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In reply to the discussion: Does the President fear the CIA? [View all]Octafish
(55,745 posts)103. You are most welcome, librechik! Here's something from Nixon to know...
President Richard Milhous Nixon OK'd assigning a murderous Secret Service agent to protect Ted Kennedy. The moment was caught on the White House tapes: Nixon approved hiring a Secret Service man who said he'd "kill anybody on command" to guard Ted Kennedy. You can hear Nixon and Haldeman discuss it, about 40 minutes into the HBO documentary "Nixon by Nixon." While I had read the part of the transcript available years ago, and wrote about it on DU, almost no one I know has heard anything about it.
Ted Kennedy survived Richard Nixon's Plots
By Don Fulsom
In September 1972, Nixons continued political fear, personal loathing, and jealously of Kennedy led him to plant a spy in Kennedys Secret Service detail.
The mole Nixon selected for the Kennedy camp was already being groomed. He was a former agent from his Nixons vice presidential detail, Robert Newbranda man so loyal he once pledged he would do anythingeven killfor Nixon.
The President was most interested in learning about the Sen. Kennedys sex life. He wanted, more than anything, stated Haldeman in The Ends of Power, to catch (Kennedy) in the sack with one of his babes.
In a recently transcribed tape of a September 8, 1972 talk among the President and aides Bob Haldeman and Alexander Butterfield, Nixon asks whether Secret Service chief James Rowley would appoint Newbrand to head Kennedys detail:
Haldeman: He's to assign Newbrand.
President Nixon: Does he understand that he's to do that?
Butterfield: He's effectively already done it. And we have a full force assigned, 40 men.
Haldeman: I told them to put a big detail on him (unclear).
President Nixon: A big detail is correct. One that can cover him around the clock, every place he goes. (Laughter obscures mixed voices.)
President Nixon: Right. No, that's really true. He has got to have the same coverage that we give the others, because we're concerned about security and we will not assume the responsibility unless we're with him all the time.
Haldeman: And Amanda Burden (one of Kennedys alleged girlfriends) can't be trusted. (Unclear.) You never know what she might do. (Unclear.)
[font color="red"]Haldeman then assures the President that Newbrand will do anything that I tell him to He really will. And he has come to me twice and absolutely, sincerely said, "With what you've done for me and what the President's done for me, I just want you to know, if you want someone killed, if you want anything else done, any way, any direction "[/font color="red"]
President Nixon: The thing that I (unclear) is this: We just might get lucky and catch this son-of-a-bitch and ruin him for '76.
Haldeman: That's right.
President Nixon: He doesn't know what he's really getting into. We're going to cover him, and we are not going to take "no" for an answer. He can't say "no." The Kennedys are arrogant as hell with these Secret Service. He says, "Fine," and (Newbrand) should pick the detail, too.
Toward the end of this conversation, Nixon exclaims that Newbrands spying (is) going to be fun, and Haldeman responds: Newbrand will just love it.
Nixon also had a surveillance tip for Haldeman for his spy-to-be: I want you to tell Newbrand if you will that (unclear) because he's a Catholic, sort of play it, he was for Jack Kennedy all the time. Play up to Kennedy, that "I'm a great admirer of Jack Kennedy." He's a member of the Holy Name Society. He wears a St. Christopher (unclear). Haldeman laughs heartily at the Presidents curious advice.
Despite the enthusiasm of Nixon and Haldeman, Newbrand apparently never produced anything of great value. When this particular round of Nixons spying on Kennedy was uncovered in 1997, The Washington Post quoted Butterfield as saying periodic reports on Kennedy's activities were delivered to Haldeman, but that Butterfield did not think any potentially damaging information was ever dug up.
SOURCE:
http://surftofind.com/tedkennedy
The compassion of Richard Nixon, regarding Ted Kennedy: "If he gets shot, it's too damn bad."
Nixon Dug Deep For Dirt On Ted Kennedy
CALVIN WOODWARD | 08/28/09 03:20 PM | AP
EXCERPT...
Nixon pressed for more wiretaps and a combing of tax records, not only on Kennedy but other leading Democrats. "I could only hope that we are, frankly, doing a little persecuting," he said.
SNIP...
But Nixon's motives for the offer were not pure. He worried that if a third Kennedy were shot, and while not having Secret Service protection, he'd be blamed.
Plus, he wanted dirt. And the best way to get it was to have a Secret Service agent rat on the senator. There is no evidence an agent turned into such an informer.
"You understand what the problem is," Nixon told Haldeman and Ehrlichman on Sept. 7, 1972. "If the (SOB) gets shot they'll say we didn't furnish it (protection). So you just buy his insurance.
"After the election, he doesn't get a ... thing. If he gets shot, it's too damn bad. Do it under the basis, though, that we pick the Secret Service men.
CONTINUED...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/28/nixon-dug-deep-for-dirt-o_n_271012.html
The Warren Commission, and the nation's mass media, never heard about the CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro until the Church Committee in 1975. You'd think that would be a matter of concern to all Americans, especially considering how then-vice president Nixon was head of the "White House Action Team" that hired the Mafia to murder Fidel Castro.
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No. But he fears the backlash if he tries to hold the thugs accountable for their crimes.
Tierra_y_Libertad
Dec 2014
#3
If i were him, i certainly would. Presidents come & go, the cia is here to stay.
spanone
Dec 2014
#6
No, he doesn't fear them. He doesn't fear the CIA or NSA and he doesn't fear the military.
stevenleser
Dec 2014
#10
When the story broke about the CIA spying on Feinstein's select committee, Charlie Pierce
KingCharlemagne
Dec 2014
#71
I edited my post to delete my specific call-out, but yeah, the silence is deafening. They
KingCharlemagne
Dec 2014
#73
I can't help but believe that the CTs make it that much harder to engage in actual reform.
Nuclear Unicorn
Dec 2014
#101
Frank Church was one of the great liberals. He was also one of the group of Senators who were
jwirr
Dec 2014
#102
Thank you Octafish. Funny how some people's reading list can be missing large pieces of truth. n/t
librechik
Dec 2014
#91
You may want to read Bugliosi's Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy
zappaman
Dec 2014
#97
He's either afraid, or he's OK with them lying to Congress. You apparently believe it's the latter.
Scuba
Dec 2014
#67
Or they recognize reality isn't as simple as a discussion board wants it to be
Lurks Often
Dec 2014
#31
I agree. It is rotten to the core, has always been, but probably too powerful to dismantle.
northoftheborder
Dec 2014
#62
It would absolve all of them. And, if true, we may as pack it in and take up knitting.
merrily
Dec 2014
#82
Do you think if he was being threatened and came out and said so he would be ignored?
Autumn
Dec 2014
#40
Because no President bothers to control them. When a President who is a Democrat
Autumn
Dec 2014
#49
I would if I were he. But if you listen to a lot of DUers, BHO approves of torture and probably ...
Hekate
Dec 2014
#60
I saw DUers say he said some of the torturers are patriots and I saw DUers say Amnesty
merrily
Dec 2014
#84
I have no doubt. CIA is another beyond control criminal organization.
Dont call me Shirley
Dec 2014
#76
Personally my speculation lately is that retribution would be in the form of a mushroom cloud
hootinholler
Dec 2014
#85