Rethinking Nixon in Dallas

Quite some time ago, we speculated on Nixon's presence in Dallas as complicity in the murder of  President Kennedy on November 22, 1963 in Dallas' Dealey Plaza. New evidence and analysis has forced us to discard the theory we presented in favor of a new one placing Nixon in more favorable light.

In our past Chronicle, we suggested that Nixon, a protégé of David and Nelson Rockefeller, was in Dallas on a mission specifically related to the operation of the assassination - perhaps as a bagman or signal that the operation was green - approved.

While there may be some truth to the latter - and it would be without Nixon's cognizance - new analysis prompts us to believe that his handlers placed him in Dallas to show him the power of the Deep State, and to provide a basis for blackmailing or destroying him should he grow too big for his future presidential britches.

As Watergate flames enveloped the Nixon White House, the Rockefellers banged the drums of the Imperial Presidency, showing that Nixon had overstepped his authorization from the Deep State, and thus needed to be cut down to size.

However, the Oval Office tapes, often used to incriminate the president, actually vindicate him on this matter. As we all know, his aide H R Haldeman later wrote about his cryptic conversations with Nixon regarding Bay of Pigs, and assignments his boss gave him regarding DCI Richard Helms.

When Haldeman told Helms that the White House did not want to open the scab of Bay of Pigs, Helms went totally ballistic because he realized that Nixon was attempting to blackmail him over the Kennedy murder in which CIA was a leading partner in crime. In that outburst, Helms let the cat out of the bag.

Nixon is heard musing about the extent of the agency's involvement, hinting that CIA had more to do with the Big Event in Dallas than the public knew. The president seemed genuinely perplexed about the crime, harboring suspicions about the fantasy Warren Commission Report. And certainly Nixon, a veteran of Operation 40 and other CIA black jobs, was not so naïve to suppose that the spook agency was clueless. Our interpretation of Nixon's words suggest that he was getting warm, but yet had not connected the dots.

Since that Chronicle, we have also learned quite a bit more about the assassination, and its lead instigator and planner. Again the tapes come to Nixon's defense insofar as he was not a participant in the crime, and he certainly had no foreknowledge.

The murder of President Kennedy was ordered and led by International Jewry. This thesis Michael Collins Piper makes clear in his book Final Judgment. The tapes also show that Nixon was either ambivalent or antipathetic toward the Jews. Yes he had the exceptionally ambitious, sycophantic, yet totally sinister Henry Kissinger on his staff, along with an army of other Jews in his administration. But he made explicit comments about the "god-damned Jews" and other deservedly unfavorable remarks.

Consequently, we conclude that Nixon could have been used by the Jews, and framed in such a way so as to cast doubt on his innocence in Dallas, but they would never have welcomed him into their bosom as a co-conspirator.

It is now inconceivable to us that Nixon had foreknowledge of the assassination. Although he had good sense to leave Dallas before the shooting, he was brought to Dallas, as were so many other luminaries, to witness the shock and awe of the Jewish Deep State, and to provide a means, via circumstantial evidence, of suggesting his complicity in the crime on November 22. Nixon unwittingly saved himself from that smear by beating CIA to the punch when he challenged Helms with the evidence.

Reference

Michael Collins Piper, Final Judgment, America First Books, 6th Edition, 2d printing, 2005, source(Microsoft Word - Final_Judgment_x_Build_20 (wikispooks.com), accessed 5/7/2021)

Copyright 2021 Tony Bonn. All rights reserved.

Nixon Tapes: Nixon Takes on CIA

In an extraordinary display of naiveté, President Nixon in a conversation with John Ehrlichman concerning the murders of the Diem brothers of South Vietnam in 1963, believed that he was president and could issue orders to the CIA to disclose information needed for international diplomacy.


This conversation alone may exculpate Nixon from the murder of John Kennedy - assuming that Nixon was not playing dumb with his domestic affairs advisor. If Nixon knew that the CIA murdered Kennedy on orders from Rockefeller and one of the Rothschilds, we doubt that he would be willing to tangle with Richard Helms.


The discussion in question took place on October 8, 1971 with the trip to China looming, as well as détente with the Soviet Union. Ehrlichman had a couple of motives for getting information from Helms, one of which was that understanding the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis was essential in negotiations with the USSR since they had not forgotten the episode. In other words, negotiations required a mastery of recent events including knowing what provoked and motivated the US government to act the way it did.


Erhlichman also raised the issue of the Diem murders with Helms, insisting that a proper understanding of that operation was required in dealing with the Chinese, with whom Nixon was well into planning a visit in February 1972.


His more immediate concern though related to an article Life was planning on the South Vietnamese coup. Ehrlichman wanted Nixon to have the background information so that he could respond knowledgeably to the press which was one of Nixon's objects of paranoia, and with good cause.


During the Diem thread of the discussion, Ehrlichman also wanted the story so that he could uncover dirt on President Kennedy in order to discredit Teddy.


Ehrlichman reported from his meeting with Richard Helms that the DCI was very worried about E Howard Hunt's employment by the White House since Hunt "knew where all the bodies were buried." Apparently Helms was concerned that Hunt might disclose more than was good for the CIA.

Helms was so scared of the revelations about Diem that he insisted that Ehrlichman provide him protection and safety - apparently from legal jeopardy due to crimes committed by the CIA.


The mention of Hunt makes it very clear that Nixon knew about the plumbers early, and that they were not brought in under his nose as we had reported previously regarding the work of Len Colodny.


At the end of the meeting with Ehrlichman, the latter tells his boss that he is president and entitled to information Helms was sitting on, a point with which Nixon concurred. This was a fatal miscalculation because US policy is managed by the CIA, and probably unleashed the Bush-CIA coup against Nixon.


Based upon the conversation, we surmise that neither Nixon, nor especially Ehrlichman, knew that Henry Cabot Lodge, Ed Lansdale, and a host of other spooks were responsible for the murder of the Diem brothers. On the other hand, there is strong reason to believe that Nixon was playing dumb about the Bay of Pigs and other Cuban matters since he himself had set in motion the invasion plans when he was Vice President, and was expected to authorize it once he was sworn into office. Thus it is very important not to take Nixon at face value on the tapes. He is frequently lying or misleading his interlocutors.


Nixon was probably very much in the dark about the Cuban Missile Crisis, but not about the Bay of Pigs. And we find it hard to believe that he did not know that the CIA had murdered the Diems.


Nevertheless, the conversation was very fascinating, underscoring the difficulty in conducting foreign policy when the White House does not realize that the CIA runs it.


Reference

Nixon Tapes, Conversation of October 8, 1971


Copyright 2015 Tony Bonn. All rights reserved.

Nixon Tapes: Prolepsis of Watergate

In a startling tape recording of a conversation between Richard Nixon and his chief of staff H R Haldeman, with Henry Kissinger present, the president ordered Haldeman to clean out the Brookings Institute safe. The date of the conversation is July 1, 1971.

 

In a tirade against the press and lawyers, Nixon ordered Haldeman to find a lawyer by noon, and one who is a "son of a bitch" who is just as "tough as I am." He instructed him not to use a "high minded" lawyer like Ehrlichman - they couldn't get the job done.

 

In vintage Nixon paranoia, he vented against lawyers who were worried about "legal niceties" and who had no idea about how to handle politics and public relations, of which John Mitchell was an example.

 

At the end of the brief conversation he made it very clear that he wanted "the Brookings Institute safe cleaned out." While out of context Nixon's orders could be misconstrued as burglary, we believe that he was looking for legal means to get access to its contents. He ranted about a conspiracy and winning a case in the press. We are not certain what it was in the safe which so annoyed him, but we surmise that it was related to leaks.

Reference
Nixon Tapes, Conversation Number 534-2(3), July 1, 1971, nixonlibrary.gov, accessed 5/25/2015

Copyright 2015 Tony Bonn. All rights reserved.

Nixon Tapes: Nixon on the Vice Presidency

In a rather fascinating taped conversation with John Connally, former governor of Texas, and Bob Haldeman, Nixon's chief of staff, President Nixon expresses his views on the vice presidency and the replacement of Spiro Agnew.

 

The discussion took place on July 21, 1971 at which time Nixon offered the vice presidency to Connally because Agnew did not show the leadership qualities the president thought necessary in a vice president. He told Connally that he had tried to engage Agnew in various policy initiatives in an attempt to groom him as a leader, but Agnew just didn't have it.

 

It is possible that Nixon was also frustrated with Agnew's difficulties with the press, and the gaffes which caused significant consternation for Nixon, but he may have seen Connally as having more political capital.

 

In any event, Connally dismissed the offer out of hand, explaining that the office of vice president was a sinecure or make work position for which he would not feel comfortable.

 

Nixon's response was that he would refashion the office more closely to that of his tenure under Eisenhower where during the last 2-3 years Nixon presided over cabinet meetings and the National Security Council. While not elaborating on the reasons for Eisenhower's power sharing, it was clear that Nixon alluded to the former general's poor health after suffering 2 heart attacks while in office.

 

The real carrot from Nixon was the promise to assure a succession from vice president to president. He promised Connally that he would do all he could to make the transition inevitable. The offer is interesting in its own right because Nixon did not have coattails or a dynasty to pass along; so this overture to Connally may have been his way of hand picking a successor.

 

Connally probably found the discussion galling because Nixon said that the vice president should be the alter ego of the president, a contemplation which probably made the Dealey Plaza survivor nauseous. Connally was a thorough going pompous ass in his own right.

 

Toward the end of the meeting, Nixon reviewed possible vice presidents, of whose first mention was Gerald Ford. Nixon's assessment of Ford was that he was a good guy but not presidential timber. Of Rockefeller Nixon stated that neither the party nor the country could accept him. Of Reagan he said that it just couldn't be. Although he recognized Reagan's strengths, he thought him too simplistic to be the bold, imaginative leader the office of president required.

 

In general Nixon's conversation was political bluster and flatulence. It may have been that Nixon wanted to reward Connally for his role in the Kennedy murder and his silence in concealing the conspiracy. Nixon said that Johnson's selection as vice president was a shot gun marriage. He also noted that Johnson had no respect for Humphrey, disdain he expressed for practically everyone but himself.

 

Nixon did offer Connally the job of Secretary of Treasury, a position he accepted, and which was quite in keeping with his comments that secretaries had more responsibility and impact than the vice president.

 

We question Nixon's sincerity in offering Connally a role of vice president which had substantive powers and responsibilities. We suspect that Agnew was chosen because he was a serviceable door mat, was owed political favors, and would not upstage Nixon. Connally we believe could have upstaged the president, a situation which would have caused significant stress in a stressful presidency.

Reference
Nixon Tapes, Conversation 541-2, July 21, 1971, Audio accessed 5/25/2015 at nixonlibrary.gov

Copyright 2015 Tony Bonn. All rights reserved.

Why Nixon Did Not Destroy the Tapes

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.