Loupeal Watergate
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On a wooded knoll near their home, author lack Anderson and seven of him under surveillance, hoping to discover his sources. The Anderson his children inspect the spot from which Justice Department agents kept youths retaliated by keeping a careful watch on the government agents. Gettings admitted afterward that it had been "suggested" he go after Smith. "We probably did have the wrong mari," acknowledged the prosecutor. In 1971, the President formed his pri- vate Plumbers Squad, including G. louPeal 111 Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt, to plug news leaks, among them my India- Pakistan columns. They concluded mis- takenly that the source was located on Henry Kissinger's staff. Innocent staff- ers were yanked from behind their Watergate desks and dragged to polygraph ma- chines, although it was the White by Jack Anderson House, not my sources, doing the lying about Pakistan. Eventually an entire sec- WASHINGTON, D.C. romantic spy, had packed his Water- began to investigate one another. I tion of Kissinger's staff was scattered f I had been a better reporter, I might gate papers in eight cardboard boxes, became aware in 1970 that he was around the world, and Adm. Robert have prevented the break-in at smuggled them out of the White House using lie detectors and grand jury sub- Welander who headed it was exiled to Washington's Watergate on June 17, and hidden them away in an associate's S-44" poenas in an effort to find out who my the Atlantic fleet. I 1972, and changed the course of basement in Alexandria, Va. I almost sources were. history. Two months before the Water- gained access to Hunt's hidden papers, Inside the Pentagon, suspected The Plumbers start working buggers were captured, I was told but he reclaimed them just ahead of sources were grilled behind the for- The Plumbers really went to work on about their plan to eavesdrop on the me. These contained dramatic docu- bidding doors of Room 3E993. Some me in March, 1972; after I published a Democrats. With a little more diligent mentation that would have bared the were followed and their neighbors memo from Dita Beard to her ITT su- digging, I might have uncovered whole Watergate skulduggery in time were questioned. Once, the gumshoes periors linking an antitrust settlement enough details to print the story. This for the voters to act. zeroed in on the wrong man, a mild, with a $400,000 pledge to help finance would have broken up the plot and bespectacled Pentagon aide named the Republican Convention. The Wash- spared President Nixon his current hu- Investigating each other Gene Smith, whoWas badgered, threat- ington Post reported that the White miliation. My own Watergate story began long ened and finally subpoenaed to appear House was "directing a major effort to Or I might have altered history more before the,name became a household before a grand jury in Norfolk, Va. discredit columnist Jack Anderson and to George McGovem's liking. I learned word. Shortly after President Nixon Smith denied under oath that he had the ITT memorandum he published ... last August that E. Howard Hunt, the moved into the White House, he and I ever talked to me. U.S Attorney Brian the effort includes feeding negative 4 PARADE • JULY 22, 1973 material about Anderson ... to Repub- against Fidel Castro. (My court appearance in Sturgis' be-. • Post, Bob Woodward and Carl Bern- lican members of the Senate and to the He introduced me in Miami to Ber- half also disturbed the Democrats. stein, got the story by hard leg work. press." nard Barker, short and swarthy, who After I printed details of Larry O'Brien's They printed the startling details of the At one point, Hunt tried to persuade was known to his associates as "Macho" expense accounts, the Democrats is- spying-sabotage operation behind the Dita Beard to repudiate her memo. He (he-man). They spoke of Eduardo, their stied a statement suggesting I had re- Watergate break-in. turned up in Denver at Dita's hospital CIA superior during the Bay of Pigs, ceived information stolen from their My search for documentation, mean- bedside under the name of Edward who I only recently realized was E. offices by the Waterbuggers. I had man- while, led me to the Hunt papers. While Hamilton, an alias he would also use at Howard Hunt. They were a collection aged, as usual, to gain the enmity of the melodramatic G. Gordon Liddy had various stages of the Watergate incident. of romantics, forever seeking adventure, both political parties.) shredded his Watergate documents, He had donned makeup and a cheap forever finding misadventure. Continuing my pursuit of the Water- Hunt, the author of 46 obscure novels, red wig for the occasion; a wig which On April 17, 1971, exactly 10 years gate story, I learned from FBI sources apparently recognized the literary was askew, giving him the appearance after the Bay of Pigs, Barker found a the gist of the preliminary findings. It value of this hush-hush material. He of a French mime. Dita's son, Bull, later note pinned to his door : "If you are was necessary, however, to document packed his documents into eight card- described Hunt's appearance as "very the same Barker I once knew, contact the details. I asked my sources to bring board boxes, obtained dearances to eerie; he had a red wig on cockeyed, me tat a Miami hotel]." The note was me the FBI investigative reports. It is move the sealed boxes out of the White like he put it on in a dark car." signed by Eduardo. Thus the Water- much easier to quote a confidential FBI House, then arranged for a trusted as- As The Washington Post reported it, buggers, recruited from the Bay of Pigs report than it is to pry the details from sociate, Roy Shepparda federal em- the White House was "coordinating a bunglers, were assembled for their big- a long list of people associated with ployee, to pick them up and stash them continuous effort to discredit Ander- gest caper. the story. in his basement. son." The Plumbers were assisted in But while I was trying to pry the doc- I dealt with Sheppard through his A familiar face this effort by another Watergate figure, umentation loose from FBI files, two lawyer, Peter Wolfe, who was deeply Robert Mardian, who then headed the I had everything but a road sign young reporters from The Washington Justice Department's Internal Security pointing to the story. My press notices continued Division. He ordered my house staked claimed I was an investigative reporter; a"../..xcp )-7 44+ 73 out, but I learned the makes and license I had been alerted to the Watergate plot numbers of three autos used by Mar- two months in advance; and I had per- dian's men. With nine children, I was sonal ties with the Waterbuggers. Yet I able to command a far more reliable was quite oblivious of the conspiracy counter-espionage squad than Mar- when on June 16, 1972, I was making dian's. My kids had a lot of fun spotting my way through Washington's National the cars. They reported back that they Airport to catch a plane to Cleveland. could see men with binoculars, bring- I recognized a familiar face and stopped ing to our neighborhood an exhilarat- to chat. It was Frank Sturgis. ing air of intrigue. They located the I asked what he was doing in Wash- main lookout atop a knoll near a church ington. "Private business," he said, about a mile from my door. with a conspiratorial smile. He intro- duced me to Eugenio Martinez, the 'They're after me now' CIA-affiliated locksmith who was to I retaliated by also sending members pick the Watergate locks that night. of my staff to watch Mardian's house I made a mental note to find out what and to tail him wherever he went. Sturgis was up to, then I hurried on to When the investigator thus became Cleveland. Next day, I read on Page 1 the investigated, he had conniptions. what Sturgis had been up to. He had A source in his office told us he kept been captured, with the rest of the Robert Mardian, then the head of the E. Howard Hunt stashed eight boxes wailing: "They're after me now!" Cuban "Mission Impossible" team, in- Justice Department's Internal Secur- of Watergate evidence in a friend's I also suspected, but could never side the Watergate. ity unit, -ordered Anderson tailed, home. Anderson nearly intercepted just in time. prove, that the Nixon crowd tapped my 'Fighting Castro' only to find himself being followed. it, but Hunt reclaimed it telephones. I was only slightly. surprised, therefore, by a letter mailed to me on I looked him up immediately in the April 15,1972. It was written by William old red brick building that houses the Haddad, a New York entrepreneur District of Columbia jail. He would say who, until a dozen years ago, had been only that the Watergate project was a prize-winning investigative reporter. part of their fight against Castro. In re- Haddad told me he had learned from a turn for their services, they had also private investigator of plans to tap the been promised, said Sturgis, that some telephones of the Democratic National Cuban refugees suffering from the fog Committee. Haddad understood the and distance of London would be al- plot had been hatched by a group of lowed to come to Miami.