Halfway through "Family of Secrets" by Russ BAKER. Spoilers.

[UTUSN]

It punches up the familiar ground, taking things up a notch in assigning RESPONSIBILITY to Poppy for his ditching the plane and getting crew members killed and to Shrub for being A.W.O.L---that is, directly saying these things, rather than how Kitty KELLEY was browbeaten (I'm guessing by the B.F.E.E. through her publisher and the media) into pulling her punches and just hinting at things but not drawing the conclusions.

He puts Poppy (and CALLS him Poppy throughout) always NEAR events, just barely offstage, like the KENNEDY assassination and Watergate, and draws the most incredible network of interlocking CIA/Skull'n'Bones characters, HUNDREDS of names and industry/company fronts.

It's turning out to be a premise that the CIA brought down JFK and NIXON, that NIXON was less a perpetrator than a victim, and basically that just about everybody involved in the hundreds of names had either direct CIA resumes or connections to such others.

We knew about WOODWARD's Naval Intelligence past, but here he is even more closely linked into a CIA operative status. And the guessing game about Deep Throat is seen as a diversion by WOODWARD, with FELT as a stand-in for a composite.

The other biggests hits are at Leon JAWORSKI and John DEAN. And those who strutted the stage in a flash, like Lowell WEICKER, turn out to be played for stooges by the bigger forces in the background.

And the over-arching theme is Poppy's always barely-there, seemingly able to stay "out of the loop" but with tentacles into and around all of the players.

Hmmm. I don't know. But I'm grateful for the B.F.E.E. exposures. With John DEAN being such a force on Keith's show, I suspect he will be putting the kibosh on this author's getting much air time on MSNBC, which doesn't leave much room anywhere else.

[hlthe2b]

1. Can you expand a bit on what is said about John Dean?

Curious minds want to know and I'm bogged down with too much work reading to read the book anytime soon. ;)

[UTUSN]

2. That DEAN was a total, ACTIVE perpetrator in the whole deal and looped NIXON into taking

the brunt, that NIXON was more of a victim than the perpetrator. He also says DEAN was hostile to being interviewed, got off lightly serving less than 4 months then raking in millions with book deals and investment banking and controlling (along with WOODWARD, separately) the Watergate story line.

[hlthe2b]

5. I'll definitely want to read it...

Instinctively, this doesn't mesh for me re: Dean, but I admittedly could be biased by his political conversion and strong efforts to take on/expose the Bush administration. :shrug:

As for Bob Woodward and Deep Throat as a diversion, that would not surprise me in the least. I'd love to get Carl Bernstein in a room with his most trusted friends/colleagues and hear what he has to say.

Is Bernstein discussed in this context in the book?

[UTUSN]

7. BERNSTEIN is discussed and quoted, but generally not cast in the WOODWARD accessory light

BERNSTEIN is depicted as a sidekick, straight reporter. He says both of them were very young, this was their first big assignment, even questions WHY they got the assignment, mostly because WOODWARD was "always there," was working the police beat all night, living a few blocks away, then back at work after a few hours sleep, so he was there when the story was being assigned. Plus, that "All the President's Men" as a BOOK was Robert REDFORD's idea, that it would give credibility to a movie if a book came out first.

[chimpymustgo]

16. Oh my. My copy will arrive Tuesday. Can't wait. Thanks for the teases!

[formercia]

8. Silent Coup

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Coup

This book goes into Dean's and Woodward's roles in some detail.

It amazes me that Dean has any credibility at all.

[UTUSN]

10. Yip, he lists (p. 203) three books concluding NIXON was set up:

"That Nixon could actually have been the victim of Watergate, and not the perpetrator, will not sit well with many, especially those with a professional stake in Nixon's guilt. Yet three of the most thoroughly reported books on Watergate from the past three decades have come to the same conclusion: that Nixon and/or his top aides were indeed set up. Each of these books takes a completeletely different approach, focuses on different aspects, and relies on essentially different sets of facts and sources. These are 1984's Secret Agenda, by former Harper's magazine Washington editor Jim Hougan; 1991's Silent Coup, by Len Colodny and Robert Gettlin; and 2008's The Strong Man, by James Rosen. .... Rosen asserts that the Watergate operation was authorized behind Mitchell's back by his subordinate Jeb Magruder and by John Dean and was deliberately sabotaged in its execution by burglar and former CIA officer James McCord."

[PDJane]

3. Does he talk about Lawrence King......

And that whole mess, and the possibility of poppy being quite in on the shenanigans?

[UTUSN]

6. Nope. I'm up to p. 301 and nothing listed in the Index. n/t

[PDJane]

11. I'm sorry to hear that.

[Festivito]

23. Gotta leave something for the sequel. /nt

[pilsner]

4. You should next read "Legacy of Secrets"

by Lamar Waldron and Thom Hartmann. Waldron was recently on Thom's show for a full hour. Extremely fascinating stuff.

Grab podcast here:

http://www.620kpoj.com/cc-common/podcast/single_podcast.html?podcast=hartmann_nationwide.xml

It's HOUR 2 of the 1/2/09 show.

[rhett o rick]

13. Correction: "Legacy of Secrecy".

www.legacyofsecrecy.com

[bluesmail]

9. Just knowing John Dean was in the Nixon adm raised red flags.

He is good. Does what he's told to do. Seems sincere these days. Wonder how KO will handle the situation.

[rhett o rick]

12. In "Ulitmate Sacrifice", Hartmann believes that the CIA was involved only

by being "friends" of the Mafia. He argues that the Mafia was responsible. "The assassination, say the authors, was carried out by hired gunmen on the orders of three noted Mafia dons whose lives were being made miserable by RFK's ruthless pursuit—and these Mafia men knew about the planned invasion because they had worked with the CIA on previous efforts to topple Castro. Oswald, long a hidden CIA agent, was set up as the patsy, and it had always been Jack Ruby's job to eliminate him if he wasn't killed at the scene of Kennedy's shooting." And the CIA was aware, at least after the fact, but couldn't do anything because of their involvement with the Mafia.

[bertman]

14. I haven't read "Ultimate Sacrifice" or "Legacy of Secrecy" but it sounds like Hartmann

is following the same tack as John Davis in "Mafia Kingfish: Carlos Marcello and the Assassination of John F. Kennedy". That book is an excellent read and also tracks to Robert Kennedy's assassination in a hotel that was owned by the same mob guys as helped assassinate JFK.

Isn't it funny how it all keeps going back to one group of America's elite: Skull and Crossbones? The children of the aristocracy receiving five-star educations, induction, and indoctrination at our finest institutions.

Look at two of the players, George W. Bush and John Kerry, both Skull and Crossbones members. Ever wonder why Kerry conceded so quickly and without a fight in '04? I do.

[rhett o rick]

15. Waldron and Hartmann also tie in MLK's assassination and Watergate. nm

[Hannah Bell]

17. "bones" not "crossbones"

[bertman]

21. Thanks, Hannah.

[Hannah Bell]

18. I've believed Nixon was purposefully taken down for the last 20 years.

Compare his supposed "watergate" crimes to those of the present occupant.

[book_worm]

19. hasn't it always been assumed that Nixon didn't authorize the watergate break-in and that his crime

was by trying to cover it up?

[pilsner]

20. Nixon's mob ties

Waldron and Hartmann claim that the Watergate break-ins were done in order to steal any papers the Dems might have showing just how closely tied Nixon had been to the mob particularly when he was VP.

[1monster]

22. It's been a lot of years since I read SILENT COUP... by Len Colodny and Robert Gettlin, so my

memory on it is hazy, but that book also suggested that Richard Nixon was the victim of Watergate, not the culprit and that John Dean was a main character in leading Nixon down the wrong path.

I'll have to reread it, but, while plausible, it didn't completely convince me...

Maybe it was six of one and a half dozen of the other.