Ashton Gray

This goes to my questions to Caddy in the Who Was Douglas Caddy Representing, and When? about his due diligence in defense of his "clients" concerning the bizarre police response. His due diligence appears to be wholly absent, which is a vast vacuum where some intense, serious lawyering should be. It is especially curious to me given this link: Caddy—>Merritt—>Shoffler Of course, when Mr. Caddy tells it, that is strictly a one-way street going the other way: Shoffler—>Merritt—>Caddy I would tend to think that it could go both ways. (So to speak.) Ashton Gray

PART III: GRAY DOES GRAY You raise up your head And you ask, "Is this where it is?" And somebody points to you and says, "It's his" And you say, "What's mine?" And somebody else says, "Well, what is?" And you say, "Oh my God, am I here all alone?" Because something is happening here But you don't know what it is Do you, Mister Jones? —Bob Dylan Mr. Gray! I'm so happy you were able to be exhumed, so to speak. You don't mind if we just sit here in the graveyard where it's quiet and chat, do you? You're really Mr. Speer's star witness, and I know that you, having been Acting Director of the FBI, would never tell anything but the truth, and that you weren't actually working directly with John Dean to railroad the whole thing CIA's way—(we're just going to overlook that little park bench thing between you and Dean for now)—so I would be so grateful if you could climb up here and clear this whole "forgeries" thing up. It's very, very confused right now. So for the sake of everyone's sanity, here in the No-See-Um Zone, let's please, for the love of God, get right to it. Now, the first thing that we simply have got to get established, and I mean right now, is that you saw what Hunt says he forged, which is TWO cables. He at least did stick religiously, in everything he said about these "cables," to having forged TWO cables, and then Dean came in and just stabbed him in the back. It was ugly, and I'm glad you slept through it. Dean simply must have gotten it all wrong, and I know that you got what you say you got from Dean, so could you please corroborate Mr. Hunt before this whole "cables" thing just disintegrates? Somebody needs to. Apparently you finally succumbed to the temptation to peek into those mysterious brown envelopes that Dean had made for you, and you saw something. So tell us what you saw in the one, and only one, envelope you've testified had something to do with cables in it. 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. They appeared to be what? L. PATRICK GRAY: They appeared to be duplicates of the first cable. One cable. One lone cable. With a whole file folder full of duplicates of... Mr. Gray, do you have any idea what this graveside testimony is doing to Mr. Speer right now? Let me get this entirely contained in the brain: somehow, E. Howard Hunt was able to forge one cable that alone, all by its little self, with absolutely no contextual continuity with all the other authentic State Department cables, was a smoking gun pinning the murder of two major world figures on the Kennedy administration—but of course WHO in the Kennedy adminstration just slips your mind. Do I have this completely correct, Mr. Gray? Could you repeat it just so I don't make any false step here? L. PATRICK GRAY: 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. Oh. It implicated "officials." Just some unnamed "officials" of the Kennedy administration. Of course it did. And you just can't recall any of their names, or what they said in this "Single Cable Theory" that got two world leaders assassinated. This is better than the Kennedy assassination: one magic cable could bring down TWO major leaders completely on the other side of the world. And you actually crawled off somewhere to rot, leaving that transparent, ridiculous lie as your legacy? This is what Mr. Speer has his "case" <SPIT!> built on? Nahhhh, you wouldn't lie, would you, Mr. Gray? I know you wouldn't lie, because here's what Mr. Speer said about the weight of your completely honest testimony. In fact, it was his big bazooka in his Bazooka Joe comic farce: Now, isn't that interesting, Mr. Gray? Mr. Speer found that to be the "relevant part of your testimony." Whereas I just found that it completely impeached the last shred of a story that Hunt had, and also was a completely hare-brained "Single Cable Theory," which even Hunt was never so damned stupid as to claim. And that's saying a lot! I also wonder why Mr. Speer cut off the part of your "relevant testimony"—the part about about there being nothing but duplicates of the ONE cable in the ONE folder that had any cables at all. There are so many strange, strange "confessions" in the No-See-Um Zone, Pat. Speaking of which, before you crumble into dust before our very eyes, let's revisit the other half of the "relevant" testimony Mr. Speer carefully selected: the burning. Oh, yes: the cheery Christmas fire. Before we start exploring the actual circumstances under which these no-see-um cables supposedly went up in smoke, I'm sure you recall—you probably have it as your epitath—your fellow Connecticut resident, Lowell Weicker, just about cried telling the world how much truth you had brought to them, and what a fine, fine, honest, believable fellow you were. (Hmmmmm. Who else was from Connecticut that Weicker seemed to want to hold hands with? The name escapes me. Baldhead? No; that's you, Mr Gray. Sorry. Baldfaced? Was that it? I think that rings a bell, but I digress. It'll come to me.) Back to the Great Hunt Forged Cable Burning: I have this strange story from TIME magazine, May 7, 1973. Now, you say in your "relevant testimony" that you burned these cables at your home in Stonington, Connecticut, after Christmas 1972—and only after taking them first to your apartment and putting them on a closet shelf under your shirts, then taking them back to your office, then taking them out to your house, keeping them in a chest-of-drawers, unopened, for almost six months. No, I wasn't grinning. No, sure, I believe you. But let me read you this TIME magazine thing, which is weird: ...[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. It's hard to feel embarrased for a cadaver, Mr. Gray. But this is just about too much. You're Mr. Speer's big star witness, and you're just lying every time you open your desiccated bony mouth about anything. In fact, wasn't it your good, good buddy, Lowell Weicker, who was also so very sweet with—BALDWIN! That's his name! Right! You know, I didn't think I could find a bigger pack of liars than that bunch that Baldwin hung out with over Memorial Day weekend 1972, but I think you and Mr. Dean are running neck-and-neck with that rat pack poor old Mr. Baldwin got taken in by. Of course both sets have Hunt in common, and that helps. But back to your good buddy Weicker. I do believe that you went and confessed to him about this burning of Hunt's stuff, didn't you? And isn't Weicker himself the one who broke it to the press right at the most crucial time to do the most possible damange? You were really rubbing up on Weicker in Congress about this, weren't you? And he was just eatin' it up. Let's peek in on your Congressional testimony, answering Weicker, where you're talking about that meeting with Mr. Peterson with Attorny General Kleindienst leading to your resignation: L. PATRICK GRAY: We both sat in chairs in front of the Attorney General's desk, and I told them that I had spoken with you [senator Lowell Weicker]. I did not say to them that you had talked to the press, even though you had told me that you did. You said to me, "You're probably going to be the angriest man in the world at me for talking to the press," and I said, "No, you ought to be the angriest man in the world at me." I did not say that you had given this information to the press, but I said I believe Senator Weicker knows all about this because I have spoken to him. Now that was a real Hallmark moment between you and Lowell. Except, Pat: I don't seem to recall your saying anything to Mr. Weicker about a "burn bag" to be destroyed. That's those things that get picked up and carted off somewhere for incineration. But that's what Weicker told the press. So if that isn't what you had told Weicker, then Weicker lied, too. Is that what you say you had told him? That you used a "burn bag" in your office sometime in early July 1972, long, long before Christmas? Let's just check. And I love how Talmadge calls you "Captain": 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? 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? 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? PATRICK GRAY: To Senator Weicker? SENATOR TALMADGE: Yes. 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. Heh. That was pretty ugly, Pat. Wonder why Weicker would lie to the press? Maybe he thougt your story about burning the files in a wastebasket in your office was just too stupid for anybody to swallow. All that smoke. Even McCord's "smoke alarm" bug he lugged into DNC on June 17 wouldn't have helped you there. (Did you ever wonder how McCord thought nobody at DNC would notice a big clunky thing that appeared on their wall overnight? Don't let yourself think about it, Pat. You'll crumble to dust.) I wonder why your namesake, Mr. Speer didn't consider that part of your testimony "relevant," where Talmadge nailed you for telling flat out lies TWICE while "confessing"? Somehow, I found it very, very "relevant," but Mr. Speer didn't seem to. Of course, I'm not trying to peddle a totally malicious fiction like he— Pat? Where did Pat Gray go? Pat? Things really disappear here in a hurry. Just, <POOF!> Hmm. There's just this little pile of putrifaction and dust here where all that lying was going on a minute ago. Well, let's see what else I've got left from my trip to the No-See-Um Zone besides the pocket lint I brought in: I've got a microscopic little bit of confetti here: a pinch of Thermofax confetti, a sneeze of Xeroxed confetti, some "spliced cable" shred threads, and my personal favorite: the colorful "Single Cable Theory" confetti. Not much. Hardly a thimbleful. I'll just sprinkle it onto this little pile of putrifaction, dust my hands of all of it, and leave it here for Mr. Speer as a fitting memorial to his "case" for the Phantom Phorged Cables. ESCAPE FROM THE NO-SEE-UM ZONE Please do not laugh—any more than you have to. —Senator Sam Ervin, Jr. during Watergate hearings Leaving the No-See-Um-Zone is easy: you just walk away and don't look back. If you do look back, you're liable to see Pat Speer kneeling and whimpering over the dust of lies and some dirty confetti where his case for the No-See-Um Cables had been, clutching to his breast the Alfred Baldwin logs that never existed, tuned in to "bugs" over which no signal ever comes, trying to get the space aliens in his Black Helicopter to beam him out and take him to the Continental Room at the Watergate for the good-old-fun-filled-days of the Ameritas Dinner. Happy trails, Pat. Ashton Gray

Part II: The Form and Substance of Magic Nothingness Judge to Mae West: "Are you trying to show contempt for this court?" Mae West to judge: "Ah, no, Your Honor: I'm trying to hide it." First witness to the stand, please: E. Howard Hunt. Give your testimony, Mr. Hunt, taken from your autobiography, about why you created the purported forgeries. You say there that you had studied all the relevant hundreds of State Department cables, and had told Mr. Colson that you found there "were cables missing from the chronological sequence." And Mr. Colson purportedly said, "The full story isn't there, then?" And what did you then tell Mr. Colson?: E. HOWARD HUNT TO CHARLES COLSON: "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 Premier." But Mr. Hunt: I'm loathe to point out that you just destroyed the entire motive for forging any cables. But all right. Let's go on and explore your motiveless crime. What happened next? E. HOWARD HUNT: 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." With a nod I left his office and returned to mine. And you claim, then, that you produced forged versions of these two State Department cables? 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. Okay, so it's your testimony that you forged TWO cables, and these were the damning illegal forgeries that you created using common typewriters—which look nothing at all like teletype output—and you used a Xerox machine to make these forgeries look like all the rest of the authentic State Department cables that you were slipping these ringers into the midst of—even though the type style didn't match. All right, that's your story and you're sticking to it. I think Mr. Dash has just a few questions for you in formal sworn Congressional testimony concerning, first, the authentic cables, your discussion with Mr. Colson about them, and your forgeries: MR. DASH: Did you show the cables to Mr. Colson and offer an interpretation of them? MR. HUNT: I showed him copies of those chronological cables, yes, sir. MR. DASH: And what interpretation, if any, did you give him concerning the cables? MR. HUNT: I told him that the construction I placed upon the absence of certain cables was that they had been abstacted from the files maintained by the Department of State in chronological fashion and that while there was every reason to believe, on the basis of an accumulated evidence of the cable documentation, that the Kennedy administration was implicitly, if not explicitly, responsible for the assassination of Diem and his brother-in-law, that there was no hard evidence such as a cable emanating from the White House or a reply comming from Saigon, the Saigon Embassy. MR. DASH: What was Mr. Colson's reaction to your statement and the showing of the cables to him? Did he agree that the cables were sufficient evidence to show any relationship between the Kennedy administration and the assassination of Diem? MR. HUNT: He did. MR. DASH: Did he ask you to do anything? MR. HUNT: He suggested that I might be able to improve upon the record. To create, to fabricate cables that could substitute for the missing chronological cables. MR. DASH: Did you in fact fabricate cables for the purpose of indicating the relationship of the Kennedy administration and the assassiantion of Diem? MR. HUNT: I did. MR. DASH: Did you show these fabricated cables to Mr. Colson? MR. HUNT: I did. Very nicely done, Mr. Hunt! And what did you do with these forgeries, as regards your safe? MR. HUNT: 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... You put that very candidly, Mr. Hunt. I'm sorry: go on. MR. HUNT: These files, among others, were to be extracted from my safe by John Dean and eventually destroyed by the acting director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, L. Patrick Gray. And that's the exact little party we're having here! I just have one or two more questions: Who, exactly, in "the Kennedy administration," had you pinned these murders on? MR. HUNT: I'm sorry, I can't hear you, Mr. Hunt. I mean, supposedly you showed these cables to Lambert at Life, and there had to be somebody's name attached to them, because it sure as hell wasn't Kennedy himself, but that's the only name we ever hear about these No-See-Um "forged cables." So who did you actually pin the murders on using your very suave "Aesopian language"? MR. HUNT: I really simply can't hear you. So get off the stand, you lying piece of CIA scum (but I repeat myself), and don't come back unless you're told to. Let's see if we can get somebody up here who can tell the truth. John Dean to the stand, please. Mr. Dean, tell us in your own words what you saw after having a big dramatic production done of drilling open Hunt's safe—even though Joan Hall and the Secret Service had the combination, and you can't swing a cat anywhere near the White House without hitting five Secret Service agents. Just tell the court what you found in the way of these two forged cables. In your own words. JOHN DEAN: I told Fielding I would like his assistance later that day in going through the material. During the afternoon of the 20th, Fielding and I began going through the cartons of Hunt's materials... Wait wait wait wait, HOLD it. Fielding? Hunt? Is this... Oh, never mind: okay, this is FRED Fielding, your assistant, not LOUIS Fielding, Ellsberg's psychiatrist, but all related to Hunt somehow. Continue... JOHN DEAN: The bulk of the papers vere classified cables from the state Department relating to the early years of the war in Vietnam. These were separated out from the rest of the papers. ...First, among his personal papers were copies of his submissions for his per diem pay as a consultant, a few travel vouchers... Wait wait wait wait, HOLD it. Diem? Yes, that's what we're looking... Ohhhh, you said per diem. I'm very sorry. But what did you see in the way of forgery? 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... Wait wait wait wait, HOLD it. "Other cables spliced into one cable?" Is that what you actually said? You mean you could see splices? Were they taped together? What do you mean by "spliced," Mr. Dean? You splice audio tape and film, not cablegrams. And you told Mr. Ehrlichman about the bogus cable? Is that your testimony? Hunt said that it required TWO cables and all that Huntesque "Aesopian language" to sell his purported malicious (but fantasy) hoax to kill Kennedy a little deader than he already was. And you don't mention a single thing anywhere about folders marked "Fab. I" and "Fab. II," Mr. Dean. Nobody ever does except Hunt. Now, how could you miss TWO manila folders so clearly marked, each with forged cables in them in various draft stages, and only come up with ONE purported forged cable? (Oh, yeah: "spliced" somehow.) Where the hell did the other one that Hunt is supposed to have forged go? If you didn't find it, that means it had to have gone to the regular FBI agents, and not to Patrick Gray. But it doesn't turn up in the FBI investigative file. Oops. Okay: so one of Hunt's infamous cables just evaporated into thin air. Maybe he used disappearing typewriter ribbon. You know those CIA boys. Always full of tricks. But back to this ONE "spliced together" forgery you say you found (even though it doesn't sound anything like anything Hunt ever described): what "persons in the Kennedy administration"? What were their names? Why is it the only name we ever hear in all these "forged cables" stories is "Kennedy"? Who were these "persons" who Hunt had framed as having arranging the murder of political leaders? Mr. Dean? JOHN DEAN: I can't hear you, Mr. Dean. Could you speak up? Who were the actual people that Hunt smeared with false accusations of murder? Which names of "persons in the Kennedy administration" had Hunt put on his forgeries? And while you're answering, exactly how was this magic single "spliced cable" supposed to set up a double assassination on the other side of the world? Can you clear up a few details of this lone phenomenal piece of writing? (Or, splicing.) JOHN DEAN: Mr. Dean, I'm sorry, but I still can't hear a single thing you're saying. Well, we know you're lying, anyway, you Ivy League CIA sock-puppet, that you tag-teamed with Patrick Gray to railroad the whole show, and that you were up to your chic glasses in every CIA trap that was sprung throughout the entire fraud, then recently ran your little Punch'n'Judy show with Liddy to add yet another psychotic layer to the fraud, didn't you? So get your lying fat butt out of the chair, and let's see if this can be salvaged by getting your "assistant," the Fielding doppleganger up here for one question before I get Speer's hero, L. Patrick Gray to come in here and save the day for him. Mr. Fielding, take the stand, please: I realize you are not an eyewitness to any actual forgery, but you purportedly were sorting through papers from Mr. Hunt's safe with Mr. Dean, and you saw a bunch of cables, is that correct? In your own words from deposition: QUESTION: Did you read the cables? FRED FIELDING: Just briefly I looked at them. QUESTION: Do you recall the contents of those cables? FRED FIELDING: Only generally. The cables, as I recall, were classified. ...I would have no way of knowing if they have been declassified or not. They bore classification markings on them. QUESTION: What were the markings that indicated to you that they were classified? FRED FIELDING: Standard top QUESTION: Stamp? FRED FIELDING: These were Thermofax. I don't really recall if they were stamped or just typed only. What!? What are you trying to do, Mr. Fielding? Do you realize how completely absurd you've now made this farce? Do you have any idea how completely idiotic you've now made Mr. Hunt sound, claiming that he used a Xerox machine to create two "forgeries" that now we're to believe he somehow slipped unobtrusively into a stack of THERMOFAX copies of actual cables? Oh, just get down. Step down. Get out. Go. Don't come back. Go sit next to Dr. Fielding. Sit in his lap. Wear his clothes. Psychoanalyze Ellsberg. (No, I wouldn't wish that even on you.) The one last hope we have is L. Patrick Gray. I just know that somehow he's going to save the day. Somehow. He's got to. He must be the only honest one of the three people in the world who claim to have seen these purported forged cables—or cable?—or whatever. Calling L. Patrick Gray to the stand. Anybody seen Mr. Gray? No, not me! The bald-headed guy who stepped into Hoover's shoes, railroaded the so-called "FBI investigation" with Dean, incinerated crucial evidence, and then immediately walked off the stage just in time to cause the most damage. That Mr. Gray. Somebody please go dig him up. And bring him back into... PART III: GRAY DOES GRAY Ashton Gray

Deputy Sheriff said to me: "Tell me what you come here for, boy. You better get your bags and flee. You’re in trouble, boy, and now you’re heading into more." It's the same old story everywhere I go: I get slandered, libeled, I hear words I never heard in the Bible. —Paul Simon THE GREAT PHANTOM "DIEM CABLES" NON-DEBATE Unlike a mule, it's hard to know exactly which end of fictional "forged cables" to approach from. The first problem is that they are invisible. In civilized societies, people don't try to approach invisible cables at all, much less discuss them at great length. The attempt will get you a padded room and three squares a day, plus meds, for life. In certain barbaric cultures, though, this seems to be not only a great pass-time, but something worth millions upon millions of dollars, hundreds of books, oceans of ink, and even Congressional hearings. Personally, I'd prefer a good mule. However: a certain person (and I won't mention any names, but his initials are "Pat Speer") has developed finger blisters typing his little heart out to sell people on this elaborate delusion and—because I wandered in here innocently, and he didn't like the cut of my hat or something—he demanded to know "what you come here for, boy," and he's 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. CAVEATS FOR THE RATIONAL MIND We're about to enter the "No-See-Um Zone." It makes The Matrix look like a church day care. If you're here at all, it is hoped that you have some acquaintance already with the Official Forged Diem Cables Myth, and have read Mr. Speer's rendition in this thread, because I'm not about to seriously try to explain the existence of non-existent, invisible cables. I'm not that nuts. And while the Phabulous Phantom Cables are funny on their face (or lack thereof), the ghoulish clowns that created them are perhaps the most unfunny wraiths that ever plagued mankind. So even to enter the No-See-Um Zone requires crossing a mine field of psy-ops techniques that the very unfunny clowns have been developing for decades. As long as you know where these deadly "mind mines" are, you can cross into the No-See-Um Zone with a cavalier lilt in your step and an appropriate sense of humor, and we can find and study the invisible cables. Far more importantly: you can get back out with your sanity intact. Here's the first set of "mind mines" as we go in. Watch your step: YOSSARIAN'S "MAN WHO SAW EVERYTHING TWICE" In the book "Catch 22," the protagonist, Yossarian, has the misfortune to get laid up in a hospital bed next to a man whose malady causes him to see everything twice. It's a brilliant recursive pun on the title of the book and an absolutely hilarious piece of literature. It also describes an almost deadly trap for the mind. E. Howard Hunt, a veteran CIA covert operative, purportedly created the alleged "forged cables" concerning the assassination of South Viet Nam President Diem. Sitting directly on your path to the invisible "Diem cables," you cannot avoid a mention of E. Howard Hunt's per diem as a White House consultant, because it's also part of the contents of Hunt's safe. Did you just see something twice? Watch your step. The next "everything twice mind mine" in your path, which you cannot possibly avoid in your quest to the invisible cables, is a simple name: "Fielding." That's not a "mind mine," you say. It's just a name. Watch carefully: of only three people in the entire world who ever claimed personally to have seen these purported cables, one of them, E. Howard Hunt, is heavily associated with a purported "break-in" at the office of a psychiatrist, Dr. Lewis Fielding. Got a good grip on that? Okay, now: one of the only two other people in existence who claimed to have handled and seen the purported forgery is John Dean, and he just happens to have a personal assistant—who also handles the contents of Hunt's safe, but doesn't see the purported forged cables—whose name is Fred Fielding. Did you just see something twice? Are you feeling a little dizzy yet? No? Well, there's the psy-op rule of three to get you so spun around and confused that you'll believe anything, so we ought to be on the lookout for at least one more (and there are plenty more): Please notice that not directly in the middle of the "This Way to the Invisible Cables" path, but just to the side where you can't possibly miss it, is a big smiling, waving Larry O'Brien, Chairman of the DNC. He's the "victim" of the main act of mayhem, which also, of course, involves Hunt. If you follow the "forged cables" path all the way to where the invisible cables disappear (several times, but that's another "mind mine" we haven't gotten to), you simply can't avoid a guy named Paul O'Brien suddenly appearing in the path, startling you. Did you just see something twice? Who the hell is Paul O'Brien? Oh, well, he's just a guy. He happens to be "former-CIA," just like Hunt, but somehow he's suddenly at CREEP, involved with Hunt's wife, Dorothy, spinning envelopes of cash around your head in so many different directions at once that you soon feel like the nucleus at the center of an atom of Federal Reserve notes. If you haven't sunk down in the poppy field of duplicate words and names yet and gone totally unconscious, just slip past the O'Brien dopplegangers and the gates will open into the promised land: The Land of the No-See-Um Cables. Or is that "cable"? Is there one forged cable? Are there two forged cables? How many forged cables are there? Just exactly what is it we're looking for, and how will we recognize it? Well, just step right in, and we'll ask whoever we can find in here who's actually seen them. There sure seem to be a lot of people standing around... A CAST OF HUNDREDS. WELL, TENS. WELL, A FEW... They were standing under a tree, each with an arm round the other's neck, and Alice knew which was which in a moment, because one of them had "DUM" embroidered on his collar, and the other "DEE." "I suppose they've each got 'TWEEDLE' round at the back of the collar," she said to herself. They stood so still that she quite forgot they were alive, and she was just going round to see if the word "TWEEDLE" was written at the back of each collar, when she was startled by a voice coming from the one marked "DUM." "If you think we're wax-works," he said, "you ought to pay, you know. Wax-works weren't made to be looked at for nothing. Nohow." "Contrariwise," added the one marked "DEE", "if you think we're alive, you ought to speak." —Lewis Carroll It is almost like a wax museum in here. Or a house of mirrors. There seem to be so many people standing around who we just know have seen these no-see-um invisible cables. Let's see who's in the cast of characters, and find out who actually says themselves, for themselves, that they saw them: Richard "Tricky Dicky" Nixon: Surely ol' Tricky Dick saw them, right? But there's not a word anywhere in the record—from anybody, much less him—that he ever saw the purported cables. So we can't ask him how many there were and what they said. Moving on... Charles Colson: Hmmm. Well, he just stands there mum, thumping the Bible. Hunt says that Colson saw them. Hunt says that Colson ordered them. But Colson just smiles and thumps the Bible and doesn't say a word about ever seeing any forged cables. So we aren't going to get anything out of him about how many there were and what they said. But he's arm-in-arm with... William "Bill" Lambert: Hey! It's the Life magazine reporter who Hunt also says saw the cables. Now, why is he so damned chummy with Colson? Ohhhh, that's right: Lambert published the big smear piece that Colson wrote on Democratic Senator Tydings in 1970 that caused Tydings to lose his seat, even though the allegations were all proven false after the election! That's why you two good Christian men are so cozy. Hey, Bill: you wouldn't let these goons just use your name to put over a big fraud, as sort of a quid pro quo, would you? You Operation Mocking Bird boys aren't that low-life. Are you? Did you ever say anywhere, yourself, that you actually saw any cables? Oh. "Ask Hunt." Sure. No problem. Sorry to have interrupted the prayer meeting. Lucien Conein: Okay, this just seals the deal right here. I mean, this is Mr. CIA Black Ops himself, and if anybody is going to back Hunt to the hilt, it's this one. So what do you say, Lucien? Did you ever say anywhere that you actually saw any such forged cables? Because Hunt tells us very powerfully and forcefully that you got the forged cables worked into a national network show, so you must have said it on national television, right? Because here's what Hunt says exactly: "I would have to answer in these terms: ...that I had shown him [Conein] the fabricated cables in the broader context of the overall cables, that he was then interrogated by a camera and interview crew and that I believe he made, if not specific reference to the cables I showed him, at least they reinforced his own belief that there had been direct complicity by the Kennedy administration in the events leading up to the assassination of the South Vietnamese Premier." But... But... And phantom eyewitness after phantom eyewitness shimmers and thins and disappears entirely until there's nobody left in the hall of mirrors except three, and only three people in this entire CIA-manufactured universe who actually claim, themselves, by their own testimony, to actually have laid eyes on these magic forged cables. And who would these three be? E. Howard Hunt John Dean L. Patrick Gray Now we're getting somewhere. Now we can ask the real, admitted, confessed eyewitnesses to this world-shaking piece of forgery just exactly what the form and substance and content of these history-making cables were. Or was it a cable? Do we even know exactly what kind of Holy Grail we're on the "Hunt" for? How will we know it if we see it? We're so close now we can almost touch it. Or touch them. Or whatever. Almost. We just have to question these only three eyewitnesses to history. Follow along into Part II: The Form and Substance of Magic Nothingness Ashton Gray

She didn't. Have you heard about the "Reading Is Fun" program? I am. I didn't. Ashton Gray

You can call me Legion. My entire rebuttal to your Bazooka Joe comic follies will be posted in this thread within 24 hours of the posting of this message. Watch for it. When it's posted, fulfilling my vow to answer on the fraud of the "Diem cables," my other vow goes back into full force and effect. It's already posted in this thread. See if you can find it. You may use both hands and a guide. Ashton Gray

Are you done or not? Is this all you got? Yes or no? Is this it? I want a clear-cut statement from you when you are done presenting your alleged case for these no-see-um cables. So are you finished? Yes, or no? You can throw yourself down on the floor, and kick your heels, and hold your breath until you turn from red to blue, and have any kind of tantrum you want over your inane irrelevant questions as far as I'm concerned. I told you: make your case, and then when you're done I'm going to turn it to confetti before your very eyes. And I sure hope you came packing more than what's here right now. So are you done or not? Yes, or no? Ashton Gray

I'd be very grateful if Mr. Speer, after presenting his entire case so all the evidence is in view, would repost it all in an unbroken series, with any summation he'd like to make. Then I will rebut. I can repost his exhibits myself so it's continuous, but with his cooperation it will remain in his voice. Ashton Gray

Thanks again for this rich storehouse of information, John. With the little time I've had I've begun to work some of this into my own timeline that I'm cobbling together from all the ones I have, and it's already very illuminating. Although what I'm about to bring up isn't directly related to Paisley, and so far is unevaluated against all this, it's sure seeming to mesh with the information in this thread. It's an event that I think has a great deal of significance, but it often seems to get lost in the shuffle surrounding Watergate and the Pentagon Papers. It's Nixon's discovery in late December 1971 that Navy Yeoman Charles E. Radford had systematically stolen and copied documents of the President's National Security Council (NSC) for Admiral Thomas Moorer over a period of about thirteen months, giving Naval Intelligence a spyglass into the Oval Office throughout. Attention tends to fix on when Nixon discovered this, in December 1971 (and foolishly kept the lid on it), but more significant is when it had started, and the time period it covered. Working back over the period during which it was going on, it puts the start of this Intelligence Cult spying at around November 1970. In one of those head-torquing coincidences we've all come to know and love, here's what else happened that month: Douglas Caddy leaves the Mullen firm to work for Gall, Lane, Powell and Kilcullen. E. Howard Hunt becomes a "client" of Caddy and of Gall, Lane, Powell and Kilcullen. G. Gordon Liddy (who already has "special CIA clearances") is approached by Robert Mardian, asking Liddy to take a position that Mardian describes as "super-confidential." So the Intelligence Cult spy operation on the White House was going on through the entire Pentagon Papers op, the hiring of Liddy, the hiring of Hunt, NSA's David Young's move over to create the totally incompetent "plumbers," the Fielding office photo-op by Hunt and Liddy (which would take Ellsberg off the hook), and the purported "Diem cables" op. Minimally. Of course apologists for the interagency Intelligence Cult will swear on a stack of Bibles that the Boy Scouts at CIA would never, ever stoop so low as to receive every syllable produced by this illegal domestic spy operation on the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces during wartime. These apologists have superhuman X-ray vision that can penetrate the sealed envelopes whizzing endlessly amongst these intel cruds, which is why the apologists can swear this on a stack of Bibles. We should be grateful for such Karnaks in our midst. Thank you again for the information. Ashton Gray

Even after resorting to posing like Rodin's "The Thinker" for far too many hours, I have yet to produce a single sensible thought to explain why anybody not working in some capacity for CIA would be inserted into a CIA front company's headquarters in the capitol of the United States, spittin' distance from Langley. Perhaps you could help me on this point so I, too, can become sensible. Another view (arising, perhaps, from the discomfort of the Rodin pose) is there is not the remotest chance in hell that anybody but a CIA-controlled attorney would be allowed anywhere near any of them. YMMV. And apparently does. Ashton Gray

"You won't have Nixon to kick around any more." —Richard Milhous Nixon, 1962 Ashton Gray

Kinko's has workstations with scanners and OmniPage OCR software. Always happy to help. Ashton Gray

Thanks John. I'm grateful that Mr. Carroll did post the first one here (despite my initial confusion). I've read the originals in the JFK forum now (including Raymond Carroll's note there that he was going to post Robert's message in here), and I realized upon reading it all that anything I would add to Robert's brilliant analysis would be extraneous baggage indeed. Ashton

I am utterly humbled by the eloquence, patience, knowledge, and cogent continuity of Robert Charles-Dunne's several posts above. I feel like I'm getting a master class that I should be paying for. I was going to comment, but anything I could add would be unnecessary dunnage. I'll only say that it has helped me tremendously to crystalize some of the ancillary vectors and issues, and I thank him. Ashton Gray

There seems to be something extraordinarily squirrely going on in this thread that I can't figure out. Are things being quoted from another thread? I can't find the original message from Robert Charles-Dunne in this thread that is being quoted regarding Caddy. I find his comments very insightful and would like to discuss them more, but the 4-level-nested quotes of something apparently not even in this thread, combined with color codes instead of quote codes is making it functionally impossible. Can anybody tell me where the original of his post is? Thanks. Ashton Gray

Whatever differences there are between you and me, I'll give you my personal guarantee that none of Pat Speer's posts on this will be allowed to get lost in other traffic or be overlooked in any way. Speaking just personally, I'd like to see him be allowed to get his entire case made sequentially without interruption of any kind and announce when he's done. I'd even be happy if he would repost his first message with the tape transcript and pick back up where he left off. Ashton Gray

Hi, Robert. I appreciate your voice of reason, but I'm afraid that Mr. Speer's shouting that I'm a "total fraud" and other seditious efforts at discrediting me, personally, is the only arrow left in his quiver. He can't and won't address even a single conflict in the testimony and evidence that I've raised, and they run into the hundreds. It's the oldest, dirtiest, filthiest, cheapest trick in the book: "When you can address the issues, attack the man. When you can't address what he actually has said, make up a fictional account of what he said (never quote him!), attribute your own outlandish fiction to him, and discredit the fiction you created." It's the stuff of pity, not reason. It never responds to reason, because there is not an ounce of reason or integrity in it. The purpose is not to come together and reason on the issues: the purpose is to smear an individual by any means possible in order to discredit his information. That is the sole purpose. And David Young came from NSA, slid over at just the right moment. His light was shadowed by the homonymic "Egil Krogh," but Young's hands are all over the Fielding operation, while running "plumbers" who never plugged a single leak. It's clear from the 17 March 1973 Oval Office tape—where Dean springs the Fielding op bear trap on Nixon, calling Hunt and Liddy "some idiots" for having posed in front of Fielding's door (yeah, sure, John)–that Nixon had been kept completely the dark. Dean just jerks the rug out from under him. A month later Dean goes into Congress and testifies to it, and the next day Hunt is trotted out in Congress to back Dean up. It's a thing of beauty, a well-oiled machine. See if you can get Mr. Speer to address the fact that the CIA hand-couriered the photos of Hunt and Liddy to Watergate prosecutors on the exact day that Ellsberg's trial started. (That was a joke, Robert. He won't go near it.) Works for me. That ain't the half of it. "GEMSTONE" never accomplished a single one of its purported objectives. E. Howard Hunt never accomplished a single thing the entire time he was at the White House—at least to hear him tell it. Not a single one of his "secret agent man" operations that he says happened accomplished a single result. Not one. He takes hundreds of pages of his book telling about nothing but completely dead-end operations and trips to Miami and Los Angeles and Denver and all over hell and back, and never accomplished a goddamned thing. So either 1) he's the most incompetent moron who every sucked at the public teat, or 2) he was doing something else entirely the whole time, and all his and Liddy's D.C cowboy stories are a complete fiction to cover up what they actually were doing. (I'll take a No. 2, to go, please.) Robert, the facts you cited certainly have their own validity, but I need to point out for the record that Speer's completely specious claim that I ever said it was some evil CIA plot "to destroy Nixon" is his own fiction that he's trying to wrap me in and discredit so he can discredit me. That's all it is: another maliciously false fiction, a complete straw man of his own creation that he's running around beating to death. You can play his ad hominem smear games with him Robert. I won't. Not only is this not the "Ashton Gray" forum, the question is too ludicrous to countenance. RE: DIEM CABLES: I've reissued my call of Mr. Speer's bluff. Apparently he's attempting to make his case now, and so far doing a very bad job of it indeed. I'll wait until he says he's done. Thanks for your insights and thoughts. I find them of great interest. Ashton Gray

For those who came in late to the "Pat Speer Phantom Diem Cables Show," below is the actual record of events leading to this topic that he created, which he started with no substance at all, but a school-yard taunt directed at me. Mr. Speer elected to omit the record that I provide below of the genesis of this topic—for reasons that I believe will be painfully apparent to any rational reader from the record itself: 1) In a completely inappropriate thread, the Alfred C. Baldiwn thread, Speer threw in everything including the kitchen sink, the cabinets, and the contents of the pantry in an attempt to take the thread off-topic and keep it off topic. This is no idle statement. I've provided the link to that thread, and I called him on it several times in that thread. Go see for yourself. Among just one of his off-topic red herrings was a challenge to me regarding purported "forged Diem cables" (having absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with Alfred Baldwin) which I reproduce here in pertinent part: 2) I responded thusly: 3) Mr. Speer responded thusly: 4) Oh, well then: having not been slapped down big time in quite some time, I would have paid admission to see my own slapping down. Therefore, I hastened to accept Mr. Speer's gentlemanly offer to read back through his Watergate materials and slap me down big time on certain non-negotiable conditions going to his continuing efforts to take the Alfred Baldwin thread off-topic: 5) So did Mr. Speer make good on his bluff and go start the thread then, on June 23, 2006, and lay out his purported case for the Phabulous Phantom Cables in order to slap me down big time? What do you think, gentle reader? Well, I regret to inform you that he did not. No, he did exactly what could be expected: he continued to attempt to sabotage the Alfred Baldwin thread with it, and instead of acting on his chest-thumping bluff, whiffed and weasled: 6) Some of you may think at this point that I'm somehow making this up, that it just couldn't be like this, that I must be forging forum messages from Speer the way Hunt supposedly was forging these no-seeum "cables." But no; no, it happened just this way. Of course I responded the only way any any decent person could do—I accepted his surrender: And there, a week ago, with Mr. Speer's back-down on the slap-down, the Phabulous Phairy Tale of the Phantom Cables ended. Or so I thought. I don't know if his own whiff made him churlish, but Mr. Speer has almost been acting like Mr. Smear by attempting to tar me with every despicable, repugnant, revolting brush he could find. So far he's trotted out at least these pathetic paste-on smears trying to stick them onto me: Holocaust denyers space aliens black helicopters Jonestown cyanide Kool-Aid massacres You probably think I'm trying to smear Mr. Speer by accusing him of such debased tactics without cause, but ask him yourself. It's in his record. So I've put up with all that oblique name-calling from him ("just consider the source, and go on about your business," my Daddy used to say), but then he trailed along behind me—sort of reminiscent of that floating skull in the "Red Meat" comics—into another topic I had started called Who Was Douglas Caddy Representing, and When? and tried to sell me a handful of Douglas Caddy evasion as an "answer" to questions I had asked Mr. Caddy about the Phantom Phone Call from Mrs. Barker, and at that point I'd had enough. And I made the following vow to Mr. Speer: Well, ever since then, of course Mr. Speer has been tailing along after me into every thread—sort of reminiscent of that floating skull in "Red Meat"—making cat-calls and bullying taunts and saying "Diem cables, Diem cables, Diem cables" in every off-topic place he can spread the fertilizer. (It's in the record. I couldn't make this up.) And of course he still hasn't laid out his purported case for the Phantom Diem Cables. I wonder why not. And I'm hereby going on record to say that although my two vows recorded in this message would seem to be contradictory—only because Mr. Speer weasled on the cables the first time I called his bluff, and so folded before I cut all correspondence with him—I try in good faith to honor my word, even when others go back on their own word. So I am on record here as saying that on this one specific, narrow, clearly defined subject of these purported forged cables, I'm calling Mr. Speer's bluff again, and I will honor my vow to answer him on the cable issues alone, once he stops spewing his meaningless taunts, and make the "case" he said he was going "slap me down big time" with. He won't. He'll whiff again. I've called his bluff—twice now—and he won't turn over his cards. Honest people I know who actually have a case to make just make it: they don't waste endless hours of other people's time crowing about it. They just make it. That's why he still hasn't made his case, and that's why he won't. Because when he does, I'm going to wipe the floor with it and hand him the dirty rags to take out to the trash, where they belong. Dawn said it: where's the beef, Mr. Speer? I'm calling you out. Again. Ashton Gray

You made that one ring like a ten-penney finishing nail hit with a greasy ballpeen hammer. That's exactly why I haven't even bothered responding to the ridiculous cat-calls before. The testimony I've compared and shown to be completely beyond any possible reconciliation is the testimony of perpetrators all supposedly giving the same confessions. It's not the "eyewitness" syndrome, and I consider the tireless attempt by a few here to spin it that way to be tranparently willful. I simply don't think anybody can actually be that obtuse, and also be able to type. These are the only "confessions" in the history of the world where you have to have six or seven different parallel universes, each with its own time continuum, running simultaneously to accomodate all of them! The "confessions" about the so-called "first break-in" and those ensuing first two weeks of June are all snakefeathers. If you simply made an unnarrated catalog of all the contradictions it would run for pages and pages. They can't even get their stories straight about how many "units" their were, or how many "bugs" were where, or whether Hunt was in a liquor closet or at McGovern headquarters, or whether anybody was ever in O'Brien's office at all, or even whether there was a "second attempt" on May 27 or not. They also can't even get their stories straight about how many "cables" Hunt purportedly forged, which the cat-caller is going to learn as a very hard lesson if he ever tries to make good his hollow threat to "slap me down big time" on that issue. (Which he won't. He's still got an empty topic sitting there, with nothing but school-yard taunts at me.) I'm beginning to suspect that the only possible reason the Watergate committee didn't get to the truth is that people can get elected to Congress who can't count the fingers of one hand. It's all such bilge that it would insult the intelligence of a tapeworm once it's actually held up to scrutiny, as has been done—the exact kind of scrutiny it should have been held up to over thirty years ago. So one vital mission of the Committee to Re-Open Watergate, in my opinion, must also be to find out what faction of the "investigators" played an active role in the cover-up. Ashton

John, saying "thanks" for this is the biggest understatement I've ever been guilty of in my life. (I think. Maybe it was: "What cookie jar?") I've got a lot to process fully from this, and will try to get hold of the source book. I don't want to go off on too much of a tangent, but the description of the "sex parties" seemed such a parallel to the CIA "national security brothels" in Greenwich Village and San Francisco earlier run by George Hunter White, with two-way mirrors and cameras, where CIA used addict prostitutes to lure people in for criminal LSD experiments and film them. (There's no antiseptic that quite gets you clean enough after coming into even distant contact with CIA, is there?) Continuing my brief tangent: one thing that I was aware of in some of the CIA "confessions" to the Watergate committee (as in all such CIA "confessions") is their constant slicing-and-dicing of the language of those "confessions." One of these sliced-and-diced statements was related to Mullen, and was actually a question for my next round with Mr. Caddy to try to pull apart, which was the phrase "witting and cleared." Those are two separate things. There's ample but circumstantial indication to me, from years of wading through the fetid swamp of CIA BS, that clearances aren't the only leashes they have in the mud room to keep their dogs on. And blackmail makes a very short, tight choke-collar leash. So who was "witting" and not cleared is its own question. As for any bearing on the "who was Deep Throat" question, I still believe that's just another bottomless pit trap they dug in the path for people to fall into and keep on falling. Just like "who ordered the first break-in" when there was no "first break-in." Once you step in, you just keep on falling endlessly. I'll study all this carefully. Thank you very much. Ashton

Maybe Pat's off trying to find Hunt and get him to forge some cables now so Pat can actually have something to talk about. Ashton Gray

Actually I posted my comments on that very topic, on this very thread. Since Mr. Gray must have missed it, I post it for the second time on this thread; Mr. Gray makes a big deal about Mullen telling Hunt he was planning to hand over the business to Hunt and Douglas Caddy. Since part of the business (one European country) was actually a CIA front, Since your entire premise in the sentence above (which is entirely consistent with your entire premise) is the grossest possible alteration of the facts, I don't think I'm going to allow you to waste any more of my time, Mr. Carroll. The Mullen company was a CIA front, not just "part of the business." I just quoted for you from Douglas Caddy himself in my earlier message, so allow me to post it so you can see it this time: "The Mullen Company was a front cover for the CIA and, in fact, had been organized as an entity by the CIA." --Douglas Caddy Now. If you've allowed Mr. Caddy to sear that unqualified statement sufficiently into your brain, you'll find that your vain attempt to confine the damage to some distant European Mullen office arises solely from your misapprehension of the fact that one of the Mullen offices was admitted by CIA to have been entirely "staffed, run, and paid for by CIA." That has absolutely no bearing on the fact that the company itself had been organized by the CIA as a front company, as Mr. Caddy has admitted himself, and had been a front company for CIA for at least seven years when Caddy arrived. It might behoove you to attempt to form some nodding acquaintance with the facts before you attempt again to build your house on quicksand. That's what's causing that loud sucking sound where your argument was a minute ago. Your omission is that you haven't found where I have done just that, so you haven't corrected it yet. I'll give you that: if my word were so easily and copiously impeachable, I'd be complaining about being asked questions about it, too. Or maybe I'd just clam up entirely, instead. Ashton Gray

Mr. Carroll, your lack of understanding of the relevance of some of the questions you cite, completely out of the context in which they were asked, seems to go less to their relevance than to your understanding. One attorney posted in that thread that you yanked a few of the questions from, willy-nilly, that she felt the questions asked of Mr. Caddy were perfectly valid questions in the context of conflicting testimony and fact (which you omit). What I don't understand is why you omitted the fact that E. Howard Hunt wrote in his autobiography that Douglas Caddy had been selected by Mullen to run the CIA front company with Hunt on Mullen's retirement, and that I asked Caddy to reconcile the two grossly conflicting "facts" in the record—especially given that Caddy himself has said in this very forum: "The Mullen Company was a front cover for the CIA and, in fact, had been organized as an entity by the CIA." Why would you omit those salient facts in your indictment of my questions, Mr. Carroll? Ashton Gray

I propose the formation of a Committee to Re-Open Watergate. I believe that in this forum right now is all the evidence and foundation needed to demand that the United States federal government appoint a special prosecutor to thoroughly and without limitation investigate whether or not CIA and other factions of the United States intelligence community were complicit in the June 1971 "leak" of the Pentagon Papers during wartime, and in perpetrating a subsequent and related hoax over Memorial Day 1972 weekend, during wartime, that maliciously was designed to protect their own clandestine operation while simultaneously weakening, scandalizing, discrediting, and otherwise crippling the Office of the President of the United States and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, thereby giving aid and comfort to the enemies of the United States. I believe that the cumulative weight, gravity, and force of the evidence in hand right now entirely justifies just such an investigation and pierces all privilege. I believe that such a committee could hold extremely effective press conferences and could take the case in Executive Summary into the halls of Congress and to the doors of the Department of Justice and to the White House itself in ACTUAL NOTICE imperative, and would receive wide public support in rightfully demanding an open and thorough investigation. I believe that complete grounds for unqualified demand for just such an open-door investigation is resident in USC 18 § 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. I believe that statutes of limitation do not protect against any such offenses as might have been committed. I believe that there is a continuing conspiracy to cover up what was done by CIA and its co-conspirators. I further believe that conspiracy is considered an ongoing offense, and that any person seeking to block just such an investigation would by that act adhere to and implicate themselves in the conspiracy and in any offenses that it seeks to conceal. Ashton Gray

I know that John Paisley has been identified in one source as the very secretive CIA liaison to Hunt and Liddy during their stint as the most ineffective "plumbers" in history. I also know he was an accomplished sailor who sailed out into Chesapeake Bay on his sloop "Brillig" on September 24, 1978, and that a man's body later was found floating in an advanced state of decomposition with a gunshot wound behind his left ear, weighted with two sets of diving belts. The body was four inches shorter than Paisley, and Paisley's wife said it wasn't him, but it was ruled to be Paisley, and a suicide, and the body was summarily cremated. So I don't disagree with you at all that bringing Paisley out of the crowd of extras and into the spotlight is entirely justified, and anything at all you have on him I'd be very interested in seeing. I've been aware that there is no mention of Paisley in the timeline that I've referred to and that you post an excerpt from above, and I've wondered about it. All I can deduce is that whoever put it together just didn't have any solid source for putting him in the Watergate picture, or they weren't aware of him at all. On the many other points you bring up above, some I agree with strongly, some I'm not sure of. I'm much less sanguine about the celebrated "exposures" by CIA, Schlesinger's apparent clean-up efforts, the infamous "Family Jewels," and the subsequent congressional committees. In broad strokes, I'm inclined to believe that Richard Helms was all set up, with the help of Bush at State, for his sudden departure to his cushy ambassadorship far, far away in Iran, before Watergate even went down. While all attention was on the fall-out from that (and on the White House)—end of 1972-beginning of 1973—he and Gottlieb destroyed everything they could find that they and their own little band of Brooks Brothers-suited thugs could be hung for, and both Helms and Gottlieb pretty quietly slinked off into obscurity. With all real incriminating evidence destroyed, the big "clean-up" act looks to me exactly like a "one step back, two steps forward" dog-and-pony show, because no matter how much braying is done about it, the fact is that none of it ever exposed the blackest secret that CIA had running the entire time the "investigations" were going on, and CIA budgets ultimately grew exponentially, despite any temporary setbacks. CIA also never, ever even claimed to have admitted to any and all assassinations they had been party to. In February 1975, Colby would only say to Daniel Schorr, when pressed, that assassinations had been "formally prohibited in 1973." Hmmm. Well, McCord, Hunt, Liddy, and Baldwin were somewhere doing something over Memorial Day weekend 197TWO, and it sure as hell wasn't where they said they were, doing what they claim to have been doing. You've given me lots more to chew over. While we're all masticating, though, there's still the thorny problem of how far back CIA, Ellsberg, Fielding, and Hunt had the "Pentagon Papers" operation planned and in the works for the obvious co-purpose (they always have several) of shoe-horning Hunt into the White House, where Hunt not only could do the primary Memorial Day weekend 1972 black bag job and its follow-up, he also could arrange the Hunt/Liddy photo-op trip to Fielding's office that would guarantee Ellsberg a "Get Out of Jail Free" card. No shortage of things to chew on. Ashton Gray