-Caveat Lector-
"THE TAKING OF AMERICA, 1-2-3" (1985)
Chapter 11
Nixon and Ford -- The Pardon and the Tapes
As the Power Control Group grew larger and the number of
murders increased through the years, it became more and more
difficult to keep intact the veil of secrecy surrounding the
takeover. As Nixon's instability increased, the danger of
revealing the secret superstructure to the American people
increased.
Watergate and Nixon's resignation from office nearly
ruined everything for the Power Control Group.
A splinter faction in the CIA began showing strength. All
the dirt could have been leaked to the press and to the people.
Nixon himself had pulled the most dangerous boner in the
history of the PCG. He installed a secret tape recording system
that recorded a number of conversations about the PCG's murders,
assassinations and dirty tricks. Even worse, Nixon did not
destroy the tapes before Congress found out about them and went
after them. As soon as it became obvious that Nixon would be
forced to resign, the PCG had to use a desperate strategy.
On September 8, 1974, Gerald R. Ford pardoned Richard M.
Nixon -- such was the PCG's strategy. Many skeptical citizens
nodded their heads knowingly and assumed Nixon had made his
"deal" with Ford when he nominated him for the vice presidency.
Evans and Novak [1] assumed that Julie Nixon Eisenhower talked
Ford into the pardon on grounds that Nixon's health was poor.
The Ford's fears for Nixon's health didn't seem to convince very
many news media people who saw a rosy-cheeked, apparently robust
ex-president in San Clemente [2].
Though the pardon seemed to most Americans a gross error in
judgment and a miscarriage of justice, once again the public was
fooled. This time, the PCG, Nixon and Ford managed to pull the
wool over the eyes of the public and narrowly escape revealing
what can be called "the entire rotten crust at the top of
American power." By 1976, any reasonable hypothesis about what
actually happened, based on the evidence at hand, had not been
even remotely suggested by either Congress or the media.
Any explanation of the situation leading to the pardon
begins with the relationship between Gerald Ford and Richard
Nixon. It goes back to 1960, the year Mr. Nixon planned the
overthrow of Castro's Cuba. As earlier chapters have made clear,
the U2 incident and the Bay of Pigs was the beginning.
In 1960, Nixon and the White House action officer worked on
the plans for what was later called the Bay of Pigs invasion [3].
Prior to that time the PCG and Nixon had accumulated plenty of
reasons to want Castro overthrown. The anti-Communist attitude
was the superficial reason. Beneath it were Nixon's connections
with the Mafia and his friendships and financial holdings that
were greatly damaged when Castro closed the casinos run by the
mob in Havana [4].
When Nixon and Kennedy debated about the Cuban situation in
the 1960 campaign, Nixon purposefully lied to the American people
about U.S. plans for an invasion [5]. When he narrowly lost to
Kennedy, it created a deep wound, and he and the PCG spent much
of the next three years planning revenge.
Nixon became a tool of a number of Cubans and Americans,
both inside the CIA and outside, who agreed with him that casting
out Castro was highly desirable.
One of these men was E. Howard Hunt [6]. Another was
Bernard Barker [7]. A third was Carlos Prio Socarras [8].
Richard Bissell, Richard Helms and Allen Dulles were the three
higher level men in the PCG.
Nixon's cronies and financial partners became involved with
the PCG. They murdered John Kennedy [9].
Whether Nixon was directly involved in the PCG's planning
for the assassination is still open to question, although one
researcher believes that he was [10]. There certainly is
substantial evidence that Nixon was out to at least politically
sink Kennedy and Johnson, and aimed to do so in Dallas
immediately before Kennedy was killed [11].
Whether Nixon was directly involved in planning the
assassination of President John F. Kennedy does not have to be
settled here.
What is important is that Nixon was directly involved in
covering up the truth about who did kill Kennedy. Evidence from
the Nixon-Haldeman tapes of June 1972 indicated that Nixon knew
the truth about the assassination when he suggested Gerald Ford
be part of the Warren Commission [12].
A close personal friendship had developed between Ford and
Nixon during their days together in the Congress, when both were
strong, ultra-conservative, "red, white and blue",
anti-Communist, "religious" members who thought and talked alike.
When Nixon realized that John Kennedy had been killed almost
under his nose in Dallas by some of his Bay of Pigs friends, the
PCG convinced him he had to do everything in his power to cover
it up and to bide his time until his powerful military and
intelligence friends could place him in the White House.
It took one more murder by the PCG (Robert Kennedy) to get
him there, and still another attempted murder to keep him there
(George Wallace).
Control over the investigations of these murders was
essential for Nixon and the PCG. In order to guide a
presidential commission away from the truth, the small closed
circle of people in the PCG who knew what had happened to John
Kennedy had to be enlarged.
Allen Dulles was no problem. He knew the cause was an
intelligence/military one from the day it happened.
Earl Warren was a different matter. He had to be fooled and
later talked into remaining silent "for the good of the country."
A ringleader inside the Warren Commission was crucial. It
had to be someone the PCG and Nixon could trust, one who had an
honest and trustworthy appearance.
Nixon called on Gerry Ford, and he convinced LBJ that Ford
should be on the Commission [13].
Nixon told Ford at some point prior to January, 1964 who
killed JFK and why. He convinced Ford that every effort should
be made to make sure Oswald was found to be the lone assassin.
Ford did an excellent job. He not only steered the Commission
away from the facts [14] whenever a key witness was interviewed
or an embarrassing situation developed, but he also nailed
Oswald's coffin shut personally by publishing his own book on
Oswald [15]. This, coming from the chairman of the House Armed
Services Committee, served to firmly plant in the American mind
the idea that there was no conspiracy, Oswald was the lone
assassin, and the Warren Commission had done a good job.
From the day Ford's book was published, Nixon and Ford
became totally beholden to each other. They also both became
totally beholden to the members of the PCG who were at or near
the top of things and who were part of the small knowledgeable
circle. Other members of the PCG's inner circle included J.
Edgar Hoover and Richard Helms.
No one could be permitted by the PCG to come into power
in the White House, the CIA, the Justice Department or the FBI
unless they were part of the PCG and willing to keep quiet and
help suppress the truth about the JFK assassination.
The PCG's membership widened, of necessity, when Robert
Kennedy was killed and Nixon became president. The people
involved in killing Robert Kennedy and Nixon's top aides had to
be told the truth. This included Haldeman, Ehrlichman,
Kissinger, Mitchell (who had the job of controlling Hoover's
successors in continuing the cover-ups) and possibly others.
Mitchell was instrumental in stopping Jim Garrison's
investigation of Clay Shaw and other PCG members and in totally
discrediting Garrison [16]. He was aided by Richard Helms and
others in the PCG through CIA support in the Clay Shaw trial
cover-up efforts [17].
The White House plumber section of the PCG decided in 1972,
with or without Nixon's knowledge and approval, to assassinate
George Wallace, so that Nixon would be assured of the
conservative vote.
The PCG grew again -- and along with it its debts. E.
Howard Hunt and Charles Colson, along with Tony Ulasewicz, Donald
Segretti and others, were in a position to make demands in
exchange for their silence. The Hunt million-dollar blackmail
threat to reveal "seedy things" or "hanky-panky" was never
explainable in terms of Watergate or the Ellsberg break-ins. But
three assassinations would certainly be worth a cool million to
keep Hunt silent. Again, the Haldeman-Nixon June 23, 1972 tapes
are revealing [18].
When the Watergate crisis occurred, Nixon was trapped by
his own tapes, and the PCG was in grave danger. Discussions with
Haldeman, Mitchell and others mention the Kennedy assassination
conspiracy and the Wallace murder attempt on tape. The PCG was
suddenly threatened as a group. The tapes couldn't all be
destroyed because too many Secret Service people knew about them.
Haldeman and Nixon managed to erase one revealing 18 1/2 minute
section about the assassinations, but who could remember exactly
what telephone calls or Oval Office conversations might have
mentioned the truth about the three murders?
The PCG and Nixon again sensed the need for a successor who
would keep quiet. When Agnew was forced out, they called on
Gerry Ford. Ford and Nixon, bound inextricably together by their
mutual cover-up of the assassinations, worked out a deal. Nixon
nominated Ford to be his Vice President. The Senate, completely
bamboozled by Nixon and Ford, never asked Ford any important
questions about the assassinations, nor about his performance on
the Warren Commission. When they asked Ford about his book, he
committed perjury twice before the Senate (see item # 15 in the
list ennumerated below).
Nixon and Ford agreed that Ford would keep quiet if Nixon
remained silent and that Ford would succeed Nixon if he were
forced to resign or be impeached. They agreed to a pardon
afterward.
But the most critical part of the arrangement was that those
tapes revealing the truth about the assassinations be kept out of
circulation. When the Supreme Court ruled that the tapes must be
turned over, it was then time to implement their agreed-upon
strategy.
In addition, Jaworski, Colson, Mitchell, Kissinger,
Haldeman, Ehrlichman, the Warren Commission, Hunt, Helms, Shaw
and anyone else in the PCG had to be bought off, pardoned,
protected or killed to insure their silences.
Leon Jaworski resigned. People asked why. The real answer
was buried in the fact that Jaworski knew what had been going on.
He knew because of information passed on to him by the Ervin
Committee and Cox regarding the assassination and the cover-up.
He was also personally involved in 1964 in the JFK cover-up.
Jaworski could have been a problem, even though he helped
with the JFK cover-up from the beginning [19].
Hunt was taken care of by getting him out of jail, buying
him a large estate in Florida and paying him a lot of money [20].
Helms could be counted on.
Kissinger may have been a problem, but he finally agreed.
His wiretaps were ordered to find out who still knew about the
assassinations.
Hoover was dead. Clay Shaw was murdered [21]. Warren was
dead. Richard Russell was dead. John Sherman Cooper was bought
off (he received an important ambassadorship). John J. McCloy
was too old to worry about.
Apart from some small fry, that left Colson, Mitchell,
Haldeman, and Ehrlichman.
The PCG strategy as planned with these men involved pardons
for all of them in exchange for their silence, especially
Haldeman and Mitchell, who not only knew what happened to JFK,
but who also took overt actions to cover-up. (Haldeman
erased the 18 1/2 minutes and Mitchell nailed Jim Garrison.)
Newer members of the PCG may cause some problems. They
all have to know the truth by now.
Rockefeller and Alex Haig must know.
George Bush, William Colby, Edward Levi and Clarence Kelly
knew because of their access to the records, and they must have
agreed to cover-up continuance.
Ford and his cronies in the House had to continue to knock
out any efforts by Henry B. Gonzalez of Texas to start a new
House Committee investigation of the JFK assassination. They
were very successful in their control of the House Rules
Committee.
Haig seemed to have been bought off with the promise of a
top NATO post in exchange for his silence.
And control over Frank Church and the Senate Intelligence
Committee was necessary.
Gerald Ford remained committed to the PCG and to Nixon.
The tapes had to be controlled and edited at all costs.
Nixon no doubt required help in listening to the tapes after
Haldeman left and in sorting out those in which assassinations
and cover-ups were discussed. General Haig was undoubtedly the
man he selected to do the dirty work. It was almost certain
that no tapes would be turned over to Judge Sirica or to
Jaworski with any assassination references left on them.
One of the tapes demanded by Jaworski had such references.
This is the recording made on June 23, 1972 in which Nixon and
Haldeman discuss Watergate just six days after the break-in.
The Nixon transcript of that tape turned over to Judge
Sirica upon orders of the Supreme Court showed many sections
labelled "unintelligible." It is a near certainty that the
critical sections were edited out by Nixon and General Haig
before they were turned over to Sirica and prior to their
transcription. Judge Sirica was the only person in the chain of
possession of that tape who could have been counted on to make a
scientific analysis of the tape to see whether it was tampered
with before he received it.
Sirica's near brush with death in 1975 must be viewed in
that light and in the light of the PCG's use of weapon-induced
heart attacks.
The rest of Nixon's tapes that were still in Gerald Ford's
possession and control might have contained many references to
assassinations and cover-ups. Rather than go through all of them
and edit or erase the critical material, it was more likely that
Ford would either turn them over to Nixon for total destruction
or sit on them as long as he was president.
The evidence for the Power Control Group's and Ford/Nixon's
strategy is as follows:
*Nixon was White House action officer on Cuban invasion
plans in 1960.
*Nixon was in contact with Hunt and others during the Bay of
Pigs planning.
*Nixon lied to the American people by his own admission
about the Bay of Pigs during his TV debates with Kennedy in 1960.
*Nixon was financially linked to the Mafia and to Cuban
casino operations before Castro took over.
*Nixon was acquainted with Hunt, Baker, Martinez, Sturgis,
Carlos Prio Socarras, and other Watergate people and anti-Castro
people in Florida, and he was financially linked to Baker,
Martinez and Socarras.
*Hunt, Baker, Sturgis and Socarras were connected with the
assassination group in the murder of JFK.
*Nixon was in Dallas for three days, including the morning
of the JFK assassination, trying to stir up trouble for Kennedy.
*Nixon went to Dallas under false pretenses. There was no
board meeting of the Pepsi Cola Company as he announced his law
firm had had to attend.
*Nixon did not admit being in Dallas on the day Kennedy was
shot and did not reveal the true reason for his trip. He held
two press conferences on the two days before the assassination,
attacking both Kennedy and Johnson and emphasizing the Democratic
political problems in Texas.
*Research indicates that Nixon either knew in advance about
assassination plans, or learned about them soon after the
assassination.
*Nixon proposed to Lyndon Johnson that Gerald Ford serve on
the Warren Commission.
*Ford led the Commission cover-up by controlling the
questioning of key witnesses and by several other means.
*Ford helped firmly plant the idea that Oswald was the only
assassin and that there was no conspiracy by publishing his own
book, "Lee Harvey Oswald: Portrait of the Assassin."
*Ford purposefully covered up the conspiracy of the PCG in
the JFK assassination and also covered up the fact that Oswald
was a paid informer for the FBI. He did this by dismissing the
subject in his book as worthless rumor and by keeping the
executive sessions of the Commission (where Oswald's FBI informer
status was discussed) classified Top Secret.
*Ford continued the cover-up when he was questioned before
being confirmed by the Senate as Vice President. He lied under
oath twice to the Senate Committee. He stated that he had
written his book about Oswald with no access to classified
documents. He lied about this because his book used classified
documents about Oswald's FBI informer status. He lied when he
said that the book was entitled, "Lee Harvey Oswald: Portrait of
AN Assassin." This was significant in 1973 because the public by
then had become very skeptical about a lone assassin. By
changing one word in the title, Ford made the book seem a little
less like what it actually was -- an effort to make Oswald the
assassin.
*Jaworski aided in the JFK cover-up by sitting on evidence
of conspiracy accumulated by Waggoner Carr, Texas Attorney
General, who he represented in liaison with the Warren
Commission. He also stopped the critical testimony of Jack Ruby
when he testified before the Warren Commission, and diverted
attention away from Ruby's intent to reveal the conspiracy to
kill both Kennedy and Oswald.
*Nixon became president in 1968 only because Robert Kennedy
was killed by a conspiracy. Nixon was well aware of the
conspiracy whether or not he approved of it in advance.
*John Mitchell and J. Edgar Hoover joined Nixon and the
lower level members of the PCG in covering up the RFK murder
conspiracy. They classified the evidence "Top Secret" and
murdered several witnesses, controlled the judge in the Sirhan
trial and the district attorney and the chief of police in Los
Angeles during and after the trial. They still control these
people and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. Clarence
Kelly also became involved.
*The plumbers group ordered the assassination of George
Wallace in 1972 to insure Nixon's election by picking up
Wallace's vote (about 18%, according to polls).
*J. Edgar Hoover and Richard Helms were aware of who killed
John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy. They helped cover-up both
conspiracies.
*John Mitchell controlled the trial of Clay Shaw and the
Garrison investigation and discredited Garrison by framing him in
a New Orleans gambling case.
*Nixon and Haldeman discussed the assassination of John
Kennedy, the conspiracy, Hunt's involvement, the possibility that
Hunt might talk, the cover-up, the Bay of Pigs relationship
between Nixon, Hunt and the other PCG members, and the briefing
Nixon might have had to give anyone running against him in 1972,
on matters of "national security".
*Nixon and Mitchell discussed the assassinations and the
attempt to assassinate George Wallace. Mitchell executed orders
to suppress the truth about these events.
*Gerald Ford had possession of the most critical tapes on
which assassinations and cover-ups were discussed.
*Jaworski could be counted on to keep the assassination
material under wraps even after his resignation. He was aware of
the conspiracy evidence and cover-up in all three cases (JFK,
RFK, George Wallace).
*Hunt was taken care of and will keep silent. He had been
out of jail and living on a beautiful $100,000 estate in Florida
with plenty of money, across the street from his Bay of Pigs
friend, Manuel Artime.
*Clay Shaw was murdered by the PCG, undoubtedly to keep him
from talking once the truth about his CIA position was revealed
by Victor Marchetti. He was embalmed before the coroner could
determine the cause of death. Evidence indicates he was killed
somewhere and then brought back to his apartment.
*Hale Boggs, a Warren, Commission member, was possibly
killed by the PCG. Bogg's airplane disappeared in Alaska. No
trace of it was ever found and no explanation of how the plane
could have crashed has ever been given. Mrs. Boggs has expressed
doubts about it being an accident.
*Four of the seven Warren Commission members are dead:
Warren, Dulles, Russell and Boggs. Of the remaining members,
Ford was President, John McCloy is retired and living in
Connecticut, and John Sherman Cooper was made ambassador to East
Germany.
*Richard Russell, Hale Boggs and Cooper believed there was a
conspiracy in the JFK assassination. Russell and Boggs both said
so publicly.
*Haldeman erased 18 1/2 minutes of a taped discussion with
Nixon. This tape undoubtedly contained "national security"
matters. The fact that Haldeman did the erasing can easily be
determined by tracing the trail of possession of the tape from
the day it was taken out of the vault to the day the gap was
discovered. Haldeman had the tape with the recorder alone for
nearly 48 hours. No one else had the tape alone long enough to
do the erasing.
*Ford and the PCG contemplated pardons for Mitchell,
Haldeman, Ehrlichman and possibly others who know the number one
secret.
*Ford's statements to the sub-committee of the House
Judiciary Committee concerning his pardon of Nixon dodged the
real issue. Only Elizabeth Holtzman asked questions coming close
to the number one secret. When she asked about a prior
agreement, Ford said, "I have made no deal, there was no deal,
SINCE I became Vice President." Those last few "lawyerese" words
were not reported by the press, but a large number of Americans
watched and heard him say them. Of course he spoke truthfully,
because the "deal" was made BEFORE he became Vice President.
____________________________
[1] Evans & Novak column -- September 12. 1974.
[2] Paris Herald Tribune -- September 12, 1974.
[3] "Compulsive Spy," Tad Szulc, Viking Press, 1974.
[4] "Nixon and the Mafia," Jeff Gerth, Sundance, December, 1972.
[5] "My Six Crises," Richard M. Nixon.
[6] "Compulsive Spy."
[7] "Nixon and the Mafia."
[8] "Nixon, Bay of Pigs & Watergate," -- R.E. Sprague, Computers
and Automation, January, 1973.
[9] "Nixon, Bay of Pigs & Watergate."
[10] Trowbridge Ford, Holy Cross College, Boston, MA, Several
papers and articles.
[11] Warren Commission Hearings & Exhibits -- Vol. 23, Pages
941-943.
[12] Nixon Transcript of June 23 1972 tape -- New York Times,
August 6, 1974.
[13] Trowbridge Ford -- Article on Gerald Ford & Warren
Commission.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Gerald Ford, "Lee Harvey Oswald: Portrait of the Assassin."
[16] "The Framing of Jim Garrison", R.E. Sprague, Computers and
Automation, December, 1973.
[17] "The CIA and the Kennedy Assassination" -- Unpublished
article by R.E. Sprague.
[18] Nixon tape, June 23, 1972.
[19] Warren Commission Exhibits -- Testimony of Jack Ruby, Vol.
V, Pages 181-213 and Vol. XIV, pages 504-571. Also Trowbridge
Ford article on Jaworski.
[20] Washington Watch and Triss Coffin newsletter, Aug 10, 1974.
[21] Zodiac News Service release -- August 20, 1974.
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