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**A quick poll.. do we have a poll mechanism ? ** We should.
**Were you aware **that Woodward of Watergate fame was, before his journalistic career an officer in the Navy, one trusted enough to handle nuclear codes?
Were you aware 'Deep Throat' of Watergate was deputy director of FBI, someone who had many reasons to hate Nixon ?
I was aware of the latter, but not of the former. I thought he was just a young journalist, not a young journalist fresh off from fed-land with a top secret clearance.
There's this incredible segment by Tucker Carlson that basically lays out a theory Nixon was not as big a crook as we think, and that he was set up because he tried to keep the government subordinate to its notional head.
To sum it up, the claim is that Watergate was a palace coup, where the secret services overthrew the US government, and have kept it under control ever since through influence operations.
It does look persuasive to me. Too persuasive, if you were pulling a coup of this sort, would you make one of the protagonists a retired naval officer with that kind of background ? Ok, I'm done expressing my confusion and astonishment with what I've learned today. If this isn't content fit for themotte, please let me know!
Supplementary viewing: Interview with 'Kay Griggs' , talking about deep state influence ops and what the military gets up to in secret. Was allegedly filmed during her divorce as a 'dead man' measure. Her husband was involved with it and drank / talked too much to her.
It's eight hours, I mean, anyone wants a rabbit hole to fall down through. I feel like I should watch it at some point, though there's probably an analysis somewhere.
It seems to be fairly tame conspiracy stuff: some classic secret societies, homosexuals, political murder, drug running, saudis, etc. However, the nice lady talking about is, if she says who she is, in a position where she may have actually learned something. If she made it up, it's a great performance, if she hasn't, it's not very surprising.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=4fdS5cdtPOA
I know this is the motte and that I'm the weird outlier here being the middle-aged republican but I'm genuinely kind of surprised and baffled to see people discussing what I thought was the mainstream normie consensus as though it were some sort of obscure/forbidden knowledge.
Was anyone here genuinely unfamiliar with the theory that Watergate was a palace coup?
I have my issues with Oliver Stone (given his claimed background he should know an exit wound from an entry wound) but I don't think anyone would accuse him of being biased towards republicans, and even he was acknowledging this possibility back in 95.
Did anyone here seriously believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone? I'm not talking about some hypothetical second shooter on the grassy knoll here, I'm asking whether anyone here actually thought the erstwhile "lone assassin" getting assassinated by the mob the day he got arrested was "just a coincidence" rather than part of a plan.
Well, I was until I heard of Felt's background, and I had no fucking idea about Woodward's navy career.
But then, I'm not a Republican so this was never a much debated nor research question.
Hmm. I remember being convinced once that he couldn't possibly have been preparing to kill Kennedy bc of the specific circumstances of the attack - basically that he blundered into it.
That doesn't rule out him getting rubbed out because someone thought Oswald might be part of an op and wanted to make sure no one would talk, however.
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Yes. I have literally never heard that theory before this thread.
I suppose so. I haven't given it any real thought, but what I learned in school was basically that he was acting alone and I never had reason to question that.
Nixon was simultaneously quite popular, winning over 60% of the popular vote in the 72 election, and wildly disliked by what we would now call the PMC and "Deep State". See Pauline Kael's infamous observation in the New Yorker. The perception of Nixon amongst a lot of modern Republicans is that he didn't actually do anything that men like Like FDR and LBJ hadn't already gotten away with, or that men like Bush Clinton and Obama later would. Thus there is an impression that he was essentially thrown under the bus by a Washington DC establishment that was eager to be rid of him. Poor bastard wasn't paranoid, he wasn't paranoid enough.
Regarding the assassination of JFK: there are two popular conspiracy theories that seem to be broadly left and right coded. The first is the multiple gunmen/"Grassy Knoll" theory that seems to be more popular amongst the left. In general I think that this theory is fed largely by a lack of familiarity with GSWs amongst the general population, and a desire amongst many on the left to blame Kennedy's death on enemies to "the right" rather than acknowledge that it was a marxist radical who ultimately pulled the trigger.
The second theory, which to me seems to be the popular consensus, is that the Mob (or somebody acting through them) had JKF killed. This is based on the assumption that Oswald's death at the hands of a nightclub owner with ties to the Chicago Mob was someone "tying up loose ends". That Ruby would die of lung cancer less than 5 years later further reinforces this impression, the assumption being that he was chosen for the Oswald job specifically because he wasn't long for this world and thus there was little risk of him spilling the beans.
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I was aware of the "Watergate as a palace coup" theory, but this is only because I have done indepth and extensive reading of various conspiracy theory claims. I mean, not being an American is an additional complicating factor, but even the local conspiracy theorists often spend their days poring over American theories (Americanization...) and I don't remember this being discussed.
It's only a year of two ago that I learned of this particular theory - the only theories I had seen before it had been related to Watergate break-in being about trying to obtain call-girl information to implicate the Dems or general theories about Nixon being an even bigger crook than conventional wisdom would allow, but I think the first time I learned of this theory was actually perusing Oglesby's Yankee and Cowboy War, which was a fairly recent thing for me.
Not being an American would certainly be a complicating factor, I probably should've been a bit more specific in my question.
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Using "was trusted enough to handle nuclear codes!" as evidence that someone was some sort of deeply embedded apparatchnik is not the only thing that discredits your narrative, in my eyes, but it's a huge tell.
Top Secret security clearances are... actually not that uncommon. Many thousands of people have them. Many more thousands of people had one while they were in the military or federal service (they become inactive as soon as you leave). This includes basically anyone assigned to a nuclear vessel; not just the officers but the lower enlisted. Having a clearance is not some special badge of extraordinary fealty that proves you are absolutely loyal to the state; it means you've been thoroughly investigated and, so far as could be determined, have no criminal background, no drug habits, no shady financial dealings, and no suspicious foreign contacts. That's it.
Even "trusted enough to handle nuclear codes" is gilding it a bit, since you're trying to make it sound like he was so high up that he actually had button-pushing authority, when in fact, he was just an officer stationed on an aircraft carrier that was part of the US's Continuity of Operations Plan. He had authority to transfer codes in an emergency (he'd basically be the guy taking them off the wire and handing them to the captain), but wouldn't have actually had a whole lot of authority, since he was only a Lieutenant.
So, Woodward was a trusted Naval officer who reached a significant level of responsibility, but hardly the big deal you are making of it. In any other context this would lead most people to say "He was probably pretty patriotic (even if he did go on to become a journalist)" but since we're spinning fables about how Nixon was framed, now it's just evidence that he was some kind of anti-democratic agent of the Deep State?
None of this disproves your theory that Bob Woodward was some sort of operative doing a hit job on Nixon at the behest of his Deep State puppet masters, but "OMG he had a Top Secret security clearance!" is not any kind of evidence for it.
Trusted enough to handle comms for an admiral is something else from 'trusted enough to maintain aircraft and read top secret manuals'.
That's just a function of his rank. "Delivering messages to admirals" is about the job you'd expect to be assigned to a Lieutenant. You're saying "He was a mid-level officer doing mid-level officer things, with a security clearance. This is evidence that he was a minion of the Deep State even after leaving the military."
He wasn't a delivery boy.
He apparently worked not just for the navy, but more specifically, for naval intelligence. He first served as a comms officer at sea, and later directly
under "Chief of Naval Operations" which meant the boss of the entire navy. Where he was giving briefings at the White house to top officials on navy matters.
Yeah, absolutely typical junior navy officer. A dime a dozen of such.
During Watergate, Moorer served as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1970 until 1974.
So, at the time of Watergate, the journalist involved with Watergate was a former aide of the then Chairman of JCS. Is Chairman of the JCS a purely ceremonial role with zero importance?
Interesting bit:
So, Navy was spying on the White House. @HlynkaCG .. this Watergate thing is getting better and better, really.
They're not even really trying.
Apparently Woodward on himself getting hired by the Post - he makes it look like fate:
Yeah. Maybe he should have mentioned he'd just left military service at the White House. Then it'd make sense, you want a reporter with good relationships with officials!
I get that you're playing Devil's Advocate, but you're not being very convincing tbh.
Devil's Advocate implies I am advocating a position I don't really believe for the sake of argument. This is false. I am stating things I know to be correct because while you apparently know no more about military service and security clearances than what you've skimmed off Wikipedia, I actually know what I am talking about.
I'm not trying to convince you, because you didn't actually arrive at your conclusion by evidentiary means. You are not the target audience.
You're still here, saying 'nothing to see here' in regards to a inexplicably hired rookie journalist with no relevant experience, who previously worked as an aide to the chief of naval operations and then went on to help bring down the president.
And yeah, the same president who had just then been targeted by DoD spies.
Mhmm. And how impartial may you then be? I'm starting to think you are under orders to be obtuse, because any other explanation is so uncharitable it'd probably break the rules were I to write it out.
Why is it inexplicable that a former Naval officer would go into journalism?
I'm honestly fascinated to hear what your theory is. Either I am an operative moderating a tiny niche forum under orders from the Deep State, or.... what? Please tell me it's something more interesting than "Or you're just too stupid to grasp the truth of my arguments."
Now it's hardly imaginable, and back then it was unusual.
He also himself noted in his memoirs that he was hired despite zero qualification or relevant experience.
And yeah, again, the whole thing. Not just 'a naval officer'. Someone in naval intelligence, who just finished working for the CNO.
Sorry - it was late'.
Any other explanation I have, if I spelled it out, would be breaking the rules.
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The rdrama codebase has something like polls, but they're probably disabled here atm. You can always use sites like strawpoll.
If you want ... another eight hour podcast about how nixon did nothing wrong, kantbot did an episode on it. Haven't listened to it!
The Nixon clip claims that ... it's suspicious that people loved nixon, then he "committed crimes", then people disliked him, that nixon's disliking the "deep state" implies they took him out, that nixon ... knew who shot JFK, and that the CIA was involved, and lots of other stuff. This belongs on abovetopsecret, not themotte. The bland claims (woodward having a security clearance) are verifiable, the less bland claims less so!
It's sickening and shocking that Tucker would endorse this, and shows the moral bankruptcy of the republi... not really, it's par for the course for TV news, there've been rumors about secret society assassination plots for thousands of years (a few of which were true), but that doesn't make it not dumb.
If one hopes to do something with political knowledge - whether that be stop the supposed all-powerful conspiracy that rules the world, or merely avoid its malicious influence, little details like "is this all made up" are very important. Historians, researchers, even new york times writers fact-check stories of moderate import, because when one's ideas matter beyond thinking 'whoa, the elites sure are mean', it matters!
No, the bland claims are that Woodward's background, Felt's background and all that make it look like institutional set-up to get rid of a president who wasn't willing to play ball and thought he could actually be in power.
It's really cute that even very smart people like you seem to think we must take what the news media has been anchoring in your brain since infancy; that there are no conspiracies, you live in an 'accountable' democratic society.
Shows the power of deeply embedded priors! All power is conspiracy - that's roughly what Italian elite theorists like Pareto & Mosca said, I believe.
If you want to understand where I'm coming from, perhaps watch this cca 45 minute presentation by a half-Welsh/half-Iranian feral Shakespeare scholar.. It's somewhat refined, less prolix Moldbug. More antisemitic (Iranian, duh), but not unreasonably so.
I listened a bit to her, she really didn't seem like the type. No, she was talking about sordid 'little' conspiracies - Us DoD, CIA, homosexuals, etc. Drugs, murder, blackmail, etc.
She isn't a galaxy-brained schizo like e.g. Russian nationalist Galkovsky about who Ilforte should perhaps write sometimes, because he has extremely entertaining theories and quips.
E.g. Galkovsky claims that the USSR was a British intelligence project, part of their war with America.
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I don’t think you understand how a security clearance works.
At some point, Bob Woodward was assigned a post that required handling something nuke-adjacent. He was investigated and, finding nothing disqualifying, the feds issued him a clearance. That doesn’t involve inducting him into an alphabet agency, it doesn’t mean granting license to kill. He probably didn’t even get to read the moon landing dossier.
If Nixon were set up, how’d he get caught on tape planning the coverup?
He was a communications officer. For an admiral. That presumably involves handling top-secret materials and decrypts and stuff like that.
That's a position of great delicacy. How many WaPo reporters had that kind of background?
The set up wasn't the cover-up. The set up was the break in. That put him in a bind and he had to try to cover it up. What was he supposed to do ?
So the conspirators orchestrated a set up and knew that Nixon would try to corruptly cover it up? That's interesting, how did they know that?
Sitting US presidents spying on the campaigns of their opponents was a thing of the era, so.. Still, is, no ? I mean, wasn't Trump campaign bugged over some BS made up pretext ? And that's what we just know of.
Nixon was too insecure, tried to have it done without cooperating people who could do these things legally (FBI) and it backfired on him. Nothing happened to LBJ over him spying on Goldwater's campaign. These days, probably God alone knows what Ike, an actually competent plotter got up to during his time in office.
Please correct me if I'm misunderstanding you, but your claim is that although it's a common thing for US Presidents to spy on the campaigns of their opponents, Nixon had to be set-up on the Watergate break-in, but the real trap is that the people who set him up expected Nixon to try to cover up the break-in. Am I understanding correctly?
What is your evidence for this?
Back in 2019, Trump walked back his claims about his campaign being wiretapped, claiming he didn't mean that literally. He said "I used the word ‘wiretap,’ and I put in quotes, meaning surveillance, spying you can sort of say whatever you want" and also that his allegation wasn't really based on any actual evidence but more on "a little bit of a hunch". His DOJ confirmed in a court filing they had no evidence of Obama wiretapping Trump's campaign.
If you are not aware of any evidence to support the assertion that Trump's campaign was bugged, do you have any insight into why you held this belief? Do you suspect or worry that your media diet and the sources that you pay attention to might prompt you to hold verifiably erroneous beliefs? Would that prompt you to reexamine any other beliefs you may hold?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_Tower_wiretapping_allegations
Note what isn't denied: that FBI or CIA could have simply done what they always do when they want someone extrajudicially bugged: ask the British nicely.
Given the incentives and the hysteria around Trump. It's also perfectly deniable, as inter-spook agency communications are almost certainly not subject to FOIAs.
Your evidence for the claim that the Trump campaign was wiretapped is that the FBI/CIA has not denied asking the British to wiretap the Trump campaign? It's totally possible I'm misreading you, but if not...what?
You want solid evidence of something that's both extremely secret and very sensitive, right ? And theoretically criminal, although the odds of the government prosecuting itself over other parts of the government breaking the law have always been rather low.
The people- top natsec bureaucrats lied to us before (e.g. Snowden leaks) and they've lied to us after Trump re: Biden laptop.
A safe assumption is that anything you hear from them is a self-serving lie.
If you want me to dig up proof of something secret and illegal that they were likely to have done in the meantime, that's quite of like an isolated demand for rigor.
Mind you don't seem to put much stock into the idea of the FBI not being law abiding either, judging by what you've posted elsewhere, so I'm slightly puzzled.
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They put him in a position where any move was a losing one.
Cover it up, get him on the cover-up and then it becomes (stupid) conventional wisdom - "the cover-up is what gets you" (which doesn't apply when you're (for example) Sandy Berger who only got two years probation for removing and destroying classified material from the National Archives). If he doesn't cover-up then they get him on the crime and never mention this floating hypothesis that "the cover-up is the real crime".
Which crime?
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Maybe this is already answered by the proponents of this theory, but why didn't Nixon say anything?
Was there any media favorable to him ? "The press is the enemy, the professors are the enemy, the establishment is the enemy. Write that down on the blackboard 100 times and never forget it".
Heh, seems like he had a problem with the 'Octopus' before it was even defined!. That's Neema Parvini's extension of Yarvin's 'Cathedral' - an attempt at describing the managerial regime [1]that is more sovereign in western democracies than the elected representatives, and acts primarily through the combination of influence in bureaucracies & NGOs & corporations.
Because maybe then he'd not have gotten off lightly. He got pardoned, nothing really happend to him except his reputation was ruined.
Had he tried to play hardball, it could have caused a far bigger upset, which is not what you want when you're engaged in a cold war and have appearances to keep up.
Also. he might have ended up in prison had he refused to play ball.
Or just perhaps ended up being felled by a sudden heart attack from all that stress?
[1]: article by Malcolm Kyeuyne, aka 'Tinkzorg'. He's written some good essays, analysing situation through more or less sane-ish marxist lens but has recently been seen moving towards more respectability recently, by using his modest yet capable intellect writing hitpieces on the online right for Compactmag. Why exactly going after someone twitter anon with 140k followers who goes by 'Raw Egg Nationalist' is even necessary is .. unclear.
So Nixon agreed to not publicize evidence of a coup, agreed not to provide evidence of his innocence regarding his involvement with the Watergate break-in, agreed to resign in disgrace with a forever burnt reputation, etc etc because he assumed that the press would not believe anything he had to say. He further agreed to keep quiet for the next 20 years of his life and he did not confide his knowledge to anyone to publish after his death. Is this a fair summary of your position? If not, which part would you disagree with?
All that is preferable to years in prison or a sudden heart attack followed by a funeral, which were all options on the table, no ?
I'm pretty sure he must have known nobody would have believed him anyway after the media was through with him. And didn't the truth essentially get out with the 1984 book by Hougan ?
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"Believe"? The theory is that they're part of the conspiracy.
Ok, is that the only disagreement you have with my summary? If so, do you believe "Nixon resigned in disgrace after trying and failing to cover up his link to a burglary at the DNC headquarters" is too implausible an explanation?
That's the neatest part of it; it's even the literal truth. Just not the whole of it.
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That would have seemed outlandish to me too before the 2020 elections. Then I seem to recall it being the height of stupidity to talk about shit you know is happening and is subverting the democratic process but don't have evidence for. It was beyond stupid, it was poor gamesmanship and pathetic and made you look sad and stupid and like a tantrum throwing child.
Those are the options here. There was no path to the future for Nixon which didn't result in disgrace and forever being tied to corruption, the only choice was did he want to do it while making an enemy of real power, or come out relatively unharmed?
"Nixon resigned in disgrace after trying and failing to cover up his link to a burglary at the DNC headquarters."
"Nixon was the victim of a palace coup for [insert reasons]. He agreed to not publicize evidence of this coup, agreed not to provide evidence of his innocence regarding his involvement with the Watergate break-in, agreed to resign in disgrace with a forever burnt reputation, etc etc because he assumed that the press would not believe anything he had to say. He further agreed to keep quiet for the next 20 years of his life and he did not confide his knowledge to anyone to publish after his death."
Do you believe the second is the more plausible explanation of the two? If so, why?
Is my opinion not clear? You're so hyper focused on getting everyone to use the language you prefer that you are missing the answers they are giving. It actually feels like you are trying to put people in boxes so you can dismiss their opinion without attempting to understand it.
No. I read your post I'm responding to multiple times and didn't really understand it (e.g. "it being the height of stupidity to talk about shit you know is happening and is subverting the democratic process"). Hence why I asked clarifying questions instead of just respond with "what?"
Ok, although I don't see how the question you asked clarifies the bit you don't understand. I do not believe the second is the more plausible of the two, I would be very surprised if anyone did since the first one has been the prevailing opinion of the zeitgeist for 30 years and is also the more parsimonious explanation. Nevertheless the second explanation is more plausible to me today than it used to be.
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I'm not that familiar with the whole Watergate scandal, but you've never seen anyone in a situation where even telling the truth would end up looking like they're refusing to stop digging their own hole?
What would he say, and why would anyone believe him?
What's an example of a scenario where someone telling the truth looked (at least at the time) like they were digging their own hole?
Ages ago, during some twitter spat, an NYT journalist sent a screenshot because he was trying to prove something. Unfortunately for him, that screenshot included a browser tab of a hentai website, which lots of people started commenting on. He defended himself by saying he was just trying to prove to his wife that tentacle porn exists, because she found the idea so bizarre. He even ended up sending screenshots of the conversation with her.
Now, imagine the conversation took place only verbally, and face to face, and there were no screenshots to send. Wouldn't "I swear, I wasn't fapping to it, I just wanted to show it to my wife!", sound like the dumbest excuse someone invented on the spot?
To bring it back to Nixon, curious_straight_ca's recommendation of "Wait! I know who shot JFK! The same people are after me!" would have the same result, unless his evidence was bulletproof.
The best I can piece together is that Kurt Eichenwald claimed to have received an anti-semitic flyer. Someone doubted his story and he tried to "prove" it by posting a photo of it. If the suspicion is that he faked the flyer, I don't know what posting a photo of a flyer proves (color printers exist after all). The Hentai tab is not relevant to the authenticity of the flyer.
If the phenomena you're describing ("be careful about exposing the truth because you might end up digging a deeper hole for yourself") is so widespread as to serve as a generalizable cautionary tale, I would assume there would be plenty of examples. Is Eichenwald's story the best one you can think of?
The flyer is not relevant to the hentai tab, which was the example I was giving. Why are you trying to change it?
I never said it's widespread. In fact, I think it's pretty rare, but it happens so it shouldn't be discounted.
Why? The scenario we're discussing is when someone would end up looking bad by saying the truth, which means there's a lot of evidence that ends up being misleading. However often that happens, in order to show you an example of that, I'd need to find a sub-group of that scenario, where originally the evidence was strongly pointing one way, but it later was proven to be misleading, which is even more rare.
Which is why I asked you have you never been in that position? Has no one ever lied to others about you, and you were at least temporarily unable to prove they were lying?
I could come up with one or two more if I jogged my memory, but before I do I want to make sure there's a point to that. Originally I thought you asked for an example because you didn't understand the type of scenario I'm talking about. This question makes it look like your questions are rhetorical. That you're not curious, but trying to win an argument.
I interpreted your response to my "why didn't Nixon say anything?" question to posit the theory that Nixon decided to stay quiet because he was concerned that his attempt to tell the truth would make it look like he's just digging his own hole further. My assumption is that he would only have this concern if there was a generalizable cautionary tale establishing it as a viable danger, otherwise why else would he preemptively decide to stay quiet?
Did I misunderstand your response?
I don't know. Your responses seem almost tailor-made to maximize misunderstanding, and I don't want to get into the weeds of what does you mean by "generalizable" or "viable".
Can we start with my original question, have you ever been in a situation like the one I described, or at least knew anyone that was? If not, do you see how in the Eichenwald example I gave telling the truth could make him look worse, if he didn't have supporting evidence?
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This example was interesting as it involves Kurt Eichenwald, a notorious and well-documented pathological liar and fantasist.
Edited to add: as well as having a documented history as a pedophile, or as he would have it, a financial contributor to a major internet hub of pedophilic activity ("research").
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He'd say who shot JFK, which the tucker clip claims he knew (??)?
Lots of people would believe him without checking too much (tucker is without him saying anything!), and more competent people might be able to independently verify parts of it.
That's exactly the kind of thing I think would only make him look desperate and sad.
Assuming Nixon is a rational human being, he would have evidence for his belief. What prevented Nixon from presenting this evidence?
Not having access to it. Or part of the evidence being testimony from people no longer aligned with him.
"Nixon did not have any special knowledge about who killed JFK"
"Nixon knew who killed JFK, but didn't have access to this evidence or everyone he knew who could corroborate his knowledge refused to testify and he didn't tell this to the public/press because he was worried he would look crazy and he didn't confide to anyone to release after his death."
Do you believe that the second scenario is more plausible than the first? If so, what argument would you use to convince someone who disagrees?
Not saying it's more plausible, just that it shouldn't be dismissed.
More evidence would have to come out in order for me to be able to make an argument like that.
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Yes. He seems like a very central example of the category ‘sort of people who headline coups’.
Can you give any other examples of people within this category?
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Why yes, I did know that Watergate was a partisan hitjob and Nixon did nothing wrong.
It was a coup, the second within a decade, and I have to hand it to the deep state, at least this time they didn't murder him in broad daylight.
While we're bringing up conspiracies, I'll just remind everyone that Allen Dulles conspired to assassinate JFK, and conspired with Lyndon Johnson and John Hoover to cover it up. Johnson got to be president, and Dulles and Hoover got to continue running their respective spook spaces.
What were his chief motives for that, you think ?
Payback for getting fired over the Bay of Pigs. Also securing control of the deep state/MIC in the hands of favorable leadership instead of someone who wanted to break it into a thousand pieces and scatter those pieces to the winds.
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Are there any books or videos you would recommend to learn more about this stuff?
https://spartacus-educational.com/spartacus-blogURL141.htm
Here's a rundown, with a list of sources at the end. It's not specifically about Nixon, but Russ Baker's Family of Secrets has long been one of my favorite books on the general deep state. Since most of my reading has been specifically about the Kennedy assassination, not Watergate, most of my recommendations would lead that direction.
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I’d be very skeptical of any of these claims.
You should be skeptical of the claim that Lee Harvey Oswald was solely responsible for John Kennedy's assassination, and that Jacob Leon Rubenstein acted alone in killing him before he could defend himself or tell his side of the story.
Why do you call him Jacob Leon Rubenstein instead of Jack Ruby as he’s universally known?
For the same reason why I used John Kennedy, and John Hoover elsewhere. I like to refer to people differently than their commonly known moniker.
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Same here, but I find it fascinating regardless of the veracity. Things don't have to be true to provide insight, and I often find that conspiracy theories, because they are based around one big outlandish claim, often put a lot of effort into getting other more mundane details correct - because it implies the big claim is correct too. You still have to verify the facts you've learned, but I find I get a lot of leads on interesting topics through conspiracies, if not the actual conspiracies themselves.
That said, and maybe it's just because I have seen some very seriously crazy conspiracy theories or maybe it's because I lean right, but I don't find those claims particularly outlandish. The public presentation of Nixon has always had an air of the 2 minute hate to me, even when I was left wing I didn't really understand it. Even with all the movies about Watergate and him, a lot of people seem to have no idea what he did wrong, only that he was bad. And while the idea that he was innocent is ludicrous, the idea that he was operating on a standard level of corruption for the environment isn't. Which is a roundabout way of saying I don't care about Nixon, but I do care about unelected and unaccountable officials meddling in the affairs of state to promote their own agendas.
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Recently I listened to a very interesting podcast with Geoff Shepard. Here is part 1 and part 2. Shepard was a very young, junior staffer in the Nixon White House who in the past years has done a great deal of archival research and wrote a few books on Watergate. His take is that Nixon was basically innocent of any real crimes, and got railroaded by a gang of prosecutors and judges who ran roughshod over normal due process and distorted every shred of evidence to make Nixon look bad. You can listen to the podcast for more, or read his book "The Nixon Conspiracy." After paying very close attention to the Trump-Russia investigation, his description of what happened to Nixon sounds very familiar...
I'm not sure I'd call it a deep state conspiracy, which makes it sound like a Hollywood-style thing where the Deep State is doing something that the mainstream press would find criminal. It was a Deep State conspiracy plus a press pile-on of every establishment-type who hated Nixon, from the journalists to the judges.
I'm not sure if it is significant if Woodward was actually a CIA agent at the time. The Washington Post has long been know to basically be the stenographers for the security state, whether or not the journalist is actually on the payroll, or has simply made a bunch of friends in order to get fed stories, may not make much a difference.
It does seem significant that just a few years later Woodward's partner, Bernstein, published a long piece on the CIA infiltration of the media -- https://www.carlbernstein.com/the-cia-and-the-media-rolling-stone-10-20-1977 -- was he trying to get something off of his conscience?
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So I watched the Carlson segment and I don't understand what the segment has to do with what was corrupt about Watergate and what was corrupt about Nixon's actions, specifically. As best I can tell the reason people think Nixon's actions with respect to Watergate were corrupt is because he tried to obstruct a federal investigation into a break in at the DNC headquarters when it became clear that investigation was going to implicate high level members of his administration (including his Attorney General John Mitchell) in the crime. This culminated with Nixon firing his second Attorney General (Elliot Richardson) and Deputy Attorney General (William Ruckelshaus) when they refused to fire the Special Prosecutor (Archibald Cox) who was investigating the Watergate break in, in what came to be known as the Saturday Night Massacre.
So, how is Bob Woodward's status as former Naval intelligence relevant? What does Nixon's meeting with Helms have to do with anything? Nixon's meeting with Helms happened months after the break in. Why does it matter that Woodward's source was the Deputy Director of the FBI?
Carlson's monologue is big on free association (CIA! JFK! FBI! COINTELPRO!) but pretty light on actually connecting any of these facts to any of the facts of Watergate.
The people who were working for Nixon in Watergate were freshly ex-FBI and ex-CIA. Hunt even worked for a CIA front company, apparently, which wasn't known to Nixon's chief of staff.
People at their former institutions - who were probably guilty of doing similar stuff in the past for other presidents, exposed Nixon for the kind of wrongdoing they themselves were likely guilty of.
The narrative people have of Watergate is something like 'intrepid reporter and brave FBI source' expose corrupt presidential administration, government somewhat improved and more democratic afterwards.
Meanwhile, the actual narrative is something like 'somewhat corrupt president exposed by intrigues of even more corrupt institutions', presidency afterwards even more influenced by the secret services. I mean, if you're long serving FBI, one of the old guard, and deputy director, it's not particularly brave to leak to the press. There's only like 2-3 people ranking higher than you.
I suggest that the institutional affiliation and ranks of people involved suggest the latter narrative is more closer to the truth than the former.
Ok, granting that the correct narrative of Watergate is one of relatively more corrupt executive branch employees exposing the corruption of a relatively less corrupt President it seems to me the correct conclusion is "more people should have been prosecuted for corruption" not "Nixon wasn't corrupt."
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The thrust of the current Republican revisitation of Watergate, at least as Jack Posobiec describes it, is to frame the whole thing, including the break-in itself, as an intel op to take down a President. The second topmost man at the FBI provides info to hand-picked reporters, one of whom is familiar with intel methods, and they publish everything in the most damning light possible.
What are the odds Deep Throat was working alone? One side will say “righteous whistleblower spurred by conscience” and the other is starting to say “conniving partisan engineering public opinion”.
Even granting the original conspiracy to break in was an intelligence community operation (a notion I find highly implausible compared to alternate explanations) I still don't see how that exonerates Nixon. "The intelligence community orchestrated a criminal conspiracy among high level Republicans and cabinet members therefore Nixon had to use the powers of the presidency to corruptly obstruct that investigation!" Uhh, no he didn't. Indeed, as far as I know there is very little to tie Nixon himself to the break in. Most of his involvement was in the post-break-in cover up.
Via Geoff Shepard, think of the problem from Nixon's point of view. He was in a total bind. He actually had no prior knowledge of the break-in, and he actually wanted those responsible for the break-in investigated and prosecuted. But the special prosecutor, Cox, was giving a sweetheart plea deal to the guy more responsible (Dean) who was spinning myths in order to falsely implicate Nixon. So Cox was not doing his job properly. Furthermore, Cox's team is full of partisan attack dog prosecutors champing at the bit to take down Nixon. So from Nixon's point-of-view, it is the special prosecutor who has gone rogue, and as the head of DoJ, Nixon is constitutionally responsible for removing the rogue prosecutor and putting the investigation in the hands of a more fair-minded person.
I am not sure why I should care about Nixon's state of mind. I am sure lots of people who corruptly obstructed federal investigations thought they were doing the right thing. What matters is what was actually the case. Had Cox actually gone rogue? What, specifically, were the "myths" in Dean's testimony? As far as I can tell Nixon's replacement pick for Special Prosecutor (Leon Jaworski) picked up exactly where Cox left off, subpoenaing Nixon for his taped conversations in the Oval Office.
I think that Shepard makes a pretty strong case that Cox had gone rogue, and he talks about Dean's falsehoods, you can read his book for yourself if you are interested -- http://library.lol/main/D7EDF03090D53D36483E1CC991D23836
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And how does the segment deal with the tapes, especially the "smoking gun" tape, in which Nixon is heard endorsing the coverup. Here is what Wikipedia says about it:
And, to be clear, the theory is that a bunch of Nixon's closest aides -- H.R. Haldeman (WH Chief of Staff), John Ehrlichman (Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs), John Dean (White House counsel), Jeb Magruder (chair of the Committee to Reelect the President), John Mitchell (Attorney General) --conspired against him, and exposed themselves to criminal liability (all served time, and the lawyers among them were disbarred), for the purpose of what, exactly?
And, by the way, I haven't seen the segment, but "he tried to keep the government subordinate to its notional head" strikes me as very possibly spin on pushback to a guy who claimed, "If the President does it, it isn't illegal."
It usually wasn't, at least in the past. I'm not suggesting Nixon didn't order the surveillance.
There's some evidence that we know of that at least LBJ did the same with Goldwater campaign, and there were probably other incidents too.
But that the surveillance was cocked up on purpose by factions in state institutions who wanted him gone, and he was probably made to look even worse in the process.
I'm not sure that "we later found out that LBJ did it, too" is much of a defense, but regardless, it wasn't just the surveillance; it was the coverup. That was the basis for Article I of the Articles of Impeachment, and that was the article to which the "smoking gun" tape was relevant; after it was released, the ten Republicans on the Judiciary Committee who voted no on the articles of impeachment said that they would vote yes on Article 1 on the House floor.
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I was listening to a podcast with Geoff Shepard and reading some of his book. Shepard was a very young, junior staffer in the Nixon White House who in the past years has done a great deal of archival research and released a revisionist book on Watergate in 2021. He is also the one who originally internally transcribed the "smoking gun" tape and coined that phrase when he listened to it, even though he was so junior he didn't actually know at the time what it was referring to. After doing his most recent research he says that the tape has been grossly misunderstood. What people think the "smoking gun" statement means is that Nixon knew about the break-in and was trying to order government officials to stop the investigation. What it actually was, was that the FBI was going to interview two specific people were linked with soliciting campaign donations from prominent Democrats, and Nixon and his staff were trying to protect the secrecy of those donations (because a Democrat would be bad for the Democrats reputation if it was known they had donated to Nixon). The two people ended up getting interviewed anyways two weeks later and were not found to have any criminally involvement. The "smoking gun" does not show that Nixon knew about Watergate or that he was trying to stop the entire investigation.
Shepard's take is that some of those who were actually more responsible for the break-in decided to side with the prosecutors and media establishment in taking down Nixon in order to get a better deal/reduced sentence.
Then why did Republicans who actually heard the tape think that it did? Why does the Nixon Foundation webpage say: " The release on August 5, 1974, of the June 23, 1972, tape (which was termed the “Smoking Gun”), appeared to undermine Nixon’s contention that he was not involved in the Watergate cover-up. The reaction to the tape caused Nixon’s remaining political support in Congress to collapse. Three days later, on August 8, 1974, he announced his resignation as president, effective at noon the next day."?
And, the claim is not that Nixon "knew about Watergate" beforehand; it is that he covered it up afterwards. And he certainly knew generally about the dirty tricks campaign.
It did "appear" to if you just take the quote out of its entire context and have it spun by hostile press and prosecutors. And that the time, even Republican Senators were more trusting in the establishment press, so that was enough to finally pull support for Nixon. Shepard's research on the full context of the quote is new research, not something that was known at the time.
The Republicans in question almost certainly listened to the actual tapes, or read the transcripts, which were publicly released
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I haven’t watched the tape but the idea that Nixon was implicated in a political scandal and a palace coup are not mutually exclusive. It’s possible there are many such incidents that never see the light of day but did here.
No, they are not mutually exclusive. But, given the amount of evidence of actual wrongdoing -- evidence that members of his own party felt merited removal from office -- the idea that his resignation was caused by a coup rather than by his own misconduct seems to be a rather heavy lift.
I think to a certain extent it was a sign of the times. Watergate seems like child’s play compared to the scandals of the last twenty years
Edit: I have zero real thoughts here. Just pointing out they need not be mutually exclusive. Never really looked into this particular line of inquiry.
I don't know about child's play, given the burglaries (including the burglary of the office of Daniel Ellsberg's (who leaked the Pentagon Papers) psychiatrist, and of course the DNC headquarters) , and the fact that the wife of the former Attorney General is essentially kidnapped to prevent her from talking to the press.
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This is honestly fascinating. It demands further research.
I see that a certain Geoff Shepard's written a few relevant books.
The best short thing I found: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2022/06/20/watergate_at_50_revelations_from_newly_declassified_evidence_147766.html
Here's the tape recording of Nixon saying he knows who shot Kennedy: https://rogerstone.substack.com/p/nixon-threatened-to-reveal-the-cias
But so much of it seems like pure paranoia e.g. here Nixon claims everyone was out to get just him: https://nypost.com/2022/06/16/watergate-gave-rise-to-the-culture-war/ besides how aggressively partisan they are, not digging into the actual topic, but primarily using it as a quick thing to besmirch various actors, to influence current perception. Stuff like:
really weakens a piece and narrative.
That's a good post. I ought to get the book.
Yeah.
There's some overlap between security state and the 'radicals (people with odd agendas, mostly connected to university system)', but IMO the post article is too simplistic.
There was some such overlap during WW2, but I imagined they somewhat purged themselves for obvious reasons after the break with USSR?
I'd still like to know whether it was, as someone posted here "common knowledge in OSS that communist OSS operatives would attempt to murder non-communist OSS once deployed to occupied Europe"..
Why would you think that instead of the opposite?
There were communists in the OSS and CIA when the US was supposedly in a conflict with the USSR - IOW, when there would have been pressure on them to hide that fact.
After the collapse of the USSR there's been a CIA director who voted for CPUSA - any pressure to hide radical left wing affiliations is long gone.
Do you have some reading on that?
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