Open Letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee

[Douglas Caddy]

[Legal Letterhead]

March 20, 2010

Senator Christopher S. (Kit) Bond

274 Russell Senate Office Building

Washington, D.C. 20510

Dear Senator Bond:

I am writing you in your capacity as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee to provide you with information about illegal and unconstitutional activities of the Intelligence Community as disclosed in a new book of which I am co-author. The book is “Watergate Exposed: A Confidential Informant Tells How the Watergate Burglars Were Set-Up and Reveals Other Government Dirty Secrets, by Robert Merritt as told to Douglas Caddy, Original Attorney for the Watergate Seven.”

The primary purpose of this public letter is to request that the Senate Intelligence Committee open an investigation into the heretofore undisclosed role of Intelligence Agencies and their Agents in the origins of Watergate. It is also to request that based upon the information that would be gathered by the Committee pursuant the inquiry that the investigation be expanded to include the numerous illegal and unconstitutional activities engaged in by these Agencies today that infringe upon the basic liberties of the American public.

By way of background, in 1970 Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Detective Carl Shoffler enrolled Merritt as a Confidential Informant for the police. Shoffler was a Military Intelligence Agent assigned to the Washington Police Department. On June 1, 1972, Merritt provided information gained from a highly unusual source to Shoffler about the planned Watergate break-in two weeks before event, which occurred on June 17, 1972. That same evening, June 1, 1972, Shoffler brought two Intelligence Agents to Merritt’s apartment so that he could brief them on what he had learned about the planned break-in at Watergate. Shoffler later made the arrests on June 17, 1972, and became famous for doing so, when in fact, based on the advance information provided him by Merritt, he set up the burglars by means of wiretap triangulation.

Upon Shoffler’s recommendation, the FBI in 1971 enrolled Merritt as a CI. He worked principally with two FBI agents: Bill Tucker and Terry O’Connor. Agents Tucker and O’Connor, upon the instruction of FBI Associate Director Mark Felt, visited Merritt on June 3, 1972, to inquire about rumors they had heard that Merritt knew of a planned break-in at Watergate. They visited him two days after the scandal broke on June 17, 1972, to inquire again what he knew.

I am enclosing documents with this letter that support the allegations made above and those that follow.

Under the direction of Officer Shoffler and FBI Agents Tucker and O’Connor, Merritt as a CI engaged in activities that blatantly violated the law and the rights of individual citizens. A partial list of these actions includes:

1) Planting drugs on innocent persons and having them arrested

2) Planting wiretap bugs in the offices and vehicles of targeted individuals

3) Breaking into the offices of targeted individuals and organizations to steal files

4) Having sex with 70 targeted individuals and five targeted Washington, D.C. police officers

5) Stealing mail and signed petitions from targeted organizations

6) Cutting the wires to loud speakers at public rallies

7) Spreading false rumors

8) Targeting Members of Congress based on gossip

9) Distributing blue-striped capsules that caused nausea to demonstrators

What makes Merritt’s disclosures so unusual is that this is the first time a Confidential Informant has revealed publicly the grossly unconstitutional activities that he engaged in under the direction of government agencies.

The U.S. Department of Justice recently distributed a memorandum to Intelligence Agencies directing that all efforts be made to hinder publication of “Watergate Exposed.” The reason the Department did this is because it is gravely concerned that Merritt’s revelations about the illegal activities of Intelligence Agencies in the period immediately before and after Watergate would open the window onto the illegal and unconstitutional activities engaged in by the Intelligence Community today, which are even more serious than those in the 1970’s. Were the American people fully aware of these present illegal activities they would be outraged at the wholesale shredding of the Bill of Rights. An important aspect of what is going on at the present time is the cost to the American taxpayer and its impact on the budget’s deficit. What are the legal and budgetary justifications for these agencies conducting domestic intelligence?

Robert Merritt and I are willing to provide the Committee a copy of our book manuscript, “Watergate Exposed,” for use by the Committee in determining whether it wishes to pursue an investigation into the abuses by the Intelligence Community. We only ask that the Committee provide us a Confidentiality Agreement governing use of the manuscript so as not to undercut sales of the book upon its publication. Also, both Robert Merritt and I stand ready to provide testimony to the Committee if that is desired.

I am enclosing with this letter a few of the hundreds of relevant documents in our possession. These include my preface to “Watergate Exposed”, a chapter from the book titled, “A Series of Missed Opportunities: There Would Have Been No Watergate”, a section from the book titled, “Who Was Mark Felt?”, the book’s Table of Contents, Jack Anderson’s column of Oct. 23, 1975, The Daily Rag of October 5-12, 1973, a Watergate Special Prosecution Force report on Merritt dated Nov. 20, 1973, an article from The New York Times of July 14, 1972 titled “Lawyer Held in Contempt in Democratic Raid Inquiry” and an op-ed article by me titled “What if Judge Sirica Were With Us Today?” from the Wall Street Journal of March 24, 1998.

Please contact me or Robert Merritt should you need additional information to reach a decision whether to pursue this matter.

Sincerely yours,

Douglas Caddy

Attorney-at-Law

Houston, Texas