WATERGATE REVISITED

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000201180018-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 19, 2010
• Sequence Number: 18
• Publication Date: March 1, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
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LE APPEAR
r=' Pa4:1F ~j ?', COLUMBIA JOURNALISM REVIEW
March/April 1986
WATERGATE REVISITED
Did the press - and the courts - really get to the bottom ,
of history's most
When Jim Hougan's new Watergate
book, Secret Agenda, was published last
winter, it caused a brief but intense flurry
of interest. Writing for The New York
Times Book Review, Pulitzer Prize-win-
ner J. Anthony Lukas faulted Hougan in
several instances for jumping to what he
considered unwarranted conclusions.
particularly when it came to Hougan's
theory that the real reason behind the
Watergate burglary was a secret sex
scandal. However, he also found that
Hougan had presented some "valuable
new evidence." "If even half of this is
true." wrote Lukas - whose word car-
ries particular weight in this instance be-
cause his own book on Watergate.
Nightmare, is considered the definitive
work on the subject - "Secret Agenda
will add an important new dimension to
our understanding of Watergate.
"But," Lukas added, "it may be
months before reporters can sort through
this material, check Mr. Hougan's
sources, and decide which of these rev-
elations is solid gold. which dross."
Reviewing the book for The Wash-
ington Post Book World. Anthony
Marro, himself an old Watergate hand
and now managing editor of Newsday,
criticized Hougan for mixing "diligent
information gathering with question-
able. even reckless. assumptions about
motive and purpose." Nevertheless, he
wrote. "Hougan has attacked the official
record of Watergate with .. . consid-
erable skill, pointing up scores of ques-
tions, flaws, contradictions, and holes."
"It likely will take some time for Hou-
gan's reporting to be absorbed. cross-
checked. challenged. and tested.''
Marro added, "and whether this proves
to be an important book or simply a con-
troversial one will depend on how well
it survives the scrutiny that it is sure to
receive.''
Another review, by Robert Sherrill,
Phil Stan/ord. Jormerly it senior editor at
Inquiry inaga=ine, is now a free-lance writer.
famous burglary?
appeared in the St. Petersburg Times.
Sherrill, who has a reputation for being
a hard-nosed investigative writer, found
that Hougan "builds a compelling case
even though some crucial parts, as he
readily concedes, are based on circum-
stantial evidence." "If nothing else,"
Sherrill concluded. ''Secret Agenda has
raised enough questions to remind the
press that no matter how conscientiously
it tries to unravel scandalous riddles of
government, it should wait a few years
before boasting that the solution is com-
plete" - and, like Lukas and Marro. he
left no doubt that he expected the press
to get to work.
That, of course. was more than a year
ago - and to date. apparently. no one
from any of the major news organiza-
tions has made an effort to test any of
Hougan's findings. This seems odd, if
only because the Watergate affair is one
of the most important political and jour-
nalistic events of our time. and because.
if Hougan is right, our knowledge of it
is seriously flawed.
What Hougan presents in Secret
Agenda is not so much a totally new
version of Watergate as it is, to use Mar-
ro's words, "a significant new dimen-
sion and perspective." There is nothing
in his account to suggest that Richard
Nixon was not guilty of impeachable of-
fenses. Nor does Hougan dispute that the
break-in was planned in the White
House, or that when the burglars were
caught. the president and his men con-
spired to cover up their involvement.
What he does say is that all the while
this was going on, the CIA. quite with-
out the knowledge of the White House.
was pursuing an agenda of its own. Hou-
gan says that at least two of those in-
volved in the break-in were actually
spying on the White House for the CIA
and conducting their own illegal domes-
tic operations: that one of these domestic
operations involved spying on the clients
of a call-girl ring operating out of an
apartment complex near the Watergate:
by PHIL STANFORD
and that when the White House-planned
bugging of the Democratic National
Committee's headquarters threatened to
expose this operation - as it might
have, since some of the clients for the
call girls were being referred from the
DNC - it was sabotaged in order to
protect the CIA's role. ''Watergate,"
Hougan writes. "was not so much a par-
tisan political scandal as it was . . . a
sex scandal, the unpredictable outcome
of a CIA operation that, in the simplest
of terms. tripped on its own shoelaces.''
Now, this is clearly a mind-boggling
scenario, and there is a natural tendency
for some to simply laugh it off. How-
ever. considering the published state-
ments of journalists such as Lukas,
Marro, and Sherrill, as well as Hougan's
own reputation as a serious writer and
investigator - he is a former Washing-
ton editor of Harper's magazine and the
author of Spooks, a well-documented
study of the use of intelligence agents
by corporations and other private entities
- Hougan's findings cannot be so easily
dismissed. What's needed is a careful
look at his facts: either they are correct
or they aren't. And the logical place for
such an investigation to begin is with
Hougan's account of the break-in, since
that is the keystone of his entire argu-
ment. My own inquiries indicate that
Hougan is right on several crucial points.
Mccording to the generally ac-
cepted account of the break-
in. the reason the Watergate
burglars entered the head-
quarters of the Democratic
National Committee on June
17, 1972, was to replace a
defective bug on the tele-
phone of the secretary of DNC chairman
Lam O'Brien. As this version goes. in
the course of a break-in two weeks ear-
lier, James McCord had installed two
bugs - one on the phone belonging to
O'Brien's secretary, the other on the
phone of another official, R. Spencer
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 at
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ither FBI nor telephone company tech-
- Well, isn't it possible that these re-
and
rts
Oliver. The Oliver bug worked. and for
ne
icians were able to find the bugs that
.
ports are merely interim repo
' Ap-
lf
d i
two weeks. we are told. a fellow named
n
osedly been planted by the Wa-
d su
h
.
tse
that the FBI later reverse
ed FBI
ti
h
Alfred C. Baldwin 111, sitting in a room
pp
a
ate burglars - despite three top-to-
r
r
re
parently not. I spoke wit
who
s
in the Howard Johnson motor lodge
g
te
ttom searches, which included the dis-
b
.
special agent Wilbur G. Steven
ratory
b
L
across the street from the Watergate
o
of every phone on the prem-
ntlin
o
a
was supervisor of the FBI
d (a) that
fi
complex. monitored conversations from
g
ma
and some urgent pleas from the
s
i
rme
during Watergate. He con
in
bu
d
fi
it. Baldwin passed on summaries of
,
se
assistant U.S. attorney Earl
osecutor
g
a
n
the FBI was never able to
was later
those conversations - which he and oth-
.
pr
who understood that the fail-
Silbert
J
the DNC and (bT that when one
secretary
ers described as sexual in nature - to
,
.
to find a bug could have serious con-
discovered after a call from a
d it a fake
McCord. who passed them along to G.
ure
ences for his case. Furthermore.
.
at the DNC. the FBI considere
of that
'
Gordon Liddy, who passed them on to
sequ
n an antiquated bug was actually dis-
h
s nothing that I know
"There
" he
l
di
Jeb Magruder. When the bug on
the
w
e
covered on a secretary's phone some
.
ngs
would change [these fin
O'Brien's phone failed to function.
e months later. the FBI tested it and
h
said.
f these
d
'
Plumbers went back in to replace it, and
re
t
ncluded that it would have been in-
o
t we hear
Then why haven
an
Hou
that is when they were arrested. In any
co
able of transmitting outside the Wa-
a
g
FBI documents before? As
tice De-
J
case. that is the standard version.
c
p
They pronounced it a phony,
ate
r
t
us
points out in his book. the
release
d
According to Hougan. however, the
.
g
e
d it an en-
i
to
partment under Nixon refuse
gne
obably a plant, and ass
te Wa-
S
DNC was never bugged in the first place:
pr
ber
ena
any of these reports to the
when FBI technicians arrived on the
.
tirely different case num
quite obviously. this raises
Now
tergate Committee. This is confirmed by
t chief
i
scene later in the morning of the arrest
,
uestions that demand answers.
me
stan
Terry Lenzner, former ass
"We were
they couldn't find a single bug in the
q
so
counsel for the committee.
"
DNC. And where does Hougan get this
For example:
Are the documents that Hougan cites
Lenz-
concentrating on the cover-up.
useful
b
startling information? Hougan says it
uine' Yes. They are on file at the
een
ner told me. "It would have
the docu-
comes from FBI documents obtained
gen
FBI reading room in Washington. D.C..
to our investigation to have
ainst any
h a Freedom of Information suit.
throu
m
h
d
ments in order to check them ag
g
According to the documents he cites,
.
e
t
and I have examine
What were these burglars really after? According to a new
theon, the Watergate break-in, shown here in this /974 New York magazine reconstruction,
had more to do with a CIA plot and a call-girl ring than political espionage,
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conflicts that might have arisen." Nor
were the documents given to the de-
fendants in the Watergate trial, as noted
in a pre-release story on Secret Agenda
by The New York Times. Hougan. who
obtained a total of 16.000 documents
through the FOIA in 1980, was presum-
ably the first person outside the Justice
Department to examine them.
But wasn't the prosecutor required b Y
law to hand over material that might be
exculpatory to the Watergate defend-
ants:' Anthony Lukas raises this question
in his review for The New York Times,
pointing out that, under the Brady rule.
the prosecution is required to give all
such evidence to the defense. In this
case, the application of the rule seems
especially obvious, because the govern-
ment had charged the Watergate burglars
with planting a bug that its own inves-
tigators said was a fake. When I asked
the Watergate prosecutor. Earl Silbert.
about this, he said he recalled the doc-
uments but had no clear recollection of
whether they had been available to the
defense. He went on to say that the
Brady rule is only a "legalism," and that
the prosecutor is required to turn over
such material only if asked to do so by
the defense. "And. frankly. I just can't
say that they asked." Silbert said. "If
the memos weren't turned over to the
defense, that was the reason."
"But how could they request them if
they didn't know they existed?" I asked.
"I can see your point," Silbert said.
"but some Brady requests are over-
broad."
What do the defense lawyers say about
that:' I sent copies of the FBI reports to
one of them. Ellis S. Rubin. A promi-
nent Miami trial lawyer. Rubin was re-
tained to represent the four Cuban
members of the burglary team - Eu-
genio Martinez, Frank Sturgis. Bernard
Barker. and Virgilio Gonzalez - after
they had pleaded guilty and been sen-
tenced to prison.
When I called Rubin a few days later
he expressed astonishment. stating cat-
egorically that his clients had never been
given the information. "This is a definite
violation of Brady versus Maryland." he
said. "and it could be cause for a new
trial." He said he would take the matter
up with his clients.
"You may have a bigger scoop than
you imagined." Rubin added.
f. as my own abbreviated investi-
gation shows, Hougan's facts on
the break-in check out, this is ob-
viously an important story in itself,
as Rubin's comments would sug-
gest. But, beyond this, even if
Rubin and his clients decide not to
seek a new trial. Hougan's version
of the burglary is important because of
the questions it raises about the rest of
the Watergate affair. For example:
Since Alfred Baldwin was obviousl
listening to something in his room at the
Howard Johnson, just what was he lis-
tening to? Hougan's answer - and this
is where the sex-scandal theory begins
to emerge - is that Baldwin was listen-
ing to transmissions from a bug that was
planted elsewhere. Hougan concludes
that the bug was situated in a prostitute's
quarters in the Columbia Plaza, which
is located near the Watergate complex.
As Hougan himself points out, the evi-
dence for this is circumstantial.
Another question posed by the new
break-in evidence. however, is a bit eas-
ier to deal with: If much of what we know
about the break-in and bugging is false,
then where did we get our original ver-
sion of those events? Hougan's answer,
supported in this instance by the records
of the Watergate Commission, is -
James McCord. If the standard version
of the break-in is false, McCord was ap-
parently lying. But why?
According to Hougan, both McCord
and E. Howard Hunt "were secretly
working for the CIA while using the
White House as a cover for domestic
intelligence operations." Once again,
this assertion is so contrary to what Hou-
gan calls the "received version'' of Wa-
tergate that we are tempted to dismiss it
out of hand. However. Hougan's con-
clusions in this regard would seem to be
based on the same kind of verifiable in-
formation as his break-in scenario, so
that if anyone is interested it should be
possible to check it out.
According to the received version of
Watergate. Hunt is the somewhat but-
foonish member of the White House
Plumbers, a former CIA agent in dis-
repute. whose ineptitude contributed
mightily to the bungling of the "third-
rate burglary" at the DNC. As we have
come to believe. Hunt left the agency in
the spring of 1970 to take a job with a
Washington p.r. firm called the Robert
R. Mullen Company. He continued in
his employment there after he got his job
as a White House consultant, working
as a publicity writer.
Marshaling information from several
sources. Hougan argues that Hunt never
really retired from the CIA. He presents
evidence that'two previous ''retire-
ments" by Lunt were acknowledged
fakes: that shortly before Hunt ostensi-
bly left the agency in 1970 his top-secret
security clearance was actually extended
in anticipation of his continued "utili-
zation" by the CIA: that the Mullen
Company was no ordinary p.r. firm but
a CIA front with active CIA agents
working out of its offices: and that during
the Watergate period the president of the
Mullen Company. Robert Bennett. re-
ported to his case agent at the CIA on
his efforts to divert attention from any
agency involvement in Watergate.
So, if Hunt was still working
for the CIA, what was he
doing at the White House"
Hougan says he was there as
an undercover agent. spying
on the White House for the
agency. In support of this.
he introduces an internal
CIA memorandum, written by an agency
employee who worked at the White
House CIA liaison office. According to
the memo - which had been previously
published as an addendum to House
hearings. but in a vague, summary ver-
sion, with the names of the author and
its two addressees deleted - Hunt reg-
ularly used the office to send sealed en-
velopes back to CIA headquarters. On
one occasion. according to this memo.
a member of the liaison staff opened one
of the envelopes and found it to contain
..gossip'' material.
Hougan found out the name of the
author of the memo, Rob Roy Ratliff.
and gave him a call. According to Rat-
liff. the gossip alluded to was about
White House officials and other mem-
bers of the administration. Hougan
found another source. who described the
gossip as "almost entirely of a sexual
nature." He also discovered that the re-
cipients of Hunt's missives. whose
names had been deleted for reasons of
''national security." were CIA director
Richard Helms and the CIA's Medical
Services division - the staff of which.
0"
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as Hougan points out, uses such material
to construct psychological profiles.
Hougan also succeeds in shedding
new light on McCord. the chief Water-
gate burglar. Contrary to the popular
conception of him as a plodding ex-
agency gumshoe. Hougan writes.
McCord was for years a high-ranking
(GS-15) official in the CIA's Office of
Security, which was responsible at var-
ious times for the agency's mind-control
programs. plots to assassinate foreign
leaders. and a variety of illegal domestic
operations, such as the mail-opening
project. the infiltration of the antiwar
movement, and Operation Chaos. It is
worth keeping in mind that at the time
of Watergate none of these programs had
been exposed.
As Hougan shows. McCord's sup-
posed retirement from the CIA, which
occurred in 1970. just three months after
Hunt's, was also quite dubious. Mc-
Cord's ostensible reason for retiring was
to make more money than he earned on
his GS-15 salary. However, before he
signed on with the Republican National
Committee and the Committee to Re-
elect the President. McCord's only ap-
parent sources of income were his
pension, a part-time teaching job at a
community college in Maryland, and a
private security firm, McCord Associ-
ates. which had no clients until he was
hired by the RNC.
Hougan cites several examples of
McCord's activities during his tenure as
a Republican security adviser that are
difficult to explain, including the pur-
chase in Chicago of several telephone
bugs that would broadcast only via class-
ified CIA communications satellites.
There was also a suspicious incident that
occurred at McCord's home just five
days after the Watergate burglary: all of
McCord's records were thrown into the
fireplace and burned. Present for the
event were McCord's wife (McCord was
still in jail) and one Lee R. Pennington.
Jr., a deep-cover contract agent who
worked for McCord's old outfit. the Of-
fice of Security, and receiyed his pay in
the form of ''sterile' checks. A CIA
memo, not made public until two years
after the fire, indicates that Pennington
went to McCord's home for the purpose
of "destroying any indication of con-
nections between the Agency and Mr.
McCord." As Hougan points out. since
it had already been reported in the press
that McCord was a former employee of
the CIA - McCord had testified to that
effect at his arraignment - the only pos-
sible connection that might have con-
cerned the agency would have been one
subsequent to his retirement. And what
was McCord up to? Hougan says that,
with the assistance of a down-and-out
private investigator named Louis J. Rus-
Key to a mystery? This
key. found on one of the
Watergate burglars -
and now reposing in the
National Archives - fits
the rheorv that a sex
scandal prompted the
break-in.
sell, he was involved in bugging some
prostitutes at the Columbia Plaza Apart-
ments near Watergate. possibly to col-
lect information which the CIA could
use for political blackmail. At this point
- as Hougan turns toward his sex-scan-
dal theory - the facts are somewhat
sketchier.
However, even with the sex scandal
there are plenty of intriguing leads that
would seem to warrant further inquiry.
To start with, there is the call-girl ring
itself. which operated out of the Colum-
bia Plaza. catering to an assortment of
Washington types. including a U.S. sen-
ator and a clutch of foreign intelligence
agents. Hot'gan knows this because he
got the "trick books." When the call-
girl ring was exposed in the weeks before
the Watergate break-in, it created a mi-
nor scandal. But until Hougan came
along no one ever saw any reason to
connect it to the Watergate affair. Hou-
gan finds several possible links, includ-
ing evidence of high-level White House
interest in the case.
More to the point, Hougan establishes
through interviews with Phillip Mackin
Bailley, the lawyer who pled guilty to
running the call-girl operation, that
clients for the prostitutes at the Columbia
Plaza were being referred on a regular
basis by a woman who worked in the
DNC offices. Next. Hougan produces
another of the FBI documents he ob-
tained through the FOIA - which re-
veals that when the burglars were
arrested at the DNC. one of them, Eu-
genio Martinez. was caught by the police
trying to get rid of a key he had in his
coat pocket. And the key'? As the FBI
quickly determined, it belonged to the
desk of Ida "Maxie" Wells. Wells was
the secretary of R. Spencer Oliver. who.
it will be remembered. was the DNC
official whose phone. was supposedly
bugged.
What does the key mean'? Hougan
takes it as additional evidence for his
thesis that Watergate was not so much a
political scandal as it was a sex scandal.
Maybe he's right, and maybe not: and
maybe he's partly right, which strikes
me as more likely. At this point there's
not enough information to come to any
conclusion. However, the documents are
on file at the FBI reading room for any-
one interested in pursuing the matter.
The key itself - along with copies of
the FBI documents and other Watergate
records - is to be found at the National
Archives.
Without stopping to list several other
evidentiary steps here, we can now go
straight to Hougan's conclusion: that
James McCord had been monitoring the
prostitutes at the Columbia Plaza. pos-
sibly to obtain blackmail information for
the CIA: that when the call-girl ring was
busted, the White House saw a chance
to collect some dirty stories of its own
and launched the Plumbers on its own
fact-finding mission: and that, in order
to preserve the secrecy of this project.
which amounted to nothing less than an
illegal domestic operation by the CIA,
McCord sabotaged the burglary, causing
all hands to be arrested.
As should be clear, even from this
brief summary. Hougan's sex-scandal
scenario has some holes in it - the big-
gest being the lack of any positive proof
that the CIA was involved in the call-
girl operation. or that Baldwin was in
fact listening in on the Columbia Plaza.
However, it should be equally obvious
that the real worth of Secret Agenda does
not depend on this one rather sensational
theory. Especially for journalists, the
importance of Hougan's book lies in the
questions it raises about all the old the-
ories that we have accepted as fact. In
Secret Agenda. Hougan makes a con-
vincing argument that at least some of
what we think we know about Watergate
is wrong. It is high time that the press
started facing up to that possibility. ^
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