-in?
   
3. Did you or did you not receive a telephone call from Bernard Barker's wife asking you to represent her husband and the other men? If so, what time was it and where were you when you received the phone call?
   
4. Did E. Howard Hunt tell you at your apartment that Bernard Barker's wife was going to call you?
   
5. If Rafferty was the attorney of record, why were you called before the grand jury as the attorney for the men?
   
6. Was Rafferty called before the grand jury, too? If not, why not?
   
7. Were you in the court on June 17, 1972 as an attorney or only "as an individual"?
   
8. You reportedly told Woodward at the courtroom that the men were not your clients. Was that true or false?
   
9. In your 10:30 a.m. meeting with the five men inside the cell block, did you properly disclose to each of them that you were not a criminal lawyer but a corporate lawyer?
   
10. Since you were not a criminal lawyer, and Rafferty was, why did you stay on the case at all?
    
11. On June 17, 1972, did you subscribe any permanent record, file, pleading, notice of appearance, or any other instrument related to the case for any or all of the men? If so, what?
    
12. At any relevant time, were you acting as an "Attorney in fact" on behalf of E. Howard Hunt and/or G. Gordon Liddy, and if so, did you have an instrument granting you a power of attorney for either of them or both?
    
13. If Rafferty was the attorney of record and was the criminal lawyer on the case, why did he get $2,500 while you got $6,000?
    

QUESTIONS FOR DOUGLAS CADDY SET II

These questions encompass and compare Hunt's account and Mr. Caddy's own accounts and statements, addressing not only contradictions in the various accounts, but also omissions of information that reasonably would be expected to be in the record, without which certain claims, statements, and event simply make little or no sense. As in all cases, I'm not foolish or naive enough to make the rash assumption that either of two conflicting "facts" automatically is true. Nor do I assume that one has to be false. One might be true. If two or more people are lying to cover up the truth, though, obviously all "facts" they present will be false, and the truth remains an unknown. I'm trying to get to the truth.

1. You said in your accounts that two of your law firm's partners were out of town that morning and only one was available: Robert Scott. Hunt says that you told him that one partner was out of town and that you had spoken to two partners on the phone, and that as a consequence you had said to Hunt, "I'll tell you one thing, Howard, my partners [plural] certainly don't like my being involved in this thing." Which of these mutually exclusive accounts, if any, is true?
   
2. Why did you alter the time that Hunt had supplied for his phone call to you when you supposedly "quoted" Hunt at the beginning of your article, "Gay Bashing in Watergate"?
   
3. Did the purported call from Hunt to you come at 2:13 a.m. or at 3:13 a.m. on the morning of June 17, 1972—if at all?
   
4. Since the burglars couldn't have been "caught" unless the first wave of law enforcement had been plain-clothes men in unmarked cars, in your due diligence for your clients, what did you discover concerning this bizarre police response for a reported burglary in progress?
   
5. What section, division, department, or unit of the D.C. police were these plain-clothes first responders part of?
   
6. Did Hunt in fact tell you that you likely would be getting a call from Bernard Barker's wife?
   
7. Did you ever receive such a call—as you told the Washington Post—and if so, where were you and what time was it?
   
8. Hunt's account says not a word about any conversation with G. Gordon Liddy during his entire time at your apartment, and implies very strongly that neither he nor you had any contact at all with Liddy at all the entire time that Hunt was at your apartment, going so far as to say: "Thinking of Liddy, I said [to Douglas Caddy], 'There may be some calls for me tonight, and home is the only place I could be reached.'" You claim contrarily that both you and Hunt spoke to Liddy at some length on the telephone between 4:45 a.m. and 5:00 a.m., during which conversation you claim that Liddy told you that he wanted you to represent him. Which of these contradictory accounts, if any, is true?
   
9. Hunt only claims to have given you aliases used by only two men: Bernard Barker, and another (McCord) who Hunt purportedly only described to you as "another man-who works for CREP." How did you get the aliases that the other men were using in order that you and Rafferty could locate them downtown?
   
10. How were you able to do legal work for John Dean and G. Gordon Liddy beginning in March 1972 without ever encountering, meeting, or knowing of the Chief of Security for CREEP, James McCord?
    
11. Hunt purportedly gave you the name "George Leonard" as the alias being used by McCord. That is the alias that had been used by G. Gordon Liddy at all other relevant times. When doing what you have described as minor legal research for Liddy beginning in March 1972, did you know Liddy as G. Gordon Liddy or as George Leonard? (Note: this question is asked despite Hunt's own self-conflicting accounts of who had which aliases.)
    
12. Referring to your due diligence for your clients, what had Hunt done with the antenna he purportedly had stuffed down his pants leg?
    
13. Referring to your due diligence for your clients, why was there purported "surplus electronic gear" in the temporary "command post" room with Hunt and Liddy?
    
14. Referring to your due diligence for your clients, when did you learn that Hunt had stashed incriminating "surplus electronic gear" in his White House safe, and did you advise him to leave it there?
    
15. Given that you had worked for John Dean beginning in March 1972; given that as an extension of that work did work for Liddy; given that you purportedly had been advised that Liddy was involved; given that Hunt says that Dean was in town at the time, did you contact John Dean that morning, and if not, why not?
    
16. Referring to your due diligence for your clients, isn't it true that all "documentation" for every one of the aliases for every one of the participants had originated at CIA?
    
17. Did you at any time put into the record the origins of the fake I.D.s used by the participants?
    
18. Isn't it true the fake I.D.s supplied by Hunt to certain participants included not one, but two, different I.D.s that CIA had supplied to Hunt (in addition to a separate one that had been supplied by CIA to Liddy)?
    
19. Can you list the exact aliases that the participants had supplied to the police that morning, linking each to the real names?
    
20. Did you wait for Rafferty to come to your apartment, or did you meet Rafferty elsewhere?
    
21. Had you ever seen or met James McCord prior to seeing him in the cell block? If so, when, where, and under what circumstances?
    
22. What became of the tapes from the recording system that had been installed in Hunt's White House office on or about July 9, 1971?
    
23. Had you ever met with Hunt in that office?
    
24. Hunt, in telling you the men had been arrested, claims to have said to you: "You know one of them, Bernie Barker." Is that how it happened?
    
25. Hunt says he never saw you again after he left your apartment. How did you manage to avoid ever encountering him throughout all the subsequent legal actions?
    
26. Exactly when and under what circumstances did you stop representing each of the seven people that you have both claimed, and denied to the press, as having represented?
    

QUESTIONS FOR DOUGLAS CADDY SET III

The questions below arise out of comparisons of all three accounts—Caddy's, Hunt's, and Liddy's. See also questions posed above. While these questions address some inconsitencies and contradictions, they also address omissions in the record related to crucially important issues.

1. Liddy is very specific about the time of a purported call to him from your apartment, Mr. Caddy: 5:00 a.m. He says that he made a point of the time to Hunt. You have said the call took place 15 minutes earlier, around 4:45, and that Hunt left your apartment right around 5:00 a.m., just when Liddy says Hunt was placing a call to Liddy. Hunt mentions nothing about any call at all to Liddy from your apartment, and implies strongly that he wasn't in touch with Liddy at all that morning at your apartment. Did such a call actually take place, and if you say it did, which time is correct?
   
2. Liddy claims that Hunt asked Liddy's permission after 5:00 a.m., on the phone, to give you the $8,500. Hunt claims that he gave you the $8,500 just after arriving at your apartment, which you say happened at 3:35 a.m.—well before either the disputed 4:45 or 5:00 a.m. time of a purported phone call to Liddy. Hunt says nothing about any call at all to Liddy, much less about asking Liddy's permission to give you that fee. Yet according to Liddy's appelate court ruling, you testified that Hunt gave you the money only after talking to Liddy and getting approval. Which, if any, of these contrary accounts is true?
   
3. The appelate court ruling says Hunt called you from room 723 of the Howard Johnson's motel. Hunt says he called you from his White House office. You testified that the call came about a half hour before Hunt arrived at your apartment, which you say happened at 3:35 a.m., placing the phone call at approximately 3:05 a.m. You also say that your apartment was only about a mile away from the Watergate. Where did Hunt call you from, and can you account for why it took Hunt half an hour to get there?
   
4. Why did you allow your clients, the break-in team, to incriminate themselves and each other on additional counts for a purported "first break-in," when there was no physical evidence that could have incriminated them for additional counts, or even have made anybody aware that any purported "first break-in" had occurred at all?
   
5. Did you advise your clients to so incriminate themselves and each other by telling the "first break-in" stories? If so, why?
   
6. Going to your due diligence, did you advise your clients of a sweep by the phone company that had been done just days before they were "caught" inside the Watergate, evidence that would have exculpated them from self-incrimination and mutual incrimination on additional criminal liability for any such "first break-in" and planting of alleged "bugs" that were not present? If not, why not?
   
7. Given that G. Gordon Liddy was your client, and that he personally had destroyed the physical evidence that might, or might not, have incriminated your other clients for any such purported "first break-in," did you advise the "break-in team" that Liddy had destroyed that evidence? If not, why not?
   
8. Did you establish beyond a reasonable doubt, to your own satisfaction, that any purported "first break-in" had taken place at all over Memorial Day weekend? If you did, how did you?
   
9. Did you actually know, at any relevant time, that no such "first break-in" had occurred at all?
   
10. Are you currently participating in a continuing, knowing cover-up of the fact that there was no "first break-in" at the Watergate?
    
11. Do you have any actual proof or physical evidence of the whereabouts and activities of E. Howard Hunt, G. Gordon Liddy, James McCord, and Alfred Baldwin, III over Memorial Day weekend—May 26, 27, and 28 1972?
    
12. Was there a fraud upon the courts, upon Congress, and upon the people of the United States with the knowing intent to deceive regarding a purported "first break-in"?
    
13. If there was such a fraud, given its consequences on the Office of the President—who is Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces—and given its consequences on the Congress—who has war powers—and given that the United States actively was engaged in war at the time, does this rise to USC 18 §2381, Treason? If you know.
    

UPDATE:

Given that the resident Questions Exorcist is an attorney and I am not, and given that he has invoked the Great Gods of Privilege with his mystic incantations on behalf of Mr. Caddy (which he has no standing to do), I am including below several points from my entirely lay understanding of the subject as they may or may not be relevant to all the foregoing, with the express caveat that this doesn't remotely pretend to be legal advice or opinion, but only my own personal opinion from my limited lay knowledge:

• The party seeking the protection of the privilege must be an actual or prospective client. The purported early-morning discussions between Hunt, Liddy, and Caddy therefore invoked no privilege vis a vis the five burglars unless Hunt and/or Liddy already, themselves, were legally established as agents for any or all of them. Even then, see "disclosure to third parties," below.
  
• The communication must be between the client and an attorney acting as counsel for the client.
  
• The communication must be made in confidence, outside the presence of third parties. "Public" communications are not protected. Every question I have asked is pursuant to public communications from Caddy, Hunt, and Liddy.
  
• The purpose of the communication must be to secure or provide an opinion of law or legal assistance. The privilege does not protect the underlying facts, general legal discussions, business or other non-legal advice. Please note that during the afternoon of June 17, 1972, Caddy is on public record saying that the burglars are "not my clients." I'm even trying to ascertain, first, whether that was true or an extraordinary public lie. If it were true, then there is no privilege to claim.
  
• The privilege must be asserted. The privilege does not automatically attach, and it must be claimed at the time of demand by a third party. Pretty much all of the questions I've asked have not been asked before, and no privilege has been asserted for them.
  
• The privilege is easily lost or "waived" by disclosures to third parties. The privilege can be lost by voluntary disclosure. Also, involuntary or accidental disclosure may destroy the privilege. Everything I've asked about is pursuant to exactly such public disclosures.
  
• The privilege does not attach to communications in furtherance of an ongoing or prospective illegal activity. In addition, the privilege does not apply when an attorney defends himself or herself against charges of wrongful conduct. There is ample suggestion in the record, to me, of wrongful and even incompetent conduct, and I'm trying to get those impressions cleared away. I would think Mr. Caddy would be enthusiastically helpful in doing just that.
  

With great anticipation, I remain, yer 'umble servant,

Ashton Gray

While it may be true that Mr. Gray's postings on this forum have no value, literary or otherwise, it is grossly unfair, IMHO, to accuse him of stimulating sexual desire.

With your daft jokes you are beginning to sound like Tim Gratz.

And I'm very disappointed, too. I was hoping the "porn star" smear might stick, at least a little.

Ashton

I leave it to the readers to draw their own conclusions of whether Ashton Gray may actually be Huntley Troth

Heh.

Doug, I have to say I'm a little hurt that you think I could write something as bland, lifeless, stodgy, and plodding as Huntley Troth's excellently researched, but humorlessly turgid, prose.

It just kinda' hurts a little, that's all.

Ashton Gray

Mr. Caddy, I take back any unkind thing I ever might have implied about you in any slightest way. I apologize to the bottom of my soul and soles for any tiniest shadow of doubt I might ever have cast upon you by any means, intentional or unintentional. I laud and praise and sing hosanas to your generous candor (and I promise not to sing out loud, so as not to scare the cat, but you get the general sentiment).

I believe that the entire world owes you an immeasurable debt of gratitude, and I vow to do everything in my power to see that all credit is yours, and I refer to the following open and frank confession you made back in January, one that I have been attempting, with some friends, to fit some way into the Escheresque landscape of Watergate. And then suddenly, the parallaxes aligned, the dimensions shifted, the poles inverted, and where Escher had hung, it was like a Norman Rockwell painting. To wit:

While it is true that I have never worked for the CIA or any intelligence agency, I need to add that I was approached at one time to work for the CIA. This event occurred about three months before Watergate broke open in June 1972. Howard Hunt asked me to join him and a Mr. Huston (I think the name was Larry Huston), who was general counsel for the CIA. Hunt drove me to a restaurant/bar not far from the CIA headquarters where we met Huston.

The purpose of the meeting was to ascertain whether I would be interested in working for the CIA. If I were interested, the CIA wanted me to oversee the building of a luxurious hotel on the coast of Nicaragua. After it was constructed, I would be in charge of the building, which apparently would be used to lure the country's socialist politicians there to get to know more about them.

I told Hunt and Huston that I would think about it but never pursued it any further. Of course, when the Watergate scandal evolved, it became obvious that my role as an attorney in that criminal case precluded me from ever being an asset to the CIA in its operations.

The hotel business must play a key role in the intelligence business.

Indeed it must. Why, just look at Watergate! And, indeed, your life makes Chauncey Gardner's look like "Fun with Dick and Jane." I think you have absolutely no idea how the Fates were toying with you. Let me tell you why:

• Tuesday, 22 February 1972
  G. Gordon Liddy meets with unnamed CIA personnel in connection with CIA "special clearances" he has been granted.
  Thursday, 24 February 1972
  G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt meet with a "retired" CIA doctor, introduced by Hunt to Liddy as "Dr. Edward Gunn," to get briefed by him on various covert means of murder for a possible assassination.
  Circa Saturday, 26 February 1972
  E. Howard Hunt—"retired" from CIA, working for CIA front-company Mullen, and working closely with Liddy as a paid White House consultant—travels to Nicaragua for no known reason. CIA has created a file on Hunt's activities entitled "The Mr. Edward" file. It is maintained "outside the normal CIA filing system." A "bigot list" (the CIA's term for the treatment of especially sensitive cases, restricting access to a limited number of persons) has been created for Hunt's activities.
  Circa Monday, 28 February 1972
  Douglas Caddy begins doing legal work for Presidential counsel John Dean and an unnamed "associate" of Dean, plus legal work for G. Gordon Liddy, who has long-standing "special clearances" from CIA. [NOTE: Much more to come on this in the Watergate forum very soon.]
  Friday, 3 March 1972
  Gary O. Morris, psychiatrist of E. Howard Hunt's wife, Dorothy, vanishes while on vacation on the Caribbean island of St. Lucia. No trace is ever found of the pleasure boat he had left on for a cruise with his wife and a local captain, Mervin Augustin.
  Circa Friday, 10 March 1972
  E. Howard Hunt contacts Douglas Caddy and arranges a meeting with Hunt, Caddy, and CIA general counsel Larry Huston at a restaurant/bar near CIA headquarters. Hunt and Huston want Caddy to do work for the CIA in Nicaragua, purportedly in connection with the building of a luxury hotel.
  

Mr. Caddy, are you able to grasp the majestic moment of this revelation? Are you able to hear the sudden almost cathedral-like hush in the universe? Do you feel the stillness?

I'm sure you've been religiously ignoring the revelations in the Watergate forum, but over there, not only have the wheels come off of the CIA hoax, but all the rivets are rattling out, the boiler plate is crashing off on all sides and down the cliff, there is a terrible shriek of metal-on-metal, black wisps of smoke are all that's left of the so-called "Diem cables," and rats are jumping off of the wreck in droves.

And do you know what you've just done? You've ripped the rails the shuddering wreck was at least still screeching and groaning on completely out of the ground and tied them into a bow. You've just shattered the last shred of cover Hunt ever had. You've just irrevocably tried and convicted him of working directly for and with CIA at the exact crucial point in time where he has invested lie after lie after lie, in autobiography and "sworn" testimony, swearing up and down, and getting other liars to swear up and down, that he was having nothing whatsoever to do with CIA.

Mr. Caddy: do you have any idea what a celebrity you're about to become NOW? I am absolutely awed even being in the same forum with you. I could almost kiss you! (Well, at least a hearty, hearty slap on the back.)

And while I understand completely that you never have been a CIA asset, and stayed far, far away from anything at all having to do with those boys, and had no idea what all these CIA people like Hunt and Liddy and Dean and Bennett were doing standing all around you, can I be so bold as to make just one little suggestion? If you should just happen have anybody in your address book who might have any influence with them on any basis, you might want to get that person to put in a good word for your innocent "Chauncey Gardener" slip of the tongue. I don't know if Langley is going to be quite as thrilled with this revelation as perhaps I am. They might be a little—I don't know—pissy?

Anyway: thank you, thank you, thank you! You have no idea how easy the job is now with this confession. Watergate is solved. It is a slam dunk. It's all over but the official re-opening of the investigation and the sentences. I'm glad to know you won't get dragged into it, and I can't wait for the movie! They won't give you a different name in this one, I can just about guarantee it! You'll be the star!

Ashton Gray

P.S. If you have any creative say, and you can get a small part written in for me, I'd really, really like to be played by Will Smith. Thanks, man.

George Bush directed Dick Cheney to take personal charge of a campaign to discredit former ambassador Joe Wilson. Bush apparently told Fitzgerald this during an interview in the Oval Office on 24th July 2004. Bush also admitted to Fitzgerald that he directed Cheney to disclose classified information to discredit Wilson.

Are there any updates or follow-ups over there, John? (Apparently here in the land of the free we need to appeal to Great Britain, now, to find out what we are doing. Those who will not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.)

Ashton Gray

This message combines all the questions I asked Douglas Caddy in three separate messages at the beginning of this thread. The questions arise out of clear contradictions and omissions in the record regarding when and under what circumstances Mr. Caddy purportedly was hired to represent various actors in Watergate.

In the original three messages where these questions reside, I include comparative testimony and accounts on these events from Douglas Caddy, E. Howard Hunt, and G. Gordon Liddy, which clearly demonstrate significant contradictions. I recommend reading those articles for a better understanding of the questions.

Quite a few of the questions below go to those contradictions. There is a fundamental principal at work: when two "facts" are contradictory, one is false, or both are false. Both can't be true. Both might be false. To assume either is true is a fool's game. (We are honored to have a grand master of that game in this thread. He also styles himself as a masterful critic of questions. And where would civilization be today without someone to keep a constant vigilant watch on questions?)

On other important points, the record is silent, and I have asked some questions in an effort to solicit the cooperation of Mr. Caddy, with his unique percipient knowledge, to provide information to fill in those gaps.

QUESTIONS FOR DOUGLAS CADDY SET I

These questions arise from the article containing Douglas Caddy's own statements and accounts of events related to Watergate, in which there are contradictions and incongruous events that seem to have no explanation (such as knowing which aliases the arrested men had given to police, or knowing what Liddy's role had been in order to brief Caddy's law partner).

1. Since the five men were using aliases with the police, and there is no record of Hunt or Liddy having given you the aliases, how did you and Rafferty know what names to look for on the arraignment sheet, and which names to use when making phone calls to find the men?
   
2. How were you able to brief Robert Scott on Liddy's role in the break-in?
   
3. Did you or did you not receive a telephone call from Bernard Barker's wife asking you to represent her husband and the other men? If so, what time was it and where were you when you received the phone call?
   
4. Did E. Howard Hunt tell you at your apartment that Bernard Barker's wife was going to call you?
   
5. If Rafferty was the attorney of record, why were you called before the grand jury as the attorney for the men?
   
6. Was Rafferty called before the grand jury, too? If not, why not?
   
7. Were you in the court on June 17, 1972 as an attorney or only "as an individual"?
   
8. You reportedly told Woodward at the courtroom that the men were not your clients. Was that true or false?
   
9. In your 10:30 a.m. meeting with the five men inside the cell block, did you properly disclose to each of them that you were not a criminal lawyer but a corporate lawyer?
   
10. Since you were not a criminal lawyer, and Rafferty was, why did you stay on the case at all?
    
11. On June 17, 1972, did you subscribe any permanent record, file, pleading, notice of appearance, or any other instrument related to the case for any or all of the men? If so, what?
    
12. At any relevant time, were you acting as an "Attorney in fact" on behalf of E. Howard Hunt and/or G. Gordon Liddy, and if so, did you have an instrument granting you a power of attorney for either of them or both?
    
13. If Rafferty was the attorney of record and was the criminal lawyer on the case, why did he get $2,500 while you got $6,000?
    

QUESTIONS FOR DOUGLAS CADDY SET II

These questions encompass and compare Hunt's account and Mr. Caddy's own accounts and statements, addressing not only contradictions in the various accounts, but also omissions of information that reasonably would be expected to be in the record, without which certain claims, statements, and event simply make little or no sense. As in all cases, I'm not foolish or naive enough to make the rash assumption that either of two conflicting "facts" automatically is true. Nor do I assume that one has to be false. One might be true. If two or more people are lying to cover up the truth, though, obviously all "facts" they present will be false, and the truth remains an unknown. I'm trying to get to the truth.

1. You said in your accounts that two of your law firm's partners were out of town that morning and only one was available: Robert Scott. Hunt says that you told him that one partner was out of town and that you had spoken to two partners on the phone, and that as a consequence you had said to Hunt, "I'll tell you one thing, Howard, my partners [plural] certainly don't like my being involved in this thing." Which of these mutually exclusive accounts, if any, is true?
   
2. Why did you alter the time that Hunt had supplied for his phone call to you when you supposedly "quoted" Hunt at the beginning of your article, "Gay Bashing in Watergate"?
   
3. Did the purported call from Hunt to you come at 2:13 a.m. or at 3:13 a.m. on the morning of June 17, 1972—if at all?
   
4. Since the burglars couldn't have been "caught" unless the first wave of law enforcement had been plain-clothes men in unmarked cars, in your due diligence for your clients, what did you discover concerning this bizarre police response for a reported burglary in progress?
   
5. What section, division, department, or unit of the D.C. police were these plain-clothes first responders part of?
   
6. Did Hunt in fact tell you that you likely would be getting a call from Bernard Barker's wife?
   
7. Did you ever receive such a call—as you told the Washington Post—and if so, where were you and what time was it?
   
8. Hunt's account says not a word about any conversation with G. Gordon Liddy during his entire time at your apartment, and implies very strongly that neither he nor you had any contact at all with Liddy at all the entire time that Hunt was at your apartment, going so far as to say: "Thinking of Liddy, I said [to Douglas Caddy], 'There may be some calls for me tonight, and home is the only place I could be reached.'" You claim contrarily that both you and Hunt spoke to Liddy at some length on the telephone between 4:45 a.m. and 5:00 a.m., during which conversation you claim that Liddy told you that he wanted you to represent him. Which of these contradictory accounts, if any, is true?
   
9. Hunt only claims to have given you aliases used by only two men: Bernard Barker, and another (McCord) who Hunt purportedly only described to you as "another man-who works for CREP." How did you get the aliases that the other men were using in order that you and Rafferty could locate them downtown?
   
10. How were you able to do legal work for John Dean and G. Gordon Liddy beginning in March 1972 without ever encountering, meeting, or knowing of the Chief of Security for CREEP, James McCord?
    
11. Hunt purportedly gave you the name "George Leonard" as the alias being used by McCord. That is the alias that had been used by G. Gordon Liddy at all other relevant times. When doing what you have described as minor legal research for Liddy beginning in March 1972, did you know Liddy as G. Gordon Liddy or as George Leonard? (Note: this question is asked despite Hunt's own self-conflicting accounts of who had which aliases.)
    
12. Referring to your due diligence for your clients, what had Hunt done with the antenna he purportedly had stuffed down his pants leg?
    
13. Referring to your due diligence for your clients, why was there purported "surplus electronic gear" in the temporary "command post" room with Hunt and Liddy?
    
14. Referring to your due diligence for your clients, when did you learn that Hunt had stashed incriminating "surplus electronic gear" in his White House safe, and did you advise him to leave it there?
    
15. Given that you had worked for John Dean beginning in March 1972; given that as an extension of that work did work for Liddy; given that you purportedly had been advised that Liddy was involved; given that Hunt says that Dean was in town at the time, did you contact John Dean that morning, and if not, why not?
    
16. Referring to your due diligence for your clients, isn't it true that all "documentation" for every one of the aliases for every one of the participants had originated at CIA?
    
17. Did you at any time put into the record the origins of the fake I.D.s used by the participants?
    
18. Isn't it true the fake I.D.s supplied by Hunt to certain participants included not one, but two, different I.D.s that CIA had supplied to Hunt (in addition to a separate one that had been supplied by CIA to Liddy)?
    
19. Can you list the exact aliases that the participants had supplied to the police that morning, linking each to the real names?
    
20. Did you wait for Rafferty to come to your apartment, or did you meet Rafferty elsewhere?
    
21. Had you ever seen or met James McCord prior to seeing him in the cell block? If so, when, where, and under what circumstances?
    
22. What became of the tapes from the recording system that had been installed in Hunt's White House office on or about July 9, 1971?
    
23. Had you ever met with Hunt in that office?
    
24. Hunt, in telling you the men had been arrested, claims to have said to you: "You know one of them, Bernie Barker." Is that how it happened?
    
25. Hunt says he never saw you again after he left your apartment. How did you manage to avoid ever encountering him throughout all the subsequent legal actions?
    
26. Exactly when and under what circumstances did you stop representing each of the seven people that you have both claimed, and denied to the press, as having represented?
    

QUESTIONS FOR DOUGLAS CADDY SET III

The questions below arise out of comparisons of all three accounts—Caddy's, Hunt's, and Liddy's. See also questions posed above. While these questions address some inconsitencies and contradictions, they also address omissions in the record related to crucially important issues.

1. Liddy is very specific about the time of a purported call to him from your apartment, Mr. Caddy: 5:00 a.m. He says that he made a point of the time to Hunt. You have said the call took place 15 minutes earlier, around 4:45, and that Hunt left your apartment right around 5:00 a.m., just when Liddy says Hunt was placing a call to Liddy. Hunt mentions nothing about any call at all to Liddy from your apartment, and implies strongly that he wasn't in touch with Liddy at all that morning at your apartment. Did such a call actually take place, and if you say it did, which time is correct?
   
2. Liddy claims that Hunt asked Liddy's permission after 5:00 a.m., on the phone, to give you the $8,500. Hunt claims that he gave you the $8,500 just after arriving at your apartment, which you say happened at 3:35 a.m.—well before either the disputed 4:45 or 5:00 a.m. time of a purported phone call to Liddy. Hunt says nothing about any call at all to Liddy, much less about asking Liddy's permission to give you that fee. Yet according to Liddy's appelate court ruling, you testified that Hunt gave you the money only after talking to Liddy and getting approval. Which, if any, of these contrary accounts is true?
   
3. The appelate court ruling says Hunt called you from room 723 of the Howard Johnson's motel. Hunt says he called you from his White House office. You testified that the call came about a half hour before Hunt arrived at your apartment, which you say happened at 3:35 a.m., placing the phone call at approximately 3:05 a.m. You also say that your apartment was only about a mile away from the Watergate. Where did Hunt call you from, and can you account for why it took Hunt half an hour to get there?
   
4. Why did you allow your clients, the break-in team, to incriminate themselves and each other on additional counts for a purported "first break-in," when there was no physical evidence that could have incriminated them for additional counts, or even have made anybody aware that any purported "first break-in" had occurred at all?
   
5. Did you advise your clients to so incriminate themselves and each other by telling the "first break-in" stories? If so, why?
   
6. Going to your due diligence, did you advise your clients of a sweep by the phone company that had been done just days before they were "caught" inside the Watergate, evidence that would have exculpated them from self-incrimination and mutual incrimination on additional criminal liability for any such "first break-in" and planting of alleged "bugs" that were not present? If not, why not?
   
7. Given that G. Gordon Liddy was your client, and that he personally had destroyed the physical evidence that might, or might not, have incriminated your other clients for any such purported "first break-in," did you advise the "break-in team" that Liddy had destroyed that evidence? If not, why not?
   
8. Did you establish beyond a reasonable doubt, to your own satisfaction, that any purported "first break-in" had taken place at all over Memorial Day weekend? If you did, how did you?
   
9. Did you actually know, at any relevant time, that no such "first break-in" had occurred at all?
   
10. Are you currently participating in a continuing, knowing cover-up of the fact that there was no "first break-in" at the Watergate?
    
11. Do you have any actual proof or physical evidence of the whereabouts and activities of E. Howard Hunt, G. Gordon Liddy, James McCord, and Alfred Baldwin, III over Memorial Day weekend—May 26, 27, and 28 1972?
    
12. Was there a fraud upon the courts, upon Congress, and upon the people of the United States with the knowing intent to deceive regarding a purported "first break-in"?
    
13. If there was such a fraud, given its consequences on the Office of the President—who is Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces—and given its consequences on the Congress—who has war powers—and given that the United States actively was engaged in war at the time, does this rise to USC 18 §2381, Treason? If you know.
    

Ashton Gray

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, I will have a new topic started in the Watergate forum within 24 hours from the time stamp on this post that addresses this exact issue. It's entitled "Hunt, Dean, Gray and the CIA Bait-and-Switch," and describes in detail the precise bait-and-switch that the CIA already had set up going in that would first direct attention to CIA (which they knew they couldn't avoid, since they were using double agents), then dramatically switch all attention off CIA and fully and permanently onto the White House.

As for Mr. Caddy's statment that he has answered all questions related to his possible involvement with CIA, I would direct forum readers to the topics Douglas Caddy, Hunt, Liddy, Mullen, and the CIA and Who Was Douglas Caddy Representing, and When? for a host of unanswered questions that go pertinently to involvement with and cooperation with CIA interests, "employment" by CIA not withstanding.

I've read everything that Mr. Caddy has written in this forum, and nothing I've seen that he has written answers those many outstanding questions at all.

I write this here with a full understanding of the friction that stands between me and Mr. Caddy, for which I'll take full responsibility. But in the second thread I linked to above, I attempted, in good faith, to address even that:

Despite some allegations that have been made in this forum, I don't ask the questions to hound or needle. I have no personal axe to grind with Mr. Caddy; I don't know him. What I know is what's in the record, and the record is bedlam. The record is at war with itself—which is oddity at high water, since the record is made by people who all purport to tell the same thing. Mr. Caddy is one of the narrators, and is the only one of them participating here who can answer the questions.

If he finds me simply too persona non grata to countenance, then I ask that some other member of the forum step forward and present the obvious and logical questions that arise from the embattled accounts. Who presents the questions is of no relevance at all. To make personalities the issue is to obfuscate the issues.

As for any "tag-teaming" between John and me...

John: if you want to tag-team with me, hire a secretary for me. I can't even get around to doing the dishes, much less conspiring with anybody.

Ashton Gray

Dear Mr. Speer,

Your predictability is exceeded only by your propensity for shooting yourself in the foot.

As expected, you have saved me the trouble of completely, utterly, and finally impeaching the last possible salvation you had to hope for in frantically trying to fan life into the faint few acrid wisps of smoke, all that remained of your fantasy-world "forged Diem cables."

I knew all the way back in this thread when I was demanding that you finish making your case that the Colson "testimony" would be forthcoming from you sooner or later. I kept waiting for it. And when you refused to state whether you had finished making your so-called case or not, I knew exactly how this all would end. And when it ends with utter finality, at the end of this message, there won't even be any wisps of smoke left

And as I also predicted with uncanny accuracy only a few messages back, you cannot, will not, answer the simple question of how many fictional "forged Diem cables" you've been trying to build "a case" for. I'm going to summate why you won't herein.

Therefore, in this finalizing severance letter to you, I hereby summate the contradictions of the constantly lying liars who seeded this seditious myth all over the world, and every last one of the admitted and convicted liars and perjurers you call upon to build your "case" is impeached beyond any salvation. So your entire "case" is built on the quicksand of self-contradictory and mutually-contradictory lies of convicted criminal co-conspirators, and you have sealed the deal with Colson as your new star "witness."

Of course I understand completely that you are here to champion the "honor" and "integrity" and "truth" of statments made (or seemingly made) by such cruds. How could it be otherwise.

For me, I just see them as the pathological liars thay are.

So now, if you'll excuse me, since you've finally dragged in every last scrap you could scrape up to throw at the wall and try to make it stick (and it only took you to page 5 of this thread), I'm going to summate your case for you, and my summation of your case is my final closing argument.

This is my last farewell to you, Mr. Speer, because with this summation, I permanently sever all correspondence with you on any basis. And the same goes now for your teammate, Raymond Carroll.

Good-bye.

===================================

To other readers exclusively, here is a summation of Pat Speer's "case." Although I'll be happy to discuss any of this with anyone besides the Katzenjammer Kidz referenced above, with this message I am done with anything I really have to say on the subject.

I. DID COLSON ORDER CABLES FABRICATED OR NOT?

Career xxxx and convicted criminal E. Howard Hunt's story:

• E. HOWARD HUNT: After a week or so [of going through State Department cables], I reported my findings to Colson, who said, "The full story isn't there, then?"
  "No, but anyone who read the cables as I have could never doubt the complicity of the Kennedy administration in the death of the Vietnamese Premiere."
  ...Colson pursed his lips. "You know and I know that the New Frontier was responsible for those murders."
  I nodded. ...I handed him the two most damaging authentic cables I had been able to locate in State's files. Quickly, Colson reread them, handed them back and said, "See if you can't improve on them."
  

Now convicted criminal and pathological xxxx Charles Colson's story:

• QUESTION: ...You knew that the cables that were manufactured by Hunt at your direction were in fact, fabricated involving the Diem, did you not?
  CHARLES COLSON: [NO ANSWER IS NOTED]
  

This is the sum and total of information on who, if anyone, ordered any forgeries. Career xxxx, blackmailer (according to Pat Speer), and convicted criminal E. Howard Hunt's uncorroborated testimony is the sole foundation for any order ever having been issued to forge any cables at all.

II. THE INFAMOUS LAMBERT OPERATION

First, career xxxx and convicted criminal E. Howard Hunt's claims about Bill Lambert:

• E. HOWARD HUNT: Colson suggested that I show Bill Lambert my entire collection of authentic State Department cables, with particular emphasis on the two fabricated cables I had produced. He [Colson] would notify Lambert that I had something of interest to show him... . Lambert...was not to be permitted to take them from the office for photocopying, as he might be expected to request. Lambert was elated with the cable texts, seeing in them a new scoop of national proportions. . ...I had begun to feel compunctions over my fabrications. Loyal as I was to Colson, I was unwilling to deceive a journalist...and make him innocent party to a deception of international proportions. ...Abandonment of the plan was a souce of relief to me.
  

Now convicted crimnal Charles Colson's completely contradictory testimony, in three self-contradictory parts:

• CHARLES COLSON: Lambert was a reporter who had been dealing with Hunt and I don't know. I never gave him any instructions to get in touch with Mr. Hunt...although I do know that Mr. Lambert tried to reach me with a message from Hunt after he had talked to Hunt, and my secretary, Mrs. Hall, told Lambert, "Forget about it, Colson won't talk to you because he does not want any information from Hunt through you or anyone else."
  CHARLES COLSON: [Contradicting himself on receiving information from Lambert] I can just say this to you, that once I knew he [Hunt] had shown that to Mr. Lambert, I did everything I knew how to get Mr. Lambert off of that story.
  CHARLES COLSON: [Regarding his entire relationship with Hunt, in Memorandum for the File, 20 June 1972] I had assumed throughout Hunt's tenure in the White House that he was charged to someone else's budget. I signed the original request for him to be a consultant because everyone else was in California at the time it was decided to bring him in. Shortly after he came on board, however, he was assigned to David Young and Bud Krogh and I didn't consider at any time after that that Hunt was under my supervision or responsibility. From time to time after Hunt had come on board, he did talk to me, normally to express his frustrations in being unable to get things through the David Young operation. Of course, on occasion also we talked socially and about politics, something Howard and I had done from time to time over the years.
  

Please select which lie above you'd like to build your belief system on for "forged cables" that never existed at all.

III. THE AMAZING CHANGELING "FORGED CABLES"

What E. Howard Hunt claims to have "fabricated" and filed away in his safe:

• E. HOWARD HUNT: I produced texts of two cables that I thought might answer Colson's purposes: One was an apparent query from the Saigon embassy concerning White House policy in the event that Diem and his brother-in-law should request asylum from the American Embassy. The second was a negative response, couched in State's typically Aesopian language. After Colson approved the texts, I began working with typewriters then available in the Executive Office Building and produced, with the aid of a Xerox machine, two cables which might be visually convincing to the reader, though not—as I had warned Colson—invulnerable to technical examination.
  ...The several hundred authentic State Department cables remained in my locked two-drawer safe in my White House office, and the fabricated cables, in their various phases from text draft to completion, were placed in manila files captioned "Fab. I" and "Fab. II." These files, among others, were to be extracted from my safe by John Dean...
  

Now convicted criminal John Dean's account of what he found in Hun't safe that had anything whatsoever to do with any purported "forged cables," which Dean gives the adjective "bogus" while listing in testimony what he claims to have found:

• JOHN DEAN: A bogus cable—that is, other cables spliced together into one cable regarding the involvement of persons in the Kennedy administration in the fall of the Diem regime in Vietnam. ...I subsequently met with Ehrlichman to inform him of the contents of Hunt's safe. I gave him a description of the electronic equipment and told him about the bogus cable...
  

Please note that there is only one "bogus cable" cited by John Dean. Please note that he claims to have told John Ehrlichman about one, and only one, "bogus cable"—in the SINGULAR. Please note that Dean omits any mention of any folders marked "FAB I" and "FAB II." Please note that Dean omits any mention of any second cable at all. Please note that Dean omits any mention of any "text drafts" or any "various phases" of attempted forgery by Hunt, as Hunt claims. Please note, also, that Dean makes absolutely no mention of any stack of "duplicates" of this one "bogus cable." (Stay tuned.) No: Dean says there is ONE and ONLY ONE purported "bogus cable" in evidence. That is the sum and total of his testimony, no matter how much disinformation specialists sitting on this forum try to spin it.

But more than anything please note the following: first, we're supposed to believe that a seasoned reporter from Life magazine was completely snookered by these "forgeries" by Hunt. Then we're supposed to believe that a 20-year veteran of CIA black ops, Lucien Conein, had been completely fooled by Hunt's little forgeries (which Hunt himself had said couldn't stand inspection). Yet now we're supposed to believe that with one brief look, eagle-eyed John Dean immediately knew he was looking at a "bogus cable." Bam! Thank you, ma'am. You figure it out.

Now comes admitted xxxx L. Patrick Gray with his own cock-and-bull story about what John Dean supposedly passed to him in two sealed envelopes (or one envelope, which is contested in testimony, too):

• L. PATRICK GRAY: To this point, I had not read or examined the files. But immediately before putting them in the fire, I opened one of the files. It contained what appeared to be copies of Top Secret State Department cablegrams. I read the first cable. I do not recall the exact language, but the text of the cable implicated officials of the Kennedy administration in the assassination of President Diem of South Viet Nam.
  I had no reason then to doubt the authenticity of the cable, and was shaken at what I read. I thumbed through the other cables in this file. They appeared to be duplicates of the first cable.
  

And that is the full sum and total of L. Patrick Gray's testimony on any purported "forged" or "bogus" or "fabricated" cable—SINGULAR—no matter how many different adjectives are attached to the non-existent fictions to create further confusion. Please note that, unlike Dean, L. Patrick Gray "had no reason then to doubt the authenticity of the cable." Yet, supposedly, this is the exact same "cable" that Dean had spotted as being "bogus" in an instant. Please note also that Gray omits any mention of any folders marked "FAB I" and "FAB II." Please note that Gray omits any mention of any second cable at all. Please note that Gray omits any mention of any "text drafts" or any "various phases" of attempted forgery by Hunt, as Hunt claims were in the now-missing folders he had made. No: Gray says that there is ONE and ONLY ONE purported cable, and now, somehow, magically, purported "duplicates of the first cable" have appeared in this envelope. The "forged cables" apparently are capable of asexual reproduction, and have been engaged in a self-orgy of same while sitting under L. Patrick Gray's shirts in his closet.

So pick whichever set of lies suits you so you, too, can believe in the corporeal existence of the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, and E. Howard Hunt's "forged bogus fabricated" (you betcha') cables.

They were fabricated all right: out of whole cloth fiction. Hunt even puts that right in your face, over and over again, a favorite part of his serpentine modus operandi.

And now for Mr. Speer's big closer: What did proven xxxx and convicted criminal Charles Colson claim to have seen?

You've just read Pat Speer's presentation. Do you know? Can you say with any certainty? Well, if you didn't notice, Speer altered Colson's testimony. I noticed. Maybe he thought it would slide by. Not a chance. Here's what Colson actually said about having ever seen these purported "cables," and I'd advise you to read the following more carefully than anything you have read in your life:

• QUESTION: Well, he showed them to you, whether they were at your direction, and let's assume they were not, you saw the cables and you knew that they were fabricated, did you not?
  CHARLES COLSON: I saw— I was aware of— I don't know that I actually physically saw one cable that was—
  QUESTION: Did you know it was fabricated?
  COLSON Yes, sir. I did.
  QUESTION: Did you tell him not to publish that cable or not to use it or destroy it?
  COLSON: Yes, sir. I certainly didn't tell him to destroy it—
  

Had you noticed that Mr. Speer had put a period at the end of the non-sentence, "I was aware of", attempting to make it look like it was an affirmative statement, instead of the faltering, noncommital false start it actually was? Did it sound like sort of a funny "answer" when you read Mr. Speer's fudged version? That's because it was. I'll leave you to judge Mr. Speer's motives for his subtle alteration of testimony.

Meanwhile, what did Colson actually say? Did he actually ever say he saw any forged cables at all? No, he did not—despite Mr. Speer exactly emulating Hunt's purported "improvements" on records—making real life, right here in this forum, follow the very fiction Speer is here trying to sell as "fact."

You can ask Mr. Speer why he did that if you want. I won't be bothering.

Colson only evaded, and got a "one cable" mention in to muddy the waters on the number again, and suddenly now we're supposedly talking about only one cable, but Colson didn't even admit having seen one! What he did do, quite artfully, was get the questioner jerked around in that direction. And then he respond affirmatively only to a question of knowing "it" was fabricated. And "fabricated" means very simply: "To concoct in order to deceive." And, to paraphrase one of our other great, wonderful, lying presidents, "What does 'it' mean?" It means anything you want "it" to mean. And why does Colson assert that he "certainly didn't tell him [Hunt] to destroy it"? Because Colson knew damned well at all relevant times that there was nothing to destroy. "It" was all a fabrication, and never anything but. And Colson knew it. And he answered accordingly

IV: ASHES TO ASHES, DUST TO DUST: THE GREAT BON FIRE OF NOTHING

There is only one of these lying cruds we can even call on to tell us that, and how, a "cable" that never existed, and its "duplicates," supposedly got burned, in order to ensure that it was totally guaranteed that no one ever could have any form of knowledge about any supposed such "fabrication" except by listening to a pack of known liars and criminals. The only source for this part of the fiction is L. Patrick Gray. So there's nothing to do but throw all three of his conflicting stories at you, and, in the immortal words of Senator Sam Ervin, "let somebody else interpret it."

• TIME MAGAZINE: [A]t a meeting in Ehrlichman's office on June 28 [1972], Dean had handed the folders to Gray with the remark: "These papers should never see the light of day."
  Even though his own agents at the time were searching for Hunt to quiz him about Watergate, Gray obediently took these files home, put them in a closet over the weekend, then carried them to his office and discarded them in a "burn bag" to be destroyed. Although some other FBI officials do not believe him, Gray claimed he did not even look at the papers to see what he was burning.
  

And now L. Patrick Gray's other lie (or two or three):

• SENATOR TALMADGE: One or two final things; I think my time's about expired, Captain. I believe you made a denial to someone that you burned the papers last Christmas, during the Christmas celebration, during that period in Connecticut. Who did you to?
  L. PATRICK GRAY: To Assistant Attorney General Henry Peterson on April 16th of this year [1973] in my office.
  SENATOR TALMADGE: And did you make any other denial that was a fabrication or falsehood?
  L. PATRICK GRAY: [Long pause] Well, I didn't tell the whole story, the correct story, to Senator Weicker. I testified to that yesterday, that, uh—
  SENATOR TALMADGE: You failed to volunteer it at that time, or did you tell an outright falsehood?
  L. PATRICK GRAY: To Senator Weicker?
  SENATOR TALMADGE: Yes.
  L. PATRICK GRAY: I told him an outright falsehood. I said that I burned those papers on the 3rd day of July in the wastebasket in my office at FBI, and it was not true. I didn't tell him the truth.
  SENATOR TALMADGE: All right, that's twice, now, Captain, that you yourself have admitted that you told a falsehood.
  

And finally, the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth—naturally—from the admitted criminal xxxx about the envelopes of purported "Hunt safe" partial contents:

• L. PATRICK GRAY: I distinctly recall that I burned them during Christmas week with the Christmas and household paper trash that had accumulated immediately following Christmas. To this point I had not read or examined the files. But immediately before putting them in the fire I opened one of the files. It contained what appeared to be copies of "Top Secret" state department cablegrams. I read the first cable. I do not recall the exact language but the text of the cable implicated officials of the Kennedy Administration in the assassination of President Diem of South Vietnam.
  

What could I possibly add to do more damage to such a fount of pure sewage?

V. SUMMATION

As I tried to point out in my first series of posts on this package of lies and fiction, the most glaring, insane omission in a sea of insanity is that not a single one of these cretins ever says who in the Kennedy administration Hunt supposedly had framed for these murders. At least two of the liars, Dean and Gray, say Hunt had pinned it on anonymous "officials" or "persons" in the Kennedy admnistration, but they just never get around to naming any names. Why? Because it wasn't in the script of their hoax. Only the name "Kennedy" could be in the script of their hoax. Kennedy was dead as a hammer. They could get away with it. And they did.

And now, I'm done with my summation of Mr. Speer's "case," except to say the following, no matter how it's taken, no matter what you, the reader, thinks of me, personally. I simply don't care:

If, after all of this information has been presented to you, you want to subscribe to and embrace the mythological religion of "forged Diem cables," I think you fully deserve to have it, to cling to it, to proselytize for it, to spread it everywhere you can, no matter how much vicious damage it does, or has done, to anybody.

I realize fully that my entire presentation is not unlike walking into church on Easter Sunday, banging a gong, and saying loudly: "Hate to break up the party, but they found the body."

And if you think I'm rude, or obstreperous, or crude, or uncivilized, impolite in my presentation of a massive fraud perpetrated on the world for over thirty years, tough. I didn't enter a popularity contest. And, frankly, my entire handling has been with kindly kid gloves when weighed against the crime.

And while I really couldn't care less about what anyone thinks of me, personally, for what I am doing and have tried to do here, at significant personal cost, even at the neglect of my own career and family, I will ask you to exhibit the decency to pause and ask yourself this:

What possible vested interest could I have? What is my personal gain in trying to put this into your view, and tell you that you have been the victim of a fraud and a hoax and felony crimes on the United States and its people and its government for over three decades? What does it win me?

As with most people who post here, I'm not writing a book. I have no subsidy for this. I have no support or funding or help at all, except for like-minded friends and family members who care enough, and are honest enough, and decent enough, to sacrifice their own time and contributions for the sole purpose of getting the truth known.

It's worse even than that: there's not even any joy or satisfaction in any of this for me. None. It is more a source of sadness. At every relevant moment I've been painfully aware of the number of lives that all of this has affected, and continues to affect, and will continue to affect. I'm vividly aware of how many fundamentally decent and responsible people have passed this fraud on, forwarded it, built careers and reputations at least partially on writing books about it, or giving lectures on it, or teaching it in educational institutions, believing, without sufficient inspection, that it all was true—even though there is no other single source for any of it except criminals and proven liars.

So there is no slightest joy in this. None. There is not even that reward for the work, the research, the writing. The only reward is the sense of having done my best to do an honest and thorough job, and to have made the information available, no matter how flawed my form, tone, demeanor or presentation. The facts are there for all to see. That's what I care about. That's all I care about.

So what possible vested interest could there be for me? There is not a scrap. This is simple relevant fact, relevant because it addresses my own motives, which you should have in front of you before weighing any of this.

And in weighing it, you might, or might not, care to notice the amount of effort and time expended by two others here in this thread—one of whom I have on record as admitting that they are working in tandem—both doing anything and everything they can to smear and demean me, and to ridcule my exposure of this decades-old fraud, while pouring post after post after post into this thread trying to sell you the same old snake oil.

Their only possible purpose for such industry is to make you continue to believe in the fraud. Why they would want you to, you'll have to ask them. I hope you do.

It's the fraud that's on trial. It isn't me, however much the twin hucksters try to put me on trial. They can't. The record is the record. The record is on trial. The source of the evidence is not Ashton Gray. The source of the evidence is the record. They cannot smear the record (except by subtle alteration), so they try to convince you that the information is Ashton Gray's, then try to smear Ashton Gray.

Ashton Gray doesn't matter. At all. What matters is the truth. What matters is the exposure of lies and of the criminal fraud.

What matters is justice.

You have the information now. With that, I've done everything that I, personally, can do. What you do with it now is your responsibility, and it is yours alone.

Ashton Gray

Hello, Mr. Dunne, and thank you for your genuine interest. I'll very briefly address your sage sermon first, than get on to the things of substance and relevance you appropriately raise:

Gentlemen, I do wish you'd resist the temptation to gutter-brawl with each other, and I'm sure I'm not alone in that wish. Clearly, you disagree about both certain key facts and the interpretations one might infer from them. That's fine, and much is allowable in the cut and thrust of spirited debate. Reasonable people can disagree without becoming disagreeable. You both have valid insights to offer, and I would encourage you to do so in a less combative manner. [End of sermon.]

I deal in good faith with and have the highest respect for people who demonstrate good faith, however much we might disagree. As the record shows, I tried for some time to deal in good faith with Mr. Speer, and he persisted so thoroughly in the most seditious twisting of my statements, and in sabatoging threads, and in the most wholesale and disengenuous attempts to smear me as an individual (while avoiding all mention of relevant facts), that I abandoned any hope of rational discussion with him and stated my intention simply to ignore him completely and not contribute to his vandalism of information.

As I've documented in this thread, though, he had said he was going to "slap me down big time" on the Diem cables issue, and I called his bluff, saying I would debate the case, so on this one issue alone I have responded, and I am still responding to his continuing underhanded tactics, which have not abated. I am here for rational and ordered discussion. At the same time, I won't be a doormat for his abuse, and I'll give as I get.

Meanwhile, he still hasn't even answered the seminal and primary question of how many purported "forged cables" he claims to be making a case for. Given the contradictions of testimony on that count (no pun intended) alone, it's impossible to take the discussion any further with him until he makes up his mind what he's talking about at all.

Now to several very pertinent issues and questions you raise:

We know that certain contents of Hunt's safe were turned over to the FBI, while other items seem to have been sequestered from the FBI, the purported cable among them.

As I mentioned briefly in this thread, I'm preparing (and am almost finished with) an article that deals with the events of 19 June 1972—the day that Hunt's safe was opened by Dean using GSA staff to drill it open—and the subsequent events leading to Dean's handing over two envelopes (or one envelope—also disputed) to L. Patrick Gray.

If you think the number of bizarre points raised so far surrounding Hunt's safe—and the relationship between Dean and Gray regarding same—are enough for a new Lewis Carroll book (there's something to be said for the Carroll name), you'll need a wheelbarrow for what's about to come.

I'm not going to try to lay it out here, because there is far too much information, but it is goes directly to several of the issues that you raise in relation to Gray and Dean. I hope you'll understand that this isn't an evasion of what you're asking, but an expansion on it that transcends the question of the purported "forged cables" alone, and so goes off-topic for this thread. Please bear with me until I get that article posted, and I'd love to explore some of these areas more in that topic.

And yet the official history informs that the same persons who sequestered the forged cable from the FBI then provided them to its head.

Yes. That alone is prima facie evidence of Dean's foreknowledge that the titular acting head of the FBI would never allow the contents of the envelopes—no matter what they were or were not—to be entered into the Watergate investigation. That single datum is enough to knock a normal human being unconscious.

Allow me to complicate it further for you. L. Patrick Gray, in his sworn testimony, pleaded like a puppy for understanding that he "was only following orders." That isn't complicated enough, though: these were orders that he says he never actually received, but orders, nonetheless, which came to him through ethereal means (an exact parallel to Liddy's claims of orders-by-telepathy), to wit:

• L. PATRICK GRAY: It is true that neither Mr. Ehrlichman or Mr. Dean expressly instructed me to destroy the files. But there was, and is, no doubt in my mind that destruction was intended. Neither Mr. Dean or Mr. Ehrlichman said or implied that I was being given the documents personally merely to safeguard against leaks. As I believe each of them has testified before this committee, the White House regarded the FBI as a source of leaks. The clear implication of the substance and tone of their remarks was that these two files were to be destroyed, and I interpreted this to be an order from the counsel to the President of the United States issued in the presence of one of the two top assistants to the President of the United States.
  

He revisits this wormholing in his further testimony, but there's only so much I can take at a time.

However, compare the following from Gray's later testimony in the same session, where he has been recorded in a phone call to Ehrlichman. There is no way to shorten this excerpt and have it be understood in contrast to the above, and please note where I have put several words in italics in an effort to indicate the vehemence with which Gray says these words in his testimony:

• SENATOR ERVIN: Now, you were very much concerned that it might come out in the Judiciary Committee hearings that the contents of Hunt's safe were delivered— Part of them were delivered at one time to agents of the FBI other than yourself, and that these two documents—rather these two envelopes—were delivered to you, yourself, at another time.
  PATRICK GRAY: I don't know that I was concerned. The message—if you're referring to that [Ehrlichman] telephone call—the message that I was giving him then, in that March the 6th [1973] telephone call, did not have to do with the contents of Hunt's—
  SENATOR ERVIN: I'm asking about the next one. In other words, it says, "Another thing—" Now, this is you, talking to Ehrlichman: "Another thing I want to talk to you about is that I'm being pushed awfully hard in certain areas, and I'm not giving an inch. And you know those areas. And I think you've got to tell John Wesley"—a good Methodist name that his parents gave John Dean—"to stand awful tight in the saddle, and be very careful about what he says, and to be absolutely certain that he knows his own mind, that he delivered everything he had to the FBI, and don't make any distinction between, but that he delivered everything he had to the FBI." Now, that was, in effect, to ask John Ehrlichman to tell John Dean, in case he testified before the Judiciary Committee, that he would say that everything was delivered to the FBI at one time.
  PATRICK GRAY: Well, Senator Ervin, what I was telling Mr. Ehrlichman there was told to him on the evening of March the 6th [1973], because— It's not March the 7th or 8th because that is the day on which we received the letter from the ACLU, and what I was— I can pin it down with that, because the language of mine is right there with reference to the letter that was delivered on that day, and that call was in the evening of March the 6th.
  SENATOR ERVIN: Well, but—
  PATRICK GRAY: And the areas—Mr. Chairman, if I may—the areas that I was being pushed awfully hard in were the fact that I had given to Mr. Dean reports of FBI interviews, and had permitted Mr. Dean to sit in on FBI interviews.
  SENATOR ERVIN: Well, the interpretation that I place on this is that you were calling John Ehrlichman— that you were asking John Ehrlichman to tell John Wesley Dean to be careful what he said, and always— to say that all these things that came out, all the contents of Hunt's safe, were delivered to FBI agents at one time instead of some of them being delivered to the agents, and the other being delivered to the Director. Acting Director.
  PATRICK GRAY: That's correct, and I— The message, Mr. Chairman, let me say that the message that I gave to Mr. Ehrlichman was to tell John Dean to shut up! But was not, certainly, a message to tell him that if asked under oath, that he could not testify, because I had previously spoken to John Dean, and on this very subject, and had asked him if he had told Henry Peterson everything about those same very files that he had told me.
  SENATOR ERVIN: Well, John Ehrlichman said, "Right," in reply to your statement.
  PATRICK GRAY: And I don't know what that means, sir.
  SENATOR ERVIN: Well, you were asking to tell John Dean to say that all of the contents of the safe were delivered to the FBI at one time instead of part of them being delivered to the agents and others being delivered to you.
  PATRICK GRAY: I was telling John Ehrlichman to tell John Dean to shut up unless he told the real facts of it. No question about that.
  SENATOR ERVIN: And the next— top of the next page it says, "And he—" "And he"—that is Dean—"delivered it to those agents. This is absolutely imperative."
  PATRICK GRAY: That is— That is correct. I told him that to distinguish between the Watergate evidence and the non-Watergate evidence as they told me.
  SENATOR ERVIN: And Ehrlichman says, "All right." And this same—of this bugging that John Ehrlichman did—shows that he called Dean. And he told Dean that you had called him, and that you had said for him, Ehrlichman, to make sure that old John W. Dean stays very firm and steady on the story that he delivered every document to the FBI, and that he doesn't start making nice distinctions between agents and Directors.
  PATRICK GRAY: Yes, sir, I did.
  SENATOR ERVIN: And then Ehrlichman asked Dean why— Rather Ehrlichman asks Dean, says, "Why did he call me?" That is why did you call him. "To cover his tracks?" And Dean says, "Yeah, sure. I laid this on him yesterday." Ehrlichman: "Oh, I see. Okay." Now, as a matter of fact, isn't the interpretation of that transaction that you called Ehrlichman and asked him to see that Dean said, whenever he talked, that all— That you— That all of the contents of Hunt's safe had been delivered to the FBI at one time, to the agents, rather than part to the agents and part to the Director?
  PATRICK GRAY: I think you've got to put that in the proper context, Mr. Chairman. I had just had a call the day before [March 5, 1972] with John Dean regarding this, and what— in which I went into a chapter-and-verse with him, because he had told Henry Peterson of the delivery of these two files to me. And I had asked John Dean, "If you, John, have told Henry everything you told me about those files—that they were non-Watergate evidence, non-Watergate related, should clearly not be allowed to see the light of day, were political dynamite." So this has got to be put in that proper context. But there's no question about it that in that telephone call I was saying to John Ehrlichman to tell John Dean to shut up! Because he was making nice distinctions there that those two did not make with me at all. My assumption was that they had delivered all of the Watergate evidence that was in Mr. Hunt's files to the agents.
  SENATOR ERVIN: It seems to me this is a much— is a very simple proposition. Isn't this it in essence: that you asked John Ehrlichman to see that Hunt [sic] refrained from telling the truth about— That Dean refrained from telling the truth about this, and tell, on the contrary, that all of it was delivered to the FBI at one time. And John Ehrlichman agreed to do that and to call Dean, and repeat your request to him.
  PATRICK GRAY: Certainly that was not my understanding of the call. They can't tell me one thing, Mr. Chairman, you know, and then tell another thing. I certainly told—I don't make any bones about it—I told John Ehrlichman to tell John Dean to shut up.
  SENATOR ERVIN: Yes. Well, isn't—
  PATRICK GRAY: But just— Just the day before, I had told John—
  SENATOR ERVIN: Mr. Gray, isn't— Isn't the interpretation to be placed on this is that you were asking Ehrlichman to tell John Dean not to tell the truth about how these documents, some of them got to you, and some of them to the agents of the FBI?
  PATRICK GRAY: No, sir. Because—
  SENATOR ERVIN: Well, I don't believe I'll question it further. Just let the record show that the two tapes of John Ehrlichman—the recording, I believe, instead of "the bugging," the recording—the two recordings of John Ehrlichman of his conversations with the witness be put into the record at this point, and let somebody else interpret it.
  

I don't know what to say. On the one hand, Mr. Gray claims to have received telepathic orders and acted on them because Dean and Ehrlichman were such august, vaunted representatives of "the President," then on the other hand he calls Ehrlichman and starts issuing orders to him and Dean for Dean to shut up.

This reply has gone quite long, and if you can bear with me until I can get the other article posted, I think that it will at least shed new light on, if failing to answer, some of your other very interesting questions regarding the Dean/Gray relationship, and not only in relation to the contents of Hunt's safe.

How does one begin to explain this self-immolation by Gray?

To me, there's every indication that the immolation was preordained, and, as with every one of the actors, they merely threw themselves into the fires of the phoenix.

While I don't posit such a "massive conspiracy," necessarily, this single act of giving unbidden testimony, against his own self-interest, surely must rank as one of the most mysterious performances among the principals in the Watergate affair.

It is only not mysterious when viewed as just that: a performance, and one meticulously timed. In fact, it absolutely had to come during his confirmation hearings.

This opened the whole can of worms that led to Gray's confession he had destroyed evidence at the White House's command, and his immediate resignation.

If his only role and purpose was to control and steer the Watergate investigation in tandem with Dean, including the "destroy Hunt evidence" hoax, then step off the stage, at least two essential elements would be required:

1. The appearance of having been acting on White House orders in destroying purported evidence, and,
   
2. The appearance of conflict with Dean.
   

I find an almost infinite fascination in the divine timing of Ehrlichman's sudden impulse to record a phone call. It ranks for divine guidance perhaps second only to Colson's inspired impulse to record a phone call with Hunt on the same day that Richard Helms was back-channeling a glowing endorsement of Hunt for White House employment. (Would God please pick up the white courtesy phone?)

Was Gray stupid?

Well, yes. But not in any conventional way.

What do you make of this strange behaviour?

That just as in the Case of the Fiction of the "First Break-In", the admitted co-conspirators gave "confessions" that were complete lies, which lies, upon actual inspection and comparison, crumble to dust.

I'll have the other article posted as soon as possible.

Ashton Gray

Ashton, you scare me.

Boo.

You make this grand statement that you've proved the cables did not exist when nothing could be further from the truth.

"Cables"? Dean said it was one forged cable. Gray said it was just one forged cable. Hunt said it was two forged cables, each in separate folders marked "Fab I" and "Fab II."

Which lie are you trying to make a case for? Don't waste another second of my time with your fevered ravings until you can at least settle on which malicious fiction you're trying to shove down people's throats.

Which is it? Do you claim there were two forged cables, or do you claim there was only one?

(Aside to sane readers: Mr. Speer is completely incapable of answering this simple and most rational question. He will not answer it. He will post another long, barking mad filibuster in the process of trying to re-wallpaper his fool's paradise with fictional forged cables of uncertain number, never noticing that the walls are gone. This is his modus operandi in the face of incontrovertible facts, and he can no more escape it than a mangy dog can escape his mangy skin. Let's watch and see. )

Well, Mr. Speer? Exactly how many forged cables do you claim existed?

Ashton Gray

Yes, E. Howard Hunt had been asked - I'm not sure by whom, probably Chuck Colson...

Hi David. I think that with the pregnant phrase, "I'm not sure," you've concisely encapsulated the dense smoke cloud that surrounds claims of the existence of these entirely fictional "fabricated" or "forged" cables (or, by two accounts, "cable," since the perps can't even get their stories straight about how many supposedly existed). This question of the source of the purported "ordering" of forgeries would seem to be a rather crucial point to be "not sure" about, particularly by someone cited as something of an authority.

I can tell you that you're in good company, because nobody in the world is "sure about" it. This primarily is because it didn't occur at all.

I've invested a good deal of time and research on a three-part article (beginning at the next-to-last message on page 2 of this thread) that proves this beyond reasonable doubt. If you would be kind enough to invest a few minutes in reading my three-part article, and then, if you can, cite any corroboration at all for CIA operative E. Howard Hunt's sole claim that he ever was "ordered" to produce any such forgeries, I'd be vitally interested in seeing it. So far, none is in the record. Colson has never admitted to issuing any such order. Hunt, alone, claims that there was any such order at all. It is an entirely uncorroborated fabrication about an order for fabrication.

- to fabricate cables directly linking JFK to Diem's assassination, and he did so.

Do you have any evidence to support the assertion that "he did so"?

As I think you'll learn beyond question in reading my article and the follow-ups in this thread, Hunt did not ever create any forged cables at all. They are a whole-cloth fiction. Only three people in all of existence ever claimed to have seen such "forgeries"—E. Howard Hunt, John Dean, and L. Patrick Gray—and they not only disagree on the number of such alleged "forgeries," they disagree entirely on their form and substance. This is thoroughly covered with their testimony in my article.

L Patrick Gray testified about reading, and then destroying, one of them after John Dean gave him the documents in Hunt's safe. That is the main episode I remember.

Yes, but as I have proved conclusively in this thread, Hunt asserts that he produced two forged cables, and that both were necessary to the alleged deception, and even then only in context of authentic cables. Dean and Gray claimed there was only one such forgery, Gray going so far as to say, in his lunatic attempt to tell his part of the fiction, that Hunt had been able to write a magic "single cable" that all by itself completely indicted the Kennedy administration for two political assassinations.

L. Patrick Gray is an amoral xxxx who—with the able assistance of another xxxx, Lowell Weicker—gave three completely different and contradictory accounts of his purported handling and later "destruction" of evidence, which "evidence" clearly never existed at all. Dean's description of the purported forgery not only contradicted Gray's, it hopelessly contradicted Hunt's.

In short, there are only three people in all of history and existence who ever claimed to have seen these no-see-um "forgeries." You have named those exact three people: E. Howard Hunt, L. Patrick Gray, and John Dean.

In short, these are three liars attempting to tell the same lie, and even that attempt is such a train wreck of contradictions that there aren't even any pieces to pick up. There's just the lingering cloud of smoke.

While I appreciate greatly your participation in this, and would highly value any actual evidence you have that contradicts what I've proven in this thread and stated concisely above, so far you've merely stated "The Official Story," which story comes only from three admitted and proven liars.

Anything of actual substance would be welcomed. As for continued restatements of the fiction as though it were "fact," I think the world has had enough of that nearly to choke the life out of it.

Ashton Gray

So everything bad that was done by Nixon was either-set up or brought into action by a HUGE conspiracy

It was the exact size of conspiracy that you already stipulate to. It was the exact same personnel who have already confessed to or been found guilty of conspiring: Liddy, Hunt, McCord, Baldwin, Dean, Gray, Colson, Young. Yeah, Pat: the same ones you have no choice but to agree were co-conpirators.

Same conspirators as in the conspiracy theory you try to peddle. You call that "HUGE"? You saying you try to peddle a "HUGE" conspiracy? It's your conspiracy theory, so if you want to call it "HUGE," go ahead.

To me, it's not even a decent sized platoon. How big was the CIA's Bay of Pigs operation?

And WHY was it exactly that they all conspired against poor Richard Nixon in such a self-sacrificial manner?

You know, I don't really feel any obligation at all to explain the insane acts of criminals. Why don't you kick your heels and hold your breath trying to make me.

Meanwhile, it's already a matter of inarguable record that they did conspire. I don't think even you would be stupid enough to try to argue that. (But, then...)

It was just a different conspiracy than the one they've already admitted to or been convicted of. Same crew. Bigger crimes. Ones without statutes of limitations.

William Lambert of Life Magazine

Only E. Howard Hunt says William Lambert ever saw any "forged cables." Hunt is impeached. Hunt is a xxxx. Hunt is a professional xxxx. Hunt is a really bad xxxx.

Ashton, if the cables never existed, why did Ehrlichman testify he discussed them with Dean and saw Dean give them to Gray?

Now you're lying. You heard me: you're lying. So now we've got you on record telling a flat-out lie, too. The testimony is that Ehrlichman saw Dean give TWO SEALED ENVELOPES to L. Patrick Gray, not any forged cables. And you could only have been talking about the purported "forged cables" when you ambiguously said "cables" above, because Dean didn't give the authentic cables to Gray. So now you're just making up your own malicious fictions to prop up the malicious fiction of the "forged cables."

You seem to have about the same level of integrity as the worms you're trying to be an apologist for. But then, how could it be any other way?

You are a real piece of work, boy.

why did NIXON TELL EHRLICHMAN he remembered them showing the cables to Life Magazine?

Cables aren't forged cables. Cables are cables. Nixon had ordered the authentic cables be researched to see what could be found. Nixon had been told the same thing Hunt said he told Colson in his book:

• E. HOWARD HUNT: "[A]nyone who read the cables as I have could never doubt the complicity of the Kennedy Administration in the death of the Vietnamese Premier."
  
  

That's reference to the AUTHENTIC cables only. That's what had been told to Nixon. That's the reason Nixon was told the cables were going to be shown to the press. And of course nothing ever came of it at all. No article. Nothing.

And that's exactly what you got: nothing. That's why you're making up lies now in long-winded spin sessions that don't mean crap. Just yap, yap, yap, yap, yap, yap, yap. Fill the vacuum. Fill the vacuum. Fill the vacuum. My own personal little ankle-biter.

That's why I'm not answering you right now for your sake: I already know exactly what you're doing. I'm just trying to help others keep from getting sucked into your vortex of spin, and now even knowing, willful lies.

Not that it isn't totally see-through right now for exactly what it is.

Reviewing the second part, "The Death of Diem," for the New York Times, Neil Sheehan remarked particularly on Conein's interview, saying that Conein "leaves the viewer with little doubt about the United States' implication in Diem's death."

And as I've already proven, Conein said not one syllable that would support the existence of any "forged cables," and Hunt is already on record saying someone could come to the same conclusion without any forged cables.

And of course Conein is a CIA water-carrier, and Conein and Hunt go all the way back to 1943, OSS training on Catalina Island, and would wipe each others rear ends, anyway.

You got nothing.

But I was simply praying you'd jump in here and spew out that the Conein TV op got promoted by the CIA whore Neil Sheehan, who Conein and Landsdale had hooked up with Ellsberg, and who did their Pentagon Papers scam for them.

You're so predictable.

You're a real piece of work.

Go tell your handlers that they aren't going to get any of this KY Jelly back into the tube.

Then come back here and flail some more. Make up some more lies. I'm enjoying watching you twitch.

Ashton Gray

I have never seen Pat so silent. I can only assume he's preparing his rebuttal.

I sure hope he has a damn good one.

If not, I guess these words of his earlier in this thread are going to be haunting him for quite a long time to come:

If the cables did not exist, it means that everything we were told by Dean, Hunt, and Gray about the cables was some sort of set-up, by either the Democrats, the CIA, or both.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Ashton Gray

I see! Since the frames thereafter are not clear, we can deduce that JFK was shot here!

Certainly highly rational reasoning--------at least in Alice & Wonderland.

His left hand is clenched and moving upwards, indications of involuntary reaction possibly already setting in. Hookah.

Ashton Gray

Of course these documents did involve Watergate. We have to ask what was the motivation of Nixon’s aides to destroy documents that implicated John and Robert Kennedy in assassinations of foreign leaders, etc.? Was it not in their interest to expose the illegal behaviour of the Kennedys? This would have hurt the Democrats and Edward Kennedy, and would have helped them win the 1972 presidential election. Yet Gray definitely destroyed these documents.

I think your argument is rock solid—right up to the last sentence.

Seriously, there's absolutely no evidence of Gray having destroyed evidence. Not only is there no evidence of it, there are at least three conflicting stories by Gray himself of his purported "destruction of evidence," meaning that the best evidence is that a hoax was created about the destruction of evidence and the whole thing is yet another elaborate lie by people supposedly "confessing." (Gee, sounds awfully familiar.)

There's also a complete contradiction in Gray's own statements, as I documented above, about his ever having had in his possession any such discrediting information on Kennedy.

Then with Hunt, Dean, and Gray, we have three completely contradictory descriptions of purported "forged cables" (or cable—gee, losing count sounds awfully familiar). The only thing that there's evidence of at all is collusion between Hunt, Dean, and Gray to give "confessions" that are total, whole-cloth fictions. (Now, where have I run into something similar before?)

And here's why the question of "did he destroy, didn't he destroy" isn't even a fork in the road, but a perfect trap in the road:

Any way you try to figure any outcome from the stories, it all could only harm the Nixon White House.

• As I quoted from Hunt earlier in this thread, he claimed that the authentic cables were damning to the Kennedy administration without forgeries (something also not stipulated by me, but his claim)—which destroys the entire motive for forging cables in the first place.
  
• The purported "forgeries," like every one of Hunt's storybook operations, went absolutely nowhere. Nowhere! Forgeries had nothing whatsoever to do with what Conein said in his interview. But the unevidenced claim of their existence, by three people in "confessions," sure helped to bring down the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces during wartime.
  
• Since the purported forged cables (damn, it's hard to talk about complete fictions) couldn't be used, ever, for anything besides "personal edification" (Hunt)—whatever the hell that means—then why would any such forgeries have been kept at all? (That, of course, assuming that they ever had been made at all, which they weren't.) According to Hunt, the goddamned non-things sat in his safe collecting dust for almost eight months! Even assuming, arguendo, that there ever were any forgeries, the only possible use of keeping them was damage to Nixon! (And of course, the whole thing is completely circular since the safe way to damage Nixon—without any evidence of much larger crimes against the perps themselves—was just to claim the existence and say they were destroyed. It's a perfect, self-proving and inescapable trap, with relatively minor consequences to the perps if there's no evidence, but major consequences to the perps if there is evidence.
  
• If they'd had actual dirt on the Kennedy administration, they would have used it, just as you argue above. Not to use it, or ever even let Nixon know of its existence, was only to undermine Nixon.
  
• To simply "confess" that such dirt on Kennedy existed (when it didn't), but then was destroyed by Nixon administration officials, was to bring down Nixon.
  

It just goes on forever. In a giant circle.

On the "forged cable(s)" issue alone there's one absolutely staggering datum that emerges once the fraud is stripped off and just a little bit of sanity is allowed to rise to the surface:

There is no way in HELL Hunt and Colson actually would have allowed such self-incriminating evidence to sit in Hunt's White House safe for that long, when Colson's secretary, Joan Hall, and the Secret Service had the combination! If those forged cables ever had existed, they weren't "political dynamite" against the Kennedy administration at all, because Hunt himself says that his (never existant) forgeries could not stand any scrutiny. The only "dynamite" they ever could have been was against the Nixon administration, and they would have been nooses around the necks of Hunt and Colson if they had existed! It would have been hard evidence of attempting to frame actual people with names in the Kennedy administration with murder. That's exactly why I raised that point again and again in my articles above: that nobody ever says anything about these alleged forgeries except that it was "officials" of the Kennedy administration or "persons" within the Kennedy administration. They keep the whole thing completely anonymous and vague except the Kennedy name. And of course the Kennedy brothers were conveniently dead at all relevant times and unable to defend themselves against any of it. That's how these scum work

It's just a goddamned putrid lie from bow to stern. There isn't a smudge of truth anywhere in it. There were no "forged cables." There were no letters from JFK about his "peccadiloes." These people iinvolved in this are exactly what I said before: soul-less, lying scum, just empty golems absent the slightest integrity who will say anything, no matter how depraved, that serves their own purposes, and will happily swear on a Bible to tell their lies.

I'm also going to post a whole article on no other subject than the day Hunt's safe was "drilled open," and where who was throughout that day, including Hunt checking and inventorying the contents of his safe that morning! It's just beyond any kind of suspension of disbelief that after the Watergate arrests had taken place and his name was already linked, that he would go into the EOB very early that morning, inventory his safe contents—including the purported "forgeries" and the briefcase of electronic equipment—then close the safe back up leaving all this "incriminating evidence" there, with Joan Hall and the Secret Service crawling all over the place, having TOLD Joan Hall that "the safe is loaded," and saunter over to Mullen to be there when Bennett arrived.

And, sure enough, Dean comes along and gives Intel Cult Member Woodward and the press a big gratuitous sensationalistic story of having Hunt's safe DRILLED OPEN—when he knew damned well that Colson, Joan Hall, and Secret Service crawling all over the place could have just turned the knob at any time and opened the safe.

You just start spitting like a cat at the insanity!

It's just fraud, fraud, fraud, hoax, hoax, hoax, straight down the line, following an exact script, with John Dean and L. Patrick Gray working together with Richard Helms like the three stooges. I haven't even started posting Helms's flood of lies in testimony. Oh, but I will be.

Ashton

Neither I nor Pat Speer has access to the testimony of Chuck Colson, a key player in the forgery issue (if there was a forgery).

Thanks for the express revelation that you are tag-teaming.

Could I impose on Mr. Gray and ask that he kindly post the relevant parts of Colson's testimony, so that we have a more complete record on this issue.

I ain't your page or clerk. I'll post what I want to post "at a time and place of my choosing."

Ashton Gray

As I understand Ashton Gray, he is arguing that Hunt is innocent of the charge and that in fact no forgery took place. To my reading, that is the bare essence of the argument.

No, that isn't your reading: that's your spin. That's your twist. That's your own fraud. That's your own willful misrepresentation of my position. That's your own slime on this forum. It ain't mine. Don't attribute your mealy-mouthed, evasive, incomprehensible obtuseness to me. I didn't hire you to represent me. I wouldn't have you represent me if you were paying me 50 times your own hourly rate.

What I've said, and have demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt repeatedly—which you well know, since you read every word I write—is that my opinion is that Hunt is guilty as sin of a knowing, willful fraud on the courts, on Congress, and on the people of the United States. I've laid out ample evidence of that regarding Memorial Day weekend 1972 CIA op.

Now I've demonstrated in this thread the extremely high probability that Hunt was willfully and knowingly and collusively involved with John Dean and with L. Patrick Gray in perpetrating yet another fraud on the courts, on Congress, and on the people of the United States in perjured testimony about forgery and destruction of evidence. And I've made it very clear that in my prudent and extremely well-informed opinion, the alleged destruction of evidence never took place at all, and that the planned and knowing and willful hoax was a wholesale assault on the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States of America during wartime, which in my opinion is ample evidence to call for an immediate, if not sooner, investigation of the following offenses, as defined at USC 18 Part I Chapter 115, §2381 et seq., for all living co-conspirators:

• § 2381. Treason
  Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.
  § 2383. Rebellion or insurrection
  Whoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.
  § 2382. Misprision of treason
  Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States and having knowledge of the commission of any treason against them, conceals and does not, as soon as may be, disclose and make known the same to the President or to some judge of the United States, or to the governor or to some judge or justice of a particular State, is guilty of misprision of treason and shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than seven years, or both.
  § 2384. Seditious conspiracy
  If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.
  § 2388. Activities affecting armed forces during war
  (a) Whoever, when the United States is at war, willfully makes or conveys false reports or false statements with intent to interfere with the operation or success of the military or naval forces of the United States or to promote the success of its enemies; or
  Whoever, when the United States is at war, willfully causes or attempts to cause insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty, in the military or naval forces of the United States, or willfully obstructs the recruiting or enlistment service of the United States, to the injury of the service or the United States, or attempts to do so—
  Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.
  (b ) If two or more persons conspire to violate subsection (a) of this section and one or more such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each of the parties to such conspiracy shall be punished as provided in said subsection (a).
  (c ) Whoever harbors or conceals any person who he knows, or has reasonable grounds to believe or suspect, has committed, or is about to commit, an offense under this section, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.
  (d) This section shall apply within the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction of the United States, and on the high seas, as well as within the United States.
  

And if you still can't understand my position, and still have some delusion that I'm declaring Hunt "innocent," it's little wonder that you believe in the existence of invisible cables.

Ashton Gray

According to Newsday

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/6/26/140956.shtml

"The first set of papers in there were false top secret cables that indicating that the Kennedy administration had much to do with the assassination of the Vietnamese president," Gray explained, indicating they were counterfeit.

But a second set of files pulled from Hunt's safe, he suggested, were authentic.

"The second set of papers in there were letters purportedly written by Sen. Kennedy [before he became president] involving some of his peccadilloes."

Thanks, Michael. The part I quoted just above is stunningly, staggeringly, overwhelmingly, stupefyingly demonstrative and characteristic of the inexpressible depravity—just sheer, thoroughgoing, undiluted evil—that sloughs like leperous flesh from these CIA minions everywhere they crawl.

The claim of knowing what was in any "second set of papers" (as though one existed at all)—never mind the scurrilous, debased, never-to-be countered or confirmed smear against Kennedy—is completely contradictory to Gray's sworn testimony in Congress (and there's a giant surprise, I bet.):

• PATRICK GRAY: I merely thumbed through the second of the two files and noted that it contained onionskin copies of correspondence. I did not absorb the subject matter of the correspondence, and do not, today, of my own knowledge, know what it was.
  

I don't know where CIA gets them. The incredulity that visits the mind when confronted with such a void of anything even resembling decency or truth or honor is beyond the scope of words.

The single greatest hurdle I have in trying to compose articles to post here on all of this is deciding which of the thousands of falsehoods and contradictions to omit. I rather arbitrarily omitted reference to the purported "'heavily secured' FBI storage unit" because Gray claims in testimony that at one point he brought the envelopes (or folders, depends on when he's telling it) from his apartment to his office and "placed them in my personal safe." And the way these crummy bastards slice-and-dice language, their lap-dogs can say, "Oh, well, his personal safe in his office was a 'heavily secured' FBI storage unit." Don'tcha know.

Anyway, there's no shortage of completely unresolvable contradictions for the lap-dogs to chew on (including the new one you provided the opportunity to have documented above), and thank you very much for the contribution.

Ashton

I believe Ashton was inferring that the cables do not exist NOW. I don't remember him saying that they never existed, at all.

I think you're absolutely correct, Terry, that until the point of your post that I'm quoting, I had not made any explicit, categorical statement to that effect—even though it has been my position at all relevant times—because in every instance, Speer had raised the issue of the purported forged cables in threads where it was entirely off-topic, and I had steadfastly refused to become a party to his undying efforts at thread sabotage.

I had referred to the no-see-um forged cables briefly as "CIA-generated fiction" in a message of mine quoted earlier in this thread, but I wrote that in a context where, as I can see now in retrospect, the time frame is ambiguous. I never addressed the subject any further at all while waiting for Speer to make good on his strut.

It seems clear from the time stamp and placement of your message that you posted it even as I was in the process of posting my three-part article on this.

Ashton

Since Mr. Gray's style is somewhat, how shall I say, circumlocutous, and since you can understand it, perhaps you Dawn, would be kind enough to summarize his arguments in a nice legal manner so that they are a little less opaque.

I knew I should have put this part in bold the first time:

• Ashton Gray:
  [Pat Speer] has followed me all over the forum trying to smear me in any depraved way he can conjure, while simultaneously begging me endlessly to explain why I won't discuss these fantasy cables and other group hallucinations with him and his small band of boorish fellow day-trippers.
  So I will. Once. But only for the rational mind.
  

Ashton Gray

"As I see it up to now, Pat Speer alleges that E. Howard Hunt is guilty of forgery, while Ashton Gray says that Hunt is innocent."

What?!?!?!? Please site exactly where he says that Hunt is innocent? Here we go 'round in circles...

It appeared to be Mr. Carroll's bid to slouch toward neutrality.

Ashton