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Bernard Barker Dies - Peter Lemkin - 06-06-2009
Watergate burglar dies in Florida
[BBC]
Former CIA agent Bernard Leon Barker, who took part in the Watergate burglary in Washington more than 30 years ago, has died in Miami at the age of 92.
In the course of a long and colourful career, Mr Barker was also one of the leaders of the failed CIA attempt to invade Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in 1961.
He had suffered from cancer and heart problems, the AP news agency said.
The Watergate break-in sparked one of America's biggest political scandals, toppling then-President Richard Nixon.
A quick run through the CV of the Cuban-born CIA operative is like taking a ride through some of the most controversial covert operations in late-20th century American history, says the BBC's Emilio San Pedro.
Not only was he was one of the leaders of the 1961 CIA attempts to invade Cuba, but his name was often discussed by American conspiracy theorists as having played a role in the assassination of John F Kennedy, allegedly in revenge for his failure fully to support the Bay of Pigs invasion.
But he was best known for being one of the five men who broke into the Democratic Party headquarters in 1972 at the Watergate building in Washington, DC, at the behest of then President Nixon.
The men were attempting to plant wiretaps to spy on the Democrat opponent of Mr Nixon - an event which eventually led to the once-popular president resigning in disgrace two years later.
In his later years, Mr Barker remained unapologetic about his involvement in the Watergate scandal, for which he only served a little over a year in prison.
As an anti-communist activist, he said he remained convinced that Mr Nixon was "one of the best presidents" the United States ever had. :rock::hmmmm2:
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Bernard Barker, 92, a Watergate Burglar, Dies
Bernard L. Barker, one of the burglars whose 1972 break-in at the Watergate building in Washington led to the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon, died Friday. He was 92.
His stepdaughter, Kelly Andrad, told The Associated Press that Mr. Barker, who had lung cancer and heart problems, died Friday morning at his suburban Miami home after being taken to the Veterans Affairs Medical Center the night before.
Mr. Barker, a Cuban-born American, was recruited for undercover operations during the Nixon administration by E. Howard Hunt Jr. The ties between the two went back to Mr. Hunt's days in the Central Intelligence Agency and the planning of the 1961 invasion of the Bay of Pigs in Cuba.
In 1971, Mr. Barker took part in a break-in at the Los Angeles office of the psychiatrist Daniel Ellsberg, who disclosed the Pentagon papers to the press.
Then on June 17, 1972, Mr. Barker was found crouching under a desk at Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate office building. Three other men caught with him also had ties to the Bay of Pigs operation. A fifth, James W. McCord Jr., was security chief for Nixon's re-election campaign.
In May 1973, Mr. Barker told the Senate Watergate committee that his aim in the Watergate break-in had been to find proof that the Democratic Party had received financial support from the government of Cuba and thus speed the "liberation" of Cuba.
Mr. Barker pleaded guilty in January 1973 to seven charges of conspiracy, burglary and wiretapping. Later, however, he asked Judge John J. Sirica to allow him to withdraw his guilty plea and stand trial. Judge Sirica denied that request and on Nov. 19, 1973, he sentenced Mr. Barker to a prison term of 18 months to six years.
In January 1974, Mr. Barker was freed from prison to appeal that decision. On July 11, 1975, Judge Sirica told Mr. Barker and the other three Cuban-Americans involved in the Watergate break-in that he was reducing their sentences to time served.
After his release from prison, Mr. Barker, a former real estate agent, went to work for the City of Miami as a sanitation inspector as part of a federally financed jobs program. He later worked as a city building inspector but took early retirement at the age of 64 rather than fight charges that he had been loafing on the job.
In repeated interviews, Mr. Barker expressed no regrets about his role in the Watergate and Ellsberg break-ins, saying he believed he had been acting in the interests of national security. But in 1976, he did tell a reporter: "Washington's a place to keep away from. Cubans don't do very well up there."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/06/us/06barker.html