("Quid coniuratio est?")
GLORIA IN EXCELSIS
[...continued...]
Now obviously, people are aware of the role of the Washington Post, Woodward and Bernstein in particular, in breaking the Watergate case. It appears that Woodward and Bernstein, through Katherine Graham the publisher and Ben Bradlee, were manipulated by CIA -- and specifically, Richard Ober, an associate of Bradlee's and himself a key CIA counter-intelligence official, along with Cord Meyer, Bradlee's brother-in-law. Richard Ober was indeed the "Deep Throat" who alerted Woodward and Bernstein. Interestingly enough, Richard Ober was also head of "Operation Chaos," a CIA domestic counter-intelligence operation which involved setting up provocations as well as infiltrating radical groups.
Of the Washington Post's role in removing Richard Nixon and in the Watergate case, Debra Davis writes as follows. (You'll see some references here to the book, All The President's Men, by Woodward and Bernstein.)
Watergate was, according to this scenario, a counter-intelligence operation of the highest order, carried out for patriotic as well as bureaucratic reasons which were, in the minds of the intelligence directors, one and the same. It is clear what their motives must have been. Kissinger was pursuing a disastrous policy in Cambodia, disregarding the CIA's advice and blaming the CIA when he failed -- all the time adding fuel to the anti-war movement. Nixon's harsh and stupid attempts to "get political control over the CIA," as Watergate burglar James McCord later told the Senate Watergate Committee, his intention to have the Agency's judgements conform to rather than inform his policies, "smacked of the situation which Hitler's intelligence chiefs found themselves in" before the fall of Germany. But primarily because Nixon seemed at times to be insane, a terrible and a dangerous head of state, double-agent Ober, by this logic, arranged for double-agent McCord to be arrested during the Watergate break-in. And then Richard Ober, the head of Operation Chaos, the only man in the nation with access to classified information at the White House, the FBI, the CIA, and CRP [Committee to Re-Elect the President], became Deep Throat, a favor to Ben Bradlee, an old Harvard chum. Ober's boss, James Angleton, finally had achieved the ultimate dirty trick. Bradlee would take all the risks, and either Bradlee would succeed in getting rid of Nixon, or Katherine Graham would have to salvage her newspaper by getting rid of Bradlee.
That, basically, is the view of Richard Ober, the counter-intelligence official of CIA. The further information that Richard Ober was, in fact, Deep Throat, and that the CIA and Washington Post were involved in removing Nixon, is added here by Debra Davis. (It doesn't really matter the order here, but I read that a little out of order.)
But again, reading more about the use of Washington Post by CIA and CIA counter-intelligence to remove Nixon, Debra Davis writes as follows.
The minor deception in the book is that only Woodward knew who Deep Throat was.
(That book, of course: All The President's Men.)
Bradlee knew him; had known him for longer than Woodward. There is a possibility that Woodward had met him while working as an intelligence liaison between the Pentagon and the White House, where Deep Throat spent a lot of time, and that he considered Woodward trustworthy or useful and began talking to him when the time was right. It is equally likely, though, that Bradlee, who had given Woodward other sources on other stories, put them in touch after Woodward's first day on the story, when Watergate burglar James McCord said at his arraignment hearing that he had once worked for the CIA. Whether or not Bradlee provided the source, he recognized McCord's statement to the court as highly unusual. CIA employees, when caught in an illegal act, do not admit that they work for the CIA unless that is part of the plan. McCord had no good reasons to mention the CIA at all, except apparently to direct wide attention to the burglary, because he had been asked to state only his present occupation and he had not worked for the CIA for several years.
(I think that last statement is open to question. That last statement of Debra Davis is open to question.)
What matters is not how the connection with Deep Throat was made, but why. Why did Bradlee allow Woodward to rely so heavily upon it? And ultimately, why did the leaders of the intelligence community, for whom Deep Throat spoke, want the President of the United States to fall?
All of that, really, highlights the ongoing association of not only the Washington Post, but Katherine Graham, a key partner in the Ms. [magazine] axis, in working with CIA.
Now one scenario that is not discussed by Debra Davis concerns the possibility that Richard Nixon was not only removed because he was a dangerous leader, but there are a lot of indications that he was removed, basically, because the military and the "far right" were upset with his policies of detente towards the Soviet Union and China. The China lobby in particular (and we've looked at that in great detail in Radio Free America shows #11, #14, and #15, the second of our "Aryan Nations" programs and our two "Anti-Communist League" programs), the China lobby is a dominant and extremely reactionary force in American politics. Nixon was very close to them and many researchers feel (and there's indications that they felt betrayed by Richard Nixon) that they wanted a harder "Cold Warrior" than Nixon turned out to be -- even though he was a lifelong anti-Communist -- and that as a result they had him removed. That's another interpretation that many researchers have.
I also think... (I think that is correct.) I also think, to a certain extent, Debra Davis's analysis is correct. In a sense, Nixon wanted to become larger than the system. As of 11/22/63, the intelligence services and military were giving orders to the President, not the other way around. Nixon (although he was involved in the Kennedy assassination himself, as we looked at in the "Guns of November," program #3, about Watergate connections to the assassination), Nixon wanted to basically gain control of the whole show. He didn't want to be a servant; he wished to be a master. I think Davis's analysis in that respect is correct, and that that was one of the reasons why he was ousted.
Many people feel that the Kennedy assassination and Nixon's involvement in it was the lever used to oust Richard Nixon. The fact that Kennedy's assassination and discussion of it appears to have been involved with the Watergate tapes themselves we went into in great length in "Guns of November" #3. Also, there's some interesting information in an interview that I had with Gordon Novel(sp?), one of the principal figures in Jim Garrison's investigation in New Orleans. The full tape is available from Dav-Cor(sp?), and a little blurb of that is something that you hear on our little promotional part that I'm going to play in just a couple minutes.
Again, this discussion of Katherine Graham and the Washington Post, and their mutual association with CIA, is being included here not only for the information about Watergate, the fact that CIA official Richard Ober, in charge of Operation Chaos, appears to have been Deep Throat, but primarily because, in connection with all the other associations -- Clay Felker and Gloria Steinem, Elizabeth Forsling Harris -- it paints a rather damning picture not only of Gloria Steinem herself, and her association with people like Pottinger and so forth, but that it shows a larger pattern of CIA co-operation with and manipulation of the media.
[...to be continued...]
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