F-g SrChronicie 2 De c 966

Merry-Go-Round That Wiretapping, Red-Faced FBI Drew Pearson Today's column is by Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson HE FBI. it has now been revealed, pects of Joaquin Balaguer 'then provision- T has been tapping the wires of the al president. becoming permanent presi- Dominican Embassy. dent. A foreign embassy in the United States Balaguer resumed the presidency this is extraterritorial ground with privileges year after defeating leftwing candidate reserved to that country only. The United Juan Bosch in the post-revolution election. States may not intrude on embassy terri- It w o n 't help Dominican-American tory. even if murder is committed inside. relations for Balaguer now to discover The state department therefore is very that his embassy phones were tapped the red-faced to find that the FEI.placed taps last time he beaded the Domican owthe wires of the Dominican embassy in government. 1961 shortly after the assassination of * * * dictator Rafael Trujillo. TT ISN'T known how long the FBI con- * * * tinued to monitor the embassy's phones. HIS WAS disclosed as a result of the however, FBI, agents were listening in on T Justice Department's prosecution of the conversations of prominent Bobby Baker, the form er senate Dominicans as late as this year. secretary, some of whose conversations The FBI tapped the phones of another were bugged and wire tapped. As a result Bobby Baker intimate, Jose Benitez, in of this FBI eavesdropping it may be that Puerto Rico, while Juan Bosch lived in the Baker indictments will be thrown out Benitez's apartment. The FBI wanted to of court. know what Bosch was saying during the The justice department, in admitting civil strife in the Dominican Republic. On that some of Baker's conversations had one occasion he received a phone call been wire tapped and bugged, submitted from Santo Domingo reporting that one of conversations he had had with the Domin- the rebel leaders had been shot. ican e m b a s s y. He had placed several "See that he is shot in the back and phone calls to the embassy around May then announce to the press that the 1961, usually speaking to the financial Americans shot him," Bosch ordered over counselor Oscar Ginebha, about the pros- the phone. 194(.)

SFChronicle 3 Dec. 1966 • Why FBI Bugged Dominican Embassy

Washington senate democratic majority, The FBI has been eaves- who has been indicted on dropping on the Domini- charges of tax evasion. His can Embassy in Washing- attorney has asked the in- ton with electronic devices dictment be dismissed on the ever since the 1950s, it ground that evidence submit- was learned yesterday. ted to the grand jury was illegally obtained by elec- According to informed offi- tronic eavesdropping. cia] sources, the eavesdrop- Independent . investigation ping has been an "off-and-on disclosed that the impounded affair" and it was always un- conversations dertaken in connection with a of Baker had. been with officials of the Do- 'specific event that was minican Embassy, and that deemed to involve the nation- they had been obtained : al security of the United through an FBI "bug" on the States. embassy. This information became Informed sources said it known as a result of the six was "relatively r a r e" that I days of pre-trial hearings the FBI would eavesdrop on last month of Robert G. Bak- an embassy. er, former secretary to the New York Times