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| Nixon releasing tape transcripts (Photo: pimall.com) |
One of the enduring mysteries of
the Watergate scandal has been the reason why Nixon did not destroy the tapes
containing incriminating conversations against him. Thanks to the astute
analysis of Gary Allen, we know the answer – Nixon simply was not in a position
to destroy them.
Even special prosecutor Leon
Jaworski admitted that without the tapes, he had no case against Nixon. This
statement comes from a man who fabricated evidence and suborned perjury to convict
an innocent man of murder during World War 2. Jaworski’s case was so foul that years later a
review board would castigate it as a gross miscarriage of justice .
The common argument at the time
of Watergate was that had Nixon destroyed the tapes, he would have saved his
presidency, even at the risk of a dark cloud hanging over his administration
for the remainder of its term. Without evidence there is no case. The predicate
of the argument is false. It assumes that Nixon had full control over the
taping system which he did not.
The two key figures to
understanding the taping fiasco, which started when Alexander Butterfield, White
House liaison to the Secret Service and CIA informant or agent, casually but oh
so deliberately mentioned the tapes to the Senate Watergate committee in July
1973, are Henry Kissinger and Alexander Haig.
Kissinger established the
plumbers after agitating Nixon incessantly about leaks, a situation which was
exacerbated by the staged Pentagon Papers leaks, a report drier than saw dust
and about 5 years old by the time CIA operatives leaked it. But it’s the
principle of the thing, as the old saying goes.
Kissinger’s paranoia was not
restricted to hiring the CIA Plumbers. He installed extensive wiretaps on all
of his staff and several journalists, a fact known at the time of Watergate but
never once reported in the major press. Kissinger skated through Watergate without a
singed hair – something which was not accidental.
Butterfield was in charge of the
taping system which had been installed in the White House at the suggestion of
Lyndon Johnson when Nixon assumed office. Our recollection is that it did not
become operational until around 1971, with an improvised system in place in the
mean time. In any event, the system in place at the time of Watergate was
transparent in that it was voice activated and operated without Nixon’s
involvement. Butterfield monitored Nixon’s movements and conversations from his
White House office.
In addition to much of the
foregoing analysis, Gary Allen presented two compelling explanations about Nixon’s
inaction over the tapes, neither of which has anything to do with Nixon greed
or vanity, both of which are common explanations. Allen suggests that Nixon did
not have control of the tapes and that there were multiple copies of them,
meaning that destruction of one tape would still leave others available. And
not knowing their locations, the task becomes like trying to stomp out
cockroaches.
This is where Alexander Haig, the
man who butchered Nixon without the latter having a clue, comes in. Allen
points out that the investigating staffs seemed to know exactly where in the
many miles of tapes all of the incriminating evidence was. The only people with
such access were Butterfield, Haig, and Robert H. Taylor, the secret service chief
whom Bob Haldeman fired and who later went to work for Nelson Rockefeller as
head of his security. But Haig and Butterfield were colleagues from previous
assignments. Thus when Butterfield left the White House, Haig became the keeper
of the tapes archives.
Apparently Haig, with advice from
Butterfield, fed the precise location - down to the second - of the damning evidence to the Watergate
Committee and Special Prosecutor. There is no way in the world anyone could
have traversed those tapes and made sense of them in so short a period of time without knowledgeable help
which Haig was only too happy to provide. Even today, we still do not have all
of the tapes transcribed.
Nixon was a caged animal trapped
by men who were supposed to be working for him, but who were in fact working for
their true boss, Nelson Rockefeller. The implications of Nixon's downfall are staggering, but a topic we will continue to cover in future postings.Reference
Gary Allen, Rockefeller File, 1976
Copyright 2013 Tony Bonn. All rights reserved.
