The Water$ate Sa$a-the Official Version vs.the BeatitYty.tln Dlttt€cdo

Watergate utas a xt"uP' a classicpkry os old. as espiowge itself. In itslavu it had stunfliritY of ueamvaninaistibbfuit atd a sPY on tIlehside,It uas flaufuss.

Gerald Bellett, y'ge o/Secrets

"Very early on the morning ofJune 1 7, 1972 five men were aP-prehended at the Watergate Ho-tel, breaking into the DemocraticNational Committee Headquar-ters. "

The abwe is the standardopening sentence of nearlY everYmajor media retrosPective of theWatergate saga. From here theusual commentary thenprogresses steP bY steP throughthe construction of a cwer-uP atthe White House, its Piercing, theSenate hearings, the sPecial Pros-ecutor trials, the threat of im-peachment, and the evenfualresignation of Richard Nixon.

This above tale is not jwt tritebut wrong. It is wrong in its tunda-mentals and it is wrong because it is sofrasmmta.ry. It is essentially a cover storythii Uut well-Asguised. Not as blatant as'A lone gunrnan shooting from the 6thfloor of the Tixas school Book DePositoryfired thre€ shots killing the president to-dav" but still, the overall dect is the same.Another president was removed from officeas part of a cland€stine operation. As withcland€stine oPerationHs oPpos€d to co-vert oneF-the aPparatus is disguised onlytemporarily, with gr€at hdp from the me-dia, both witting and unwitting Onlyvears later, whm all the smoke and mirrors

have bem dismantled, can the public dis-cern what really happened. Meanwhile themechanics and controllers have gone on toanoth€r proj€ct.

Watfrgate is, or should be, special tothose concerned with both the lGnnedy as-sassination and the idea of rePr€smtativcd€mocrary. For it shows the dlmamics de-scribed above in e:rcdsis. And since many ofthe people involved in the JFK cas€ r€aPPeardudng Wateryate (s€e Page 16), it is a Per-f€ct example of democracy being snatchedawav noionce, but twice in a decade, andbv many of the same P€opl€. As Mort Sahlhas stated, Watergate was the s€cond assas-sination of a presidsrt in ten years.

SouDdatdnlryTb understand what really happened in

those two traumatic years it is imPortantto comPrehmd this huge fact: the ev€nts ofthe orieinal break-in were n€ver trl' y e)(-amindty eittrer the Ervin Committ€e orth€ fuial Special Pros€cutor, kon Jaworski.In oth€r words, the sin gle f|rerrt of 7972that led the country into two years oftrauma, was de€m€d inconsequerrtial by1974. The m€dia, the s€rEte Committee.and Jaworski all conspired informally-andat tim€s, formally-to get Nlron out of of-fic€. Some of the things the media de-manded of him, like r€leasing his taxes ul anon-election year, show how the concePt ofWat€rgate was whiPped up by an unsem€ngin€ of destruction; an engine kePt off-stag€, felt, not s€eu, but transcendot. AsHoward Bak€r, the one dec€nt rePres€nta-tive on th€ Ervin Committee said, it waslike two giant, eruaged animals fighting inthe night.

To undsstand who the other animalwas, w€ have to understard the origin ofthe group that was caught at the water-gate. To do this, it is n€cessary to trace thehistorv of the so-called "Plumbers tlnit."

It|eReaf Ori{EiDsof thePlumDers

Nixon and his National S€cudty Advis€r At this time' and in a-strange way' E

uellry fissinga, prided thernselves on their Howad Hunt hadjoined uP with the

i-r""aii"g of fi..ig" P"U"y initiatives. And white House unit of the Plumb€rs (se€ page

thev bo;h felt th;t tirev iould onlv accom- 21) ln a July 28' 1971 meno to colson'

;ilir;h;;. ur ;cret. wrt* *-. 6r *ta. he sugg€sted that the clA do a Psvchologi-iJ."r,

"r, --t ugt .-€nt with the Soviets, cal profile of Ellsberg and use it to smear

it. ,".r.t Uo-Uiig of cambodia, began to' him in the press At a me€ting that included

be printed in newsPaPers like The New york

Time-r. thev bo{h felt that leaks in the ad-ministratircn were resPonsible They thenlaunched an internal s€cudty measure:wiletaDDinp.. But thev wer€ not satisfied*ittr tire dorts of the FBl. So whm thePcntagon Papers l€aked to the limes, and,tod"Jly Th" W*hingtr,n Post ' the programactuallv moved insid€ the Whit€ House andwas nicknamed ''fhe Plumb€rs" since itsaim was to plug leaks to the media.

It is interesting to note here that, ongl-nally, it was H€r|ry Kisshger, not Nixonwho was enrag€d about the P€ntagon Pa-pers. But eventually Kissinger transf€rr€dhis furv to the presidmt who got zuitablyworkd up about the issue. Nixon had al-wavs be€xl bitt€r toward the Pr€ss, €sPe-cialiv since he felt there had bem a doublestandard, one for him and anothc for theKmnedys. On toP of this Nixon had alwayshat€d what the Poit and Times stood for:the "East€rn Establishmmt" or, as he usedto sav, "those Ha.rvard sons of bitches,"who he despised since he thought th€y de-spised him. In fact, in her offic€ at th€ PostIGte Graham hung photos of €ach Presi-dent from the tim€ her father purchasedth€ pap€r. Each one s(cept Nixon's. And al-thousl Kissing€r knew how to flatter themeaiX, to atda tneir parties and grantthem selected access, Nit(on did not. Wors€,he showed no interest in it. For instance,whm Nit<on and Kissinger decided on theCambodian invasion, Kissing€r Privatelydmied his complicity to the press and theyI& him out of the story.

This is important, because when thePlumbers were fust organiz€d, ther€ weretlvo units in pLac€. One under Cha.rles col-son, Nixon's political hatchet man, and an-other undtr David Young, who r€port€d toHfl|ry Kissinger. (Earli€r, Kissinger had or-d€r€d some of the FBI wiretaps on the NSCstaff. In oth€r words, his own employe€s )One of their fust assigmmts was to Pre-pare a psychological profile of Danid Ells-betg, a former Rand CorPoration emPloyeehired by Kissinger to study Nixon s oPtpnson the Metnam war. The FBI had deducedEllsb€rg was the one who had l€aked th€papers to th€ press.

IlrDardGameswittrlfirnt

F||Qi|E atanuarir-Febnrar5rr 1996

Hunt, Liddy, and Young, the CIA said theyne€ded more raw data in ord€r to prqare amore darnaging profile. So the raid atEllsberg's psychiatrist's office-Dr. l€wisFielding-was stag€d.

It is around this time that two motifs ofHunt, almost ignored by the ofEcial inves-tigations, begin to qu€€f,ly manif€st them-selves- The 20 y€ar CIA veteran of the Bayof Pigs, Op€ration MONC,OOSE, ard JMlWAVE, wmt back to his roots to resruit themechanics for this and futule operations.Namely, the anti-Castro Cubans he hadworked with a decade bdore, some ofwhom he had not seen in years. He prom-is€d them good pay, o(penses, and prot€c-tion for their hdp in blacJ< bagjobs.Tfusting, and not asking many questions,tbree of th€se Cubans w€nt along on IaborDay we€k€rd of 1971 to burgldiz€Fielding's offic€.

Operatioaf Amaliec?This is wher€ the s€cond curious motif

becomes pr€val€nt. Consid€r some of theknovvn facts about this break-in. VlrgilioMartinez has stat€d that, from the outset,it was differ€nt than otherjobs he had donewith Hunt. This b€gan with the initialbriding:

fte bdeilg {r8 lot lll€ arythlDg I rrs ured !o lltthe Coro!8ry ordln rl& bofolt ao opeBtlo4 Jouhflr I bdeing and then trll! tor th€ opslltlo!,You try to itrd I Dlace th8t lool8 rtllrr r,!d yout!8lr h {t sgulre rtrd vdti the codo you 8r! golld tou8s, You trxl out the plr'tr nr,ry tlm€B so that l8kryou hsvB th? €lsstlclty to sbolt the operrtlotr ,t thecoDdltloD8 ax? lot ldeal Edu8do'8 [Eutrt's] brtoilgyras trot l1k6 tbtu. llerr wssD't I mlttrD pls,!, totevetr a,qy netrtlotr of {tat to do It ron8thtlg {eftv,!0D9.

On top of having no rvritten plans ordiagrams, no contingenry for a breakdownor discov€ry, th€Ie were other anomalies.Hunt was supposed to monitor Fielding'shome to be sure th€ doctor did not retunwhile the buglary was in progr€ss. ButHunt lost track of Fielding. The glass cuttergiv€n to Martinez did not cut glass, so theyhad to break into the Dlac€. Then. with nolocksmith, they had to use a crowbar tobreak into the offic€. ln case of discovery,Hunt had supplied the Cubans with a ropeto get out the window. But the rcpe was soshort that if they had used it, they wor.rldhave broken their necks in the fall. To top ifoff, wh€n Hunt reported back, there waslittle of us€ to the White House.

Yet, to the Cubans surprise, whm theyall met Hunt back at th€ hotel that night,Eduado had a bottle of champagne. The

Cubans w€re d€pressed but not Hunt. "Welldone," said their mentor "This is a celebra-tion. You deserv€ it." Martinez later saysthat it was aI surreal to him. H€ had donehurulreds ofjobs for the CIA before and "noon€ invit€s you to have champagne and ishappy when you fail. . .The whole thingwas strange, but Eduardo was happy so wewalIehappy."

On€ last detail should be added to theFi€lding affair. There wer€ two cam€rasused that night to take photos. On€, a Mi-no<, was given to Hunt and to this day noone knows what happened to the film in-side. The hlaroid was given to th€ WhiteHouse and there were no shots of Ellsberg'sfile on it. Yet it was learned later by JimHougan that the CIA was vtry interested inEllsberg because of his r€lationship withFrances Fitzgerald, daught€x of former co-vert operations chid Des Fitzg€rald. AndHunt was meeting with high CfA officialsfor "tennis matches" after the Fieldingbreak-in.

ctemee !ficGor{ cBerdreetJam€s Mccord, had b€m anoth€r 20

year veteran of the CIA bdore he ostensiblyretired. This was about four months aft€rHunt joined the Mull€n PR firm. To supple-mmt his CLA pension, Mccord wmt towork as security consultant to the Com-mittee to Reelect the Presidert (CREEP). Oneof th€ things he is suspectd of doing thereis recommending CIA retirees to the WhiteHouse Secret Service staff r€sponsible formaintaining the taping system th€re. Hedid this for his frimd Al Wong who waschid of technical servic€s at the WhiteHouse. Then, something else brought Huntand Mccord together again (arnazingly, thepair denied they l..new each other in theAg€ncy). H. R. HaHeman, Nb@n's Chid ofStaff, request€d through his aide GordonStrachan, that some kind of campaign in-telligence apparatus be set up. cordonLiddy, th€n at CREEq ended up with thejobof coordinating this plan.

SeOrigirnf PhnsIt should be noted here that when Hal-

deman made his request, neither he norElrlichman wer envisaged the kind of op-erations that Hunt, Mccord, and Liddv per-formed. And their clairns ring true if onilooks at their histories. Haldernan was anadvertising executive with J. Walter Th-ompson. Ehrlichman was an able attorneywith a respectable Seattle law firm. Neitherone had wer shown an),thing like the intel-lig€nce or law €nforcem€nt background of

Hunt, Liddy, and Mccord.But it was this request by Haldsnan

that evmtually musbroomed into the Wa-tergate break-in, Nixon's resignation andjail terms for him and Ehrlichman. ForLiddy proceeded to map out a whole cam-paign against th€ D€xnocrats. Yet, in a con-tinuing mystery, no one knows whocommissioned the specific plan to bug thet€lephone of tarry O'Brien, DNC chairman.Esp€cially since he was prepping to leavefor Florida soon and there would be little totap. But everyone kn€w O'Brim was athorn in Ni:<on's side (s€e "The Myst€ry ofthe Break-ln" on page 14).

The DNC break-ins went forward. Huntfired up the Cubans by t€lling th€m therewas proof of Castro financing th€ Demo-cratic party- Th€re woe three episodes inlate May on consecutive wenings. Andthm the June 17th on€. It is intoesting tonote that in two earli€r ones, Mccord's as-sistant registered in the Howard Jobnson'sacross the street in a room paid for by"Mccord Associates. " In the second Maybreak-in, Mccord in a suit, at midnight.walked in the front door with six of hisCubans. Everyone signing the mtrance reg-ister. Mccord's ocuse was that h€ hadsome work to do on a different floor forthe Fedoal Res€rve Board. Again, the Cu-bans cor.rld not get inside the DNC. Mccordspmt much of his time talking to a guard.

And what of Hunt on these early for-ays? Aft€r the third, and finally successftrlMay break-in, som€ photos wer€ tak€n ofthe inside of the DNC and ther€ were twophone taps plac€d. Hunt gave th€ filrn toMcCord to print. Afto a few days Liddyasked lMcCord about the Dictures. Mccordsaid that his photographer was on vacationand he could not get thfln devdoped. Huntgave the fiLn to the Cuban operative whowas least accustom€d to covert op€rations,B€rrErd Barker. Barker gave th€ filrn to acornmercial photo exchange, Rich's photosin Miami. This, of course, ldt a trail, sincethe proprietor reported the odd photos tothe FBI. But there is a topper to this seffiingtangmt also. For the photograph€d docu-ments were hdd against the background ofa shag rug with a long nap. There was nosuch rug in the DNC. There was no suchrug in the rooms at the Watergate rcntedby the bulglals. But there was such a rugin the Howard Johnson's Hotel roomrmted for accomplice AIfted Baldwin. So asJim Hougan states, it is likely that eitherMccord, or perhaps Hunt, alt€red the pho-tos. For what r€ason? Only Mccord or

continuei on page 14

E

rtenuerJr-FetruerJr, 1996 F|OSE

It|e Aeal Wet€rgate StorYcontitued ftom Page 73

Hunt know But its Probably the same rea-son that the suryeillance on th€ DNCphones was faulty. Mccord spmt thou-sands of dollars on electronic surveillanceequipm€nt for th€s€ break-ins. Yet he leftno tape recorder for Baldwh to record therau/ data from the taPs! Baldwin was suP-posed to wdte it dolarr on yellow legal pads.i\s ec-FBI agmt Iiddy connmt€d lats "ltwas the most ridiculous fucking eleclrcrucsurveillance op€ration l've ever s€(Ir."

which brings us to June 17th. A€iain,fTom Eugenio Marttnez:

I, . .told Barker I r"s€Dt€d the llqy they w€& trtat'Ltrg GoDzalez. . .l sald therc 48tr't gdequat€ opers-tlolal preparstloL Ther€ vss tro lloo! pl8tr of thebuldln8; no one lilew the dlsloBltlotr ol the eleva-tors, bolfl naDy guads thele were, or ellu whatttme ttrc gualds checked tbe buldhg. Gonzalez dldqot know whst ldld of door he w88 supposed i0opsD" Th€& we&n't !D 8ny coDtw€ncy !18Il*

These of cou.rse, wse aI quit€ legittratecomplaints. Even whm one is being paid foran illegal assignmmt, one would want tokrow if precautions are being taken. Ajailterm is not a particlllErly apPetizing optionYet v/hat did Hunt sav to th€se well found€dmncems: 'ryou a-r€ an operative. Your mis-sion is to do what you are told and not toask questions." Martinez decided to goalong on another "mission". Why? In hisown words:

WleD you sxe ltr tbls kltrd ol busltr€ss, 8trd you 8rlItr tbe nlddle ol somethlng, lt ls not €8sy to 8top.EverTorc rdll fsel that you nlSlt J€op8ldlze theop€rstlon" 'I'lhat to do wlttr tbls gW nol[?" I hewtt lflould create a b,g PmbleID" .

so, in spite of the fact that these hiSh-risk br€ak-ins were producing nothing, Per-haps because of that r€ason, Jeb Magruder,Liddy's superior at CREEB order€d anoth€rbreak-in. This was to fix the taP ihatMccord said was faulty on tarry o'Brien'sphone. Just v/hy O'Brim's tap was faultyopens an interesting issue (see the O'Brienstory abov€. )

Ite FinalBrealr-InThis brings us to the early moming

hours of June 17th. Mccord was suppos€dto taDe oDen the lock on th€ bas€ment door.When he met some membss of the teamthere, they discovered that the taPe hadbeen removed. Since the crew had waiteduntil late at night, it was very likely that asuard had removed it (which was the case).ihe cubans wanted to abort the mission.Mccord insisted on going ahead arrdretaped the door He went off, ald at ameeting with Liddy and Hunt across thestreet, asked them how they wanted toproce€d now that there was a danger of be-ing o.posed. Liddy decided to go ahead,mahly b€cause Mccord wanted to and hewas the one most at risk.

So th€ operation continued. WhenMccord return€d ftom his conference, Mar-tinez asked him if h€ had removed the tap€from the doors. The tape was no longer

necessary, since the others were now safelyinsid€ the DNC'S offices. McCord said hehad. This was false. Ard it n'as this secondtaping that msured their caPture. For theguard, Frank \Mtlls, could discount onestrip of tape-it could be a maintenanceman-but not two, \44ry clean a roomnaTce?

But James Mccord was not throughwith his reign of error. Knowing that hehad alerted the guard at least once, if nottwice, he now told Barker to turn off hiswalkie-talki€, their only coruIection to theirlookouts across the street. The second taPewas €nough for wills; he call€d the Polic€.\ /rth no radio contact, the burglars ur'erecaptured red-halded.

And what of Hunt that night? Heseemed to have forgotten training schoolalso.

f one is supervising a break-in n'ithobedient underlings, one would expectthem to carry nothing on them that wouidbe t raceable to thei-r sPonsoring agency lnoth€I words, no money, no notes, no wal-l€ts, no identiication of ary kind. Afterthey wer€ striPPed you would place thoseitems in a safe place to €nsure them fromdiscov€ry Someplace like a personal lockeror safe or large postal delivery box. OnceHunt collected their belongings he placedthem in b €fcases in the burglars' hotelrooms at the Watergate. But not before hewas sure they all kept their hotel keys onthem. And in these belongings of coursewere Hunt's name and phone number,along with the ill-disguised notation "w

illOElE atanuary-Febnrary' 1996

House". But even More this, Hunt hadpaid off the burglars in s€qucnhally num-bered hundred dollar biUs. The monev hailwould lead from Miami, to Modm iityard back to CREEP That latter trail wouldlead to John Mitchell, Nb@n s former At-torney G€neral, now managing his cam-paign. The form€r would lead to CharlesColson who agreed to take on HowardHunt at the White House from the MullenCompany, with the blessings of his bossther€, Bob B€nnett (se€ page 22). Colsonhad been a special assistant to hesidsttNixon and with the proximity of these twomm. plus some oth€rs who d@ided to tellaI they knew (and make up what they didnot), Nllon s€em€d boted in.

We said €arlier that most recapitulationsof Wat€rgate begin at this point. We feelthat shortchanges the facts and adultqatesth€ truth. And what has bem the acceDt€dtruth about Watergate? That Niron agreedto the break-in, install€d a cov€r-up fromthe top down to protect himse_lf and that inthe face of this, some h€loes like SDaialPros€cutor L€on Jaworski, Senator SamErvin, report€rs Bob Woodward and CarlB€rnstein, and their editor B€xr Bradleefought ttrough to the truth. They had helpfrom som€ institutions like that gr€atnewspaper the Washi4gton ,&st, the r€lmt-less investigating staff of Ervin,s commit-t€e, the fair but truth-seeking spcialprosecutor's office, a st€rting JudiciaryCommitt€e wiUing to vote for impeach-mmt, and a simple but honest local judgern D.C. to put the whole bunch of th€m lll

jail. If this is all so, if the systen work€d sowell, then why were all th6e sheranigansignored by aI these people and all these uFstitutions? Why is it not part of the ac-cept€d history taught in rhools andcolleges? why do the media, rhools, andcoll€ges all ignore these stuprfying contra-dictions in the r€cord? Why was RicbardHdms allowed to tell the Amrican publicbefore the press-anointed hrro Sam frvinthat the CtA had nothing to do with Water-gate? Why was Mcc_ord nerrcr asked rc o<-plain his lic to Martinez or wbat happenedto th€ photographs More they went toBarker? Why was Hunt not asked to €r(-plain what he was doing with a cov€rt se-curity clearance from Helm's top assistantwhile he was working at the White House?Most of all, why was Hut's €mployer-Bob Bennett- not asked why he didn,t re-port the br€ak-in since he knew about itthl days in advance (s€e page 22)?

For our lead€rs to ignore all this is toagree tojoin in a giant "damage control,,opoation. The aim appears to hav€ b€cn todeceive the public which cannot be tmstedwith uncomfortable facts or ditEcult solu-tions. For mak€ no mistake about it, ther€al story of Wat€{gate is an}thing butsimple or palatable. For, like Richard Nixonor not, the man had mernies. This is thepresident who fired Richard Hdms in earlv1 9 73 . Nbon actually launched an investi-gation of the &st and was aiming to takeIGte craham's ry stations-her biggesrmoney-mak€rs---€way from her Nixonwas trying to r€organize the intelligence

conmunity in ord€r to bypass the heads ofsevef,al ag€ncies. And he was conductinghis foreign policy, not tluough regr:larState Departrnmt or F€ntagon dEnnels,but mostly though his National SecudtyAdvis€r, H€nIy Kissinger. The same Kiss-inger who was a product of that East€rnEstablishm€nt that NLon bated, and whowas going to the movies with Kate Grahamwhile he was n'orking for NLon.

50 at the same time Nb@n appears tob€ing sabotag€d from b€low (Hrmt andMccord), he is doing battle at the top withsome of the heaviest hitters in th€ Wash-ington €stablishment. And once th€ Water-gat€ story broke, Nixon s blood was in thewat€r. And no rnatter how manv times rthreatened to die a natural death, a ,,bomb-shell" would strike to keep it afloat. As thisprocess continued it led to ddections in theranks, most notably White House counselJohn Dean, who, while negotiating withthe press and Justice Dqartment, bcame,so to sp€ak, the Ruth Pain€ of Watergat€.

But what nobody seemed to notice wasthat to ke€p the contrcvfrsy ative, th€"bombshells" b€cam€ less r€levant to theoriginal story and at times quite stretched.For instance, to bohter his credibility JohnDean stated that during the cover-up stageof watqgate, he had niet *itfr Ni"o"aromd .10-45 times. Yet, the White houselogs indicated ttlat nunber was double thereal figure- Dean said that he fdt Nixonknew about the cover-up from at l€ast Sep-t€rnber 15, 1972. Y€t Richard Moore, an-

continued, on page 32

.Ianuarlr-treDmrerJr, 1996 FlOilE

t-

Watergatecontitwed Jrom page 15

oth€r White Hous( (mployee, said that aI-ter a March 21st meethg with Nixon,Dean told him that this was the first timeNixon had known the details of the cover-up. Dean stat€d under oath that, aft€I heleft Manila, he fiIst heard of th€ cover-upfrom Fred Fielding in san Francisco on June18th. But as th€ authors of Silent Coupshow, this is unlikely and Dean seems tohave alts€d the facts to hide how quicklyhe was involved in the cover-up machrna-tions. Most people ignored the faults rnDean's testimony for two reasons. Whenthe tapes were r€leased €veryone concen-trated on Nixon's words, not Dean's. Sec-ondly, the partisan Ervin Cornmittee andthe media had bought into Dean and nowcould not rev€rse the "star treatment" theygave him.

This is not to minimize the role of fuch-ard Nixon. Nixon, predictably, mishandledWat€rgate every step of the way. Th€ worstwas the so-called "Saturday Night Massa-cre" when he fued then Specia] Pros€cutorArchibald Cox, and, $/hen the AttorneyGeneral and his assistant refused to carryout this order, they resigned. This created afuestorm and Nixon lost any hope of win-ning back the confidence of the Americanpeople. The invisible forces in washingtonhad won out. The r€st was, as Oliver stoneshows, nea-r-Shakespearean: death comingto a man who had already been dead a longtlm€.

Then cerald Ford took office. The sameman who was part of the cleanup battalionafter the JFK murder, did the same withWatergate. In pardoning Nixon and l€ttingJaworski proceed as he had bem doing, hedid what h€ always had. He went with theflow Which in Washington means th€ clA,the Pentagon and its allies h the media.This even though colson had stat€d lnNewsweek that Nixon realized he was apdsoner of the CIA and Pentagon in hisown white House. Even thoush Nixon had

caled Haldeman at four in the mornins toask the following questions:

"Do you how sqytbiDg about the Beuett PB tutrrthe Udlen Conpsly?'"Dld you eve! enploy tbetn 8t the llltlt4 Eouse?W€re they eve! rctaltr?d by us for aDy punose?''Dld you loow thoy were e CIA lI!Dt?""Dld you lglory that E€les order€d 8€nlett to bll€Eonard Euut?'"Dld you how ttlat Eunt u88 otr the pqJrroll at iheSeDnett llnn 8t t e 8ar!9 tlne that he uas oD the

}lt€ Eouse payml?"

By the time of this call-the summer of'73-with John Dean mesmerizingAmerica, Nixon was n€ar the truth. But herealized that with his credibility ebbing andth€ Post-led m€dia which was being fed sto-ries by Bennett (see pag€ 23), in one of theirperiodic feeding frenzies, he had no chanceto fight back. After he left, Ford intonedover his second national traurna that ourlong nightmare was over Dr Fe€lgood wasat it again. tlnfortunately, the nightmarewas not over. Neither was it begirning. ltwasjust continuing. S

Hu$hescontinued from page 11

convince the m€dia Hughes was still alive.lf the voice at the other end was Hughes, hehad a remarkably spotty memory, gorngon in gr€at detail on som€ questions, andunable to sufficimtly answer others, ailb€aring on significant aspects of his life. Inthe course of this interview, Hughes (orwhoever) rnade derogatory cormentsabout Rob€rt Maheu. Maheu promptlysued, hfing, among others, charles App€l(se€ sidebar on page 7).

Hughcs'death brought forth many al-leged wills, but none of them sver held upin any court. W'rthout a will, Hugh€s empt€ passed completely into th€ control ofthe clA. All holdings b€longed either toHMI or Sunma by then. Insiders claim theHughes companies made up the CL.\-s biggest propdetary in history

Hugh€s officia y died in a plane (a poetictouch for the €x-pilot). His body was full ofneedles that had brokm off during his yearsof being givm &ugs (willingly or unwill-ingly.) The body weighed close to 90 pounds,but Hughes had be€n 6'4". Some believe thebody buried was not Hughes's. Others say iiwas Hughes, but he had b€m dead some timebdore. only a few people know the truth.The tdck is figu.ring out which ones they are.

Hughes had always ta.lked of leaving hisvast fortune to his medical institute (HMI.) Hedrafted such a will, but according to Nadin€Henley n€ver signed it. \Mratewr his inten-tions, the d€ct was that the CIA Srew quiterich by Hughes' deaih. And Mei€r knewwhere the bodies wse, €r, kept. +

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