Deep Politics Timeline

[Tracy Riddle]

• MKULTRA activities continued until 1973 when CIA director Richard Helms, fearing that they would be exposed to the public, ordered the project terminated, and all of the files destroyed. Fortunately, a clerical error had sent many of the documents to the wrong office, so when CIA workers were destroying the files, some of them remained, and were later released under a Freedom of Information Act request by investigative journalist John Marks. Many people in the American public were outraged when they learned of the experiments, and several congressional investigations took place including the Church Committee and the Rockefeller Commission.
  
• The Rosenhan experiment was a famous experiment into the validity of psychiatric diagnosis conducted by psychologist David Rosenhan in 1973. It was published in the journal Science under the title "On being sane in insane places." The study is considered an important and influential criticism of psychiatric diagnosis. Rosenhan's study was done in two parts. The first part involved the use of healthy associates or "pseudopatients" who briefly simulated auditory hallucinations in an attempt to gain admission to 12 different psychiatric hospitals in five different states in various locations in the United States. All were admitted and diagnosed with psychiatric disorders. After admission, the pseudopatients acted normally and told staff that they felt fine and had not experienced any more hallucinations. Hospital staff failed to detect a single pseudopatient, and instead believed that all of the pseudopatients exhibited symptoms of ongoing mental illness. Several were confined for months. All were forced to admit to having a mental illness and agree to take antipsychotic drugs as a condition of their release. The second part involved asking staff at a psychiatric hospital to detect non-existent "fake" patients. The staff falsely identified large numbers of ordinary patients as impostors. The study concluded, "It is clear that we cannot distinguish the sane from the insane in psychiatric hospitals" and also illustrated the dangers of dehumanization and labeling in psychiatric institutions. It suggested that the use of community mental health facilities which concentrated on specific problems and behaviors rather than psychiatric labels might be a solution and recommended education to make psychiatric workers more aware of the social psychology of their facilities.
  
• Operation Snow White: Some time during the 1970s, the Church of Scientology decided that they'd had enough.Apparently, the Church of Scientology managed to perform the largest infiltration of the United States government in history. Ever.5,000 of Scientology's crack commandos wiretapped and burglarized various agencies. They stole hundreds of documents, mainly from the IRS. No critic was spared, and in the end, 136 organizations, agencies and foreign embassies were infiltrated. As early as 1960, L. Ron Hubbard had proposed that Scientologists should infiltrate government departments by taking secretarial, bodyguard or other jobs. In the early 1970s, the Church of Scientology was increasingly scrutinized by US federal agencies, having already been raided by the Food and Drug Administration in 1963. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) claimed it owed millions of dollars in taxes and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) sent agents into the organization. The Church's response involved a publicity campaign, extensive litigation against the IRS and a program of infiltration of agency offices. The specific branch of Scientology responsible for Operation Snow White was the Guardian's Office. Created in 1966 by L. Ron Hubbard himself, the Guardian's Office's purpose was to protect the interests of Scientology. At the time of Operation Snow White, the Guardian's Office had worldwide headquarters (Guardian's Office WW) located at Saint Hill Manor in England. Headquarters in the United States (Guardian's Office US) were in Los Angeles, California. A smaller office also existed in Washington, D.C. (Guardian's Office DC) and other cities throughout the United States. Each of the Guardian Offices had five bureaus including the Information Bureau which oversaw the infiltration of the government. L. Ron Hubbard oversaw the Guardian's Office, though it was Mary Sue Hubbard, his wife, who held the title Commodore Staff Guardian. Several years later, in 1973, the Guardian's Office began a massive infiltration of governments around the world, though the primary target of the operation was the United States. Worried about Scientology's long term reputation, the Guardian's Office decided to infiltrate Interpol in order to obtain documents relating to Scientology, as well as those connecting L. Ron Hubbard to criminal activity. This duty was handed by Jane Kember to Henning Heldt and his staff. Around this time L. Ron Hubbard himself wrote Guardian Order 732, which called for the removal and correction of "erroneous" Scientology files. It is here that Operation Snow White has its origins. Though the order called for this to be achieved by legal means, this would quickly change. Hubbard himself would later be named by federal prosecutors as an "unindicted co-conspirator" for his part in the operation. Though extensive records of his involvement exist, many Scientologists claim his directives were misinterpreted by his followers. Operation Snow White would be further refined by Guardian Order 1361. Addressed from Jane Kember to Heldt, Duke Snider, and Richard Weigand, GO 1361 called for, amongst other things, an infiltration of the Los Angeles and London offices of the IRS, and the Department of Justice. While the order was specific to the IRS, the Guardian's Office was soon recruiting their own field agents to infiltrate other governmental offices, including the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the U.S. Coast Guard intelligence service, and the National Institute of Mental Health, among others, as well as the American Medical Association. The program called for rewards to be given for successful missions carried out by Scientologists. Other planned elements of the operation included petitioning governments and the United Nations to charge government critics of Scientology with genocide, on the theory that official criticism of the group constituted "deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction". One of the sentencing memoranda in the case also noted that, contrary to what the defendants claimed, the programs planned by the Guardian's Office were not restricted to trying to remove "false reports" but included plans to plant false informationfor instance, planting false records about "a cat with a pedigree name" into US security agency computers so that later "the creature holds a press conference and photographic story results." The purpose of this plan was "to hold up the American security to ridicule, as outlined in the GO by LRH."
  
• 'Clockwork Orange' is the name of the secret British security services project which was alleged to have involved a right-wing smear campaign against British politicians in the 1970s. The project was undertaken by members of the British intelligence services and the British Army press office in Northern Ireland, whose job also included routine public relations work and placing disinformation stories in the press, as part of a psychological warfare operation against paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland. One of the project's members, Colin Wallace, who was the press officer at the Army Headquarters in Northern Ireland, also claims that in 1973, after MI5 became the primary intelligence service in Northern Ireland, the project began giving briefings to foreign journalists against politicians. These briefings included distributing forged documents in an attempt to show that the victims were communists, or Irish Republican sympathisers or were taking bribes. Politicians alleged to have been smeared in this manner include Harold Wilson, Ian Paisley (Democratic Unionist Party), Merlyn Rees, Tony Benn and Edward Heath (Conservative). Airey Neave, the British Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) was alleged to have been involved with 'Clockwork Orange', and to have briefed Wallace on a number of occasions. Other than Wallace's testimony, the primary evidence for the existence of this plot consisted of a series of handwritten notes taken by Wallace in meetings with other members of the plot. Journalists investigating Wallace's story had these notes analysed by a forensic scientist, and the results were found to be consistent with the notes having been taken contemporaneously. In the House of Commons, on the 31 January 1990, junior defence minister Archie Hamilton, admitted the existence of a project called 'Clockwork Orange', although he claimed that there was no evidence that this project involved a smear campaign against politicians.
  
• "The most infamous male madam [throughout LA's sordid history] would have to be Billy Bryars, the wealthy son of an oil magnate, and part-time producer of gay porn. Bryars was said to have a stellar group of customers using his brothel' at the summit of Laurel Canyon. In fact, some have claimed that none other than J. Edgar Hoover, the founder and chief executive officer of the FBI, was one of his best clients … when Bryars fell under police scrutiny in 1973, allegedly for trafficking in child pornography, officers obtained a number of confessions from some of his hustlers, and some of them identified Hoover and [Clyde] Tolson as Mother John and Uncle Mike,' and claimed that they had serviced them on numerous occasions." (Paul Young's L.A. Exposed)
  
• President Nixon allegedly gives comedian Jackie Gleason access to dead alien bodies. Three separate people claim to have been told the story by Nixon (Bill Knell, Larry Warren and Beverly Gleason). The key witness of the three was Beverly Gleason, the second wife of the comedy superstar. She wrote a version of the story for the National Enquirer in 1983 four years before Gleason's death. It was a story that Beverly said made Jackie very angry. The gist of the story is that Gleason was friends with Nixon. He lived in Miami, Florida near Nixon's southern White House at Key Biscayne. Gleason saw the bodies late one night at Homestead Air Force Base, which was close to both men's homes. It was also the base where Nixon flew in on his 92 trips to the southern White House.
  

• 1/1973 The Vietnam War POW/MIA issue concerns the fate of United States servicemen who were reported as missing in action during the Vietnam War and associated theaters of operation in Southeast Asia. Following the Paris Peace Accords of 1973, 591 U.S. prisoners of war were returned during Operation Homecoming. The U.S. listed about 1,350 Americans as prisoners of war or missing in action and roughly 1,200 Americans reported killed in action and body not recovered. Many of these were airmen who were shot down over North Vietnam or Laos. Investigations of these incidents have involved determining whether the men involved survived their shoot down, and if not efforts to recover their remains. POW/MIA activists played a role in pushing the U.S. government to improve its efforts in resolving the fates of the missing. Progress in doing so was slow until the mid-1980s, when relations between the U.S. and Vietnam began to improve and more cooperative efforts were undertaken. Normalization of U.S. relations with Vietnam in the mid-1990s was a culmination of this process. Considerable speculation and investigation has gone to a theory that a significant number of these men were captured as prisoners of war by Communist forces in the two countries and kept as live prisoners after the war's conclusion for the United States in 1973. A vocal group of POW/MIA activists maintains that there has been a concerted conspiracy by the Vietnamese government and every American government since then to hide the existence of these prisoners. The U.S. government has steadfastly denied that prisoners were left behind or that any effort has been made to cover up their existence. Popular culture has reflected the "live prisoners" theory, most notably in the 1985 film Rambo: First Blood Part II. Several congressional investigations have looked into the issue, culminating with the largest and most thorough, the United States Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs of 19911993 led by Senators John Kerry, Bob Smith, and John McCain. It found "no compelling evidence that proves that any American remains alive in captivity in Southeast Asia."
  
• 1/3/1973 The 93rd Congress convenes. Andrew Young was sworn into office as Georgia's first black congressman since 1871. Young represented Georgia's 5th congressional district until 1977, when he was appointed as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
  
• 1/4/1973 Nixon awarded Alexander Haig a Distinguished Service Medal.
  
• 1/9/1973 McCord receives an anonymous phone call: "A year is a long time. Your wife and family will be taken care of. You will be rehabilitated with employment when this is over."
  
• 1/10/1973 Watergate criminal trial opens with Judge Sirica presiding.
  
• 1/11/1973 Nixon ends mandatory wage and price controls.
  
• 1/11/1973 E. Howard Hunt pleads guilty to all six charges against him relating to Watergate.
  
• 1/12/1973 Mark Jimmy' Essex, armed with a high powered rifle, killed six persons from the roof of the Howard Johnson's hotel in New Orleans before police shot him. Authorites found slogans written on the walls of his apartment: "The quest for freedom is death. Then by death I shall escape to freedom. Political power comes from the barrel of a gun. Kill pig Nixon and all his running dogs."
  
• 1/13/1973 The Orlando Sentinel editorialized: "As shameful as Watergate is, the case has a hopeful or reassuring aspect: nothing is being swept under the rug."
  
• 1/14/1973 Caulfield says to McCord: "The President's ability to govern is at stake, another teapot dome scandal is possible...everybody else is on the track but you."
  
• 1/15/1973 Barker, Gonzalez, Martinez and Sturgis plead guilty to all counts of the indictment.
  
• 1/16/1973 The four Watergate defendants who have pleaded guilty all deny that they have been paid by anyone.
  
• 1/18/1973 Sen. Mansfield sent a letter to government agencies (including the CIA), ordering all materials relating to Watergate be preserved. Very soon after, Richard Helms destroyed all records pertaining to the CIA's mind-control programs and drug experiments. Also, all tapes and transcripts recorded on the CIA's "central recording system" were destroyed. More than 4000 pages of recorded conversations were wiped out, obliterating the behind-the-scenes record of Helms years as DCI. Helms claimed he was only "tidying up" to prepare for his new post as US ambassador to Iran, and denied that any of it pertained to Watergate.
  
• 1/18/1973 The trial of Daniel Ellsberg for leaking the Pentagon Papers begins. [During the course of the trial the public learned that the CIA had massively underestimated enemy strength before the 1970 invasion of Cambodia. Upon learning that H .L. Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy, already convicted for the Watergate break-in, had also burgled the office of Ellsberg's psychiatrist, Judge Matthew Byrne, Jr. declared a mistrial and dismissed all charges against Ellsberg. Judge Byrne also accused the Nixon administration of "gross misconduct", revealing that mid-trial Nixon's special assistant for domestic affairs, John Ehrlichman, had offered him the job of director of the FBI.]
  
• 1/20/1973 Nixon's inaugural address; talks of reducing the size of the Federal Government, saying, "In our own lives, let each of us ask not just what will the government do for me, but what can I do for myself?"
  
• 1/20/1973 Amilcar Cabral, African independence leader, assassinated
  
• 1/22/1973 Supreme Court legalizes abortion in landmark Roe vs Wade ruling; opinion written by Nixon appointee Harry Blackmun, and he was joined in his ruling by Brennan, Burger, Douglas, Marshall, Stewart and Powell. The ruling suddenly gave the US the most lenient abortion laws in the non-communist Western world. In 1970 a pregnant, unmarried woman sought to have the Texas anti-abortion statute, first enacted in the 1850s, declared unconstitutional. To protect her anonymity she was given the fictitious name Jane Roe. The initial action was against Henry Wade, District Attorney of Dallas County. Roe claimed that the statute was unconstitutionally vague and violated her right of privacy as guaranteed by the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments. The case was argued before the Supreme Court in December of 1971, reargued in October of 1972. A majority on the Court agreed that Roe had a right of privacy based on the 14th amendment and on earlier Supreme Court decisions. They also agreed that this right was "broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy." However, they denied that this right was "absolute" (i.e., that "she is entitled to terminate her pregnancy at whatever time, in whatever way, and for whatever reason she alone chooses.") There were compelling state interests in "safeguarding health" and "protecting potential life" that could justify regulation. The decision outlined a trimester framework as a way to sort and balance these varied interests. The framework limited state regulation as follows: 1.No interference during the first trimester of pregnancy. 2. Regulation allowed after the first trimester to protect the health of the mother. 3. Regulation allowed during the third trimester (i.e., after "viability") to protect "fetal life" except when abortion is "necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother." The opinion also stated that the judiciary is "not in a position to speculate" as to when "life begins" and that the Constitution does not use the word "person" in a way that indicates "with any assurance, that it has any possible pre-natal application." At the same time, the Court ruled in Doe vs. Bolton that abortion was legal right up until birth if the mother's health was at stake. Abortion opponents charged that because "health" was defined as everything from physical well-being to psychological and financial well-being, it effectively legalized abortion-on-demand.
  
• 1/22/1973 Lyndon Johnson died of heart failure in Texas . He is pronounced dead at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas. He leaves an estimated fortune of $14,000,000.00 to $20,000,000.00. His mistress, Madeleine Brown says: "Lyndon Johnson did not die naturally." She thinks his Secret Service people killed him. "They hated him." she said. LBJ dies just a few days prior to the signing of the agreement to end the war in Vietnam. Later this year, the space center at Houston is renamed the Lyndon Baines Johnson Space Center in his memory. If he had been reelected in 1968, his second term would have ended two days ago. He had once predicted that "When [the Great Society] dies, I too will die." He passed away the day after Nixon announced that he wanted to eliminate most of the Great Society programs.
  
• 1/25/1973 Woodward met with Deep Throat in an underground parking garage.
  
• 1/27/1973 Nixon announced that the Paris Peace Accords - signed in Paris by North and South Vietnam, US, and the Vietcong - had ended US involvement in Vietnam (though bombing of Cambodia would continue until 8/14); the draft was also ended, placing the military on an all-volunteer footing for the first time in a quarter-century. Nixon's popularity jumps to 68%.
  
• 1/28/1973 Nixon talked about his $268 billion budget plan (with a $12 billion deficit) in a nationwide radio address.
  
• 1/30/1973 Liddy and McCord are found guilty by a jury on a total of 14 counts of attempting to spy on the Democrats.
  
• 2/1973 Time notified the White House that it was going to print a story about the 17 wiretaps.
  
• 2/2/1973 Richard Helms' last day as Director of the CIA. James Schlesinger becomes new head of the CIA, until July 2 1973.
  
• 2/5/1973 Roy Ash, director of OMB, announces that the administration has impounded $8.7 billion appropriated by Congress for federal programs.
  
• 2/7/1973 Richard Helms gives secret testimony during his confirmation hearings as ambassador to Iran.
  
• 2/7/1973 Senate votes 73-0 to set up a Select Committee of four Democrats and three Republicans to investigate Watergate. It will be chaired by Sam Ervin. Sen. Hugh Scott failed to have the investigation extended to include the 1964 and 1968 Democratic campaigns. The members of the Committee were: Ervin, Sens. Joseph Montoya (D-New Mexico), Herman Talmadge (D-Georgia), Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), Howard Baker (R-Tenn.), Edward Gurney (R-Florida), Lowell Weicker (R-Conn.). Nixon's popularity rating was 68%.
  
• 2/8/1973 Congress enacts legislation imposing a status quo in the Penn State Railroad labor stalemate, ending a one-day strike.
  
• 2/9/1973 US Circuit Court of Appeals for D.C. orders that a lower court prevent Interior Secretary Morton from issuing permits for construction of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline.
  
• 2/9-11/1973 the first convention of the National Women's Political Caucus (NWPC) is held in Houston.
  
• 2/9/1973 Hussein I, king of Jordan, was a likely target of Black September assassin suspects who were arrested.
  
• 2/12/1973 Treasury Sec. George Schultz announces that the dollar will be devalued by 10%.
  
• 2/15/1973 US and Cuba conclude a five-year extradition treaty.
  
• 2/19/1973 Congress' General Accounting Office estimated that the Saigon regime was logistically inept and not ready for an all-out communist attack. (Los Angeles Times)
  
• 2/21/1973 Laotian government and the Pathet Lao sign a cease-fire agreement.
  
• 2/25/1973 Woodward met with Deep Throat in a run-down bar.
  
• 2/26/1973 Two of the 15 counts against Ellsberg and Russo are dropped.
  
• 2/27/1973 the American Indian Movement occupied the trading post and church at Wounded Knee, South Dakota to protest against US government policies towards native Americans.
  
• 2/28/1973 Meeting between Nixon and Dean in the Oval Office (9:12am - 10:23am) There is a 1 min. 12 sec. gap on the tape.
  

Pres. Nixon: When you talk to Kleindienst - because I have raised this (inaudible) thing with him on the Hiss Case he has forgotten, I suppose. Go back and read the first chapter of Six Crises. But I know, as I said, that was espionage against the nation, not against the party. FBI, Hoover, himself, who's a friend of mine said "I am sorry I have been ordered not to cooperate with you" and they didn't give us one (adjective omitted) thing. I conducted that investigation with two (characterization omitted) committee investigators - that stupid - they were tenacious. We got it done. Then we worked that thing. We then got the evidence, we got the typewriter, we got the Pumpkin Papers. We got all of that ourselves. The FBI did not cooperate. The Justice Department did not cooperate. The administration would not answer questions except, of course, for Cabinet officers, I mean like Burling came down and some of the others.
John Dean: Funny, when the shoe is on the other foot how they look at things, isn't it?
Pres. Nixon: Well, as I said, the New York Times, the Washington Post and all the rest. They put it in terms of executive privilege because they were against the investigation.
John Dean: Well, you know Colson's threat of a law suit which was printed in Evans and Novak had a very sobering effect on several of the national magazines. They are now checking before printing a lot of this Watergate junk they print. They check the press office trying to get a confirmation or denial, or call the individuals involved. And they have said they are doing it because they are afraid a libel suit on them. So it did have a sobering effect. We will keep them honest if we can remind them that they can't print anything and get away with it.
Pres. Nixon: One amusing thing about the Gray thing, and I knew this would come. They say Gray is a political crony and a personal crony of the President's. Did you know that I have never seen him socially?
John Dean: Is that correct? No, I didn't.
Pres. Nixon: I think he has been to a couple White House events, but I have never seen him separately.
John Dean: The Press has got him meeting you at a social function. And, back in 1947, (inaudible) is something I have read.
Pres. Nixon: Maybe at a Radford party or something like that. That's all. I don't know. But Gray is somebody that I know only - He was Radford's Assistant, used to attend NSC meetings. He has never been a social friend. Edgar Hoover, on the other hand, I have seen socially at least a hundred times. He and I were very close friends.
John Dean: This is curious the way the press -
Pres. Nixon: (expletive deleted) - Hoover was my crony. He was closer to me than Johnson, actually although Johnson used him more. But as for Pat Gray, (expletive deleted) I never saw him.
John Dean: While it might have been a lot of blue chips to the late Director, I think we would have been a lot better off during this whole Watergate thing if he had been alive. Because he knew how to handle that Bureau - knew how to keep them in bounds.
Pres. Nixon: Well, Hoover performed. He would have fought. That was the point. He would have defied a few people. He would have scared them to death. He has a file on everybody.
Pres. Nixon: But now at the present time, the Bureau is leaking like a sieve to Baker, (inaudible). It isn't coming from Henry Petersen is it?
John Dean: No. I would just not believe that.
Pres. Nixon: Is isn't coming from that (unintelligible).
John Dean: No. Well, they are getting the raw data. They are getting what they call the 302 forms. Actually, the summaries of the interviews.
Pres. Nixon: You see this Vesco thing coming up burns my tail. I raised hell with Haldeman on this and he didn't do anything about. I guess he couldn't. What (expletive omitted) became of our investigation of their financial activities? (Expletive omitted) They cancelled debts, they borrowed money. What the hell is that?....Colson can be more valuable out than in, because, basically in, he has reached the point that he was too visible.
John Dean: A lightning rod.
Pres. Nixon: And outside he can start this and say that I am a private citizen and I can say what I (expletive omitted) please.
Pres. Nixon: I frankly say that I would rather they would be partisan - rather than for them to have a facade of fairness and all the rest. Ervin always talks about his being a great Constitutional lawyer. (expletive deleted) He's got Baker totally toppled over to him. Ervin works harder than most of our Southern gentlemen. They are great politicians. They are just more clever than the minority. Just more clever!
John Dean: I am convinced that he has shown that he is merely a puppet for Kennedy in this whole thing. The fine hand of the Kennedys is behind this whole hearing. There is no doubt about it. When they considered the resolution on the Floor of the Senate I got the record out to read it. Who asked special permission to have their Staff man on the floor? Kennedy brings this man - Flug out on the floor when they are debating a resolution. He is the only one who did this. It has been Kennedy's push quietly, his constant investigation. His committee did the (unintelligible) subpoenas to get at Kalmbach and all these people.
Pres. Nixon: Uh, huh.
John Dean: He has kept this quiet and constant pressure on this thing. I think this fellow Sam Dash, who has been selected Counsel, is a Kennedy choice. I think this is also something we will be able to quietly and slowly document. Leak this to the press, and the parts and cast become much more apparent.
Pres. Nixon: Yes, I guess the Kennedy crowd is just laying in the bushes waiting to make their move. I had forgotten, by the way, we talk about Johnson using the FBI. Did your friends tell you what Bobby did?
John Dean: I haven't heard but I wouldn't be -
Pres. Nixon: Johnson believed that Bobby bugged him.
John Dean: That wouldn't surprise me.
Pres. Nixon: Bobby was a ruthless (characterization omitted.) But the FBI does blatantly tell you that or Sullivan told you about the New Jersey thing. He did use a bug up there for intelligence work. (inaudible)
John Dean: Well, as I say, I haven't probed Sullivan to the depths on this thing because I want to treat him at arm's length until he is safe, because he has a world of information that may be available.
Pres. Nixon: But he says that what happened on the bugging thing. Who told what to whom again?
John Dean: On the '68 thing - I was trying to track down the leaks. He said that the only place he could figure it coming from would be one of a couple of sources he was bare of that had been somewhat discovered publicly. He aid that Hoover had told Patrick Coyne about the fact that this was done. Coyne had told Rockefeller - now Rockefeller had told Kissinger. I have never run it any step beyond what Mr. Sullivan said there. The other thing is that when the records were unavailable for Mr. Hoover all these logs, etc. Hoover tried to reconstruct them by going to the Washington Field Office and he made a pretty good stir about what he was doing when he was trying to get the record and reconstruct it. He said that at that time we probably hit the grapevine in the Bureau that this had occurred. But there is no evidence of it. The records show at the Department of Justice and the FBI that no such surveillance was ever conducted.
Pres. Nixon: Shocking to me!
John Dean: Kevin Phillips called Pat Buchanan the other day with a tidbit that Dick Whelan on the NSC staff has seen memoranda between the NSC and the FBI that the FBI had been instructed to put surveillance on Anna Chennault, the South Vietnamese Embassy and the Agnew plane. This note also said that Deke DeLoach was the operative FBI officer on this.
Pres. Nixon: Well, is this the year you are going to try to get out the '68 story?
John Dean: Well, I think the threat of the '68 story when Scott and others were arguing that the Committee up on the Hill broadened its mandate to include other elections. They were hinting around at something in 1968 and 1964 that should be looked at.
Pres. Nixon: Yeah, Goldwater claims he was bugged.
Pres. Nixon: You know when they talk about a 35 year sentence, here is something to think about. There were no weapons! Right? There were no injuries! Right? There was no success! Why does that sort of thing happen? It is just ridiculous! (Characterization deleted) Are they in jail?
John Dean: Well, all but one. Hunt made the bond - everybody else is in jail.
Pres. Nixon: You still think Sullivan is basically reliable?
John Dean: I have nothing to judge that on except that I have watched him for a number of years. I watched him when he was working with Tom Huston on domestic intelligence, and his desire to do the right thing. I tried to stay in touch with Bill, and find out what his moods are. Bill was forced on the outside for a long time. He didn't become bitter. He sat back and waited until he could come back in. He didn't try to force or blackmail his way around with knowledge he had. So I have no signs of anything but a reliable man who thinks a great deal of this Administration and of you.
Pres. Nixon: Well, it was a shocking thing. I was reading a book last night. A fascinating book, although fun book, by Malcolm Smith Jr. on Kennedy's Thirteen Mistakes, the great mistakes. And one of them was on the Bay of Pigs. And what had happened, there was Chester Bowles had learned about it, and he deliberately leaked it. Deliberately, because he wanted the operation to fail! And be admitted it! Admitted it!
John Dean: Interesting. Interesting
Pres. Nixon: This happens all the time. Well, you can follow these characters to their Gethsemane. I feel for those poor guys in jail, particularly for Hunt with his wife dead.
John Dean: Well there is every indication they are hanging in tough right now.
Pres. Nixon: What the hell do they expect though? Do they expect clemency in a reasonable time? What would you advise on that?
John Dean: I think it is one of those things we will have to watch very closely. For example, -
Pres. Nixon: You couldn't do it, say, in six months.
Pres. Nixon: My view though is to say nothing about them on the ground that the matter is still in the courts and on appeal. Second, my view is to say nothing about the hearings at this point, except that I trust they will be conducted the proper way and I will not comment on the hearings while they are in process. Of course if they break through - if they get muckraking - It is best not to cultivate that thing here at the White House. If it is done at the White House again they are going to drop the (adjective deleted) thing. Now there, of course, you say but you leave it all to them. We'll see as time goes on. Maybe we will have to change our policy. But the President should not become involved in any part of this case. Do you agree with that?
John Dean: I agree totally, sir. Absolutely. That doesn't mean that quietly we are not going to be working around the office. You can rest assured that we are not going to be sitting quietly.
Pres. Nixon: I don't know what we can do. The people who are most disturbed about this (unintelligible) are the (adjective deleted) Republicans. A lot of these Congressmen, financial contributors, et cetera, are highly moral. The Democrats are just sort of saying, "(expletive deleted) fun and games!"
John Dean: Well, hopefully we can give them Segretti.
Pres. Nixon: (Expletive deleted) He was such a dumb figure, I don't see how our boys could have gone for him. But nevertheless, they did. It was really juvenile! But, nevertheless, what the hell did he do? What in the (characterization deleted) did he do? Shouldn't we be trying to get intelligence? Weren't they trying to get intelligence from us?
John Dean: Absolutely!
Pres. Nixon: Don't you try to disrupt their meetings? Didn't they try to disrupt ours? (expletive deleted) They threw rocks, ran demonstrations, shouted, cut the sound system, and let the tear gas in at night. What the hell is that all about? Did we do that?
Pres. Nixon: What did Segretti do that came off?
John Dean: He did some humorous things. For example, there would be a fund-raising dinner, and he hired Wayne the Wizard to fly in from the Virgin Islands to perform a magic show. He sent invitations to all the black diplomats and sent limousines out to have them picked up, and they all showed up and they hadn't been invited. He had 400 pizzas sent to another -
Pres. Nixon: Sure! What the hell! Pranks! Tuck did all those things in 1960, and all the rest.
John Dean: The one I think they are going to go after with a vengeance - and I plan to spend a great deal of time with next week, as a matter of fact a couple of days getting this all in order - is Herb Kalmbach.
Pres. Nixon: Yes.
John Dean: Herb - they have subpoenaed his records, and he has records that run all over hell's acres on things.
Pres. Nixon: (expletive deleted) well, they are not going to but tell them that is the way Nixon ran the Hiss Case. As a matter of fact some innuendo came out, but there was (adjective deleted) little hearsay. We really just got the facts, and tore them to pieces. Say "no hearsay" and "no innuendo." Ervin should sit like a court there: that is hearsay, and the counsel for our people should get up and say, "I object to that, Mr. Chairman," on the basis that it is hearsay.
John Dean: Well, there are a lot of precedents. I have been involved in two Congressional investigations. One was the Adam Clayton Powell investigation when I was working over there as the Minority Counsel of the House Judiciary. We didn't take hearsay. We stuck to the facts on that. We did an investigation of the Oklahoma judges. Again, the same sort of thing. We went into executive session when necessary. I bet if we look around, respectable investigations that have been held up there that could be held up, and some of it should be coming forth to set the stage for these hearings. I am planning a number of brain sessions with some of the media people to -
Pres. Nixon: I know. It is very important, but it seems like a terrible waste of your time. But it is important in the sense that all this business is a battle and they are going to wage the battle. A lot of them have enormous frustrations about those elections, state of their party, etc.
John Dean: Well I was - we have come a long road on this thing now. I had thought it was an impossible task to hold together until after the election until things started falling out, but we have made it this far and I am convinced we are going to make it the whole road and put this thing in the funny pages of the history books rather than anything serious because actually -
Pres. Nixon: It will be somewhat serious but the main thing, of course, is also the isolation of the President.....(expletive deleted) Of course, I am not dumb and I will never forget when I heard about this (adjective deleted) forced entry and bugging. I thought, what in the hell is this? What is the matter with these people? Are they crazy? I thought they were nuts! A prank! But it wasn't! It wasn't very funny. I think that our Democratic friends know that, too. They know what the hell it was. They don't think we'd be involved in such.
John Dean: I think they do too.
Pres. Nixon: Maybe they don't. They don't think I would be involved in such stuff. They think I have people capable of it. And they are correct, in that Colson would do anything. But let's remember this was not done by the White House. This was done by the Committee to Re-Elect, and Mitchell was the Chairman, correct?
John Dean: That's correct!
Pres. Nixon: And Kleindienst owes Mitchell everything. Mitchell wanted him for Attorney General. Wanted him for Deputy, and here he is. Now, (expletive deleted). Baker's got to realize this, and that if he allows this thing to get out of hand he is going to potentially ruin John Mitchell. He won't. Mitchell won't allow himself to be ruined. He will put on his big stone face. But I hope he does and he will. There is no question what they are after. What the Committee is after is somebody at the White House. They would like to get Haldeman or Colson, Ehrlichman.
John Dean: Or possible Dean. - You know, I am a small fish.
Pres. Nixon: Anybody at the White House they would - but in your case I think they realize you are the lawyer and they know you didn't have a (adjective deleted) thing to do with the campaign.

• 2/29/1973 H. Rap Brown and three co-defendants are convicted in NY of robbery and assault.