Mark Groubert Asks: Who Really Is Bob Woodward?

[Kevin Balch]

What was Helms problem with Nixon? Was it Nixon’s overtures to China and detente with the Soviets? Nixon’s de-emphasis of the CIA from his belief that the CIA had their thumb on the JFK side of the scale in 1960? Nixon’s post-election reorganization plans of the federal government?

Any connection between the CIA and the Moorer/Radford spy ring out of the Pentagon?

[Matt Cloud]

14 minutes ago, Kevin Balch said:

What was Helms problem with Nixon? Was it Nixon’s overtures to China and detente with the Soviets? Nixon’s de-emphasis of the CIA from his belief that the CIA had their thumb on the JFK side of the scale in 1960? Nixon’s post-election reorganization plans of the federal government?

Any connection between the CIA and the Moorer/Radford spy ring out of the Pentagon?

Nixon was prying into "the whole Bay of Pigs thing."  He had his staff demanding from CIA materials relating to that and the assassinations of Kennedy and Diem.  But with Nixon campaign money run through the Cubans, via Dahlberg to Stans (who had had budgetary authorities over covert funding in the 50s), money which ended up in Bernard Barker's Watergate break-in account, Nixon attempts to declassify such materials were crippled.  

 

Once injected into the Nixon bloodstream, the $$ that ends up in Barker's account is what obliges Nixon to go to Helms and say I see what's going on here, surely you see what's going on here, why don't we cool it on the Mexico angle lest this is going to go places neither of us wants to go. "The whole BoP thing."

Edited May 16 by Matt Cloud

[James DiEugenio]

That isn't bad Matt.

Helms had planted Hunt and McCord in strategic places in order to place a possible check on Nixon.

One thing that Helms really did not like was the Huston Plan.

If you don't know what that is, you should look it up.

[Matt Cloud]

1 minute ago, James DiEugenio said:

That isn't bad Matt.

Helms had planted Hunt and McCord in strategic places in order to place a possible check on Nixon.

One thing that Helms really did not like was the Huston Plan.

If you don't know what that is, you should look it up.

Wow.  Thanks.  The Huston Plan.  Fascinating.  Problem is Helms isn't the one who twisted Mullen's arm pretty hard to hire him; someone else did.  Who was that?  P. 4, bottom 'graf.

 

https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/(EST PUB DATE) WRAP-UP OF[15816480].pdf

 

 

And weren't Helms and Liddy at WH in the first place because of Moynihan and his deputy Krogh's anti-heroin operations?  If you don't know what that is,  you should look it up.  Or just ask.

[James DiEugenio]

It was Bennett, who many think was really Deep Throat, or part of that composite character.

[Matt Cloud]

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

It was Bennett, who many think was really Deep Throat, or part of that composite character.

Well that doesn't work.  Bennett is elsewhere identified by name in that memo.  Not redacted.  And everybody already knew Bennett and Mullen & Co. relationship.  No secret there.  Seems like somebody else.  Publisher Roger W. Strauss? 

 

Helms putting in Hunt and McCord is unsubstantiated.  Can you support that claim?  What about Butterfield?  Who put him there? 

 

In any case, what is the point of this exchange?  Do you want to get at the identity of Deep Throat?  Do you want to say he was a composite?  Neither Bennett not Felt were Deep Throat.

 

 

 

 

[Tony Rose]

7 hours ago, Kevin Balch said:

What was Helms problem with Nixon? Was it Nixon’s overtures to China and detente with the Soviets? Nixon’s de-emphasis of the CIA from his belief that the CIA had their thumb on the JFK side of the scale in 1960? Nixon’s post-election reorganization plans of the federal government?

Any connection between the CIA and the Moorer/Radford spy ring out of the Pentagon?

Absolutely. Read Secret Agenda.

[James DiEugenio]

Matt:

At that time, no one knew anything about the CIA and the Mullen Company.

In fact, Bennett reported to his CIA control agent that he was spinning Woodward away from that story and onto Nixon.

The Woodward/Bernstein/Bradlee tidal wave was so powerful that it engulfed the Ervin Committee en toto.

The only place one will see anything like what really happened was in the minority report penned by Fred Thompson and Howard Baker. Which no one read. ANd Nixon did not realize that the Mullen Company was a CIA front until near the end. 

For an overview read this, in this one we beat the MSM to the story.

https://www.kennedysandking.com/obituaries/the-mysterious-life-and-death-of-james-w-mccord

Edited May 17 by James DiEugenio

[Benjamin Cole]

10 hours ago, Kevin Balch said:

What was Helms problem with Nixon? Was it Nixon’s overtures to China and detente with the Soviets? Nixon’s de-emphasis of the CIA from his belief that the CIA had their thumb on the JFK side of the scale in 1960? Nixon’s post-election reorganization plans of the federal government?

Any connection between the CIA and the Moorer/Radford spy ring out of the Pentagon?

Those are great questions, and also that Nixon has spent months seeking the CIA "Bay of Pigs" files. JFKA files, possibly. 

[Matt Cloud]

25 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

Matt:

At that time, no one knew anything about the CIA and the Mullen Company.

In fact, Bennett reported to his CIA control agent that he was spinning Woodward away from that story and onto Nixon.

The Woodward/Bernstein/Bradlee tidal wave was so powerful that it engulfed the Ervin Committee en toto.

The only place one will see anything like what really happened was in the minority report penned by Fred Thompson and Howard Baker. Which no one read. ANd Nixon did not realize that the Mullen Company was a CIA front until near the end. 

For an overview read this, in this one we beat the MSM to the story.

https://www.kennedysandking.com/obituaries/the-mysterious-life-and-death-of-james-w-mccord

What is "at that time?"  Which time are you referring to?  

I'm talking about today -- or if you prefer, anytime after Mullen's name broke in connection with the story which was when?  Sometime early 1974?  Maybe before?  And yes, it is said Bennett steered Woodward away from the story.  If so, he was joined in that by Roswell Gilpatric (who had been deeply involved in DIem and was now GC at TIME) who was simultaneously steering Haldeman and others toward Felt as the one leaking to Woodward and also Sandy Smith of TIME, who was thereafter rendered out-of-the-loop in Watergate coverage.  So what?  That is not the name that is redacted from the CIA memo I presented you, I contend.  

I'm quite familiar with what really happened.  Moynihan was Deep Throat.  Moynihan was Woodward's primary source.  There you go.  You missed it too.  

[Benjamin Cole]

5 hours ago, Matt Cloud said:

Well that doesn't work.  Bennett is elsewhere identified by name in that memo.  Not redacted.  And everybody already knew Bennett and Mullen & Co. relationship.  No secret there.  Seems like somebody else.  Publisher Roger W. Strauss? 

 

Helms putting in Hunt and McCord is unsubstantiated.  Can you support that claim?  What about Butterfield?  Who put him there? 

 

In any case, what is the point of this exchange?  Do you want to get at the identity of Deep Throat?  Do you want to say he was a composite?  Neither Bennett not Felt were Deep Throat.

 

 

 

 

Matt-

You ask a fair question...but on the other hand Hunt was sending sealed weekly pouches (purses holding paper documents) to Helms while Hunt worked in the WH. The WH was unaware of this. 

JFKA researcher Prouty claims that Hunt told him that Butterfield was also undercover CIA. Hunt and Butterfield deny this. 

https://www.nytimes.com/1975/07/17/archives/hunt-denies-linking-butterfield-cia.html

"But Colonel Prouty, also interviewed by CBS, stuck by his earlier account that Mr. Hunt had named Mr. Butterfield as a White House C.I.A. contact during a conversation in the office of a Washington consulting firm that has longtime associations with the intelligence agency.

“The name that they mentioned was Butterfield,” Colonel Prouty said. “The only name that I heard in the office was Butterfield.”

---30---

There is another fishy angle to the Watergate tale. 

So...before Nixon get the boot, the vice president Agnew just happens to get the boot? Really?

Aging old plain-vanilla corruption charges are dredged up and brought against Agnew, and then WC'er Gerald Ford is brought in? 

And then Nixon is eased out? 

Don't get me wrong---what Nixon did in Laos alone is enough to turn my stomach (BTW, the CIA murdered 40,000 Vietnamese civilians under Operation Phoenix). Agnew was likely an old-fashioned crook-pol.

In my view, the CIA effectively deposed four US presidents in the postwar era, being JFK, Nixon, Carter and a president with a name that begins with a "T."  

 

 

[Matt Cloud]

4 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Matt-

You ask a fair question...but on the other hand Hunt was sending sealed weekly pouches (purses holding paper documents) to Helms while Hunt worked in the WH. The WH was unaware of this. 

JFKA researcher Prouty claims that Hunt told him that Butterfield was also undercover CIA. Hunt and Butterfield deny this. 

https://www.nytimes.com/1975/07/17/archives/hunt-denies-linking-butterfield-cia.html

"But Colonel Prouty, also interviewed by CBS, stuck by his earlier account that Mr. Hunt had named Mr. Butterfield as a White House C.I.A. contact during a conversation in the office of a Washington consulting firm that has longtime associations with the intelligence agency.

“The name that they mentioned was Butterfield,” Colonel Prouty said. “The only name that I heard in the office was Butterfield.”

---30---

There is another fishy angle to the Watergate tale. 

So...before Nixon get the boot, the vice president Agnew just happens to get the boot? Really?

Aging old plain-vanilla corruption charges are dredged up and brought against Agnew, and then WC'er Gerald Ford is brought in? 

And then Nixon is eased out? 

Don't get me wrong---what Nixon did in Laos alone is enough to turn my stomach (BTW, the CIA murdered 40,000 Vietnamese civilians under Operation Phoenix). Agnew was likely an old-fashioned crook-pol.

In my view, the CIA effectively deposed four US presidents in the postwar era, being JFK, Nixon, Carter and a president with a name that begins with a "T."  

 

 

What was my question?  

 

Whatever it was you have not answered it.  No one has established any issue here.  It's not clear at all what people are responding to or even attempting to engage with me on, except seemingly to show-off little tid-bits of details they may think they are especially privy too.

 

I know all about the Butterfield story.  Butterfield is how Moynihan -- his nightly drinking buddy during the WH years, and even after -- learned of the taping system, which went in, right after Moynihan's departure in Feb 71.  That is the key piece of info that Depp Throat had to know.  Mark Felt did not know that.  Felt was not Deep Throat.  Nor was Haig.  It was Moynihan.  There.  

[Matt Cloud]

Let me add: If the contention is that there are CIA persons in the Nixon White House, then I have no disagreement with that.  At all.  If anyone wants to get into just who they may be and what they may have been doing there, have at it.  Is James McCord among those?  Yes.  Did he purposefully sabotage the break-in?  Probably so.  What could be the motivations?  I have ideas.  

 

As to say Fred Thompson and James Baker, yes, they knew all about it -- or eventually did.  So did Terry Lenzner on the majority side.  So did almost everyone of significance in the media.  Howard Hunt had my father's internal TIME magazine cable on North Vietnamese troop movements in 1971 in his safe.  It was among the things that Pat Gray was supposed to destroy, what Dean said should never see the light of day.  You can read about it here:

https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,943542,00.html 

 

Oh my.  What could that mean?  Was TIME magazine working with persons inside the White House to bring Nixon down through a two-prong strategy both domestic (Watergate) and foreign (Vietnam)?  Yes.  Was The Post involved too?  Yes.  Had Kay Graham urged Moynihan to set up The Plumbers in the first place?  Back in 1969?  Yes.  

[Benjamin Cole]

5 hours ago, Matt Cloud said:

Let me add: If the contention is that there are CIA persons in the Nixon White House, then I have no disagreement with that.  At all.  If anyone wants to get into just who they may be and what they may have been doing there, have at it.  Is James McCord among those?  Yes.  Did he purposefully sabotage the break-in?  Probably so.  What could be the motivations?  I have ideas.  

 

As to say Fred Thompson and James Baker, yes, they knew all about it -- or eventually did.  So did Terry Lenzner on the majority side.  So did almost everyone of significance in the media.  Howard Hunt had my father's internal TIME magazine cable on North Vietnamese troop movements in 1971 in his safe.  It was among the things that Pat Gray was supposed to destroy, what Dean said should never see the light of day.  You can read about it here:

https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,943542,00.html 

 

Oh my.  What could that mean?  Was TIME magazine working with persons inside the White House to bring Nixon down through a two-prong strategy both domestic (Watergate) and foreign (Vietnam)?  Yes.  Was The Post involved too?  Yes.  Had Kay Graham urged Moynihan to set up The Plumbers in the first place?  Back in 1969?  Yes.  

MC-

You appear to have strong convictions about the Watergate story. That is fine.

Can you give us your synopsis or outline, or detailed review if you like, of what was Watergate? 

Are there any connections between Watergate and the JFKA? 

 

 

 

[Matt Cloud]

9 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

MC-

You appear to have strong convictions about the Watergate story. That is fine.

Can you give us your synopsis or outline, or detailed review if you like, of what was Watergate? 

Are there any connections between Watergate and the JFKA? 

 

 

 

Thanks for the questions.  I intend to reply with a more detailed and thoughtful response but in the meanwhile here's the short answer.

 

In broad political terms, Watergate represents the elimination or if you like dismissal and push toward irrelevance of the traditional right in the United States, the "silent majority," along with its antecedents in the anti-communist 1940s and 50s, to allow for the neo-con (read Trotskyite) takeover of the Republican Party.  What would be The Reagan Revolution.  Watergate is the book-end to the very same thing which had happened in the 50s, climaxed with JFKA, which was the takeover of the Democratic Party by the same persons.  Both of those political takeovers were designed to ensure management of the Cold War.  Some will ay that that was to create the New World Order.  Okay.  Some will say that it was as Anatoly Golitsyn said to bring about convergence of East and West.  Okay.  Same thing really.  A perhaps more subtle and nuanced view would say that it was to steer the Cold War in such a way that neither extreme of left or right would dominate, and thus risk all out confrontation between the two.  That's what Watergate was -- a fissure created in the Republican Party that allowed the neo-cons (think Team B ) to rise.  Same thing that had happened in the Red Scare, and McCarthyism, run by the same persons more or less, to create a fissure in the D Party in the 40s and 50s.  

I'll get back to elaborating more specifically on the actual thread that ties Watergate and JFKA together, in a little.