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50 years of fraudulent political journalism
On August 8, 1974, Richard Nixon announced his resignation as our president, the only such event in American history. While the Watergate scandal is widely recognized as journalistically impelled, few realize that the sensational reporting was not only partisan but also fraudulent.
After the arrest of five burglars on the morning of June 17, 1972, the Washington Post quickly learned the true target of the burglary, which had nothing to do with the 1972 election, contrary to what the Post has claimed for over 50 years.
Fifty years after Nixon’s departure from office, it’s obvious that our divided country is the bitter harvest of fraudulent Watergate journalism.
The Post consistently withheld its knowledge of two concurrent causes of the burglary. It knew about the strong likelihood of CIA involvement in pursuing its program of monitoring prostitutes and johns of interest. Young Nixon aides, using resources from the cash-rich Committee to Re-elect the President, were seeking dirt for their own blindly ambitious dossiers without oversight from the Oval Office, which remained clueless.
If the Post had reported the truth, however, it would have hurt its political ally, the Democratic National Committee, where one affiliated secretary was referring out-of-town visitors to a neighboring bordello. Publishing this would have hurt Democrats and helped the hated Nixon.
That morning as the burglars prepared to go to court, a Metropolitan Police Officer, Garey Bittenbender, spoke with his friend, James McCord, the CRP’s director of security and former (likely undercover) CIA agent. McCord told Bittenbender that this had been a CIA operation, which he later amplified for Bittenbender in a long interview in McCord’s jail cell. Later, McCord realized that the CIA would not admit involvement, and he thereafter denied he had made any such admission.
Unknown to all the burglars except McCord, McCord's secret contractor, Lou Russell, had been lurking in the building, likely planning to enter the Watergate premises later and curate the "take" before handing it over to CRP aides. His presence explains why McCord kept tape on the locks after all the burglars had entered, even though the tape was not needed for their entrance. The Post soon learned about Russell but did not report his curious involvement.
Burglary supervisor Howard Hunt was preparing that fall for what his lawyers had termed his “CIA defense.” Hunt planned to argue that this was a CIA operation, legal domestically because presidential aides approved it. His CIA diary recorded this authorization, which he claimed included White House Counsel John Dean and, seemingly by hearsay, former Attorney General John Mitchell. So this diary was key to Hunt’s CIA defense.
As the January 1973 trial approached and the prosecution frantically prepared to combat Hunt’s CIA defense, two unfortunate developments torpedoed his plans. First, his diaries, which he had kept in his White House safe, were missing from the evidence the prosecution turned over to him. It was later revealed that John Dean had withheld and destroyed them.
Hunt’s wife, Dorothy, to whom Hunt was greatly devoted and for whom he wished to avoid prison, also appears to have been an undercover CIA agent and thus a potential defense witness. However, as the case neared trial, Dorothy Hunt died in a plane crash over Chicago’s Midway Airport in December 1972, with $10,000 in cash on her person, mostly meant for a bug supplier, the pseudonymous Michael Stevens. Consequently, at Dean’s urging, Hunt pled guilty.
In May 1973, Lou Russell, a drunkard, was telling his friends that he would write a tell-all on Watergate. “Michael Stevens” had been receiving death threats. Stevens had sold McCord bugs used in the burglary, with some still on order that would link to a CIA satellite. McCord had told Stevens the bugs were for a CIA operation, which Stevens verified with the agency. Fearing for his life due to the death threats, Stevens fled to the FBI. An unnamed FBI official, likely Mark Felt, reported this situation to Chicago Today, which published sensational pieces on May 12 and 14, 1973, ignored by the Washington Post.
On the night of May 16-17, 1973, “Deep Throat,” now known to be the FBI’s No. 2, Mark Felt, met with reporter Bob Woodward. Agitated, Felt told Woodward, “Everyone’s life is in danger!” He named the CIA as being worried that if its participation in Watergate were uncovered, its broader program would be exposed, with serious consequences.
A day after this frenetic tableau, Russell suffered a serious heart attack and soon died, claiming someone had put a poison pill in his heart medication. The CIA had long practiced “aspirin roulette” to exterminate targets.
Two months later, RNC Chairman George H.W. Bush announced that he would hold a press conference to reveal a long history of CIA domestic wiretapping, through a longtime associate of Russell’s, John Leon. Shortly before the conference, Leon died of an unexpected heart attack, and Bush canceled the press conference.
After a tardy production to the Senate of CIA documents, long after the conclusion of public hearings, shocked Senator Howard Baker (R-Tenn.) issued a scathing 49-page report on the CIA’s involvement in the Watergate affair, which included a CIA contractor visiting McCord’s home immediately after the burglary to burn documents connecting McCord to the agency. Another burglar, Eugenio Maritnez, was a CIA agent then on payroll.
When Trump was elected, a prominent journalism school dean confidently told his students, “Don’t worry; we’ll Watergate him.”
The Post’s summary and analysis of the Baker Report, which was otherwise buried in the Congressional Record in those pre-internet days, deceptively covered up the findings, essentially saying "nothing to see here." Nixon soon resigned due to a crime revealed on White House tapes.
John Dean informed the White House shortly after the burglary that Mark Felt's analysis suggested the burglary was likely a CIA operation. To protect the identity of his large donor, industrialist Democrat Dwayne Andreas, Nixon called the FBI off the Mexican money trail, claiming it would interfere with a CIA operation. Although Nixon believed this was a misleading overreach, it turned out to be truthful. The money washer was Mexico City lawyer Manuel Ogarrio, a CIA asset who often laundered money for the agency.
With Nixon’s resignation, the Post learned not only that journalism had the power to make or break a president but also that it could do so fraudulently.
In the 50 years since it sold its honesty dishonestly, the Post’s journalism has never been challenged by the dull-normal lemmings in the partisan press. This dishonest reportage has only been amplified over the last five decades. For example, when Trump was elected, a prominent journalism school dean confidently told his students, “Don’t worry; we’ll Watergate him.” In 2016, Bob Woodward proudly told adoring pundits that he was putting 20 Post reporters on the Trump beat.
When the journalism intelligentsia scratch their heads over the origins of today’s tribal divisions, they answer their own question. By asking it, they ignore that they are the cause, through inflammatory, fraudulent journalism. Donald Trump calls it, crudely but accurately, “fake news,” and millions roar their approval.
Now, 50 years after Nixon’s departure from office, it’s obvious that our divided country is the bitter harvest of fraudulent Watergate journalism. The only way to begin the cure is for the offending parties to admit their wrongdoing.
But we should not hold our breath.
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