BLUMENTHAL: Learning the chief lesson of Watergate - muzzle the press

[BigBearJohn]

Bush's imperial project has succeeded by learning the chief lesson of Watergate - muzzle the press.

Sidney Blumenthal
Thursday June 9, 2005
The Guardian

The unveiling of the identity of Deep Throat - Mark Felt, the former deputy director of the FBI - seemed affirm the story of Watergate as the triumph of the lone journalist supported from the shadows by a magically appearing secret source. Shazam! The outlines of the fuller story we now know, thanks not only to Felt's selfunmasking but to disclosures the Albany Times Union of upstate New York, unreported so far by any major outlet. Felt was not working as "a disgruntled maverick ... but rather as the leader of a clandestine group" of three other high-level agents to control the story by collecting intelligence and leaking it. For more than 30 years the secrecy around Deep Throat diverted attention to who Deep Throat was rather than what Deep Throat was - a covertFBI operation in which Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward was almost certainly an unwitting asset.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1502532,00.html

[EVDebs]

1. Or maybe Woodward was a witting asset of "intelligence"

"What's missing is an understanding of Deep Throat, Woodward's garage-lurking source who guided the reporters to some of their biggest leads. If he was just a concerned citizen, great. But if Deep Throat had his own agenda, then he used the Washington Post to shape the story for his own purposes and got away clean.

"I have told Woodward everything I know about the Watergate case, except the Mullen Company's tie to the CIA."--Robert F. Bennett, testifying before House Special Committee on Intelligence, July 2, 1974.

Robert Bennett was the head of Robert R. Mullen and Co., a CIA front headquartered in the very same building as the CIA's Domestic Operations Division."

www.metroactive.com/papers/ sonoma/07.03.97/scoop-9727.html

Let's see, Woodward has a naval intelligence background
www.webcom.com/ctka/pr196-woodward.html

Ben Bradlee has a naval intelligence background ("Benjamin Bradlee was born in Boston on 26th August, 1921. One of his closest friends as a child was Richard Helms..."
www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKbradleeB.htm );

Alexander Butterfield (discloser of the taping system) has an intelligence background- p. 59 Crimes of Patriots by Jonathan Kwitny

...Finally, the entire crew of Watergate burglars have CIA backgrounds.

You'd think the 'intelligence community' wanted Nixon out of office. This especially after finding out about the Moorer-Radford military spy ring. But the M$M won't go into ANY of this.

The "why" of Watergate is one of the 5 "W's" journalists don't want to go into. Wonder why.

[MarianJack]

2. All of This is True,...

...and I will add that the press was only muzzled because it was willing to be!

[EVDebs]

3. Weird. Ben Bradlee supported the Vietnam War, was friends with

CIA director Helms.

"(Katherine) Graham was pleased with the way Bradlee edited the Washington Post and in 1968 she appointed him vice president of the company. Bradlee became a strong supporter of the Vietnam War. This was reflected in the journalists he selected to report on the conflict." http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKbradleeB.htm

Richard Helms and uber-hawk Ambassador Graham A. Martin, whose foster son Glenn Dill Mann was KIA in Vietnam Nov 1965 (while Martin was amb. to Thailand appointed by JFK). Later Nixon appoints Martin amb to Italy in 1969, and then So.Vietnam in 1973.

Bradlee mentions Martin in his bio. Martin is very strange. The drug connections thru Thailand, heck Wild Bill Donovan was an amb to Thailand in 1953 or so, and Italy - after Nixon bought down the Turkish heroin crop so that the Golden Triangle could 'take off'- are readily apparent to anyone with eyes.

Helms the 'man who kept the secrets' apparently had much to hide. With Colby holding down the fort while the dirty laundry was being aired during the aftermath of Watergate, you have to ask yourself, "What the hell else was this outfit up to ?"

I happen to think the CIA's role in Watergate has for TOO LONG been hidden. A coup d'etat then was appreciated. Just think how much more it would be TODAY ! But M$M can't bring themselves to fully investigate, now, can they ?