Liddy<=>CIA?; McCord<=>Mullen Corp?

[Dan Herrick]

Hello all,

I've been reading the forums for a while and would like to thank John Simkin for signing me up.

For my first post, I would like to hear from people who have thoughts about, or even better solid evidence, that

1. G Gordon Liddy worked for the CIA at some point prior to June 17, 1972

2. James McCord worked for the Mullen Corporation at some point prior to June 17, 1972.

I have seen mention made various places of Liddy's CIA connection and although it certainly could be logical, that does not make it a fact. He surely interacted with the CIA, but whether he was working directly for them is tough to say. I find it most curious that in the index of his autobiography "Will", CIA is referenced as being on pages 141-149 but is only mentioned on 147 (twice), 148 (once), and 149 (once). The time frame covered is Liddy's exit from Treasury and entrance to the White House staff - what eventually became the Plumbers. Is this a typo or is Liddy coyly trying to tell us something?

I have not seen mention of McCord having a direct connection to the Mullen Corp. However, McCord had worked for the CIA for years, and Mullen was a CIA front. Liddy seems to claim that it was Liddy who recruited McCord into the Plumbers "web" and introduced him to Hunt...but Hunt had also worked for the CIA for a long time and then went to work at Mullen after he "retired." What I'm wondering (and I know I'm not alone) is if Hunt and McCord knew each other for much longer than Liddy states in "Will"

The main reason I am interested is because of a lot of thinking I've been doing about McCord, Hunt, Liddy, and the period from 26 May 1972 until 17 June 1972.

Your help would be appreciated. Thanks!

Dan

[John Simkin]

I have seen mention made various places of Liddy's CIA connection and although it certainly could be logical, that does not make it a fact. He surely interacted with the CIA, but whether he was working directly for them is tough to say. I find it most curious that in the index of his autobiography "Will", CIA is referenced as being on pages 141-149 but is only mentioned on 147 (twice), 148 (once), and 149 (once). The time frame covered is Liddy's exit from Treasury and entrance to the White House staff - what eventually became the Plumbers. Is this a typo or is Liddy coyly trying to tell us something?

I would not have thought that Liddy was the type of man the CIA would have recruited. McCord was of course CIA and it seems to me that he did everything he could to get the Watergate team caught. In my view it as a CIA operation to bring down Nixon.

[William Kelly]

I have seen mention made various places of Liddy's CIA connection and although it certainly could be logical, that does not make it a fact. He surely interacted with the CIA, but whether he was working directly for them is tough to say. I find it most curious that in the index of his autobiography "Will", CIA is referenced as being on pages 141-149 but is only mentioned on 147 (twice), 148 (once), and 149 (once). The time frame covered is Liddy's exit from Treasury and entrance to the White House staff - what eventually became the Plumbers. Is this a typo or is Liddy coyly trying to tell us something?

I would not have thought that Liddy was the type of man the CIA would have recruited. McCord was of course CIA and it seems to me that he did everything he could to get the Watergate team caught. In my view it as a CIA operation to bring down Nixon.

John, McCord was NOT an employee of the CIA. He was a contract agent. Big difference. One gets dental benefits and the other deniability.

BK

[Nathaniel Heidenheimer]

I have seen mention made various places of Liddy's CIA connection and although it certainly could be logical, that does not make it a fact. He surely interacted with the CIA, but whether he was working directly for them is tough to say. I find it most curious that in the index of his autobiography "Will", CIA is referenced as being on pages 141-149 but is only mentioned on 147 (twice), 148 (once), and 149 (once). The time frame covered is Liddy's exit from Treasury and entrance to the White House staff - what eventually became the Plumbers. Is this a typo or is Liddy coyly trying to tell us something?

I would not have thought that Liddy was the type of man the CIA would have recruited. McCord was of course CIA and it seems to me that he did everything he could to get the Watergate team caught. In my view it as a CIA operation to bring down Nixon.

John, McCord was NOT an employee of the CIA. He was a contract agent. Big difference. One gets dental benefits and the other deniability.

BK

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Bill can you expand a bit more on these differences?

The reason I type this is that I have seen so many people emphasize that the part is not the whole when it comes to the CIA.

I think one can cary this side of the argument too far.

When one joined an organization that one knew worked by compartmentalization and with virtually

no oversite, for a period of some years, I think you have to take some kind of institutional responsibility for an organization that works entirely without public accountability. Otherwise we are just a democracy in name alone, because more and more functions of governemnt will be transfered to this secret realm.

I an not trying to say that we don't need to be carefull of ascribing responsibility to for highly compartmentalized actions of individuals to broad groups of

people within the CIA. Your side of the argument is well taken. Its just that the other side hardly ever gets mentioned.

Also Dan, have you read Secret Agenda by Jim Hougan. This book is one of the hardest books to put down. Compared to most others way more on McCord and a lot of stuff on Hunt that Stanley Kutler has found not good for the children! Its old, but a great start for some of the most provocative debates.

Edited August 12, 2008 by Nathaniel Heidenheimer

[William Kelly]

I have seen mention made various places of Liddy's CIA connection and although it certainly could be logical, that does not make it a fact. He surely interacted with the CIA, but whether he was working directly for them is tough to say. I find it most curious that in the index of his autobiography "Will", CIA is referenced as being on pages 141-149 but is only mentioned on 147 (twice), 148 (once), and 149 (once). The time frame covered is Liddy's exit from Treasury and entrance to the White House staff - what eventually became the Plumbers. Is this a typo or is Liddy coyly trying to tell us something?

I would not have thought that Liddy was the type of man the CIA would have recruited. McCord was of course CIA and it seems to me that he did everything he could to get the Watergate team caught. In my view it as a CIA operation to bring down Nixon.

John, McCord was NOT an employee of the CIA. He was a contract agent. Big difference. One gets dental benefits and the other deniability.

BK

----------------

Bill can you expand a bit more on these differences?

The reason I type this is that I have seen so many people emphasize that the part is not the whole when it comes to the CIA.

I think one can cary this side of the argument too far.

When one joined an organization that one knew worked by compartmentalization and with virtually

no oversite, for a period of some years, I think you have to take some kind of institutional responsibility for an organization that works entirely without public accountability. Otherwise we are just a democracy in name alone, because more and more functions of governemnt will be transfered to this secret realm.

I an not trying to say that we don't need to be carefull of ascribing responsibility to for highly compartmentalized actions of individuals to broad groups of

people within the CIA. Your side of the argument is well taken. Its just that the other side hardly ever gets mentioned.

Also Dan, have you read Secret Agenda by Jim Hougan. This book is one of the hardest books to put down. Compared to most others way more on McCord and a lot of stuff on Hunt that Stanley Kutler has found not good for the children! Its old, but a great start for some of the most provocative debates.

Well, Nate,

Hunt was a CIA officer, a card carrying CIA employee with a GS# ranking and pay scale and benefits, while McCord, from what I understand, was a contract agent, like many of the Cubans, who received monthly checks/cash but did not have an office at CIA HQ, though he reported to someone with such an office.

I don't know what the big difference is either, especially when you are trying to determine accountability, but the CIA looks at it as a big difference, which goes along with their plausible deniability factor.

I'm sure there's more to it, but you'll have to ask someone who was/is part of the system as I'm on the outside looking in.

BK

[Dan Herrick]

Several sources (Emery-"Watergate" p 112, Liddy-"Will" p 191, Hougan-"Secret Agenda" pp 17-26, etc) indicate that McCord certainly had worked for the CIA as an employee for over 20 years, retiring in 1970. Or should I say "retiring." A number of sources also indicate that the CIA had a practice of having people "retire" but continue on in service to the CIA, in either an official or unofficial capacity. Howard Hunt "retired" 3 times from the CIA, the last time in 1970. There is not necessarily any reason to believe that Hunt's 1970 "retirement" was any more real than his other two...nor is there necessarily any reason to believe McCord's 1970 "retirement" was real either.

So McCord and Hunt both had worked in the past for CIA. One relevant question for Watergate is, Were they still working for CIA - either as employees or as contract agents - in 1971-72 in the lead-up to the Watergate break-in(s)? It is established that Hunt worked for Mullen Corp in this time period, and that Mullen Corp was a CIA front, and that Hunt got CIA disguises for himself and Liddy. It seems reasonable to me that Hunt was still affiliated with the CIA in 1971-72. I asked about McCord's connection to Mullen Corp because I feel that if that could be proven, it would go a long way towards indicating that McCord was also still affiliated with the CIA in 1971-72. I asked about Liddy because though some speculate about him being in the CIA, I have a hard time seeing him there and after reading Will, one generally feels like if he had worked there, he would have said so.

The interest here is: Did McCord and Hunt know each other a long time before Liddy introduced them, and were both working for the CIA right under Liddy's nose without dearest G Gordon being aware of it? I was curious about this whole area before I even read Secret Agenda, which I recently got out of the library again to re-read. I find it possible that Liddy's account in Will is essentially what he really thought was happening, but that McCord and Hunt totally fooled him and used the Cubans for various other missions which Liddy paid for without even realizing it. Though I have much more work to do in this area, and I know that I am not alone in this suspicion, I think the Howard Hughes connections to all of this business are important.

Oddly I have never seen this particular connection written anywhere, but it is established that by this point of his life Hughes was a recluse and was being cared for by male Mormon nurses. At about this time the Washington representative of the Hughes organization changed from being Larry O'Brien, DNC Chair, to the aforementioned Mullen Corp, CIA front and employer of Howard Hunt, which was run by Robert Bennett - who is a Mormon himself. (Indeed, he later became - and is currently - US Senator from Utah and a highly respected elder in the Mormon church.) So now we have Hughes (whose campaign contributions to Nixon would cause trouble later and whose loan to Nixon's brother had caused problems already) represented in DC by the company (Mullen) who employed a guy (Hunt) who would become a key figure in a plot to bug the former Hughes representative (O'Brien). Odd.

I would be interested in hearing from anyone who knows what exactly the Mullen Corp did for the Hughes organization. Also, if someone can recommend a good biography of Hughes or his longtime associate Maheu please let me know. (Preferably not the Clifford Irving version. Ha, ha.)

Cheers

Dan

[John Simkin]

John, McCord was NOT an employee of the CIA. He was a contract agent. Big difference. One gets dental benefits and the other deniability.

Not true. McCord joined the CIA in 1951. He worked for the Physical Security Division. In 1962 McCord became a CIA senior security officer in Europe. This included working closely with MI5 in England. Later he was given responsibility for security at Langley CIA headquarters. McCord retired from the CIA in August, 1970.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKmccordJ.htm

[William Kelly]

John, McCord was NOT an employee of the CIA. He was a contract agent. Big difference. One gets dental benefits and the other deniability.

Not true. McCord joined the CIA in 1951. He worked for the Physical Security Division. In 1962 McCord became a CIA senior security officer in Europe. This included working closely with MI5 in England. Later he was given responsibility for security at Langley CIA headquarters. McCord retired from the CIA in August, 1970.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKmccordJ.htm

Well I stand corrected. That would certainly make him an employee. I just know that when after he was arrested at the Watergate, he was not an employee of the CIA at the time and the diffence was explained to me.

So he was an employee and then became a contract agent?

BK

[John Simkin]

Well I stand corrected. That would certainly make him an employee. I just know that when after he was arrested at the Watergate, he was not an employee of the CIA at the time and the diffence was explained to me.

So he was an employee and then became a contract agent?

Not only was McCord a member of the CIA is was so close to Howard Hunt that he gave him an alibi for the day when JFK was killed in Dallas. In an interview he gave to Dan Schultz on 17th December, 1976, he said the following:

"A false allegation was made shortly after March 23, 1973, that E. Howard Hunt and Frank Sturgis were in Dallas at the time the President was killed, and a photograph was circulated purporting to be Hunt and Sturgis there at the time. Persons I know circulated and touted the story to the press, knowing the allegation was false in its entirety, and further that the men in the photographs bore no resemblance whatever to Hunt and Sturgis. I know that Hunt was not in Dallas and had no connection whatever with the President's death."

[Nathaniel Heidenheimer]

John, McCord was NOT an employee of the CIA. He was a contract agent. Big difference. One gets dental benefits and the other deniability.

Not true. McCord joined the CIA in 1951. He worked for the Physical Security Division. In 1962 McCord became a CIA senior security officer in Europe. This included working closely with MI5 in England. Later he was given responsibility for security at Langley CIA headquarters. McCord retired from the CIA in August, 1970.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKmccordJ.htm

---------

John's point is worth elaborating, especially as we are often led to believe that Angleton's unit was the ONLY true "mole hunding unit. Let us turn now to

page 12 of the Good Book:

At the heart of many of these activities, a tabernacle within the inner sanctum, was the Security Research Staff (SRS) a cadre within

the Office of Security(OS), Headed by the late General paul Gaynor, Watergate Spy James McCord's immediate superior for many years,

the SRS managed the litterally mind-boggling Bluebird and Artichoke programs, and coordinated many of the domestic spying activites

associated with Operation Chaos and Project Two. Most important, the SRS was the primary, hands-on counterintelligence unit within the

CIA. Its central fuctionwas to seek out and expose security risks, as well as to identify Soviet penetration agents not only within the CIA

but also within other branches of governement. It was in other words THE vehicle for "mole hunting" as much as James Angleton's

counterintelligence staff was. This fact, as important as it is obscure, has so far gone unnoticed by writers on the subject of intelligence

whose fascination with the glamorous Angleton... is understadable (p. 12-13, Secret Agenda by Jim Hougan)

Do othes agree with this description of OS as of equal importance to Angletons unit for counterintelligence? Any qualifications?

Also note the involvement of OS in Bluebird and Artichoke. Curious that he doesn't type MKULTRA. Do you think he is alluding to ONLY the coordination

of protecting the safehouses using the San Francisco and NYC cops or other aspects of Atichoke as well?

Hunt is basically described as still CIA in Secret Agenda. He is described as bringing information based on spying on the White House to the CIA by courier, in order for a very secretive psychological profiling project, which is, I think where Ashton Grey was going.

Edited August 14, 2008 by Nathaniel Heidenheimer

[Dan Herrick]

Do othes agree with this description of OS as of equal importance to Angletons unit for counterintelligence? Any qualifications?

Also note the involvement of OS in Bluebird and Artichoke. Curious that he doesn't type MKULTRA. Do you think he is alluding to ONLY the coordination

of protecting the safehouses using the San Francisco and NYC cops or other aspects of Atichoke as well?

Hunt is basically described as still CIA in Secret Agenda. He is described as bringing information based on spying on the White House to the CIA by courier, in order for a very secretive psychological profiling project, which is, I think where Ashton Grey was going.

I don't know enough detail re: CIA to make any comments on OS vs Angleton, or Bluebird/Artichoke/MkUltra. I have no reason to doubt Hougan's description of McCord's CIA role.

We are all sharing interesting information here, but I'm still wondering if there is a reference Out There Anywhere linkning McCord to The Mullen Company (my apologies for referring to it as "Mullen Corp" in previous postings), and if anyone knows what Mullen did for the Hughes organization.

Thanks,

Dan

[Douglas Caddy]

I have seen mention made various places of Liddy's CIA connection and although it certainly could be logical, that does not make it a fact. He surely interacted with the CIA, but whether he was working directly for them is tough to say. I find it most curious that in the index of his autobiography "Will", CIA is referenced as being on pages 141-149 but is only mentioned on 147 (twice), 148 (once), and 149 (once). The time frame covered is Liddy's exit from Treasury and entrance to the White House staff - what eventually became the Plumbers. Is this a typo or is Liddy coyly trying to tell us something?

I would not have thought that Liddy was the type of man the CIA would have recruited. McCord was of course CIA and it seems to me that he did everything he could to get the Watergate team caught. In my view it as a CIA operation to bring down Nixon.

More likely it was a military intelligence-CIA joint operation.

Some of the great mysteries of Watergate will be in the news sometime after the November election, along with answers to these mysteries.

As to McCord working for the Mullen Company, I never heard his name mentioned by Robert Mullen while he owned the company. Maybe Robert Bennett, who purchased the Mullen Company, might have established such a employment relationship. Liddy was, and is today, essentially a loner who never could have fit into the CIA mode, although he was once a FBI agent.

[John Simkin]

Some of the great mysteries of Watergate will be in the news sometime after the November election, along with answers to these mysteries.

Does this depend on the Democrats winning the election?

[Douglas Caddy]

Some of the great mysteries of Watergate will be in the news sometime after the November election, along with answers to these mysteries.

Does this depend on the Democrats winning the election?

No, it depends on how soon I can finish the book that I am writing. A major step forward in that regard came today when I received key documents that had been sought from the U.S. National Archives.

[William Kelly]

Some of the great mysteries of Watergate will be in the news sometime after the November election, along with answers to these mysteries.

Does this depend on the Democrats winning the election?

No, it depends on how soon I can finish the book that I am writing. A major step forward in that regard came today when I received key documents that had been sought from the U.S. National Archives.

Among the mysteries of Watergate,

I was wondering if anything came out of this Liddy libel trial? - BK

<H3 style="MARGIN: auto 0in; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">http://www.gannett.com/go/newswatch/2003/j...ry/nw0103-8.htm</H3><H3 style="MARGIN: auto 0in; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">FROM BARBARA WARTELLE WALL: LEGAL WATCH

2002 MEDIA LAW DEVELOPMENTS -- LIBEL AND PRIVACY </H3>At the end of each year, Barbara Wall, Vice President/Senior Legal Counsel and one of the newsrooms' best friends, provides a summary of the key court decisions of the year. This week's edition of Legal Watch deals with libel and privacy. We encourage Gannett editors to review the material and discuss relevant issues with their staffs.

......another federal appeals court ruled that a well-known figure in the Watergate scandal could be found negligent for relying on a questionable source as the sole basis for allegations about a private figure. (Wells v. Liddy, March 1, 2002.) G. Gordon Liddy, who served time in prison for his own role in Watergate, had said that then-White House legal counsel John Dean, who allegedly wanted to know whether the Democrats had information linking his girlfriend to a call-girl operation, ordered the break-in. He alleged that photographs of call girls were kept in the desk of Ida Wells, a secretary for a DNC official. Liddy based these allegations on statements made by an attorney who had a history of mental illness and who had been convicted and disbarred for prostitution-related activities.

Wells sued Liddy for defamation. The trial judge found that Liddy had taken adequate steps to corroborate the attorney's statements, including speaking with the authors of two different books that espoused the same theory, reading relevant literature and studying testimony Dean had given in his prior defamation suit against Liddy for related statements. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, however, was not persuaded, and, in an unpublished opinion, it reversed.

According to the appeals court, while the information gathered by Liddy tended to corroborate the call-girl theory generally, it failed specifically to corroborate the lawyer's statements concerning Wells' personal participation in the call-girl ring. Because the lawyer plainly was an unreliable source, the appellate court said that a jury could conclude that Liddy should not have relied on him. The case has been sent back for a new trial, at which jurors will be asked to decide whether Liddy's reliance on the lawyer as his principal source was unreasonable.......