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Watergate: Minor Part of a Far Bigger Picture

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Watergate: Minor Part of a Far Bigger Picture Watergate: Minor Part of ( Editor's note: Was Watergate simply a weird outgrowth of some poor Monday, staff work, of a so-called "dirty tricks" mentality? In the following series excerpted from the forthcoming issue of Rolling Stone magazine, Associate Editor Howard Kohn details a chilling a Far Bigger and awesome tapestry of events going hack to the 1930's that make the Watergate burglary, coverup and ensuing revelations minor scenes in a May 3,1976 Gainesville Sun 7D far bigger picture. A compelling and fascinating account which may well turn out to be one of the most important pieces of investigative journalism of the year.) Picture By HOWARD KOHN From Rolling Stone President Nixon's immediate answer to news of the Watergate burglary arrests was simple: The CIA, he told 50-year sentence. Other leaders in the agents. Haldeman (as recorded by the White blood-oath Sicilian fraternity still The men in this circle were from House tapes) would close off the considered the Jewish Lansky an well-bred, well-educated backgrounds investigation because "if it gets out outsider and, without Luciano around, with connections at the highest levels of that this is all involved, the Cuba thing balked at his innovations. government and finance. Allen Dulles, would be a fiasco it would make the Lansky saw the Naval Intelligence a former topranking OSS official, and CIA look bad and it is likely to blow deal as a chance to improve his position Gov. Dewey were two of their leaders the whole Bay of Pigs thing..." among the ruling lords of organized both Wall Street lawyers, both on the Watergate, the Bay of Pigs, indeed a crime by opening prison gates for the opposite side of New York from Lansky change of government in the Bahamas don of dons. Lansky persuaded and Luciano, both expecting top. and a paint company going into real Luciano, still the power although positions in Washington. One of their estate and gambling all were woven operating from a prison cell, to have mentors was Dulles's brother, John together, all rooted in a World War II Mafia henchmen patrol the waterfront. Foster. alliance. In turn, Luciano was to be set free. World War II had turned the U.S. into The year was 1942. The U.S. had just As New York City's Mafia-fighting the world's most powerful nation. entered the war. The Department of special prosecutor, Thomas Dewey Dewey, the Dulles brothers and others War was worried that Nazi saboteurs catapulted to the governor's chair by had formed their circle in secret were infiltrating the docks and putting Luciano behind bars. But Gov. because they saw themselves as loyal shipyards along the East Coast. Dewey now agreed to the deal and and pragmatic Americans with a duty Already the Normandie, being transferred Luciano from Dannemora to help shape the country's new converted to a troopship, had burned State Prison, known as "Siberia," to international role. Their project was to and sunk in her Manhattan berth. gentlemen's quarters at a prison near resurrect the OSS. Then a Navy officer suggested Albany. Then shortly after V-E day he No country could stay on top, they seeking help from the Mafia because of signed the parole papers. believed, without a powerful and its influence in the dockworkers' By then the Mafia had developed a independent intelligence agency. Allen unions. In short order Naval working friendship with the Office of Dulles championed this idea among his Intelligence struck a bargain with Strategic Services (OSS), the country's contacts at the Pentagon and in the Meyer Lansky, top aide to the don of first autonomous intelligence agency, Truman administration. Truman dons, Lucky Luciano. set up to oversee all wartime appointed Dulles to head a Back in 1931 Luciano's hitmen had espionage. The OSS-Mafia deal, known three-member commission to study the carried out a bloody purge of the as Operation Underworld, included U.S. intelligence system. Dewey and Mafia's old guard to clear the way for gangland assistance for allied armies others in the circle lobbied Congress. his takeover. Then Luciano employed when they landed in Sicily. In July 1947, Congress passed the Lansky to modernize the Mafia's But at the war's end in 1945 the OSS National Security Act. Truman signed ingrown family structure. But in 1936 was disbanded, a move that dismayed it, as Dulles and Dewey had Luciano had been sent to prison with a both the Mafia and a circle of recom m ended, thereby creating the businessmen, politicians and espionage Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as a successor to the OSS. The CIA was charged with protecting found their re-election problems eased America by whatever means — contributions, volunteers, necessary. The Cold War had started. endorsements — and their staffs Communists were the new enemies. peopled with bright young assistants The Communist spread across the introduced by members of the circle. globe was to be stopped. To the Most favors went to young Dewey-Dulles circle, some of whose congressmen with a promising future, members became key CIA officials, politicians who some day might be Capitol Hill leaders wad White House aspirants. that meant theCIA was to be the patron Richard Nixon, a member of the of U.S. multinational companies which House of Representatives, was one had set up in undeveloped countries. recipient. In 1947 Dewey had recruited The OSS's old partner, the Mafia, Nixon's vote to help establish the CIA. was among the leading multinational Dewey liked Nixon's amoral corporations that emerged in the late pragmatism and his fierce Forties. Lansky's moxie in freeing anti-Communism. Luciano had impressed the Sicilian dons. Lansky also had outwitted So in 1948, when Dewey saw a chance Luciano, who was deported to Sicily to embarrass Truman, to bolster the immediately upon his release. But, House Un-American Activities with Luciano's unreserved blessing, Committee (which Truman wanted to Lansky took charge of domestic abolish) and to boost Nixon's career operations and finished the job the two without publicly involving himself, he had started a decade before. Lansky leaked secret CIA information on Alger merged the Mafia's rival gangs into a Hiss to Nixon. conglomerate known as the The Hiss case gave Nixon a national International Crime Syndicate, a reputation. In 1950 he ran for the Senate network that Lansky estimated was against the popular Helen Douglas, "bigger than U.S. Steel," and which he calling her the " Pink Lady." immersed in banking, real estate. According to CIA sources, most of the tourism and gambling. information used by the Nixon At the same time, the exiled Luciano campaign to label Douglas a expanded the Syndicate's overseas Communist came from secret CIA connections. When Communist strikers files. H e won easily. shut down the French Port of In 1952, after only six years in Marseilles in 1947 and threatened to politics, Richard Nixon became ruin American shipping, the CIA called Vice-President. His nomination was on Luciano. He furnished hitmen while shepherded through by Dewey. Having the CIA supplied money and weapons. abandoned his own presidential After several murders the docks ambitions, Dewey threw his support to reopened for American shippers and Dwight Eisenhower. Then, at Dewey's also for the Syndicate's heroin request, Eisenhower picked Nixon as smugglers. his running mate. Like the OSS, the CIA did not shrink Immediately after the election Allen from making deals with the Syndicate Dulles was promoted to the CIA to preserve U.S. interests. Under the directorship and his brother was CIA's charter, such arrangements named Secretary of State. were legal. With Nixon as Vice-President and Dewey and Allen Dulles also realized Dulles as CIA Director, the Justice the CIA needed to safeguard its own Department in 1953 decided not to political base to avoid potential power prosecute Lansky even though the IRS struggles in Washington, an analysis intelligence division found he was that carried the Agency into a evading taxes, and in 1957 the Justice clandestine role in American electoral Department failed to carry through on politics. an attempt by immigration authorities What most concerned the CIA was to deport him. the ephemeral mood on Capitol Hill. Throughout the Fifties the careers of What the CIA wanted from Congress, Richard Nixon, Meyer Lansky and aside from appropriations money, was Allen Dulles prospered. But then the to be left alone_ In the opinion of the affairs of a little island in the Dulles-Dewey circle, Congress posed Caribbean changed that and the greatest danger to CIA autonomy. inextricably bound up the collective As a hedge against any difficulties, the fortunes of the CIA, the Syndicate and circle began to collect Congressional the White House. goodwill for the CIA. Congressmen Lansky first visited Cuba in the fall of . _ . Strange Bedfellows (AP Wire Photo to the Sun) KENNEDY ASSASSIN OSWALD IS GUNNED DOWN BY JACK RUBY IN 1963 Ruby's Syndicate Connections Dated Back to Frank Nitti's Days leading CIA contractor, a position that 1933 and befriended Fulgenaa Batista, shielded him from federal prosecution an ex-army sergeant who had just and Senate hearings. Like the CIA and ordained himself dictator. With Lansky, Hughes also understood "quid Batista's sanction, Lansky opened pro quo" and electoral politics. several new casinos, the genesis of the In early 1956, according to a former Mafia's international gambling Hughes aide, the tycoon furnished network. Nixon with a secret $100,000 to help the With World War II the tourists Vice-President fight a dump-Nixon stopped coming, Lansky shut down the move by fellow Republican Harold Cuban gambling spas, and Batista Stassen.
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