'NIXON'S WISH' CITED FOR COVER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP84-00161R000400210007-0
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 20, 2014
• Sequence Number: 7
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Washrougoo, 4.1 .
Declassified and Approved For Release 50-Yr 2014/02/21 : CIA-RDP84-00161R000400210007-0
CIA MEMO UN 1,_141..1.1"
ri Mil I V
?
411
. By OSWALD JOHNSTON
Stat Writer
Six days after the Wa-
tergate break-in last June,
? -? federal prosecutor Earl J.
'Silbert revealed at a rou-
tine bond hearing involv-
4-ing the burglars that a
bank draft of $89,000 link-
ed to- Bernard L. Bar-
ker. one of -the suspects,
? . had been traced to a bank
Mexico City. ' . ? ?
?''.? ' That same day, June 23,
1972; -according to recent
" testimony before three
"l Congressional committees,
? White House aides H., R.
Haldeman and ,John D.
.?Ehrlichman tried to enlist
"CIA cooperation in block-.
'ing an FBI investigation of
an ill-defined Mexico City
...finance operation. ?
? According to a merit? by
CIA deputy director Lt.
Gcn. Vernon A. Walters
which was prepared a few
.,.;dayS later but revealed
.1' Only yesterday, heading
? off the FBI probe was
deemed . so urgent that
Haldeniann told CIA offi-
cials' that day "it is the
President's-wish" that
Walters' go to FBI acting
, director L. Patrick Gray
? . III to call the FBI investi-
gation off.
In the annals of the
complex Watergate affair,
the details of the tortuous
financial trial that led
. from a Houston mining
company, through Mexico
, City, to Barker and then to
GOP fundraiser Maurice
? Sums' safe did not surface
for many weeks.
TO WALTERS and to
former CIA director Rich-
ard M. Helms, who testi-
fied yesterday in an open
session of the Senate For-
eign Relations committee,
the connection was totally
obscure last June.
As Helms recalls it, he
was summoned by tele-
phone to be at the White,
House at 1 p.m. June 23 to .
discuss an unidentified
subject and to come with .
Welters, a former aide to
President Nixon who bare-
ly six weeks before had
been sworn in as CIA dep-
uty.
Once in Ehrlichman's
office, Helms recalled,
Haldeman told the men
there was a dander the
Watergate incident might
be capitalized upon by the
"opposition." Apparently
. some danger to the nation-
al security likewise was
invoked, as Helms recalls
. it, because "Haldeman
also mentioned the Bay of
Pigs, in an incoherent
? statement I didn't under '
stand."
THEN HALDEMAN
gave his order: "It was
decided at the White
House," Helms testified
yesterday, that Walters
should go to Gray and tell
him that continued investi-
gation of the Mexican fi-
? mince might, jeopardize
CIA operations there.
In late November,' a few
weeks after Nixon's land-
slide victory, Helms was
summoned to Camp David
1 and told he was resigning
as CIA director, some six
months before reaching
retirement age, and being
reassigned as ambassador
. to Iran. Haldeman was
I Present at that meeting
i with the President, Helms
I recalled yesterday.
Asked by several sena-
.;
' tors 'whether his removal
was related to his refusal
I to let the CIA be used by
the White House in 'the
; Watergate case, Helms
had one reply. "I honestly
don't knew."
STILL ANOTHER' of
Walters's "memorandums
of conversation" ? writ-
ten last year but disclosed
' yesterday to the New York.
\
' ? Times by other congres-
- sional sources?quotes
Gray as saying that the
' j ' President, during a tele-
1 . phone conversation, had
11 'inquired about "the case,"
' " nnnaretit reference to
Saar-Neve3 Pl.torlphra Josep,lIve7an
Richard Helms testifies.
'Washington. The drafts
were.. ,cashed: through
Barker's .Miami. bank ac?-
'? count before the-money
went back into a campaign
safe used,. in part, to fi-
nance Watergate spying.,
Some of these connec-
tions between Watergate
. and the GOP campaign
might never have been
. made' had Haldeman's
:order of June 23, been car-
ried out, and the 'Mexico,
City bank transaction,
-..which Watergate prosecu-
tor Silbert revealed that
' day, might , never -have
been developed. The full
. .? :details - of the Mexican
? ? transaction are still under
? . 'investigation by. a federal
grand jury in Houston. '
? Helms, looking back
? yesterday on-that early
stage, of the Watergate
scand'al,. streised ? the.
-.,seeming innocence of what,
Haldeman seemed to-be
asking him to do, even aft-
er it had been revealed
that the reason offered for
blocking the FBI probe'?
. CIA operations in. Mexico
:--- was spurious.-' ?
Whether or not Heide-
? "man spoke at . "the
. .President's wish." Helms
? made it plain, "assistance
? to the President hasn't
,,been considered a crime
until recently."
' HE EXPLAINED:
??,,,..:was only six days after;
-;Ee..' Watergate when .-Halcle-:
man spoke, the full import
-
'of Watergate 'was un-
known, he could not under-
stand what a Mexican
bank transaction had to de
. ? ; 'with the incident. !
? Later, as the scope of
the case began to widen,
Helms said, "My ' total
?. preoccupation was to keep
'the CIA uninvolved in the
whole matter and I suC-
.ceeded in so doing." ?
?
Walters, in a confiden-
tial memorandum of the
same conversation, which
Sen, Stuart Symington (D-
Mo.) in part revealed, at
yesterday's hearing, put it
. more bluntly. "It is the
President's wish that you
go to Mr. Gray ..." is the
way he heard Haldeman's
order.
Helms yesterday insist-
ed that he had no recollec-
tion of the phrase "it is the
President's -wish." But he
left no doubt that he re-
garded an order from
? Haldeman as issuing from
the top. "When the
President's chief of staff
speaks to you," he noted,
"you assume he speaks
with authority."
Haldeman told the New
York Times yesterday
that the President was not
in any way involved in the
Watergate cover-up.
Helms revealed. yester-
day that the CIA immedi-
ately checked the only
conceivable , link between
the Mexican money trans-
fer and its own operations
in Mexico. This was Man-
uel Ogarrio Daguerre, an
attorney to whom had re-
ceived a $100,000 transfer
from Gulf Resources and
Chemical Corp. of Houston.
as a bill payment April A,
7 1
1972.
OGARRIO, Helms told
the committee, "had no"
relation to the agency,"
and by June 26 the CIA
director and his deputy,
were trying to tell White
House aides they could not
invoke CIA operations to
block the FBI probe.
Ogarrio, as the investi-'
dation eventually was to
reveal, bought $89,000 in
bank drafts from Banco
Internacional in Mexico
City April 4, 1972..
The next day the
drafts,plus $11,000 in cash,,
were delivered by courier'
to Nixon fund-raisers in
Houston. The money was
flown immediately to
13k:
11,
This memorandum
I;
the Watergate inquiry.
'11
. ? quotes Gray as telling the
President that
gate case could not be '
'.'..: covered up and that he
i
thought that Nixon should
! get rid of those involved
The 'memorandum, pre-
pared by July 13, is said to
. be Walter's recollection of
a conversation held just a
day earlier with Gray
f.ol?l The document quotes
II. ?
Gray as saying that Presi- .:
' .1 dent Nixon had called him
....a week earlier to congrat- ;
' ulate, him 'on FBI action :
. l'rustrating an :airplane
i, 4 ,:hijacking in San Francis-,:
.1 ,. "Towerd i
1he end of the
' ''conversation," 'according:;.
? to the Walters memoran- '
. him (Grey) 'if he :had ?
;' dum, "the President asked::
' ! talked to me (Walters)
about the 'case: Gray !re ,
. ,?-.:?; plied-. that he had: The .
, !!;li President then asked:him
1.. what his recommendation.
was in this case : .
? j ? The memorandum then
:?. I continued: ?
' GraY. had, replied ;that
. . . _ ,
the ease could not be cov-
? .ered up and it would lead
.1 quite high and he felt that
: the President should get '
1. rid of the people that were' - ''
involved. Any attempt to''
-'t involvethe FBI or the CIA
. ? ' in this, case could only,? ? ?????:.?::
-;prove a mortal wound and. i?
oivould achieve nothing.
"The 'President then. --.
said, The I should get rid ?.- .
I.
i - of whoever is involved, no
": :,metter how hign up?' :
Gray replied that was his L .
? ;recommendation.
.: "The President then
asked what I thought and:
Gray said my views were
the same as his. The Presi- ,
dent took itwell' and '
im
' thanked h."'' '
Declassified and Approved For Release @ 50-Yr 2014/02/21 : CIA-RDP84-00161Rnnnann91nrm7