Who Was Carl Shoffler?

[Douglas Caddy]

Russ Baker in his heavily documented book, Family of Secrets, writes: "Nixon and his old nemesis JFK had both angered the same people and both had been removed from the presidency."

Carl Shoffler was the arresting officer of the Watergate burglars on June 17, 1972. He was a Military Intelligence Officer who had been assigned to the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department.

Robert Merritt in his affidavit below describes his relationship with Shoffler:

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WHO WAS CARL SHOFFLER?

Affidavit of Robert Merritt regarding Carl Shoffler

I, Robert Merritt, attest to the following information regarding Carl Shoffler, the Washington, D.C. police detective who arrested the burglars at Watergate on June 17, 1972. The information that I am providing is derived from personal knowledge as I knew Shoffler for over 20 years, from 1970 until 1994, two years before his death at age 51.

There exists a great deal of information on the public record about Shoffler. I shall not repeat it here as it can easily be accessed merely by typing “Carl Shoffler” in the Google search engine.

I first laid eyes on Shoffler in December 1969 when he became part of the freak scene of a large group of persons who regularly gathered around Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C. Dupont Circle was within walking distance of the White House, about eight blocks away. The group of diverse persons who regularly gathered there cut across all strata of American society. There were Nazis, Communists, conservatives, liberals, straights, gays, drug dealers, drug users – you name it, they were there. Shoffler blended into the mixture easily because he was young (25 years old), had a scruffy beard and was shabbily dressed. At the time I was the most popular guy in the Dupont Circle freak scene. Everybody liked “Butch,” which was my nickname.

I had a job at a nearby drug store earning just enough above subsistence level. Early in January 1970, shortly after Shoffler had begun hanging around Dupont Circle, he showed up at the drug store. He did so twice, each time conferring privately with the store’s owner.

To my dismay one day early in January the owner fired me, letting me go without explanation. I was crushed and retreated to my small apartment at 2122 P St, N.W., about two blocks from Dupont Circle. My monthly rent was $35 and I feared that I would be unable to pay it. On the evening of the same day that I was fired, as I sat in my apartment and attempted to gather my wits, there was a knock on the door. When I opened it, there stood Shoffler. For some reason, and I don’t know why, I was not overly surprised at seeing him.

Shoffler pushed his way into my apartment and started talking. The first thing he said was that he was responsible for my being fired from the job at the drug store. The next thing he said was to take an envelope from him and open it. When I did so, there was $1000 in cash. Shoffler then informed me that he was an undercover detective with the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) and that I had been the object of profiling by several law enforcement agencies. These agencies had concluded that I was an ideal candidate for being recruited as a Confidential Informant (CI). I met the criteria: young, good looking, non-political and hailed from the hills of West Virginia where I had grown up. The big plus was that I was popular with the crowd that hung out at Dupont Circle, which was the initial purpose of my being recruited. Law enforcement viewed the members of the crowd as being dangerous radicals who posed a serious threat to the American way of life.

Shoffler explained to me that because I was gay, I could not serve in the U.S. military. He asserted, however, that I could best serve my country and help defeat its enemies by agreeing to become a Confidential Informant and report to him on everything that was going on with the Dupont Circle scene. I accepted without hesitation, taking at face value Shoffler’s enticement without questioning it in any way.

With the CI agreement then being verbally concluded, Shoffler asked if he could move into my apartment. He said that living there would facilitate his police undercover work. I was 26 years old, a year older than him. I readily agreed and we sealed the arrangement by downing a few beers. When it became late, Shoffler lay down on the couch and I climbed into my bed. I had hardly closed my eyes before I felt Shoffler sliding into bed beside me. He lost no time in performing oral sex, thus initiating our homosexual relationship that lasted for several years.

The next day, to give me cover, Shoffler arranged for two of his fellow officers to “arrest”, hand-cuff, and place me in a police vehicle right in front of the Dupont Circle crowd, which stood agape as what they were seeing. I was then taken to a nearby police substation where I signed the necessary papers, was photographed and assigned a CI number, which was SE3.

My duties quickly expanded beyond informing on the Dupont Circle crowd. Shoffler arranged for me to do CI work for the FBI, working under the direction of FBI agents William Tucker and Terence O’Connor. After being taught CI techniques, I was assigned to target individuals and organizations that were considered politically Left. Pursuant to instructions, I planted illegal drugs on individuals, causing them to be arrested. I put wire-tap and eaves-dropping devices on the desks of “Leftist” lawyers and leaders and also on their vehicles. I broke into the offices of “Leftist” organizations and stole documents for MPD and the FBI. I attended rallies and cut the cords leading to the loud-speakers. On an occasion I stole 5000 addressed envelopes from the Hebrew Congregation in Washington as Shoffler and the FBI wanted the names and addresses on the envelopes as the recipients were deemed to be vocal opponents of the Vietnam War Another target was the Institute for Policy Studies, which I broke into and stole documents. Other targeted organizations included any considered to be active in protesting the Vietnam War and those that were Gay. When the American Psychiatric Association voted to remove homosexuality from its list of mental disorders, Shoffler and other MPD officers ordered me to devise a means of targeting the association in retaliation. Shoffler also ordered me to engage in homosexual sex with about 70 targeted men, which I did. Once this was done their names were added to the government’s database. I also, upon Shoffler’s instructions, had homosexual sex with five MPD officers on different occasions whose names were provided to me. Later I identified each targeted individual through a two-mirror in MPD’s Internal Affairs Division.

Shoffler acknowledged to me on two occasions that he was a Military Intelligence Agent and had been assigned to MPD to monitor radical groups. Shoffler and I were considered to be above the law. We could do no wrong.

The above described events took place in the years and months leading up to the Watergate case breaking open. In an affidavit that I executed on July 29, 2009, I described my role in informing Shoffler on June 1, 1972 of the planned break-in at the Democratic National Committee scheduled for June 18, 1972. A highly unusual source provided me with this information. Rather than repeat this again, I incorporate my prior affidavit of July 29, 2009 into this affidavit.

My forthcoming book, Watergate Exposed: A Confidential Informant Tells How the Watergate Burglars Were Setup, by Robert Merrit, as told to Douglas Caddy, Original Attorney for the Watergate Seven, provides further details of my CI work for Shoffler in Washington, D.C. in the years after the Watergate case to 1985 and my CI work for him in New York City, after I moved there in 1986 and until two years before Shoffler’s death in 1996.

It is important to note that in 1973 I met with the Special Watergate Prosecutor, with the staff of the Senate Watergate Committee and even testified in Executive Session before the Committee. While I provided much information to these, I did not disclose what I knew about the origins of Watergate. I did not do so because I was threatened by Shoffler, who told me that I would be ‘hung publicly” for being a homosexual and would be prosecuted for the illegal acts that I had committed as a CI, even though these were done under the direction of the Shoffler, MPD and the FBI.

There are many secrets yet to be told about Watergate. Once these are revealed, the perception of the public as to what actually occurred will be radically altered. To give only one example: Shoffler told me of a secret dinner he had with Chief Judge John Sirica at the latter’s invitation after the Watergate case broke. It was Judge Sirica who assigned the case to himself and presided over the grand jury investigation into the break-in and the trial of those arrested and later of those indicted for the cover-up. Judge Sircia’s longtime mentor was Edward Bennett Williams, who served as legal counsel to the Democratic National Committee during the Watergate case.

This sworn statement is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God. I, Robert Merritt, swear in this affidavit that the facts are true to the best of my knowledge under the penalty of perjury.

/S/ROBERT MERRITT

Subscribed and sworn before me on the December 31, 2009 to certify my hand and seal of office:

Ricardo S. Castro

Notary Public State of NY

No. 01CA5041272

Qualified Bronx County

Comm. Exp. 03/22/20011