Operation Sandwedge: Kennedy/Wallace

[Tim Gratz]

John wrote:

Leon was in contact with Jerris Leonard, a lawyer associated with Nixon, the GOP, the Republican National Committee, and with Chairman George Bush. Leonard was a former assistant attorney general for civil rights in the Nixon administration. Leonard had stepped down as head of the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA) on March 17, 1973. In June, 1973 Leonard was special counsel to George Bush personally, hired by Bush and not by the RNC. Leonard says today that his job consisted in helping to keep the Republican Party separate from Watergate, deflecting Watergate from the party "so it would not be a party thing."

I would post that Jerry Leonard had been very active in Wisconsin Republican politics, and had run for State Attorney General in 1968 before he relocated to Washington, and that I knew and liked Jerry Loeonard (knew him--not well but liked him a lot). But if I posted that it would just drive some of your members crazy--so I won't.

[Tim Gratz]

Pat wrote in a thread far far away:

I'm convinced that the Hughes/Maheu/O'Brien relationship was the reason for the break-in.

I assume members know that O'Brien was in Dallas.

It is interesting that Maheu, who in his book implied that JFK was a murderer due to his BOP decisions, ended up working with O'Brien.

Pat may very well be right in his opinion.

Edited July 31, 2005 by Tim Gratz

[Tim Gratz]

John wrote:

I did not know that John Leon died as well at this time.

John, pretty sure I posted about Leon's death quite some time ago.

[John Simkin]

John, pretty sure I posted about Leon's death quite some time ago.

I am afraid I don't always read your posts. After all, I do need time to go to sleep.

[Tim Gratz]

Robert wrote:

I'm sorry if I'm being thick here, Tim, but that paragraph seems remarkably convoluted. Presumably, Randy Knox provided Segretti with your apartment number, and your day-job number with the Senator [whose name was? And were you still working nights at the hotel at this time?] So, by the time Segretti called you, you were already "expecting visitors from DC" to question you about his activities? And because of this, you provided Segretti with your parents' phone number? That makes it sound as though you were expecting to be asked about Segretti before you'd even heard from him. You, and the Senator for whom you worked, were both quizzed by FBI about Segretti? That was presumably after you'd met with Ulasewicz? If you could break down the chronology a bit, this might make it easier to understand.

Robert, you are not being thick-headed (that only happens when you defend Fidel--sorry, could not help it). To avoid being too much like Richard Nixon, I was not "perfectly clear".

I'm sure Knox gave Segretti my apartment number. Segretti asked me to find a spy for the Muskie campaign. I kept putting him off while I was trying to persuade CREEP to figure out who the little creep was. So he kept calling me back and I kept saying the kids were still at Christmas break. Then CREEP wanted me to try to set up an appointment to see Simmons in DC. When I told them I did not think that would work, they said they wanted to tape his next call tome so I should let them know when he would next call. So when he called next I made an appointment for him to call at a later date and asked him to call at my parents' number. As simple as that. Segretti must have called me close to a dozen times while I was waiting to hear from CREEP. Many of the calls must have been to the State Senator's office. And yes I was working in the day as an assistant to the State Senator and in the evening at the Park Motor Inn.

[Tim Gratz]

John wrote:

I am afraid I don't always read your posts. After all, I do need time to go to sleep.

Or is it that you are afraid you will turn into a Tory?

Seriously, if you are having trouble sleeping I have been told my posts are sometimes soporific. Or was that sophomoric?

Edited July 31, 2005 by Tim Gratz

[John Simkin]

I'm sure Knox gave Segretti my apartment number.  Segretti asked me to find a spy for the Muskie campaign.  I kept putting him off while I was trying to persuade CREEP to figure out who the little creep was.

Funny joke, but I doubt if it is true. I believe Segretti was doing the really dirty stuff as part of Operation Sandwedge. When he was exposed it was important to distance him as far as possible from Sandwedge and portray him as a "lone nutter". That is why Tony Ulasewicz came to see you. It was part of the cover-up operation. Bit like when he paid the money out to Dorothy Hunt. Did you get money or threats?

[Tim Gratz]

John, it is possible that Segretti was brighter than I gave him credit for. Although I am not sure if it was Segretti or another Nixon operative who made the fake literature that caused Muskie to break up in New Hampshire. So I am not sure how much Segretti did accomplish. Plus some of his proposed operations were, IMO, so ridiculous that his operation in fact jeopardized Nixon's re-election, for nothing of any substance.

Can you imagine if it would have come out that the White House was paying sopmeone to go around printing bogus tickets to Democratic tickets? Heck, I would not have voted for Nixon! Forget the ethics, how about the stupidity of it?

It was stupid of Segretti, moreover, to make calls from his room and leave a paper trail of his calls.

I think you may be correct that it was Ulasewicz's job to convince me that CREEP did not know who "Simmons" was.

I received neither money nor threats but as I stated in a previous post that you may not have read when it all started to come down I did have a bit of fear, probably because I had read about mysterious deaths of JFK witnesses and I knew that the presidency was a "high stakes" game, and it was clear from Watergate that Nixon operatives would break the law. I had no actual reason at the time to believe that a Nixon operative would engage in murder so I was just being paranoid. It did make me understand how some of the JFK witnesses could be intimidated, however.

I also do not believe the info I had on Segretti was sufficient to warrant my murder.

To correct my mistake on another post, I do realize that Nixon was not assassinated.

Edited July 31, 2005 by Tim Gratz

[John Simkin]

Here are the first couple of days research into Lee R. Pennington.

Pennington was a senior FBI agent who worked closely with J. Edgar Hoover. He claimed to have "70,000 confidential contacts" throughout the United States. Pennington, who specialized in identifying left-wing activists, supplied a great deal of information to the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA). It was during this period that he met Lou Russell and James W. McCord.

By the time Pennington retired from the FBI in 1953 he was the third highest ranking agent in the organization. He then went to work compiling files on domestic "subversives" for the American Legion's National Americanism Commission". Later he became director of the Washington office of the right-wing group, the American Security Council.

Pennington also worked for the CIA who paid him $250 a month by "sterile" check, which could not be traced back to the government. It was such a secret relationship that even the director of the CIA was not informed about it. According to David Wise (The American Police State): "once a month Pennington would report to his case officer, Louis W. Vasaly at the Burgundy Room, a restaurant in Chevy Chase." Over a fifteen year period Pennington also provided information to Paul Gaynor, the chief of CIA's Security Research Staff (CRS) and Howard Osborn, director of the Office of Security.

Pennington continued to keep in contact with James W. McCord. Pennington's secretary, Donald Sweany, a former staff member of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, married McCord's secretary, Lucille.

On 17th June, 1972, Frank Sturgis, Virgilio Gonzalez, Eugenio Martinez, Bernard L. Barker and James W. McCord were arrested while in the Democratic Party headquarters in Watergate. Two days later Pennington went to McCord's house where he met Donald and Lucille Sweany. While there he watched as the Sweanys and Ruth McCord destroyed a large number of documents linked to the Watergate break-in. Pennington later claimed he informed his CIA case officer, Louis W. Vasaly, about the burning of McCord's files.

The FBI received information that McCord's files had been destroyed by a former CIA agent called "Pennington". They also discovered that a man named Pennington had driven James W. McCord to his Rockville home following his release on bail. FBI agent, Donald L. Parham, asked the CIA to produce a report on Pennington.

According to Jim Hougan Secret Agenda (1984): "The CIA's response to the FBI's inquiry was to give the bureau the name of a different Pennington - not Lee R., Jr., but Cecil H. The latter was a retired employee of the Office of Security. He had nothing whatsoever to do with the Watergate affair and had not, of course, driven McCord anywhere at any time. Grilled by the FBI for reasons that he could not comprehend, his alibi was quickly verified, with the result that the Pennington lead turned into a dead end for the bureau, just as the CIA had intended."

An unnamed CIA official told the Senate Committee chaired by Lucien Nedzi that: "He (Edward F. Saye) told me at the time... that Mr. Lee Pennington had entered Mr. McCord's office at home, destroying any indication of connections between the Agency and Mr. McCord." The head of the Security Research Staff said that "Pennington was too sensitive and the decision had been made to sacrifice Cecil Pennington instead".

In August, 1972, Richard Helms told Stephen L. Kuhn, the deputy director of the Office of Security, to "Remove the (Pennington) materials from the (Watergate) files and maintain them separately." This message was passed to another CIA officer who questioned the order. He remarked to another officer that the "Agency did not need its own L. Patrick Gray". This was a reference to Gray's destruction of the materials in the White House safe of E. Howard Hunt. The two officers placed the Pennington materials in a sealed envelope and marked it for the director's "Eyes Only". In August, 1973, the new CIA director, William Colby, asked to see all files related to the Watergate Scandal. Kuhn instructed the CIA official given this responsibility to collect these documents together, that he was not to include the Pennington envelope in the materials given to Colby.

When interviewed by the Lucien Nedzi and his Senate Committee Richard Helms admitted that during the Watergate investigation he ordered the erasure of all tapes and transcripts of conversations secretly recorded in his office and the French Room (a conference room used by senior officials of the CIA). More than four thousand pages of recorded conversations over a six year period were destroyed.

Helms had been instructed by Mike Mansfield that all documents relating to Watergate had to be preserved. Helms told Nedzi that the destroyed materials had nothing to do with Watergate: "When I heard about tapes and destruction of Watergate-related tapes, the thing that immediately struck me was: "who knows what was on those tapes except me or my secretary? Who in the public can make an allegation that there were any tapes that were Watergate-related?" Nedzi replied: "The problem is... how can you prove they weren't Watergate-related."

In his book Secret Agenda, Jim Hougan alleges that Pennington was providing Lou Russell and James McCord with CIA reports on people like Jack Anderson that were being targeted by Nixon (Operation Sandwedge?). Hougan claims that "Lee R. Pennington was McCord's cut-out to the Security Research Staff."

William Colby was eventually given the Pennington file. On 28th June, 1974, he reported to Howard Baker: "The results of our investigation clearly show that the CIA had in its possession, as early as June, 1972, information that one of its paid operatives, Lee R. Pennington, Jr., had entered the James McCord residence shortly after the Watergate break-in and destroyed documents which might show a link between McCord and the CIA."

Lee R Pennington died of an apparent heart attack in October, 1974.

Picture of Pennington with Hoover (supplied by James Richards).

[William Turner]

I pulled out "Government by Gunplay" and found that I did mention Gratz one time. I never interviewed him but the info came from the Milwaukee Journal. On p. 65 I wrote: "There is also the fact that Nixon dirty trickster Donald Segretti was active in Wisconsin. A former state chairman of the College Republicans, J. Timothy Gratz, disclosed that Segretti met with him in Madison and urged him to recruit persons to perform mischief against Democratic candidates. Segretti's machinations were so suspicious, Gratz said, that he got in touch with CREEP headquarters in Washington. CREEP decided to dispatch two representatives to Wisonsin to check on Segretti, one of whom was Anthony T. Ulasewicz, the former New York 'Red Squad' policeman whom CREEP had sent to Massachusetts to ty to dig up dirt on Ted Kennedy. Segretti reportedly denied to the Senate Watergate Committee that he had contacts with Bremer during the Wisconsin primary."

The interesting part of this scenario is that it establishes Ulasewicz's presence in Wisconsin at the critical time. I interviewed by phone Earl S. Nunnery, who was the terminal master for the C&O ferry which ran between Milwaukee and Michigan, where it is known that Bremer stalked Wallace. On one occasion when he went to the ferry terminal, Bremer was accompanied by an older man with whom he talked excitedly about a campaign and bringing lots of kids across, but in the end it was only Bremer who was ticketed. The man was build like a football player six feet two and 225 pounds. He wore a mustache and had curley black hair. He did most of the talking, with a New York accent or Jersey brogue. He was attired in a mod checked suit and wide tie with a stickpin with a red stone. The FBI showed Nunnery an assortment of photos, none of which he could identify. Could this have been Ulasewicz?

[Dawn Meredith]

I pulled out "Government by Gunplay" and found that I did mention Gratz one time. I never interviewed him but the info came from the Milwaukee Journal. On p. 65 I wrote: "There is also the fact that Nixon dirty trickster Donald Segretti was active in Wisconsin. A former state chairman of the College Republicans, J. Timothy Gratz, disclosed that Segretti met with him in Madison and urged him to recruit persons to perform mischief against Democratic candidates. Segretti's machinations were so suspicious, Gratz said, that he got in touch with CREEP headquarters in Washington. CREEP decided to dispatch two representatives to Wisonsin to check on Segretti, one of whom was Anthony T. Ulasewicz, the former New York 'Red Squad' policeman whom CREEP had sent to Massachusetts to ty to dig up dirt on Ted Kennedy. Segretti reportedly denied to the Senate Watergate Committee that he had contacts with Bremer during the Wisconsin primary."

The interesting part of this scenario is that it establishes Ulasewicz's presence in Wisconsin at the critical time. I interviewed by phone Earl S. Nunnery, who was the terminal master for the C&O ferry which ran between Milwaukee and Michigan, where it is known that Bremer stalked Wallace. On one occasion when he went to the ferry terminal, Bremer was accompanied by an older man with whom he talked excitedly about a campaign and bringing lots of kids across, but in the end it was only Bremer who was ticketed. The man was build like a football player six feet two and 225 pounds. He wore a mustache and had curley black hair. He did most of the talking, with a New York accent or Jersey brogue. He was attired in a mod checked suit and wide tie with a stickpin with a red stone. The FBI showed Nunnery an assortment of photos, none of which he could identify. Could this have been Ulasewicz?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

___________________________

Great great posts while I have been away for two weeks. I did get to check the forum a few times and got to read all the Dallas to Watergate stuff. Want to comment when I am recovered and have more than 3 hours sleep....Robert, Pat, Mark, John ...etc etc...EVERYONE!- just great stuff!!!. John I hope you are well- firewalled as you and other posters are putting a lot together here, much needed fallow up. Too bad Tim Carroll cannot weigh in, Dallas to Watergate and beyond was his speciality. I was thinking, on the plane last nite, that I'd write him and ask him to ask to be readmitted, but he speaks for himself, not I for him.

But I miss his imput/mind on these matters.

The community here, the critical thought, of late especially, the interactive/sharing: all the things that drew me here last Oct have me quite excited. I got to see two pals and JFK "experts" when in Pa: Steve Jones and Jerry Policoff.....a great afternoon and only one of two times I was not worried about husband Erick, in the hospital....The afternoon flew. I want to TRY to see if either would be interested in checking out this forum. Both are still very interested in the case so that was stimulating. (And I had just read some of the Watergate/ Dallas connection posts just that morning, so "you were on my mind" (Remember the Wee Five?)

The other great JFK- moment in Lancaster PA was when my kid -(age 33) -asked us to rent JFK. (To get my mind away from worrying about Erick who had to undergo man days of complex tests). Seeing this brilliant film TOGETHER was -(for me long awaited)- first and it was very special; intense beyond belief. (She really "got it" too!!!)

Good to be home....in so many ways. This forum rocks!!

Dawn

[George Bollschweiler]

And remember Sprague also falsely linked Harry Dean to the assassination of Nixon.

This was sloppy journalism at its worst.

Indeed, indeed

(Just couldn't resist)

George

[William Turner]

As I remember footage of Tony Ulasewicz at the time, he was a big, beefy man with black hair that was not curley and talked a blue streak in a New York accent.. He may or may not have been Bremer's companion at the ferry terminal, but his operative presence in Wisconsin has been established.

My investigation in Milwaukee determined that Bremer had a close association with a group of "Jesus Freaks" with a red, white and blue "Jesus Saves" bumper sticker. In other words pro-Nixon. This becomes interesting in light of the RFK case. Shortly after his assassination I inteviewed a fundamentalist free-lance preacher named Jerry Owen, The Walking Bible. He claimed he picked up Sirhan hitchhiking the day before the election and was to deliver a race track pony to him at the Ambassador Hotel on election night. To make a long story short---my book "The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy" recounts it in full---we determined that Owen had a pre-existing custodial relationship with Sirhan. In 1975 Owen sued a TV station that had disclosed the relationship, and he had a devoted follower named Gail Aiken ready as a character witness at the trial. Imagine his surprise when Vince Bugliosi, primed by us, asked Owen if Aiken was'nt Arthur Bremer's sister. With that Aiden was harriedly sent back to Florida where her brother, William Bremer Jr., had been convicted of fraud. William's attorney was Ellis Rubin, who represented the Miami Four in the Watergate prosecutions.

[Ron Ecker]

As I remember footage of  Tony Ulasewicz at the time, he was a big, beefy man with black hair that was not curley and talked a blue streak in a New York accent.. He may or may not have been Bremer's companion at the ferry terminal, but his operative presence in Wisconsin has been established.

The description of the big man with Bremer made me think of William J. Bryan Jr., the hypnotist discussed in your book "The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy" who may have handled Sirhan. In one photo he has a moustache and dark hair but it's not curly. I know that Bryan was based in California, but is it possible that he came from New York?

Ron

[Bob Atkinson]

My investigation in Milwaukee determined that Bremer had a close association with a group of "Jesus Freaks" with  a red, white and blue "Jesus Saves" bumper sticker. In other words pro-Nixon. This becomes interesting in light of the RFK case. Shortly after his assassination I inteviewed a fundamentalist free-lance preacher named Jerry Owen, The Walking Bible. He claimed he picked up Sirhan hitchhiking the day before the election and was to deliver a race track pony to him at the Ambassador Hotel on election night. To make a long story short---my book "The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy" recounts it in full---we determined that Owen had a pre-existing custodial relationship with Sirhan. In 1975 Owen sued a TV station that had disclosed the relationship, and he had a devoted follower named Gail Aiken ready as a character witness at the trial. Imagine his surprise when Vince Bugliosi, primed by us, asked Owen if Aiken was'nt Arthur Bremer's sister. With that Aiden was harriedly sent back to Florida where her brother, William Bremer Jr., had been convicted of fraud. William's attorney was Ellis Rubin, who represented the Miami Four in the Watergate prosecutions.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Bremer's religious beliefs are an interesting topic seldom discussed. Up until age eight, the Bremers lived a few blocks from St. Mathew's Luthurian Church and the young Arthur spent a lot of time there. As more and more African-Americans moved into the area, the Bremers joined the classic urban White Flighters and headed to the primarily white south side of Milwaukee. Arthur later told one of the court-appointed psychiatrists: "If we hadn't moved I might have become a priest."

Here are a couple of religious views from Arthur's 1st (and unpublished) diary, the one dug up at the viaduct in Milwaukee in 1980. Any misspelling are his, not mine:

"You cannot discover God or Religion for yourself because you're told to by an organization of prophets."

"Jesus is commercialized. And so is love. And so is friendship in restaurants + service bussinesses."

I'm not sure how these ideas sync up with the right-wing Jesus Freaks, but religion isn't a major topic in the first diary.

Edited August 7, 2005 by Bob Atkinson