Mark Groubert Asks: Who Really Is Bob Woodward?

[Benjamin Cole]

 

There is a strange connection between the JFKA and the Watergate break-in, with E Howard Hunt at the Watergate for sure, and possibly in Dallas. 

James McCord was part of the Watergate burglary team also, along with other CIA assets. 

Woodward is an interesting figure, with likely intel-state connections. Op Mock?  https://www.historynewsnetwork.org/article/bob-woodwards-secret-shouldnt-he-have-disclosed-it

James Hougan has written that the Watergate affair had CIA written all over it. 

https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Agenda-Watergate-Deep-Throat/dp/0394514289

Of course, many in the EF-JFKA also suspect the CIA, or elements thereof, played a role in the JFKA. IMHO, I suspect the Miami station of the CIA, and Cuban exiles, and mercs. 

I am of the view the CIA/intel state deposes Presidents it does not like, but realized assassinations had run their course after the 1960s. There would be a limit to what the public would swallow. 

That is one of the lessons of the JFKA. Intel agencies will remove sitting US presidents. 

 

Edited May 15 by Benjamin Cole

[Richard Bertolino]

no post.

Edited May 15 by Richard Bertolino
posted to wrong topic

[Pat Speer]

4 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

 

There is a strange connection between the JFKA and the Watergate break-in, with E Howard Hunt at the Watergate for sure, and possibly in Dallas. 

James McCord was part of the Watergate burglary team also, along with other CIA assets. 

Woodward is an interesting figure, with likely intel-state connections. Op Mock?  https://www.historynewsnetwork.org/article/bob-woodwards-secret-shouldnt-he-have-disclosed-it

James Hougan has written that the Watergate affair had CIA written all over it. 

https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Agenda-Watergate-Deep-Throat/dp/0394514289

Of course, many in the EF-JFKA also suspect the CIA, or elements thereof, played a role in the JFKA. IMHO, I suspect the Miami station of the CIA, and Cuban exiles, and mercs. 

I am of the view the CIA/intel state deposes Presidents it does not like, but realized assassinations had run their course after the 1960s. There would be a limit to what the public would swallow. 

That is one of the lessons of the JFKA. Intel agencies will remove sitting US presidents. 

 

There are other connections, of course.

When James McCord decided to blow the whistle on the Nixon White House, he hired prominent JFK researcher Bernard Fensterwald as his attorney. 

Nixon, in the meantime, felt like he needed to hire a hot shot lawyer with a knack for covering up nefarious activities... and sought to hire Warren Commission chief counsel J. Lee Rankin. 

And then, a couple of years later, Gerry Ford needed someone to investigate the CIA, but not expose too much, and thought "Who do I know who can be trusted to give the public the appearance of openness while simultaneously covering up what I need to have covered up?" And hired Warren Commission attorney David Belin. 

[Gerry Down]

34 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

When James McCord decided to blow the whistle on the Nixon White House, he hired prominent JFK researcher Bernard Fensterwald as his attorney. 

Why would James McCord hire someone so controversial? Especially someone so outspoken in as controversial a topic as the JFK assassination?

[Benjamin Cole]

40 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

There are other connections, of course.

When James McCord decided to blow the whistle on the Nixon White House, he hired prominent JFK researcher Bernard Fensterwald as his attorney. 

Nixon, in the meantime, felt like he needed to hire a hot shot lawyer with a knack for covering up nefarious activities... and sought to hire Warren Commission chief counsel J. Lee Rankin. 

And then, a couple of years later, Gerry Ford needed someone to investigate the CIA, but not expose too much, and thought "Who do I know who can be trusted to give the public the appearance of openness while simultaneously covering up what I need to have covered up?" And hired Warren Commission attorney David Belin. 

If I ever knew that, I had forgotten about Fensterwald. 

 

[Benjamin Cole]

4 minutes ago, Gerry Down said:

Why would James McCord hire someone so controversial? Especially someone so outspoken in as controversial a topic as the JFK assassination?

You know....Nixon said to Helms that if he did not clean up Watergate, the "Bay of Pigs" story would come out. Some have interpreted that to mean, Nixon would spill the JFKA story. 

Maybe McCord was trying to send the same signal. 

BTW, researcher John Newman claims that McCord was a Soviet asset. I find that hard to believe....but I have not read Newman's tomes yet.

 

[Gerry Down]

Was Fensterwald seen as such a good lawyer that the fact he engaged in controversial topics was overlooked by people looking to hire him? Such as McCord?

[Benjamin Cole]

2 hours ago, Gerry Down said:

Was Fensterwald seen as such a good lawyer that the fact he engaged in controversial topics was overlooked by people looking to hire him? Such as McCord?

Fensterwald was a Harvard lawyer, undoubtably smart. 

"One of Fensterwald's more notable cases was his unsuccessful defense of Watergate criminal James McCord. He was also connected to other characters on the fringes of Watergate. John Paisley, who was the CIA liaison to the White House Plumbers, was Fensterwald's friend and neighbor. When Paisley died under suspicious circumstances, his widow hired Fensterwald to investigate.^[1] Prior to the Watergate burglaries, both Fensterwald and McCord employed a private investigator named Lou Russell.^{[10]_"---wikipedia} 

You could play Twilight Zone music to almost every aspect of the JFKA...or Watergate. 

[Gerry Down]

27 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Fensterwald was a Harvard lawyer, undoubtably smart. 

"One of Fensterwald's more notable cases was his unsuccessful defense of Watergate criminal James McCord. He was also connected to other characters on the fringes of Watergate. John Paisley, who was the CIA liaison to the White House Plumbers, was Fensterwald's friend and neighbor. When Paisley died under suspicious circumstances, his widow hired Fensterwald to investigate.^[1] Prior to the Watergate burglaries, both Fensterwald and McCord employed a private investigator named Lou Russell.^{[10]_"---wikipedia} 

You could play Twilight Zone music to almost every aspect of the JFKA...or Watergate. 

Thanks for that insight. I guess Washington DC can be a small place.

[Pat Speer]

8 hours ago, Gerry Down said:

Why would James McCord hire someone so controversial? Especially someone so outspoken in as controversial a topic as the JFK assassination?

I was lucky enough to stumble across McCord's book A Piece of Tape 20 years ago or so. I think I paid like 5 bucks for it and when I opened it up I realized it had been autographed. I had similar experiences with books by Carlos Bringuier, Arlen Specter, and, gulp, Richard Nixon. 

In any event, while most people like to place McCord (and his mistake with the tape) in the context of whatever theory they choose to believe (e.g. that he set up Nixon) I read the book with an open mind and was surprised to find a much more human and compelling story.

McCord was a true believer in the CIA, and had a strong belief in justice. He thought the CIA's mission was to make the world a better place, or whatever.

So he was annoyed as fudge when Nixon, to save his own neck, tried to convince the FBI that the CIA was behind the Watergate break-in.

But he was loyal, and said nothing. 

Nixon was then re-elected.

When it became clear to him that he and his fellow "burglars" were expected to spend significant time in prison for doing the President's dirty work, and that there would be no investigation, McCord was outraged, and sent his famous letter to Judge Sirica, basically exploding the whole cover-up.

As I recall, the straw that broke the camel's back for McCord was the behavior of the prosecutors in the case--who seemed uninterested in pursuing WHO had ordered the break-in. McCord concluded, at it turned out, correctly, that the whole Justice Dept. was engaged in a cover-up at the request of the Nixon White House.

So he wrote the letter to Sirica and hired a lawyer unafraid to go to war with the government: Bernard Fensterwald...who was one of the founders of the Assassination Archives and Research Center, if memory serves. 

 

In a similar bent, when James earl Ray decided to change tactics and claim he was set up for killing King, he contacted men like Mark Lane and Harold Weisberg. 

 

Edited May 15 by Pat Speer

[Gerry Down]

28 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

So he wrote the letter to Sirica and hired a lawyer unafraid to go to war with the government: Bernard Fensterwald...who was one of the founders of the Assassination Archives and Research Center, if memory serves. 

In a similar bent, when James earl Ray decided to change tactics and claim he was set up for killing King, he contacted men like Mark Lane and Harold Weisberg. 

That's an interesting explanation as to why he choose Fensterwald.

Though Fensterwald was against the CIA, and McCord was pro CIA. So there is a degree of cognitive dissonance there imo.

[Pat Speer]

21 minutes ago, Gerry Down said:

That's an interesting explanation as to why he choose Fensterwald.

Though Fensterwald was against the CIA, and McCord was pro CIA. So there is a degree of cognitive dissonance there imo.

When hiring a lawyer, people seek out someone with the same objective as themselves, not necessarily the same world-view as themselves. 

When Gerald Posner was drowning in the middle of a plagiarism scandal, he called on someone from the exact opposite side of the fence as himself re the Kennedy assassination: Mark Lane. When asked why he said Lane was the best lawyer for the job. 

[James DiEugenio]

Its not quite as cut and dried as that.

Please note:

http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg-Watergate Files/Fensterwald Bud/Fensterwald 09.pdf

[Benjamin Cole]

5 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Its not quite as cut and dried as that.

Please note:

http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg-Watergate Files/Fensterwald Bud/Fensterwald 09.pdf

JD-I read the article, but I confess I don't understand it. What is the upshot? 

[James DiEugenio]

First of all, if you have not read Jim Hougan's classic book Secret Agenda, you cannot understand Watergate.

Secondly, if you do not know who Lou Russell was, you cannot understand James McCord.

Third, if you do not know about the controversial career of Bud Fensterwald you cannot understand that story.

Let me summarize briefly.

1. Hougan makes a convincing case that Hunt and McCord were plants in the White House and the Plumbers Unit. They were really working for Helms and the CIA from the start and not Nixon and CREEP.  His masterly narrative of how they got caught shows just how apparent this was and should have been.  There is no way on earth that McCord should have taped six doors, or retaped the door when the guard removed it.  And there is no way Hunt should have kept the burglars belongings in the hotel room  with his name and number in one of the address books. Nixon finally realized Helms had set him up, but it was too late.

2. Lou Russell was McCord'a aide de camp and prior to working for McCord he worked as a security guard at the Watergate!  He also said he had tapes of the call girl ring at the Columbia Plaza, near the Watergate. In other words, McCord knew about this. But, and its a big but, it was McCord's faulty initial electronic surveillance installments that made the Plumbers go back to the Watergate anew. That night, the night of the final break in, Russell was supposed to be visiting his daughter.  He cut it short and ended up at the Howard Johnson's restaurant, the place where some of the Plumbers convened that night before going to the Watergate. How did Russell explain this colossal coincidence?  He was feeling sentimental about an old girlfriend who used to get her hair done at the Watergate while he would wait for her at the Hojo's. A sentimental nostalgia attack made him leave his daughter's early?  McCord lied about this and said Russell was not there that night. When, in fact, Hougan argues that they were both at the Hojo's at the same time. (p. 186) When the break in was delayed, Russell left Hojo's.  But, revealingly, he returned when it did occur. Around midnight.  How could he know that unless McCord told him?

3. McCord was the guy who got the Plumbers caught through the unbelievable idiocy with the tape.   A guy who worked for CIA for 19 years did not know any better? His first attorney was Gerald Alch.  Alch correctly perceived Watergate as a CIA set up. McCord fired him and hired Fensterwald, who as his first declaration said: we are going after the president. When Hougan called McCord and told him he wanted to talk about Russell, McCord adamantly refused and told his lawyer he would sue Hougan if he called again about that. It was Russell who got Fensterwald to represent McCord and also asked him for bail money for his boss, which Fensterwald provided, 40K. (Hougan, p. 303)

I hope that explains why Fensterwald was doing this shell game for Russell about the checks. Finally, why would Fensterwald be banking for McCord, when another real banker was cashing checks to Russell out of  McCord's personal account. (p. 306)

Edited May 16 by James DiEugenio