Watergate and the Kennedy Assassination

[Lynne Foster]

This is very interesting, Watergate and the Kennedy assassination are turning out to be a part of the same scandal.

I have read Nixon's memoirs, and I think that if you read them, you will be able to find all kinds of references which tie the 2 scandals together.

For anybody who would like to add to the research here, you should also check out the book

FROM: The President: Richard Nixon's Secret Files, Edited by Bruce Oudes, I think you will be able to find all kinds of relevant information.

Propelled to power by destroying Alger Hiss, is there anything that Richard Nixon did that did not involve destroying a political adversary?

The above link is also useful in emphasizing the point that when Nixon spoke about Watergate, he had Cuba and the Kennedy assassination in mind.

To be brief, reliable Kennedy assassination researchers are people like Harold Weisberg, Jay Epstein, Mat Wilson and the like, while the cover up artists, Jim Garrison, Gerald Posner, McAdams and the like, aggressively counter reasonable critics.

Edited November 14, 2005 by Lynne Foster

[Shanet Clark]

Howard Hunt, Bernard Barker, Euginio Martinez and Frank Sturgis ....

When the Watergate team bungled the burglary,

the stakes were very high for Nixon

because he knew these Miami/CIA/Bay of Pigs veterans

were involved in the

assassination of President Kennedy ..........

[Tim Gratz]

And your proof of their involvement is . . .?

[Tim Carroll]

Consistent with Michael Beschloss' observation that "the most likely explanation for the cause of Kennedy's death lies in his policies,"[1] the convergence of CIA-Mafia-Cuban exile operations with the events surrounding the President's assassination provides strong circumstantial evidence of the motive and means for that crime. But there is more direct evidence. In a 1985 libel trial, E. Howard Hunt ("Eduardo") filed suit contesting an assertion in an article written by former CIA officer Victor Marchetti implicating him in the assassination, including an alleged 1966 memo initialed by CIA Director Richard Helms and Deputy Director for Counterintelligence James Angleton, which discussed Hunt's presence in Dallas and the possibility that "a cover story, giving Hunt an alibi for being elsewhere the day of the assassination, 'ought to be considered.'" Speculating on why such an extraordinary cover-up would be put in writing, a high level CIA source said, "The memo is very odd. It was almost as if Angleton was informing Helms, who had just become director, that there was a skeleton in the family closet that had to be taken care of and this was his response."[2]

Castro's former mistress-turned-CIA agent, Marita Lorenz, testified of her direct knowledge of Hunt's participation, as well as that of other anti-Castro Cubans, in the events in Dallas leading up to November 22, 1963. She claimed to have been in a two car caravan with Frank Sturgis, Orlando Bosch and others traveling from Miami carrying numerous weapons. Upon their arrival in Dallas they were met at their motel on November 21st by their old paymaster, "Eduardo." An hour after Hunt delivered the money and departed, another character out of history arrived: Jack Ruby.

In that trial, an amazing exchange took place after Hunt testified that, "like thousands of other Americans, millions," he, his wife and children had huddled together at home that fateful weekend, "and watched the burial services."[3] Yet, despite providing his own children as alibis, he had also asserted his legal damages to be the doubts in their minds about their own father's activities. The question was asked:

"Mr. Hunt, why did you have to convince your children that you were not in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963, if, in fact, as you say, a fourteen-year-old daughter, a thirteen-year-old daughter, and a ten-year-old son were with you in the Washington, D.C. area on November 22, 1963, and were with you at least for the next forty-eight hours, as you all stayed glued to the T.V. set?" After a long pause, Hunt lamely asserted that. "it was less a question of my convincing them that I was in Washington, D.C. with them-rather, reminding them that I was-than it was to assure them that none of the charges...had any substance to them at all." The magazine's attorney followed up with: "What I want to know is since they knew how outrageous the lies were, why did they have to be convinced by you that you weren't in Texas?" Hunt simply replied: "Reminded, reminded."[4]

Hunt had failed to anticipate that the two elements of his story-that his children were with him the entire weekend and that his children were unsure of where he had been at the time-were mutually exclusive. Hunt lost his lawsuit. The jury did not even debate the malice issue because the truthfulness of the assertion had been sufficiently proven.

On the tenth anniversary of the invasion fiasco, April 17, 1971, E. Howard Hunt had traveled to the Bay of Pigs Monument in the Little Havana area of Miami to recruit exile veterans for a new operation. Resurrecting the dream of overthrowing Castro, Eduardo had assured them that "the whole thing is not over."[5]

Subsequent events would expose a high level role played by these terrorists when a team of Bay of Pigs veterans was caught burglarizing the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C. Found among the burglars' effects was evidence that they were being coordinated by E. Howard Hunt, who had an office in the White House. In addition to political burglary, Hunt had been given the high-level assignment of manufacturing evidence of President Kennedy's complicity in the assassination of South Vietnam's leader in 1963, Ngo Dinh Diem.

President Nixon subsequently managed to remain in power for more than two years, withstanding remarkable disclosures, until the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that he had to turn over tape recordings of certain Oval Office conversations. Nixon was out of office within two weeks, primarily because of the disclosure of a taped discussion about Hunt that occurred a few days after the break-in. This tape recording has become known in history as the smoking gun conversation.

During that incredible exchange that would topple a presidency, Nixon ordered his Chief of Staff, H. R. Haldeman, to meet with Richard Helms, the Director of the CIA, and tell him to call off the FBI's investigation of the burglary for national security reasons. Nixon suggested that Hunt's involvement be used as a lever to make sure the CIA would cooperate. The transcripts of President Nixon's rantings about Hunt are perhaps the most factually revealing evidence of deep politics in history:

"Hunt...will uncover a lot of things. You open that scab there's a hell of a lot of things.... Tell them we just feel that it would be very detrimental to have this thing go any further. This involves these Cubans, Hunt, and a lot of hanky-panky that we have nothing to do with ourselves. When you get the CIA people in say, "Look, the problem is that this will open up the whole Bay of Pigs thing again." So they should call the FBI in and for the good of the country don't go any further into this case. Period. Just say (unintelligible) very bad to have this fellow Hunt, ah, he knows too damned much.... If it gets out that this is all involved, the Cuba thing would be a fiasco. It would make the CIA look bad, it's going to make Hunt look bad, and it's likely to blow the whole Bay of Pigs which we think would be very unfortunate-both for the CIA, and for the country, at this time, and for American foreign policy. Just tell him to lay off....[6]

Haldeman recorded Helms' dramatic reaction to the threat: "Turmoil in the room, Helms gripping the arms of his chair leaning forward and shouting, 'The Bay of Pigs had nothing to do with this'" Despite this, Helms acquiesced and Haldeman was able to report to the President that "his strategy had worked," that Helms would be "very happy to be helpful." But the remarks and Helms' behavior raised the question in Haldeman's mind: "What was such dynamite in the Bay of Pigs story?" The more innocuous explanation is that Nixon, as the chief White House official involved with the Eisenhower administration's Cuba invasion planning, knew of the government's use of Mafia assassination assets in the efforts against Castro. However, following years of study, analysis and reflection, along with his personal knowledge of the players involved, Haldeman asserted a more astonishing answer to that question: "It seems that in all of those Nixon references to the Bay of Pigs, he was actually referring to the Kennedy assassination." Given his reaction, it is apparent that Helms clearly understood Nixon's message.[7]

Aside from such an interpretation of the dark secret to which Nixon was alluding, he and the CIA director had a more current mutuality of interests. Helms wanted to suppress the CIA-Hunt relationship because it violated the Agency's charter regarding domestic spying. Nixon wanted to suppress the White House-Hunt relationship because it would reveal precisely for whom the chief Watergate burglar was working. E. Howard Hunt clearly represented a problem for more than one major Washington power center. Nine months after the smoking gun conversation, when Hunt was about to be sentenced, Nixon was told that Hunt had issued a blackmail demand in lieu of revealing some of the "seamy things" he had done for the President. Nixon's response was unequivocal: "Well, for Christ's sakes...get it."[8]

1. Jefferson Morley, "November 22, 1963: Why We Need The Real History Of The Kennedy Assassination," Washington Post, (November 24, 1996).

2. Joe Trento and Jacquie Powers, "Was Howard Hunt in Dallas The Day JFK Died?" Wilmington Sunday News Journal, (August 20, 1978).

3. Mark Lane, Plausible Denial, (New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 1991), 282.

4. Ibid., 283-284.

5. Carl Oglesby, The Yankee and Cowboy War. (Kansas City: Sheed Andrews and McMeel, Inc., 1976), 277.

6. H. R. Haldeman, The Ends of Power, (New York: Times Books, 1978), 33.

7. Ibid., 38-39.

8. Theodore H. White, Breach of Faith, (New York: Reader's Digest Press, 1975), 199-200.

[Tim Gratz]

To my friend Tim:

Certainly you do not accept the claims of Marita Lorenz?

Gaeton Fonzi would be ashamed of you!

[Tim Carroll]

Certainly you do not accept the claims of Marita Lorenz? Gaeton Fonzi would be ashamed of you!

The Lorenz story had significance to the Liberty Lobby trial, and I believe my language was precise in that regard. As for what claims I accept or deny, you wouldn't believe how long the list is of assertions that I have not yet relegated to either category. While Gaeton Fonzi is one of the best, most reliable researchers in the history of the Kennedy assassination matter, I can't think of anyone whose qualifications are the be-all, end-all of discussion.

T.C.

[Pat Speer]

Certainly you do not accept the claims of Marita Lorenz? Gaeton Fonzi would be ashamed of you!

The Lorenz story had significance to the Liberty Lobby trial, and I believe my language was precise in that regard. As for what claims I accept or deny, you wouldn't believe how long the list is of assertions that I have not yet relegated to either category. While Gaeton Fonzi is one of the best, most reliable researchers in the history of the Kennedy assassination matter, I can't think of anyone whose qualifications are the be-all, end-all of discussion.

T.C.

I don't think Fonzi ever decided one way or the other if there was anything to Lorenz' story. He came to understand that both she and Sturgis were playing a game, and that neither one could be completely trusted. It didn't mean that she was necessarily lying, only that she couldn't be trusted. My question has always been as to why Hunt didn't go after her--after all, her testimony cost him something like a million dollars. The answer should be obvious--because, even if she was lying about Oswald, she knew too much about Sturgis and Op 40 to ever be put on the stand. She could have said Nixon himself pulled the trigger and they wouldn't have pursued her; the woman simply knew too much.

[Tim Gratz]

Dick Russell called Nagell "the man who knew too much".

Pat says re Rita Lowrenz: The woman simply knew too much.

As usual Pat's post makes great sense.

Obiously one problem with Lorenz's story is her claim that LHO was part of the caravan to Dallas.

Edited December 9, 2005 by Tim Gratz

[Steve Dunnington]

Consistent with Michael Beschloss' observation that "the most likely explanation for the cause of Kennedy's death lies in his policies,"[1] the convergence of CIA-Mafia-Cuban exile operations with the events surrounding the President's assassination provides strong circumstantial evidence of the motive and means for that crime. But there is more direct evidence. In a 1985 libel trial, E. Howard Hunt ("Eduardo") filed suit contesting an assertion in an article written by former CIA officer Victor Marchetti implicating him in the assassination, including an alleged 1966 memo initialed by CIA Director Richard Helms and Deputy Director for Counterintelligence James Angleton, which discussed Hunt's presence in Dallas and the possibility that "a cover story, giving Hunt an alibi for being elsewhere the day of the assassination, 'ought to be considered.'" Speculating on why such an extraordinary cover-up would be put in writing, a high level CIA source said, "The memo is very odd. It was almost as if Angleton was informing Helms, who had just become director, that there was a skeleton in the family closet that had to be taken care of and this was his response."[2]

Castro's former mistress-turned-CIA agent, Marita Lorenz, testified of her direct knowledge of Hunt's participation, as well as that of other anti-Castro Cubans, in the events in Dallas leading up to November 22, 1963. She claimed to have been in a two car caravan with Frank Sturgis, Orlando Bosch and others traveling from Miami carrying numerous weapons. Upon their arrival in Dallas they were met at their motel on November 21st by their old paymaster, "Eduardo." An hour after Hunt delivered the money and departed, another character out of history arrived: Jack Ruby.

In that trial, an amazing exchange took place after Hunt testified that, "like thousands of other Americans, millions," he, his wife and children had huddled together at home that fateful weekend, "and watched the burial services."[3] Yet, despite providing his own children as alibis, he had also asserted his legal damages to be the doubts in their minds about their own father's activities. The question was asked:

"Mr. Hunt, why did you have to convince your children that you were not in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963, if, in fact, as you say, a fourteen-year-old daughter, a thirteen-year-old daughter, and a ten-year-old son were with you in the Washington, D.C. area on November 22, 1963, and were with you at least for the next forty-eight hours, as you all stayed glued to the T.V. set?" After a long pause, Hunt lamely asserted that. "it was less a question of my convincing them that I was in Washington, D.C. with them-rather, reminding them that I was-than it was to assure them that none of the charges...had any substance to them at all." The magazine's attorney followed up with: "What I want to know is since they knew how outrageous the lies were, why did they have to be convinced by you that you weren't in Texas?" Hunt simply replied: "Reminded, reminded."[4]

Hunt had failed to anticipate that the two elements of his story-that his children were with him the entire weekend and that his children were unsure of where he had been at the time-were mutually exclusive. Hunt lost his lawsuit. The jury did not even debate the malice issue because the truthfulness of the assertion had been sufficiently proven.

On the tenth anniversary of the invasion fiasco, April 17, 1971, E. Howard Hunt had traveled to the Bay of Pigs Monument in the Little Havana area of Miami to recruit exile veterans for a new operation. Resurrecting the dream of overthrowing Castro, Eduardo had assured them that "the whole thing is not over."[5]

Subsequent events would expose a high level role played by these terrorists when a team of Bay of Pigs veterans was caught burglarizing the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C. Found among the burglars' effects was evidence that they were being coordinated by E. Howard Hunt, who had an office in the White House. In addition to political burglary, Hunt had been given the high-level assignment of manufacturing evidence of President Kennedy's complicity in the assassination of South Vietnam's leader in 1963, Ngo Dinh Diem.

President Nixon subsequently managed to remain in power for more than two years, withstanding remarkable disclosures, until the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that he had to turn over tape recordings of certain Oval Office conversations. Nixon was out of office within two weeks, primarily because of the disclosure of a taped discussion about Hunt that occurred a few days after the break-in. This tape recording has become known in history as the smoking gun conversation.

During that incredible exchange that would topple a presidency, Nixon ordered his Chief of Staff, H. R. Haldeman, to meet with Richard Helms, the Director of the CIA, and tell him to call off the FBI's investigation of the burglary for national security reasons. Nixon suggested that Hunt's involvement be used as a lever to make sure the CIA would cooperate. The transcripts of President Nixon's rantings about Hunt are perhaps the most factually revealing evidence of deep politics in history:

"Hunt...will uncover a lot of things. You open that scab there's a hell of a lot of things.... Tell them we just feel that it would be very detrimental to have this thing go any further. This involves these Cubans, Hunt, and a lot of hanky-panky that we have nothing to do with ourselves. When you get the CIA people in say, "Look, the problem is that this will open up the whole Bay of Pigs thing again." So they should call the FBI in and for the good of the country don't go any further into this case. Period. Just say (unintelligible) very bad to have this fellow Hunt, ah, he knows too damned much.... If it gets out that this is all involved, the Cuba thing would be a fiasco. It would make the CIA look bad, it's going to make Hunt look bad, and it's likely to blow the whole Bay of Pigs which we think would be very unfortunate-both for the CIA, and for the country, at this time, and for American foreign policy. Just tell him to lay off....[6]

Haldeman recorded Helms' dramatic reaction to the threat: "Turmoil in the room, Helms gripping the arms of his chair leaning forward and shouting, 'The Bay of Pigs had nothing to do with this'" Despite this, Helms acquiesced and Haldeman was able to report to the President that "his strategy had worked," that Helms would be "very happy to be helpful." But the remarks and Helms' behavior raised the question in Haldeman's mind: "What was such dynamite in the Bay of Pigs story?" The more innocuous explanation is that Nixon, as the chief White House official involved with the Eisenhower administration's Cuba invasion planning, knew of the government's use of Mafia assassination assets in the efforts against Castro. However, following years of study, analysis and reflection, along with his personal knowledge of the players involved, Haldeman asserted a more astonishing answer to that question: "It seems that in all of those Nixon references to the Bay of Pigs, he was actually referring to the Kennedy assassination." Given his reaction, it is apparent that Helms clearly understood Nixon's message.[7]

Aside from such an interpretation of the dark secret to which Nixon was alluding, he and the CIA director had a more current mutuality of interests. Helms wanted to suppress the CIA-Hunt relationship because it violated the Agency's charter regarding domestic spying. Nixon wanted to suppress the White House-Hunt relationship because it would reveal precisely for whom the chief Watergate burglar was working. E. Howard Hunt clearly represented a problem for more than one major Washington power center. Nine months after the smoking gun conversation, when Hunt was about to be sentenced, Nixon was told that Hunt had issued a blackmail demand in lieu of revealing some of the "seamy things" he had done for the President. Nixon's response was unequivocal: "Well, for Christ's sakes...get it."[8]

1. Jefferson Morley, "November 22, 1963: Why We Need The Real History Of The Kennedy Assassination," Washington Post, (November 24, 1996).

2. Joe Trento and Jacquie Powers, "Was Howard Hunt in Dallas The Day JFK Died?" Wilmington Sunday News Journal, (August 20, 1978).

3. Mark Lane, Plausible Denial, (New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 1991), 282.

4. Ibid., 283-284.

5. Carl Oglesby, The Yankee and Cowboy War. (Kansas City: Sheed Andrews and McMeel, Inc., 1976), 277.

6. H. R. Haldeman, The Ends of Power, (New York: Times Books, 1978), 33.

7. Ibid., 38-39.

8. Theodore H. White, Breach of Faith, (New York: Reader's Digest Press, 1975), 199-200.

E. Howard Hunt does appear to be involved in both the Kennedy Assassination and Watergate. As Hunt relates in "Undercover" his position at the CIA from late 1961 to 1965 was Chief of Covert Action for the Domestic Operations Division. CHIEF OF COVERT ACTION ........for DOMESTIC OPERATIONS.....for THE CIA ???? Hunt claims he wrote books and articles to provide dis-information. I think he was at the center of the domestic plans and schemes of the CIA. I believe I had read that the domestic operations division was responsible for de-briefing all U.S. citizens who had visited the Soviet Union and other Soviet bloc nations.

I am unsure about the domestic operations divison .....I would greatly appreciate any info anyone might have....if true however the implications are far far reaching

Howard Hunt "retired" from the CIA in 1970 and went to work for the Robert Mullen Company. Shortly thereafter he went to work at the White House, as a plumber and a part-time burgular. He still worked at the Mullen Company though.

However the Mullen Company was a CIA front; used to place agents and assets overseas and apparently at the White House. So Hunt's retirement was faked so his cover could be established at Mullen. A CIA agent employed at the White House......who implemented this plan????? Helms and who?? I can't believe it was Nixon. He would have not wanted Hunt reporting his special tasks back to Helms and the agency.

E. Howard Hunt does have alot of explaining to do. But that will never happen. This former chief of covert action needs to answer alot of questions....alot