Notes and Sources to Watergate, Wiretaps, and the White Panther Party

(Photo above: Ann Arbor Hash Bash, 1974; photo by Leni Sinclair)

NOTES TO BACKGROUND: REVOLUTIONARY SITUATION

January 20, 1969 – Nixon sworn in; Breakfast for Children program: The BPP began raising money and volunteers for the Breakfast for Children program in October 1968. The first meals were served on January 20 at four locations. (2020 calendar Honoring the Black Panther Party Breakfast Program, published by It’s About Time BPP Alumni Committee; and California African American Museum, “On January 20, 1969, the first Free Breakfast for School Children is launched by the Black Panther Party.”)  Four locations: Gun Barrel Politics: The Black Panther Party, 1966-1971, Report by the Committee on Internal Security, House of Representatives, August 18, 1971, at pg. 62). According to a recent article, the Department of Agriculture was inspired by this program and by 2015 was feeding 13 million children every day. (Andrea King Collier, National Geographic, “The Black Panthers: Revolutionaries, Free Breakfast Pioneers,” Nov. 4, 2015). (The USDA Food and Nutrition Services page describes its breakfast program without giving any credit to the BPP.)

Hoover: Breakfast for Children represents greatest threat: Memo from Director Hoover to All Offices, May 15, 1969.

Hoover wrote the memo after the San Francisco FBI office argued against some of the FBI’s tactics. “You state that the bureau [FBI]…should not attack programs of communist interests such as the BPP ‘Breakfast for Children’ because many prominent ‘humanitarians’…as well as churches are actively supporting it. You have obviously missed the point. The BPP is not engaged in the ‘Breakfast for Children’ program for humanitarian reasons [but to] create an image of civility, assume community control of Negroes, and to fill adolescent children with their insidious poison…” (Quoted in Bergman & Weir, “Revolution on Ice,” Rolling Stone, Sept. 9, 1976)

S.F. State strike: Still the longest student strike in U.S. history, it was led by the Black Student Union and Third World Liberation Front, and white students joined in support. In response, the SFPD sent the Tac Squad (later called SWAT) against the protestors. The college agreed to establish an Ethnic Studies department, the first in the country.

About the Mexico City Olympics: Just before the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, several thousand people, mostly students, gathered to protest the lavish amounts of money the government was spending on the event. Authorities opened fire and massacred hundreds. For years the Mexican government claimed that approximately 20 people had been killed after provocation by armed demonstrators. Decades later those claims were admitted to be lies; police and government soldiers had shot and killed hundreds after special forces of the presidential guard open fire. October 2 is now a National Day of Mourning in Mexico.

About repression in 1968: Efforts to suppress, or worse, had not abated, the assassinations of King and Kennedy had occurred, and activists had been imprisoned and killed. Nevertheless, 1968 seemed a turning point year as the different political movements began to coalesce and grow collectively more militant. 

NOTES TO SCHEMES OF NIXON AND FBI

Mitchell vowed to wipe out BPP: Huey P. Newton, War Against the Panthers (Doctoral Dissertation, U.C. Santa Cruz, June 1980), p.7 (citing Newsweek magazine Feb. 1969).

Nixon drew up contingency plan: Jonathan Schell, “The Time of Illusion,” The New Yorker, June 2, 1975

Watergate chroniclers ignore the movement: Liberals give less credence to the role of the radicals in Nixon’s fall than conservatives do. Liberals tend to object to attacks on radicals with an argument that the attacks are unnecessary overkill. Boiled down to its essence, this is essentially an assertion that there’s no need to take drastic measures against the radical movement since it is ineffective. Not only is that attitude disrespectful of and a denigration of the accomplishments of the radical movement, it implies that if a group is effectively organizing, it deserves to be attacked.  

Whether the dearth of discussion is due to the reticence of Nixon and his men on those subjects, or to the anti-radical bias of many historians, or to adopting ignorance as to how politics really functions, or to relying on sources (either Democrat or Republican) whose overriding concern is to uphold the system by downplaying the impact of real movements, is a topic that begs further investigation and analysis.

An example of writing the movement out of history: The massive volume The Nixon Tapes 1971-1972 (edited and annotated by Douglas Brinkley and Luke A. Nichter, published in 2014) omits almost all of Nixon’s conversations about the movement. The 758-page book’s index contains no references to the Black Panther Party or other radical groups, and the anti-war movement is mentioned only tangentially. The authors state in their introduction that they “decided which conversations to include” and most of the conversations concern the USSR, China, and Vietnam policy issues. For one example of a startling omission, the book skips from April 28 to May 6, 1971, so it excludes Nixon and Haldeman discussing the idea of having thugs attack demonstrators. (The NY Times wrote about that conversation in a 1981 article by Seymour Hersh and it has been written about extensively over the years since then.) For another, the book omits the Nixon-Haldeman conversation of Sept. 13, 1971 in which they discuss the Attica Prison uprising at some length and Nixon comments that anti-war protests can be stopped if the authorities “kill a few…remember Kent State?” The index also shows no references whatsoever to Martha Mitchell (who became a thorn in Nixon’s side and who was often a subject of discussion in 1972), the creation of ODALE, or the crash of United Flight 553 on December 8, 1972, all of which Nixon talked about. There is only one reference to Daniel Ellsberg, and it too is tangential (whether Navy yeoman Radford might become “another Ellsberg”). The “timeline of key events” omits the wiretap decision by the Supreme Court.

A visitor from Mars relying on this book for an understanding of how the downfall of a president began will have no inkling that there existed a widespread, strong movement in the United States, let alone that it affected the president’s actions.

Yet the two editors are both professors of history at highly respected universities and are considered “experts” on the Nixon tapes. Mr. Brinkley is also the CNN presidential historian and an editor of Vanity Fair. (Perhaps more significantly, he is also a member of the Council of Foreign Relations.)

By willfully ignoring the movement and Nixon’s obsession with destroying it, Brinkley and Nichter not only support Nixon’s false presentation of himself but rewrite history to the benefit of Nixon and the system itself.

Nixon’s men…frenzy of action: Liddy, Will, 358-359, describes shredding hundred dollar bills the morning of June 20th. The reactions of Nixonians to the wiretap ruling are discussed in detail later in this article.  Nixon himself may have burned some documents two years later;  he writes in his Memoir that on August 6, 1974 (two days before he resigned), at 2:00AM he lit a fire in the White House fireplace “just to enjoy” it. Given that it had been 80 degrees and muggy that day, with a low of 65 at 1:00AM, perhaps the president had another reason for lighting a fire. And he may never have admitted to having a fire on a hot humid summer night, had not the smoke drawn the Fire Department to the White House.  (Memoir of Richard Nixon, p. 1064)

Radical left a major concern: With each release of White House tapes and documents, this is becoming more obvious.

COINTELPRO: In the FBI’s naming convention, the first letters of  “COunter INTELligence PROgram” form the acronym COINTELPRO. Creation of COINTELPRO: see www.vault.fbi.gov. 

Hoover memo of Nov. 25, 1968: Church Committee, Final Report, Book III (Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans), at p. 22. This order was sent to FBI field offices. 

Hoover expands efforts to destroy BPP: Ward Churchill, “To Disrupt, Discredit and Destroy” – The FBI’s Secret War Against the Black Panther Party, p.7

1968 memo on New Left – “depraved nature and moral looseness”: Federal Bureau of Investigation 1970 Appropriation: Testimony of John Edgar Hoover, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation, before the House Subcommittee on Appropriations on April 17, 1969 (pp. 67-68). Hoover denounced radical groups that (he said) claimed to be civil rights organizations but which preached hate for whites, demanded immunity from law, and advocated violence. Hoover’s remarks were quoted extensively by Congressman John Ashbrook on Aug. 8, 1969 at an intelligence subcommittee hearing. 

FBI organization chart (Church Committee Report, Hearings, Vol. 6, F.B.I., p.348 (Exhibit 2))

Nixon “desperately worried”: Mark Felt, The FBI Pyramid from the Inside, p.146

Nixon: “out of our minds”: Nixon said this in 1973. Tim Weiner, “In Tapes, Nixon Muses About Break-Ins at Foreign Embassies,” NY Times, Feb. 26, 1999, p. 13 Section A. This article quotes the executive director of the Nixon Library saying that Nixon’s abuses should be understood in the context of the times. “We were in a culture war then…the domestic abuses of Watergate can only be understood in the context of these challenges.”

Nixon: “revolutionary terror” greatest threat: Bryan Burroughs, “The Bombings of America That We Forgot,” Time Magazine September 20, 2016 

Nixon not worried about random bombings: Many of the bombings attributed to the radical left resulted in no arrests or prosecutions. Additionally, some bombings had been carried out by agent provocateurs and others were suspected to have been. 

United Front Against Fascism: After the July 1969 United Front conference, the Panthers set up the National Committee to Combat Fascism. “Inquiries about starting NCCF chapters flooded into Oakland” from cities across the country. “The NCCFs offered…multiracial group[s] of local activists around the country a new avenue of involvement…at a time when the Panthers had launched purges and membership freezes to combat infiltration from COINTELPRO. By April 1970, the FBI recorded 18-22 NCCF [chapters] around the country….” (Robyn Spencer, post on Dukeupress, “The Black Panther Party and Black Anti-Fascism in the United States,”  January 2017)

Occupation of Alcatraz: The occupation was covered extensively in underground newspapers as well as the “straight” press. Search for the period from November 20, 1969 through June 11, 1971. National Geographic, the National Park Service, and History.com also have articles about the occupation. See also Kent Blansett, Journey to Freedom: Richard Oakes, Alcatraz, and the Red Power Movement.

Venceremos Brigade: The Venceremos Brigade, Young Americans Sharing the Life and Work of Revolutionary Cuba, edited by Sandra Levinson and Carol Brightman. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1971). For opposition to the Brigades, see Address to the Senate by Senator Eastland, March 16, 1970, “The Venceremos Brigade — Agrarians or Anarchists?” (Congressional Record for March 16, 1970 at pp. 7462-7467), and “The Theory and Practice of Communism in 1972 (Venceremos Brigade),” U.S. House of Representatives, Subcommittee of the Committee on Internal Security, 92nd Congress, Second Session (October 1972)  

GI rebellion and soldiers in Vietnam: Numerous GI newspapers were published at bases across the country and there were “GI Coffeehouses” near most bases and in other locales. Despite recent attempts at rewriting history, there were strong connections, support, and mutual respect between soldiers and the rest of the anti-war movement. This is depicted thoroughly and fascinatingly in “Sir! No Sir!”, a 2005 documentary directed by David Zeiger.

Moratoriums, Oct. and Nov. 1969: Derek Seidman, “Fifty Years Ago Today, US Soldiers Joined the Vietnam Moratorium Protests in Mass Numbers,” Jacobin magazine, Oct. 15, 2019. Both events were written about in major newspapers, underground newspapers, and covered on broadcast television.   

Movement in 1969: Another event in June 1969 was the SDS annual convention. Several hundred SDS members walked out and soon formed the Weathermen. 

Anti-commune ordinances: As a way to get rid of communes, local governments passed zoning ordinances that made households of more than a given number of unrelated adults (commonly, three) illegal. Virtually everyone in the counterculture in the early 1970s was well aware of these laws, which could be and often were selectively enforced. A 1999 book refers to “the old bugaboo, zoning laws, still haunts many a community….communes whose very existence is illegal have not forgotten the bulldozers at Morningstar…” (Timothy Miller, The 60s Communes and Beyond, at 230) (Morningstar was a northern California commune raided by Sonoma County authorities in 1971; they used bulldozers to destroy the makeshift homes.)

  The use of zoning laws was one of those problems that upended lives and tore apart communities throughout the country, with epic local battles taking place in city halls, courtrooms, and the streets, but is little known today. You can find articles in any of the underground newspapers of the time, and occasionally in ‘straight’ newspapers such as the Boston Globe, which  noted that “in many cities and towns around the country…such ordinances have been bitterly contested, dividing communities and neighborhoods, pitting residents and civic leaders against one another.” (“Resolving a ‘Family Affair’,” Aug. 1, 1974).  Even in the San Francisco Bay Area, cities did battle with hippies over anti-commune ordinances − Palo Alto, Larkspur, Corte Madera, and Mill Valley, among other cities/towns. Two cases that I am aware of reached the U.S. Supreme Court. One threw out a 1971 policy that households with unrelated people under 60 years of age were not eligible for food stamps (US Department of Agriculture v Moreno 413 US 528 (1973)). The other found that discrimination against “functional families” through zoning was a permissible use of police power (Village of Belle Terre v Boraas, 416 US 1 (1974), with the majority opinion by the liberal Justice William O. Douglas).  A recent article delves into the situation:  Kate Redburn, “Zoned Out: How Zoning Law Undermines Family Law’s Functional Turn,” Yale Law Journal (2019) 128:2412, especially section 2, “Counterculture Living and the Rise of Formal-Family Zoning,” p.2441, et seq. 

Attacks on BPP in 1969: US organization murders of 2 BPP members in Los Angeles and 2 in San Diego: see Newton, War Against the Panthers, pp. 51-54; Churchill, “ ‘To Disrupt, Discredit and Destroy’”, 16-18; and Bruce A. Dixon, “Why I Can’t Celebrate Kwanzaa,” Jacobin Magazine, republished from Black Agenda Report.

Murders of Hampton and Clark:  for a thorough account, see Jeffrey Haas, The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther. See also Newton, War Against the Panthers, at 47-51; and Churchill, throughout article, esp. pp. 28-29. The opinion in Hampton v Hanrahan, 600 F.2d 600 (7th Cir 1979) provides information about the FBI’s role, despite an anti-Panther slant, such as calling the event a “gun battle,” when the only shot (and even that one is disputed) from the Panthers came when Clark pulled a trigger involuntarily as he died, shot through the heart. 

A striking fact that’s rarely mentioned in publications about Fred Hampton’s assassination is that the Sheriff of Cook County, Joe Woods, was the brother of Rose Mary Woods, Nixon’s loyal secretary. Joe Woods was also one of three principals in Caulfield’s “Sandwedge” operation (Emery, Watergate, p.75). 

Kent State and the student strike in May 1970: The Kent State killings and the student strike were also a turning point in the mass media’s coverage of anti-war protests, which began portraying them as legitimate and, sometimes, even in a positive light. 

  Kent State University has a website dedicated to the shootings and the antiwar movement, with extensive resources. (www.kent.edu/may-4-1970). For information and resources on the Jackson State killings, see www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/jackson-state-killings. A detailed account of the nationwide student strike, including an interactive map, is at University of Washington, Mapping American Social Movements Project, “May 1970 Student Antiwar Strikes,” by Amanda Miller. See also Antiwar and Radical History Project – Pacific Northwest; “The May 1970 Student Strike at UW,” Zoe Altaras. 

  The NY Times published articles on the strike throughout most of May 1970. Some of the more thorough are Robert R. McFadden, “College Strife Spreads,” May 8, 1970; Linda Charlton, “Many Colleges Reopen, but Students at 158 Schools Are on Strike Indefinitely,” May 12, 1970; and Paul L. Montgomery, “War Protests Continue; Colleges Poorly Attended,” May 13, 1970. 

Nixon TV interview on Kent State: History Channel web site at https://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/kent-state-shooting-video. The date is not given but it is clearly immediately after the shootings of May 4, 1970.

Haldeman on Nixon and Kent State: The Haldeman Diaries, p. 159

Nixon: “Kill a few”: Recorded conversation of Sept. 13, 1971, archived at the University of Virginia Miller Center; reported at www.kentwired.com. Nixon and Haldeman were discussing the uprising at Attica State Prison, where ultimately New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller ordered state police to retake the prison. Police staged a military style attack and 43 people were killed (33 prisoners and 10 prison employees). 

Regarding Huston’s statistics on bombings and ROTC facilities: Huston’s numbers are exaggerated to an astronomical degree. In one 18 month period in 1971-2, the FBI reported 2,500 domestic bombings, which was considered unprecedented. Attorney General John Mitchell, in a speech to the Virginia Bar Association in 1971, said that statistics from the National Bomb Data Center listed 1,878 bombings between July 1, 1970 and May 1, 1971, “the vast majority of which were related to sabotage of the Nation’s military efforts.” (Warrantless Wiretapping at 95-96). However, a State of California report issued in 1972 stated that only 5% of the bombings in the US the previous year had been carried out by radicals. The other 95% were domestic disputes, business related, revenge, or for other reasons. (Marin Independent Journal, 3/3/72, article title unknown).

Huston quote on WH worry: Church Committee, Hearings, Vol. 2 (Huston Report), Testimony of Tom Charles Huston, p. 32

Huston refers to the Chicago Black Panther raid, meaning the December 4, 1969 Chicago police murders of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, and the Los Angeles Panther “shootout.” That was a massive LAPD raid in predawn hours of December 8, 1969 on the BPP’s Southern California headquarters at 41st and Central in Los Angeles and two other Panther facilities by 350 to 400 police officers, significantly including the newly formed SWAT team. This was SWAT’s first major action. Police had moved into the area at 3:30AM and cordoned off 16 blocks, then kicked in the door of the Central Avenue HQ at 5:30AM. The Panthers present at the sandbag-fortified building returned fire and police retreated, with two wounded. Gunfire was exchanged for nearly five hours. Police aimed shots at Panther leader Geronimo Pratt’s bed, but he was sleeping elsewhere that night. LAPD helicopters detonated explosives on the roof. Police shot quantities of tear gas into the house and brought in an armored tank after Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird authorized it.

By daytime, hundreds of people had gathered to witness the incident, including numerous media members with cameras and microphones, along with prominent community residents, some of whom had been phoned by Panthers inside the building.Now that witnesses were present, the Panthers literally raised a white flag of truce and submitted to arrest. 5,000 rounds had been fired by both sides, with six Panthers and three police officers wounded, none critically.

Thirteen Panthers — three of them women — faced a total of 72 charges. Eight of the defendants were accused of conspiracy to murder police officers. Trial began on June 1, 1971. The Panthers’ ten lawyers, one of whom was a very young Johnnie Cochran, said the Panthers acted in self defense; SWAT had entered without warning, guns blazing. The jury agreed and acquitted on nearly all the charges.

In a recent opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times, Matthew Fleischer wrote:

“For SWAT, the whole incident was, in many ways, a spectacular fiasco. The raid failed to produce the kind of convictions prosecutors had envisioned; it was also a failure of mission. A unit created for the explicit purpose of preventing uncontrollable armed conflict instead initiated a full-on battle in a crowded urban setting, played out before the entire nation.”

Some participants described the raid in a 2010 documentary, “41st and Central.”

Huston quote on establishment of ICI: Church Committee, Hearings, Vol. 2 (Huston Report), Statement by Chairman, Senator Frank Church, p.1. The working group was chaired by William Sullivan of the FBI and the first meeting was attended by Haldeman and Erlichman from the White House and James Jesus Angleton from the CIA, among others (Huston testimony, p. 4-5).  The group included Admiral Gayler, Director of the National Security Agency, and General Bennett, Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (Huston testimony, p.4). See also Haldeman Diaries, 172. Apparently none of the participants questioned the CIA’s involvement in violation of its charter prohibiting espionage against Americans. 

Yoko Ono, John Lennon, Leni Sinclair, and John Sinclair

Nixon “concerned…escalating revolutionary violence”: Church Committee, Hearings, Vol 2 (Huston Report), Testimony of Tom Charles Huston, p.4

Summer 1970 “serious crisis”: Church Committee,  Hearings, Vol. 2 (Huston Report), Testimony of Tom Charles Huston, p. 17

Tom Charles Huston: The Indiana native campaigned for Goldwater in 1964, traveling thousands of miles speaking to college students. In January 1965, while in law school, he became chairman of the Young Americans for Freedom, a conservative organization founded by William F. Buckley. Huston oversaw the YAF’s boycott of Firestone Rubber, undertaken because Firestone had opened a factory in then-Communist Romania. Huston proposed that the YAF repudiate racism and allow “Negroes to be full-fledged citizens” but backed down after receiving death threats from other conservatives. In January 1966, Huston debated SDS chairman Carl Oglesby on television about the Vietnam War; they formed a coalition for a short time because both opposed the “liberal establishment.” Huston joined the Army in 1967 and served two years (stateside) in military intelligence. He supported Nixon’s candidacy early, when many conservatives were behind Ronald Reagan. When Nixon won he gave Huston a job as a speechwriter. Huston’s office in the White House was decorated with a portrait of John C. Calhoun, a defender of slavery and nullification. He wrote a memo, much prized by Nixon, which stated that a president, through judicial appointments, “has the opportunity to influence the course of national affairs for a quarter of a century after he leaves office.”

Nixon assigned Huston to pressure the IRS to act against leftists. Mark Felt, the #3 man in the FBI, wrote that “Huston saw himself as a kind of White House gauleiter [Nazi district official] over the intelligence community, riding herd on the FBI, the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency, imposing his ideas on how they should move against subversive and dissidents.” (Felt, The FBI Pyramid, 113)

In the aftermath of the Huston Plan maneuvering within both the FBI and the White House, Huston’s responsibilities were redistributed to Colson, Krogh, and Dean. Huston returned to Indiana where he practiced law with the large firm Barnes & Thorburg. He remained active in Republican politics and is much revered as a leader of conservatism in Indiana. In 1981 he became a mentor to a young law student, who said that when he met Huston, “That was when I turned my attention to more conservative thought.” That student was Mike Pence.

(The Avocado, “How We Got Here: The Education of Tom Charles Huston,” June 8, 2019, www.theavocado.org; and Brian A. Howey, “Origins of modern Hoosier conservatism,” Howey Politics Indiana, Nov. 13, 2014, v. 20 N. 15)

Huston Plan: Huston has testified that the impression that he wrote a report and forced it upon the intelligence agencies is false; the committee wrote the report, and furthermore, most of the activities it recommended were already being used by the FBI in its COINTELPRO program. (Church Committee, Hearings, Vol. 2 (Huston Report), testimony of Tom Charles Huston, p. 17-18) The always canny J. Edgar Hoover refused to sign off on the plan, instead inserting notes regarding unconstitutionality of its components. Huston testified to the Church committee that no other person “suggest[ed] or argue[d] that the activities being proposed ought not to be done because they were unconstitutional or illegal.” (Church Committee, Hearings, Vol. 2, Huston Report, Testimony of Tom Charles Huston, p.9)

Nixon withdrew approval of Huston Plan: Church Committee, Hearings, Vol 2 (Huston Report), testimony of Tom Charles Huston, p. 16. One of the intriguing stories in this entire episode is J. Edgar Hoover’s refusal to approve the actions called for in the Huston Report. My opinion is that he prided himself on running such programs himself, and didn’t believe that Nixon’s operatives could be trusted to be either competent or reliable; and if that was his analysis, it was certainly proven correct.

Some say Huston Plan was put into effect: Tapes released in 2013 include a statement by White House special counsel J. Fred Buzhardt that he’d reported to Nixon that top NSA officials had said that the Huston Plan had been put into effect. CNN, “Great Mystery of the 1970s: Nixon, Watergate and the Huston Plan,” by Doug Brinkley, CNN Presidential Historian, and Luke A. Nichter, updated June 17, 2015. See also Church Committee, Hearings, Vol. 2  (Huston Plan), introductory remarks of Senator Church:  “…the intelligence agencies paid no heed to [Nixon’s] revocation” of the Huston Plan. (p.2)

Tad Szulc quote and observation: Tad Szulc, Compulsive Spy,  at 112

Weathermen lawyer on Huston Plan: Agis Salpukas, “U.S. Foregoes Trial of Weathermen,” N.Y. Times, Oct. 16, 1973, quoting Gerald Lefcourt. 15 Weathermen had been indicted in December 1970, accused of plotting terrorist actions in Flint, Michigan in Dec. 1969. The judge who made the order that the government “disclose whether it had used burglaries, sabotage, electronic surveillance, agents provocateurs or other ‘espionage techniques’” was Damon Keith, of whom you will read more in this article. 

True purpose of Huston Plan: Church Committee, Hearings, Volume 2 (Huston Report), p. 2, opening remarks of Senator Church, who said the plan was “an episode in a continuous effort by the intelligence agencies to secure the sanction of higher authorities for expanded surveillance[.]”  Among programs created by other presidents, one example is Operation CHAOS, authorized by LBJ and expanded by Nixon, a domestic espionage program from 1967 to 1974. COINTELPRO had been in operation for over a decade.  

Huston Plan still Top Secret: Douglas Brinkley and Luke A. Nichter, “Great Mystery of the 1970s: Nixon, Watergate, and the Huston Plan,” CNN, updated June 17, 2015. See also a lively short article by  Charles B. Pierce, “It’s Official: Nixon Is the Worst,” Esquire magazine, June 10, 2014.

Nixon and Haldeman’s conversation of May 5, 1971: Tim Weiner, “Charles W. Colson, Watergate Felon Who Became Evangelical Leader, Dies at 80,” NY Times, April 21, 2012. Haldeman called Colson Nixon’s “hit man.” It’s worth noting that this conversation occurred the day after charges against Black Panther David Hilliard for threatening Nixon in a rhetorical speech were dismissed when the federal government refused to release contents of a warrantless wiretap. (Caldwell, NY Times, 5/5/71)

Liddy says that E. Howard Hunt, on behalf of Colson, asked him to look into killing columnist Jack Anderson and that Liddy replied “If necessary, I’ll do it.” In his usual colorful way, Liddy begins the next section in his autobiography, “While waiting to learn whether to kill Jack Anderson…” (Will, p. 286-291)

Quotes on beating demonstrators: Seymour M. Hersh, “1971 Tape Links Nixon to Plan to Use ‘Thugs’,” NY Times, Sept. 24, 1981; and see Kutler, Wars of Watergate, p.107

Pentagon Papers: The Pentagon Papers were a 47-volume study by the RAND Corporation named “United States-Vietnam Relations, 1945 – 1967.” For an excellent overview, with links to White House recordings and transcripts thereof, see the University of Virginia Miller Center, Jordan Moran, “Nixon and the Pentagon Papers.” 

    Daniel Ellsberg, an analyst for RAND, and Anthony Russo, a former RAND employee, had both turned against the war. Ellsberg sneaked the massive study out a bit at a time, they copied it (which also took quite a long time), and eventually Ellsberg sent most of it to the New York Times. The Times began publishing on June 13, 1971, was ordered to cease by John Mitchell, refused and was sued by the government. The government obtained a restraining order. The Washington Post then began publishing the papers. William Rehnquist, an assistant attorney general, called and asked the Post to stop; it refused; and it too was taken to court. Some fifteen other newspapers then began publishing the Pentagon Papers. 

    The government’s position was that news stories could be censored before publication (“prior restraint”) in matters of national security. The Supreme Court on June 30, 1971 ruled in favor of the Times and the Post (New York Times Co. v. United States 403 U.S. 713), deciding that the government had not met its burden. 

    Both Ellsberg and Russo were arrested and charged with espionage, conspiracy, and theft. (Their trial is briefly discussed below, in Notes to Aftermath.) Russo refused to testify to a Grand Jury and was jailed, where he was beaten by guards. He later told the New York Times that the events had turned him into a “committed, full-time radical” and that the Black Panthers were his strongest supporters. (Douglas Martin, “Anthony J. Russo, 71, Pentagon Papers Figure, Dies,” NY Times, Aug 8, 2008) 

Formation of the Plumbers: Two days after publication of the Pentagon Papers began in the New York Times, G. Gordon Liddy was moved into a new job as staff assistant to the President, directly reporting to Egil Krogh, who reported to Domestic Policy adviser John Erlichman (formerly the White House counsel). Krogh and David Young, Kissinger’s assistant, led the group; Hunt joined it. (Transcript of the Deposition of G. Gordon Liddy on Dec. 6, 1996 in Maureen K. Dean and John W. Dean v. St. Martin’s Press, Inc, et al, No. 92-1807, In the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (cited hereafter as “Liddy Deposition”), pp. 11-13).  Liddy calls the Papers “the McNamara Study.” Formation of the Plumbers’ Unit (which Liddy named ODESSA): Liddy, Will, p. 203 et seq. 

Break in of Dr. Fielding’s office: Liddy, Will, 222-235. 

Caulfield and Operation Sandwedge: Emery, Watergate, pp.74-78. Caulfield later wrote that Liddy was “given my complete ‘Sandwedge’ plan, with the comment by Dean that it was deemed inadequate.” (Jack Caulfield, “In their own words,” The Nixon Era Times (official publication of the Nixon Era Center at Mountain State University.)

Gemstone: Liddy testified that he had the flow chart drawn up at the request of John Dean (Liddy Deposition, p.49). Liddy’s plan gave each type of activity the name of a gem. For instance, “Diamond” was a plan to prevent anti-war demonstrations at the Republican Convention in 1972:  the leaders would be kidnapped, drugged, and taken over the border to Mexico, where they would be held until the convention was over. “Coal” was a plan to clandestinely give money to Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm’s presidential campaign, the idea being that she couldn’t win the nomination but would damage the chances of stronger Democrats. John Mitchell told Liddy that wasn’t necessary because NY Governor Rockefeller was “already taking care of that.” (Liddy, Will, 271-3; and see Liddy Deposition, 53) The Democratic National Committee was not on their list of targets; Jeb Magruder later, in May 1972, asked Liddy if it would be possible to get into the DNC office. (Liddy Deposition, 64, 66). Many have written that John Mitchell directed Liddy to destroy the CIA’s fancy flowchart. 

Nixon strategy to keep radicals tied up in court: The BPP were especially subjected to this. Major Panther trials in 1970 alone included Huey Newton’s second manslaughter trial, Bobby Seale and Ericka Huggins on murder charges in New Haven (their trial didn’t actually begin until 1971, but others were tried in 1970 and Bobby and Ericka had been charged); and the New York 21. BPP trials in 1971 in addition to New Haven included the Party’s Chief of Staff David Hilliard (accused of threatening the life of Nixon in a rhetorical speech; charges were dismissed when the government refused to disclose contents of a wiretap); Huey Newton’s third trial on manslaughter; the Panther 13 in Los Angeles for the shootout in December 1969; and L.A. Panther Geronimo Pratt on kidnapping charges.

    In addition, the BPP was subjected to constant disruption and harassment by countless other arrests, trials, fines, and more for such “offenses” as selling the newspaper without a permit, driving a car whose license plate was slightly askew, or standing “too close” to a supermarket door while canvassing for sickle cell anemia testing. These sorts of things occurred daily. 

Rolling Stone magazine reported that the Panthers had catalogued over 400 encounters with police during 1968 and 1969: “Some of the arrests were for such crimes as the illegal use of a bullhorn, profanity, crossing an intersection incorrectly, putting up posters, placing a table illegally outside an office, reckless abuse of a highway by a pedestrian (selling newspapers), and spitting on a sidewalk.” From December 1967 to December 1969, over $200,000 in non-refundable bail premiums had been paid out by the Party. (Bergman & Weir, “Revolution on Ice,” Rolling Stone, Sept. 9, 1976)

NOTES TO RADICALS IN ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN

Formation of White Panther Party: The history of the White Panther Party is complicated, colorful, and won’t be told in this essay for the sake of brevity and focus. (Interested readers will find a short list of recommended books and films at the end of these Notes.)

MC5 and Kick Out the Jams: The MC5’s lead singer Rob Tyner was on the cover of the January 4, 1969 Rolling Stone.  The MC5 is credited for being forerunners to punk rock. Their most famous song was introduced both at concerts and on the album by Tyner yelling, “Kick out the jams, motherfuckers!”  In 1969, public use of that word was close to nil.

MC5 quit Elektra: John Sinclair disputes the claim that Elektra dropped the MC5. “We left Elektra because they censored the album.” (“Leni & John Sinclair Kick Out the Jams Motherfucker!” interview, 1x Run. Date not provided. Retrieved April 30, 2020)

Comment on the MC5 breaking with the WPP: The MC5 unfortunately quit their association with John Sinclair a few months later, just before he was sent to prison, deciding to “distance themselves from the revolutionary ideas of the White Panther Party.” Their new manager, Jon Landau, steered them from politics. (See “Must be the season of the witch,” dissertation of Daniel A. Simmons, and sources cited therein.) The MC5 did sign another contract but never regained their early popularity − popularity that was due in large part to their early forthright radicalism. Regrettably, their reputation as radical trailblazers is rarely accompanied by the fact that they quit the movement at a time when their participation was so critical. But at the time, this hadn’t been forgotten or forgiven; author David A. Carson writes that a two-day benefit concert for Sinclair in January 1970 had “some bad vibes between the audience and the ‘5’ over the band’s split from Sinclair and the Trans-Love organization.” (Grit, Noise and the Revolution, p.231)

People’s Park:  In May 1969 in Berkeley, CA thousands of people protested the university’s plan to tear up a small park; police responded with violence, beating and arresting protestors. A police helicopter sprayed tear gas over hundreds of people on Telegraph Avenue (the main business thoroughfare near the campus). One man watching from a rooftop was shot and killed. Another young man was blinded.

FBI interest in WPP:  Jeff A. Hale, Ph.D., “The White Panthers’ ‘Total Assault on the Culture,’” from Imagine Nation at 146. Hale cites two FBI memos: Hoover to SAC Detroit, 6/25/69, 62-112678-22, and SAC Detroit to Hoover, 5/21/69, 62-112678-14. (Copies of both are in Hale, “Wiretapping and National Security,” at p.289-290)

John Sinclair’s sentencing hearing: Ann Arbor Sun, May 28, 1971, “The sentencing of John Sinclair.” (Transcript of the hearing). People v Sinclair 387 Mich. 91, 194 NW2d 878 also quotes from that hearing at some length.

Abbie Hoffman v Peter Townshend at Woodstock: There are seemingly as many versions of the Abbie Hoffman – Pete Townshend incident as there were people at Woodstock. It wasn’t filmed; audio portions are available on the internet. The Detroit Artists Workshop article includes Hoffman’s later denial that he got hit, Townshend’s threats, and a reporter’s personally-witnessed account that Hoffman was in fact hit on the back of the head by Townshend’s guitar and toppled off stage. One tape recording includes the crowd roaring approval of Townshend’s act, which the NY Times also reports in its 2019 interview with Roger Daltry.  The Times notes that “there’s no definitive account of what Pete Townshend did to Hoffman.” (Rob Tannenbaum, “The Who’s Roger Daltry Is Not Nostalgic for Woodstock,” NY Times 8/7/19, part of its Woodstock at 50 series.)  

    Certainly the movie “Woodstock” had no references to John Sinclair’s sentence or to the Hoffman-Townshend incident, which isn’t surprising since the movie attempted to divide the counterculture into two unconnected wings: cultural on one side, political on the other. Because the movie was a strictly money-making operation (intended to remunerate the concert’s producers), and because the ethos of the counterculture was to disavow profiteering on rock music or marijuana, when “Woodstock” played at the University Theater in Berkeley, it was protested by pickets. 

Indictments of WPP members: At the time of the indictments, John Sinclair was in prison and Jack Forrest was in a hospital after a motorcycle accident. (Plamondon, 143-145)

Pun Plamondon on Ten Most Wanted list: Pun was listed on May 5, 1970, as the 307th person to be placed on the 10 Most Wanted List. He was arrested on July 23 and removed from the List. #309 was Angela Davis.  Pun was the first hippie to make the list. 

David Valler:   Davis, “A People’s History.” And see Plamondon, 247: “The government built their whole case on David Valler.” Valler was arrested on Oct. 5, 1968 after selling dope to six different federal undercover agents (Fifth Estate #64, Oct. 17-30, 1968, “President Dave Busted.”) While still in jail he was arrested, along with ten others, and charged with “a series of dynamite bombings of a school, a draft board, and a policeman’s car.” (“Arrests Made in Bombings,” Fifth Estate #66, Nov. 14-27, 1968 and “Valler Gets 7 to 10 Years,” Fifth Estate #81, June 12-25, 1969, which also reported him as writing a “long anti-drug rap” in the Detroit News.) The News, following its general anti-youth policy, featured Dave’s story on the front page along with a behind-bars photo of him showing a crew cut replacing his once shoulder-length hair.”   By October 1969 he was reported as doing 7 to 10 years in Jackson for two counts of violating the Michigan Narcotics Act; he was also the principal defendant in a conspiracy case involving the above-mentioned bombings. (“President Dave Doing Well,” Fifth Estate #89, Oct. 2-15, 1969).  

    David Gaynes, “President Dave Oinks,” Fifth Estate #90, Oct. 16-29, 1969, describes the arrest of Jack Forrest on Oct. 8 as federal agents kicked in the door of his mother’s apartment; he’d just gotten out of the hospital after a motorcycle accident and pneumonia. That issue also reported that Valler was on the indictment as a co-conspirator and, after reciting the specific claims by Valler, states that “Valler himself, deranged acidhead that he was, did the bombing.” 

Nixon’s famous statement during the David Frost interview in 1977.

“Unindicted co-conspirator”:  President Nixon was named an unindicted co-conspirator when the Grand Jury indicted seven CRP-White House men (Mitchell, Erlichman, Haldeman, and others) on March 1, 1974. Anthony Ripley, “Jury Named Nixon a Co-Conspirator But Didn’t Indict,” NY Times, June 7, 1974.

Aug 1970 FBI 107-page report on WPP:  Jeff A. Hale in “The White Panthers’ ‘Total Assault on the Culture’,” p.149, cites “FBI Report Re: Plamondon, Sept. 3, 1970.” I have not been able to obtain the report.

Nixon discussed WPP:  Jeff A. Hale, “The White Panthers’ ‘Total Assault on the Culture’,” p.149; he cites Hoover to Ford, 25 September, 1970, 62-112678-102, Gerald R. Ford Congressional Papers, Ford Presidential Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Box D-102, folder “Radicals/White Panthers/Protest.” The letter can be seen at pp. 433-34 of Hale, “Wiretapping and National Security.”

“White Panthers Used Drugs, Sex”: The Berkeley Daily Gazette and other newspapers of March 16-17, 1971; San Francisco Examiner front page on March 16, 1971 proclaimed:  “Agnew Kidnap Talk by White Panthers,” with the subheading “White Panther Sex, Drug Lures Charged.” NY Times March 17, “Political Kidnap Plot Tied to White Panthers” at p.51 and “White Panthers Call Charge of Kidnap Plot ‘Fabrication,” March 18, 1971, p.26  

NOTES ON THE MITCHELL DOCTRINE

Nixon Administration openly asserted wiretaps: Kinoy writes that the defense lawyers, preparing for the WPP trial, realized that the open admission by the government to the warrantless wiretap was no accident. In “at least two other political trials Mitchell had assumed the same posture, radically departing from the prior position of the Department of Justice…With the advent of the new Nixon administration in 1969, the Department of Justice had decided to assert openly what had been hidden in all previous administrations − the existence of widespread warrantless wiretapping involving surveillance of individuals and organizations considered to be a threat to ‘domestic security’.” (Kinoy, p.7)  

An exhibit in the Wiretap Hearing, citing a Newsweek article of May 10, 1971, quotes an unnamed FBI agent as describing Attorney General Mitchell as “a signing fool…We just ask him and he signs them [requests for wiretaps or other surveillance].” (Warrantless Wiretap Hearing p. 202)

Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968: Title 18 U.S.C §§2510-2520. Since then, many amendments and additions have been made and the Act is now Title 34 U.S.C. §§10101 et seq. Among other provisions in the Act were the establishment of the LEAA, which provided funds to local police departments for “riot control,” an increase of 10% of the FBI budget to train police in riot control, and gun control provisions.

Nixon and Mitchell decide Act gave president authority: Section 2511(3) provided that nothing in the section would “be deemed to limit the constitutional power of the President to take such measures as he deems necessary to protect the United States against the overthrow of the Government by force or unlawful means, or against any other clear and present danger to the structure or existence of the Government.”

Judge Hoffman ruled in favor of Mitchell Doctrine in Chicago 7 case: Hale, “Wiretapping and National Security, 299; Kinoy, 7

Federal judge in BPP-LA case rejected Mitchell Doctrine:  United States v. Smith, 321 F.Supp. 424 (CD Cal 1971); and see Kinoy, 7-8.

“We never knew how…picked this case”: Buck Davis, “A People’s History”

“…contents never disclosed”: Buck Davis, “A People’s History.”

Six telephone calls to BPP San Francisco and Berkeley:  Sinclair v Kleindienst, 645 F.2d 1080, 1081 (DC Cir 1981).  Prior to that revelation, Pun Plamondon had supposed that the tap was on the Detroit BPP office (see Plamondon interview in Michigan Daily in 1972 described by Christopher Zbrozek, “The Bombing of the Ann Arbor CIA office,” Michigan Daily, Oct. 24, 2004). 

Mitchell and Nixon chose this case to make their stand: Sinclair v Kleindienst, 645 F.2d 1080 at 1082-83, Mitchell’s sworn testimony (in interrogatories) was that the BPP intended to “form a coalition with third world powers to force a settlement on the United States” and cited visits by BPP members to Cuba, Canada, Japan and Scandanavian countries to meet with representatives of China, Vietnam, the Soviet Union and other communist countries; and the “security threat was heightened by the Black Panther Party’s contacts with other violent organizations including the White Panther Party.”

“Both sides knew…warrantless wiretapping”: Robert Havey, “Panther by the Tail,” Bentley Historical Library Magazine (date of the article is unknown; it was retrieved in April 2020)

Mitchell authorized wiretap of WPP:  Sinclair v Kleindienst, 645 F.2d 1080, 1085, noting that “Mitchell approved the surveillance repeatedly between August 1970 and January 1971.” See also Hale, “Wiretapping and National Security,” 305; and Buck Davis, “A People’s History”

Wiretap installed Sept. 9, 1970:  Buck Davis, “A People’s History,” in the section “Post-Keith: Sinclair v Nixon and the 2nd Wiretap.”

Mitchell affidavit:  Reprinted below, after the Sources.

Gov’t briefs propounded Mitchell Doctrine: See the Court’s discussion in US v US District Court, 407 U.S. 297; Kinoy, throughout Chapter One, “Wiretapping and Watergate.” Rehnquist’s role in crafting the doctrine: see Kinoy, 18, referring to Rehnquist’s admission at his confirmation hearing. 

Judge Keith’s ruling and quotes:  United States v. Sinclair, 321 F.Supp. 1074 (ED Mich 1971) at 1077 and 1079.

Comment on another wiretap case: David Hilliard of the Black Panther Party was charged with threatening the life of Richard Nixon for a rhetorical statement he made in a speech at the Moratorium in Golden Gate Park in 1969. In spring of 1971 the government refused to disclose contents of warrantless wiretaps, and Federal District Court Judge William P. Gray immediately dismissed the indictment. Gray stated that the wiretap violated the Fourth Amendment and that the government had had “ample opportunity to seek a magistrate’s sanction” but chose not to. (Earl Caldwell, “Panther Is Released Because of Wiretap,” NY Times, 5/5/71)

Justice Department’s appeal: The case was a mandamus action and its name became “United States v United States District Court,” with Judge Keith as the respondent and the White Panthers as the real parties in interest.

WPP became Rainbow People’s Party: Ann Arbor Sun, Issue 1, April 30-May 6, 1971, “Statement of the Central Committee Rainbow People’s Party.” 

    The Bay Area chapter of the WPP did not dissolve and in fact was active for nearly twenty more years. I joined in late 1974 and remained a member until the Party disbanded in the late 1980s.

White House taping system installed:  H. R. Haldeman, The Nixon White House Tapes (National Archives, Prologue Magazine, Summer 1988 Vol 30 No.2)

6th Circuit ruling and quote: United States v U.S.Dist. Ct. for E.D. of Michigan, 444 F.2d 651 at 665 (1971) (Opinion was written by Justice Edwards)

DOJ petition USSC:  Kinoy, 10

NY Times reports Supreme Court will hear case: Robert M. Smith, “Supreme Court to Weigh Mitchell’s Wiretap View,” NY Times, 6/22/71; and Kinoy, 10

Mitchell Doctrine goes on tour:  See Exhibits in Warrantless Wiretapping hearing, especially “Remarks of William H. Rehnquist, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, at a Panel Discussion on Privacy and the Law in the 1970s, at the American Bar Association Convention, London, England,” p. 99. Rehnquist states that imposing a standard of “probable cause [would be a] fatal blow to law enforcement.” (p.101) Perhaps he thought the London audience would not realize that probable cause was required by the Fourth Amendment itself. 

Rehnquist’s reputation:  Obituary of Chief Justice William Rehnquist in The Guardian (British), September 2005

Nixon hopes Rehnquist is “reactionary”: Michael O’Donnell, “Raw Judicial Power: on William Rehnquist,” The Nation, Oct. 3, 2012

Powell article on civil liberties and wiretapping: For the entire article, see Nominations of William H. Rehnquist and Lewis F. Powell, Jr., Hearings Before the Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate, 92nd Congress, First Session, November 3, 4, 8, 9, and 10, 1971, p. 213 et seq. Powell’s article was quoted in the opening remarks of Senator Kennedy, Warrantless Wiretap hearing, 6/29/72, at page 1.

Powell assures Senate: Nominations of Rehnquist and Powell, Hearings, p. 211. Powell confirmed: Fred P. Graham, “Senate Confirms Powell by 89 to 1 for Black’s Seat,” NY Times, Dec. 7, 1971. 

    Wallace Johnson, Rehnquist’s adviser in the hearings, wrote in 2012 that the nominations and hearings in 1971 changed the paradigm for Supreme Court appointments forever. He wrote that previously nominations had been “all but rubber-stamped” but the Senate strongly resisted Rehnquist’s nomination, and “subsequent presidents [had to] carefully select, vet and coordinate confirmations as never before in history. Now a president must consider the political orientation of the Senate before sending a nomination forward.” (See NY Times Book Review, December 9, 2012 letter of Wallace Johnson responding to a review of a biography of William Rehnquist) In mild dispute of Mr. Johnson, two of Nixon’s previous nominees, Haynsworth and Carswell, were certainly not rubber-stamped. Both were rejected by the Senate after months of contentious debate.

Rehnquist confirmed: “Rehnquist Confirmed by Senate, 68-26,” NY Times, Dec. 11, 1971. 

Ten for Two rally:  Kresge Arts in Detroit, Monograph of the Life of Leni Sinclair, describes the event and includes some of Leni’s photographs. 

The John Sinclair Freedom Rally can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqbHsUcuN6I

    The song “John Sinclair” is included on the album “Sometime in New York City” by Lennon, Yoko Ono and the Plastic Ono Band. The lyrics are reprinted in the Leni Sinclair monograph. 

Over 15,000 attended: Agis Salpukas, “15,000 Attend Michigan U Rally to Protest Jailing of Radical Poet,” NY Times, 12/12/71, p.76. The Times noted that this was Lennon’s first major appearance in the U.S. in over two years.

Sinclair released on bail two days later: A moving account of this can be seen in the movie “U.S. v. John Lennon.”

ODALE: The deepest analysis of ODALE and of Nixon’s War on Drugs is in Edward Jay Epstein’s Agency of Fear. Quotes and factual data cited are taken from Newton, The War on the Panthers, pp. 32-34, citing Epstein. 

    ODALE came about after Nixon, in December, read a memo by G. Gordon Liddy that he pronounced “brilliant.” He ordered Krogh and Erlichman to follow through. Curiously, Liddy − who is not reluctant throughout his memoir to either take credit or accept blame − doesn’t refer to his brilliant memo or to the creation of ODALE. Nor does the DEA mention ODALE when describing the agencies subsumed into the DEA.

Erlichman quote: Dan Baum, “Legalize It All: How to win the war on drugs,” Harper's Magazine (April 2016). Baum was writing a book in 1994 and interviewed Erlichman concerning Nixon’s “war on drugs.”

NOTES TO “THE INTEGRITY OF THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH” 

Friends of the court briefs: US v US District Court, 407 U.S. 297 at 298-99

Mardian appeared and argued: Kinoy, 21-22.

Robert Mardian had worked in the presidential campaign of Goldwater in 1964 and the gubernatorial campaign of Ronald Reagan in 1966. He was co-chair of Nixon’s presidential campaign in 1968. Nixon appointed him general counsel to the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, then in 1970 as Assistant Attorney General under Mitchell, where he headed the Internal Security Division and “led the administration’s legal campaign against all manner of leftists.” Not to mention the administration’s illegal campaign: He was “a vigorous instigator of wiretapping and bugging subversives, which he defined broadly to include almost all opponents of the Vietnam War.” (Douglas Martin, NY Times, “Robert Mardian, 82, Nixon Campaign Lawyer, Dies,” July 22, 2006.)  He was convicted of conspiracy to obstruct justice in the Watergate affair, but an appeals court overturned the conviction on the grounds that Mardian should have been tried separately from his five co-defendants, among them Mitchell, Erlichman and Haldeman. Mitchell denied approving GEMSTONE, but Mardian testified that Mitchell did in fact approve the $250,000 budget for GEMSTONE. (Obituary of Mardian in Washington Post, 7/21/2006.)  Plamondon writes that Mardian was commonly known to be a “rabid right winger who, along with Rehnquist and Kleindienst, was part of the Goldwater Gang going back to 1964 in Phoenix. Mitchell brought Mardian to the Justice Department and made him head of the Internal Security Division with the goal of crushing all political dissent.” (Plamondon, 263)

“Without hesitation or apology…”: Kinoy, 23-24

Justice Thurgood Marshall turned his back… “…get to it?”:  Kinoy, 24; Plamondon, 268

False newspaper story on Muskie: The so-called “Canuck letter.” Nixon operatives wrote a letter that was published on February 24, 1972, two weeks before the New Hampshire primary, in the right wing Manchester Union-Leader. The letter falsely claimed that Muskie used a racial epithet against French Canadians (All the President’s Men, 127; and see Broder, “The Story That Still Nags at Me,” Washington Monthly, Feb. 1987). French Canadian workers were a strong minority in northern New England, long subjected to prejudice for their language, Catholicism, and lack of assimilation. Muskie spoke on the steps of the newspaper’s building on a snowy Feb. 26 and called the publisher, Nixon supporter William Loeb, a liar and a “gutless coward.”

Muskie also denounced Loeb for attacking the character of his wife Jane Muskie. Major newspapers including the Washington Post and Boston Globe, along with the CBS Evening News, all describe Muskie as crying, thus allegedly showing an unstable emotional condition that led to a loss of votes. This, along with two other attacks on Muskie (both carried out, incidentally, by Hunter S. Thompson), resulted in the destruction of his presidential campaign.

In October 1972 the Canuck Letter was revealed as a “Dirty Trick” of the Nixon campaign. Video of Muskie’s speech shows no crying or emotional instability whatsoever. (Younger readers may not realize the extent of the contempt and derision to which a man who wept in those days was subjected, regardless of the reason for his tears.)

Break-in of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office:  Liddy, Will, 229-234. 

Spy as Muskie’s driver: Emery, Watergate, 96; and see Colodny 116, 119-120; 

Diem: Emery, 71-73, and Howard Hunt burning evidence of the Diem fakery, Hougan, 225, Colodny, 182, and All the President’s Men, 306. 

Kissinger Taps: Colodny, 55-56. 

IRS used against Nixon’s enemies and opponents: Andrew, Power to Destroy, 202-203, 243, 257. 

Nixon intervention with IRS on behalf of friends/supporters: Andrew, Power to Destroy, 222 (ITT), 223 (Billy Graham, John Wayne), 242 (Bebe Rebozo).

Attacks on leftists planned: see Hougan, Secret Agent, 97

In early May 1972 an anti-war demonstration was held on the steps of the Capitol in Washington. Nixon’s operatives − allegedly under orders from Charles Colson − planned to attack the “long-haired demonstrators.” Nine Cubans flew up from Miami to assault Daniel Ellsberg, one of the speakers, and to “incapacitate him totally.” The Cubans weren’t able to reach Ellsberg but “disrupted [his] speech and punched out some radicals.” Roger Stone, an ardent supporter of Nixon (so much so that he has a tattoo of Nixon on his back), helped organize young Republicans to counter-demonstrate; he says he knew nothing of the attack plot. In 1972 Stone carried out a typical “dirty trick” of the Nixonians by sending a donation to Nixon’s rival Pete McCloskey in the name of “Young Socialist Alliance,” then sending the receipt to the newspapers. (Ari Melber, Noel Hartmon, and Liz Johnstone, “NBC News Exclusive: Memo Shows Watergate Prosecutors Had Evidence Nixon White House Plotted Violence,” June 18, 2017, reporting on the discovery of an 18-page memo written June 5, 1975 by Nick Akerman.)

Roger Stone’s tattoo.

     Stone is better known these days for being a longtime ally of President Trump and was a central figure in the 2016 Hillary Clinton email scandal, in which he was charged with crimes by Robert Mueller. He was convicted and sentenced to 40 months in prison after the DOJ withdrew its original recommendation of seven to nine years. For a fascinating article on Stone, see Politico Magazine, “Watergate Created Roger Stone. Trump Completed Him” by John A. Farrell, January 29, 2019. 

    “Punched out some radicals”: see Liddy, Will, 304-5, who writes that Sturgis was detained by police “but the cops were sympathetic and let him go.”

Wiretaps on radicals: The exact number of wiretaps installed is uncertain. Throughout the Warrantless Wiretap hearing Senator Kennedy and others pointed out the discrepancies in numbers provided by the Nixon Administration and the FBI. (See Wireless Wiretap Hearing at pages 70-87, 121, 126-134, and 199-211.) J. Edgar Hoover was known for jiggling the statistics by removing wiretaps the day before he or other FBI agents had to testify and reinstituting them the day after. This way he could claim a lower number of taps without committing perjury. (Warrantless Wiretap Hearing at 167, 182, and 209)

Colson/Liddy/Jack Anderson assassination: Liddy, Will, 286-295

DNC office bugged May 28: Liddy, Will, 312-321

Note concerning the convenient death of J. Edgar Hoover: On May 2, 1972, in the middle of the night, J. Edgar Hoover had a fatal heart attack. Nixon had wanted to fire Hoover for some time. Others in the administration had urged him to do so as well. It is widely believed that Nixon feared Hoover had a file on him containing information Nixon did not want made public. The day after Hoover’s death, Nixon appointed L. Patrick Gray, an Assistant Attorney General with no FBI experience, as Director. Gray had worked for Nixon in the 1950s when Nixon was Vice President. Even after Gray became acting head of the FBI he was kept on as the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Civil Division. Gray told a reporter that he had “very great concern about the activities of radical groups.” (Robert M. Smith, NY Times 5/4/72, “Nixon Names Aide as Chief of F.B.I. Until Elections,” p.1)

NOTES TO WARRANTLESS WIRETAPS HELD TO BE UNCONSTITUTIONAL

Kinoy analysis of Watergate break-in:  Kinoy, Rights on Trial, at 35

Late Friday night, 5 men…: The break in occurred after midnight, so it was actually Saturday, June 17th. 

Equipment found on arrested “burglars”: Hougan writes that in McCord’s bag were three small transmitters and a “wired smoke detector.” (Secret Agenda, p.202) See also Washington Post 6/18/72, History Channel, Politico.com.) The “burglars” each wore surgical gloves and one carried lock picking equipment. The group had two cameras, 40 rolls of film, and three pen-sized tear gas guns. Each man also carried cash ranging from two to eight hundred dollars, mostly in sequentially numbered hundred dollar bills − part of the same batch as the $2,300 soon found in their hotel room. (All the President’s Men, 15-16; and see Kinoy, pg. 36-37)

    Another explanation was offered a few years later by Liddy: Magruder wanted photographs of files in Larry O’Brien’s desk drawer. “The purpose of the second Watergate break-in was to find out what O’Brien had of a derogatory nature about us, not for us to get something on him or the Democrats.” Liddy, Will, p. 236-7 (emphasis in original). Liddy testified in 1996 that he had told Magruder the malfunctioning wiretap could be fixed with a skeleton crew consisting of McCord, the lock expert, and perhaps one more man, but Magruder dramatically exclaimed he needed to know what was in O’Brien’s locked desk drawer. “Instead of a five minute repair mission,” the operation turned into “a massive photo recon op that would take hours.” (Liddy deposition at pp. 96-98.)

This may indeed have been a second purpose for the break-in, or this could be Liddy coming up with a plausible explanation for the heavy presence that night. Liddy’s explanation accounts for the cameras and film, but not for all the electronic equipment. Besides, photographs had already been taken. Earlier in the book, Liddy says that during the first break-in, they planted a bug in O’Brien’s office and photographed the contents of his desk, per a request by Magruder (Liddy, Will, p.302-3, and 320)

Liddy believed that during the May break-in a room mic had been emplanted (but in a location that blocked transmission) and a wiretap, but later found out that “the malfunctioning transmitter was on another telephone.” (Liddy, Will, 326)

“Supreme Court has issued a sharp rebuke…”: NY Times, editorial “The Restraint of Law,” June 20, 1972. The Times also wrote that “the ruling was a stunning legal setback for the Justice Department, which failed to muster a single vote from a Court with four justices appointed by President Nixon.” (Fred P. Graham, “High court Curbs U.S. Wiretapping Aimed at Radicals,” June 20, 1972, p.1. Other newspapers were equally descriptive, such as the Washington Post:  “…major rebuff…the blow was delivered by one of President Nixon’s own appointees…” (“Court Curbs Wiretapping on Radicals,” reprinted at p.144-45 of Warrantless Wiretap Hearings)

Justice Powell opinion: United States v. United States District Court, et al., (Plamondon et al, Real Parties in Interest), 407 U.S. 297; quote is at p. 314. As to Section 2511(3), the Court wrote that it “certainly confers no power…Congress simply left presidential powers where it found them.” (p.303) 

Justices Douglas and White wrote concurring opinions. Douglas wrote:  “[W]e are currently in the throes of another national seizure of paranoia, resembling the hysteria which surrounded the Alien and Sedition Acts, the Palmer Raids, and the McCarthy era. Those who dissent or who petition their governments for redress are subjected to scrutiny by grand juries, by the FBI, or even by the military. Their associates are interrogated. Their homes are bugged and their telephones are wiretapped. They are befriended by secret government informers. Their patriotism and loyalty are questioned.” (at 329-331)

NOTES TO AFTERMATH

AG Kleindienst press release:  Warrantless Wiretapping Hearing, pg. 6, June 19, 1972 Press Release of Attorney General Richard G. Kleindienst. On June 20, the government removed the tap it had placed on the home phone of Navy Yeoman Charles Radford, whom the Nixon Administration believed had spied on Henry Kissinger on behalf of Admiral Thomas Moorer of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. See Frank Donner, The Age of Surveillance, p. 251

18-1/2 minute erasure: Rose Mary Woods took the blame for five minutes of the erasure, but the physical contortions she demonstrated defied belief. No explanation has been given for the remaining 13-plus minutes. Forensic analysis by audio specialists recruited by the National Archives found in 2003 that the tape had been erased in at least five and as many as nine segments. “Rose Mary Woods, Nixon’s Secretary, Dies,” NY Times, Jan 23, 2005; and “Rose Mary Woods, 87,” Chicago Tribune, Jan. 24, 2005. Alexander Haig attributed the erasure to “sinister forces.”

Kunstler quote on the missing 18-1/2 minutes: Kunstler, My Life as a Radical Lawyer, 210

Senator Kennedy quote on hearings: Warrantless Wiretap Hearing, opening remarks of Senator Kennedy, p. 2

AG’s office won’t seek legislation: Warrantless Wiretap Hearing, p. 6-7, Testimony of Kevin Maroney, Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Internal Security. (Earlier the AG’s office had publicly stated that they did intend to seek such legislation; Maroney testified that they’d discarded that idea.) 

Ann Arbor Sun, Aug. 4, 1972

Smoking Gun conversation: Watergateinfo.org, Smoking Gun Tape; for analysis of the tape, see Colodny, Silent Coup, pages 198-202

WPP charges dropped 7/28/72: Ann Arbor Sun, August 4, 1972, p.1

Buck Davis on effects of the decision: Buck Davis, “A People’s History”

Comment on the prosecution of Ellsberg and Russo: The prosecution of Daniel Ellsberg and Anthony Russo on 15 counts relating to theft of government documents and espionage (the Pentagon Papers) ground to a halt in July 1972 when the prosecution admitted that the government had wiretapped a conversation between one of the defendants and his attorney. Justice William O. Douglas issued a stay of proceedings, but in November the Supreme Court in a 7-2 vote refused to hear the defendants’ arguments. However, due to the elapse of so much time, the trial judge declared a mistrial. It was during the second trial in early 1973 that defendants learned of the 1971 break-in of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office. The press investigated and found that the break-in team included two men later convicted as Watergate “burglars,” and that the break-in had been a White House operation. Within two days, Nixon fired Erlichman, Haldeman, John Dean, and Kleindienst. On May 11, 1973, the judge granted defendants’ motion to dismiss. 

    As Daniel Ellsberg walked down the steps of the federal building a free man, he was greeted by the Los Angeles Times front page announcement of the indictments of John Mitchell and Maurice Stans (memorably described in Ellsberg’s memoir, Secrets).

Mitchell and Stans were charged in a multi-count indictment alleging conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and perjury concerning Robert Vesco’s $200,000 contribution to Nixon’s 1972 election campaign. Both Mitchell and Stans were acquitted on all charges on April 28, 1974.  Vesco was charged, too, and fled the country. Ten years later he was arrested in Cuba and charged with drug smuggling and other crimes, and sentenced to 13 years in prison. He is reported to have died in Havana in 2007.

Gainesville 8: David Swanson, “The Gainesville 8,” Counterpunch.org, August 23, 2013. The trial was extensively covered by underground newspapers as well as the New York Times.

Camden 28: They were a group of anti-war activists in the “Catholic Left” who raided a draft office in Camden, NJ on August 22, 1971 and destroyed records. The Berrigan brothers were two of the defendants. All 28 “proudly proclaimed their guilt” and explained to the jury why they had done it, and were acquitted. See www.camden28.org for the whole story, including an interview with an FBI agent. The FBI not only sent an informer into the group, but needed him to ensure the break-in occurred so that the defendants could be charged with more than “conspiracy to…”

The NY Times’s page 1 article on May 23, 1973 began: “CAMDEN, N. J., May 20—A jury of five men and seven women today found 17 members of the Camden 28 not guilty of breaking into the Federal Building here in 1971 and destroying draft files, even though the defendants admitted having done so and 80 Federal Bureau of Investigation agents caught them at it.”

The acquittal in this case showed that Nixon had lost his base. A jury of middle-class Americans refused to convict defendants who freely admitted they’d committed the acts because they believed the Vietnam War was the real crime.

Other leftists faced trials: These included Geronimo Pratt, prosecuted in 1972 on murder charges; Dennis Banks and Russell Means of the American Indian Movement, prosecuted in January 1974 on charges of rioting and assault at Wounded Knee; Huey Newton on an assault charge in August 1973; Puerto Rican activist Carlos Feliciano on charges of bombing a Bronx military recruiting station (he was was acquitted on June 21,1972). Most of the BLA (Black Liberation Army) trials occurred in 1973. 

Geronimo Pratt was a member of the Los Angeles BPP who was convicted in 1972 of a 1968 murder. In 1997 his conviction was vacated: the FBI and LAPD had concealed evidence that unequivocally proved his innocence — their surveillance established that he was 400 miles away when the murder occurred. (The concealed evidence, by the way, had come from a wiretap.) Mr. Pratt sued, and settled the lawsuit for $4.5 million. He spent the rest of his life working on behalf of political prisoners and died in 2011.

    In addition to the criminal trials, movement activists filed a number of civil suits against the Justice Department, including Daniel Ellsberg, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, the Jewish Defense League, and the Socialist Workers Party. Wireless Wiretap Hearing, p.27 et seq.

Supreme Court ruling ordered Nixon to turn over tapes: United States v Nixon, 418 U.S. 683

NOTES TO CODA

Valler: Buck Davis, “A People’s History”

Rehnquist’s nomination and hearing to become Chief Justice: Hearings Before the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, 99th Congress, Second Session on the Nomination of Justice William Hobbs Rehnquist to be Chief Justice of the United States, July 29, 30, 31 and August 1, 1986 (Serial # J-99-118), testimony of William Kunstler, Center for Constitutional Rights, at p. 471. See also Kunstler, My Life as a Radical Lawyer, p.210.

    In 1973 William Rehnquist was one of two justices to vote against legalizing abortion in Roe v Wade, and in 1976 was one of the justices voting unanimously that prosecutors have absolute immunity from civil lawsuits . (Imbler v Pachtman 424 U.S. 409). The Imbler case, little known to the general public, gives free reign to prosecutors to abuse their power and commit prosecutorial misconduct. A prosecutor who suborns perjury, for example, can be criminally prosecuted himself (extremely unlikely), but cannot be sued by the victim of the perjury.  

   Rehnquist wrote the majority opinion in the case that has decimated abortion rights, Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989) 492 U.S. 490, which held that Missouri legislation severely restricting abortions did not violate constitutional rights. His opinion in Planned Parenthood v Casey (505 U.S. 833, 950 (1992)) questioned the right to abortion. In 2000 he wrote the majority opinion allowing private organizations to discriminate against homosexuals (Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, 530 US 640).  He dissented in Nixon v. General Services Administration, 433 US 425 (1977), in which the majority ruled that Congress could pass a law directing the seizure and disposition of papers and tapes of former presidents that are in the control of the Executive branch. Interestingly, he was one of the dissenting justices in Gonzales v Raich (545 U.S.1), a California case that allowed Congress to ban marijuana even in states where it had been approved for medicinal purposes. Rehnquist objected on the basis of federalism: when Congress aims at possession of drugs or guns it may be appropriating state police powers under the guise of regulating commerce. 

Mitchell and Mardian convicted: Lesley Oelsner, “Watergate Jury Convicts Mitchell, Haldeman, Erlichman and Mardian in Cover-Up Case; Acquits Parkinson,” NY Times, Jan. 2, 1975, p.1

Mardian’s conviction overturned; he wasn’t re-tried: Douglas Martin, “Robert Mardian, 82, Nixon Campaign Lawyer, Dies,” NY Times, July 22, 2006

A comment about the Watergate investigations: The Senate Watergate Committee was set up to investigate the Watergate break-in and cover-up and other conduct occurring during the 1972 election, with no mandate to investigate crimes committed against the radical left. The House Judiciary Committee launched an impeachment inquiry in October 1973 and on July 27, 1974 adopted three articles of impeachment. Article 2 charged Nixon with violation of constitutional rights of citizens, but specifies only the break-ins of the DNC and Dr. Fielding’s office. All of the criminal charges brought against Nixon’s men were for acts relating to the break-in or the cover up; no charges were brought for crimes committed against radicals. Nor were those acts raised by the mainstream media. The hatred and fear of the Nixon Administration for the radical left was already being written out of history.

Nixon created DEA: DEA website; see also Epstein, Agency of Fear, 251 (which also discusses the absorption of ODALE); see also the US Navy Seal website, www.wearethemighty.com, “Six things you didn’t know about the DEA.” 

Michigan Supreme Court ruling on John Sinclair and marijuana: People v Sinclair (1972) 387 Mich. 91, 194 NW2d 878. Buck Davis writes that over 120 prisoners were freed; John Sinclair says over 140.

Ann Arbor city council and marijuana ordinance: University of Michigan, Bentley Historical Library, “Human Rights Party (Ann Arbor, Mich.) records: 1970-1979.” And see Adam Woodhead, “How hippies turned a college town into the dope capital of the Midwest,” at vice.com, May 22, 2019; “Ann Arbor Defies New Marijuana Law,” NY Times, July 15, 1973.

2016 Detroit medical marijuana zoning….Robert Colombo Jr.: Bill Weinberg, “No Equity in Detroit When It Comes to Cannabis,” FreedomLeaf.com on March 2, 2018

John and Leni Sinclair:  The papers of John and Leni Sinclair are collected in the archives of the University of Michigan. Leni Sinclair was in 2016 named a Kresge Eminent Artist and a monograph was created in honor of that. The monograph is beautiful, enlightening, and covers fifty years of music and activism. Many of Leni’s photographs are included. It can be accessed at https://kresge.org/sites/default/files/library/ea2016-lenisinclair.pdf

Pun Plamondon’s death: Detroit Free Press June 25, 2023

About Jack Forrest: During the wiretap case Jack was in prison, having pled guilty to one count of harboring a fugitive (Pun Plamondon); more time was added to his sentence for violating the parole of a previous conviction. It’s believed that upon release he left Michigan and spent years in Alaska, then moved to Indiana where, according to Pun Plamondon and Buck Davis, he is a poet and Teamster truck driver (both sources are from the early 2000s). His 1995 poem about William Kunstler can be read at https://www.echonyc.com/~poets/vol8/forrest.html

WPP lawsuit against Nixonians: Sinclair v. Kleindienst, 645 F.2d 1080

Justice Dept didn’t tell about WPP wiretap: Buck Davis, “A People’s History.” The products of this wiretap had been “routinely transmitted to approximately 125 SACs of FBI offices around the country.”

Judge Damon Keith: NPR.org, “Judge Damon J. Keith, Judicial Giant and Civil Rights Icon, Dies at 96,” Virginia Gordan, 4/28/19. For “Democracy” quotes, see Associated Press article (retrieved from The Guardian, 4/28/19, “Judge Damon Keith, civil rights legend and scourge of Nixon, dies aged 96.”) 

    The ruling in the White Panther Party case led to enactment of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which established procedures for surveillance of foreign agents suspected of terrorism or espionage and set up a court to oversee such requests. The act was introduced by Ted Kennedy and co-sponsored by Gaylord Nelson and Daniel Inouye, among other senators. But it has been amended many times, especially since 9-11, and has itself become more an instrument of repression than a method of oversight. 

SOURCES

Legal opinions

Wiretap case:

Judge Keith’s opinion: United States v. Sinclair, 321 F.Supp. 1074 (ED Mich 1971) 

Appellate court ruling upholding Keith: United States v U.S.Dist. Ct. for E.D. of Michigan, 444 F.2d 651 at 665 (1971)

Supreme Court:  United States v United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, et al., (Plamondon et al, Real Parties in Interest), 407 U.S. 297, 92 S.Ct. 2125, 32 L.Ed.2nd 752

John Sinclair’s marijuana (ten for two) case:

People v Sinclair (1972) 387 Mich. 91, 194 NW2d 878 

White Panther Party lawsuit:

Sinclair v. Kleindienst, 645 F.2d 1080 (DC Cir 1981)

Black Panther Party cases:

United States v. Smith 321 F.Supp. 424 (CD Cal 1971)

Hampton v. Hanrahan 600 F2d 600 (7th Cir. 1979)

Other:

New York Times Co. v. United States 403 U.S. 713 (1971) (Pentagon Papers)

United States v. Nixon 418 U.S. 683 (1974)

Imbler v. Pachtman 424 U.S. 409 (1976) (Absolute immunity extended to prosecutors)

Congressional hearings and government documents

Warrantless Wiretapping: Hearings before the Subcommittee on Administrative Practice and Procedure (Edward M. Kennedy, Chairman) of the Committee on the Judiciary on practices and procedures of the Department of Justice for warrantless wiretapping and other electronic surveillance, June 29, 1972 (Cited herein as “Warrantless Wiretapping hearing”)

Nominations of William H. Rehnquist and Lewis F. Powell, Jr., Hearings Before the Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate, 92nd Congress, First Session, November 3, 4, 8, 9, and 10, 1971

Hearings Before the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, 99th Congress, Second Session on the Nomination of Justice William Hobbs Rehnquist to be Chief Justice of the United States, July 29, 30, 31 and August 1, 1986 (Serial # J-99-118)

 The Senate Select Committee to Study Government Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities (aka the Church Committee) held hearings and issued reports in 1975 and 1976. Seven volumes of hearings were published. Volume 2 is the Huston Plan hearings (Sept 23, 23 and 25, 1975). Volume 6 is the FBI hearings (Nov and Dec. 1975). All the hearings volumes include documentary evidence. These are cited herein as “Church Committee, Hearings, Volume 2 (Huston Report) or -Volume 6 (FBI).”

     Final Reports were issued by the Church Committee in 1976 and comprise Books I through VI. Book II is Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans; Book III is Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans.  These are cited herein as “Church Committee, Final Report, [Book No.], [page number]”

All of the reports and hearings are available at  https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/resources/intelligence-related-commissions. 

Gun Barrel Politics: The Black Panther Party, 1966-1971, Report by the Committee on Internal Security, House of Representatives, August 18, 1971 (Cited herein as “Gun Barrel Politics”)

Federal Bureau of Investigation 1970 Appropriation: Testimony of John Edgar Hoover, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation, before the House Subcommittee on Appropriations on April 17, 1969

Books:

John A. Andrew III, Power to Destroy – The Political Uses of the IRS from Kennedy to Nixon (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2002) 

Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, All the President’s Men (New York: Pocket Books, Simon & Schuster, Inc., 2005 edition)

David A. Carson, Grit, Noise and Revolution: the Birth of Detroit Rock ’n’ Roll (Univ. Michigan Press, 2006)

Len Colodny and Robert Gettlin, Silent Coup – The Removal of a President (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991)

Frank Donner, The Age of Surveillance (New York: Vintage Books, 1981)

Daniel Ellsberg, Secrets: a Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers (New York: Penguin Random House, 2013)

Fred Emery, Watergate - The Corruption of American Politics and the Fall of Richard Nixon (New York: Touchstone Books, 1995)

Edward Jay Epstein, Agency of Fear – Opiates and Political Power in America (revised edition) (London: Verso, an imprint of New Left Books, 1990)

Mark Felt, The FBI Pyramid from the Inside (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1979)

Jeffrey Haas, The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther (Chicago Review Press, 2011)

H. R. Haldeman (with Introduction and Afterword by Stephen E. Ambrose), The Haldeman Diaries – Inside the Nixon White House (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1994)

Jim Hougan, Secret Agenda – Watergate, Deep Throat and the CIA (New York: Random House, 1984)

Arthur Kinoy, Rights on Trial – The Odyssey of a People’s Lawyer (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1983)

William M. Kunstler with Sheila Isenberg, My Life as a Radical Lawyer (New York: Birch Lane Press, 1994)

Stanley I. Kutler, The Wars of Watergate: the Last Crisis of Richard Nixon (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1992 edition) 

Sandra Levinson and Carol Brightman, editors, The Venceremo Brigade, Young Americans Sharing the Life and Work of Revolutionary Cuba (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1971)

G. Gordon Liddy, Will – the Autobiography of G. Gordon Liddy (New York: St. Martin’s Paperbacks, 1998)

Timothy Miller, The 60s Communes: Hippies and Beyond  (Syracuse University Press, 1999)

Huey P. Newton, War Against the Panthers (Doctoral Dissertation, U.C. Santa Cruz, June 1980)

Richard Nixon, RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (New York, Simon & Schuster, 1980)

Wayne Pharr, The Nine Lives of a Black Panther: a story of survival (Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 2014) 

Pun Plamondon, Lost from the Ottawa – the Story of the Journey Back (Victoria, Canada, Trafford Publishing, on demand, 2004)

Tad Szulc, Compulsive Spy: the Strange Career of E. Howard Hunt (New York: Viking Press, 1974)

Periodicals (listed alphabetically by periodical title):

Ann Arbor Sun: 

“Statement of the Central Committee, Rainbow People’s Party,” Issue 1, April 30-May 6, 1971

“The sentencing of John Sinclair,” May 28, 1971

“Nixon, Mitchell Power Conspiracy Foiled!”, Aug. 4, 1972

Berkeley Daily Gazette, “White Panthers Used Drugs, Sex to Promote Revolution,” March 17, 1971

Boston Globe: “Resolving a ‘Family Affair’,” Aug. 1, 1974

Chicago Tribune: “Rose Mary Woods, 87,” [obituary] Jan. 24, 2005

Esquire magazine: Charles B. Pierce, “It’s Official: Nixon Is the Worst,” 6/10/2014

Fifth Estate:

“President Dave Busted,” #64, Oct. 17-30, 1968  

“Arrests Made in Bombings,” #66, Nov. 14-27, 1968 

“Valler Gets 7 to 10 Years,”  #81, June 12-25, 1969 

“President Dave Doing Well,” #89, Oct. 2-15, 1969

 David Gaynes, “President Dave Oinks,” #90, Oct. 16-29, 1969

The Guardian (British): 

Harold Jackson, “Chief Justice William Rehnquist” [obituary], 4 September 2005

Associated Press, “Judge Damon Keith, civil rights legend and scourge of Nixon, dies aged 96,” Apr . 28, 2019

Jacobin magazine:  

Derek Seidman, “Fifty Years Ago Today, US Soldiers Joined the Vietnam Moratorium Protests in Mass Numbers,” Oct. 15, 2019

Bruce A. Dixon, “Why I Can’t Celebrate Kwanzaa,” December 2018

Los Angeles Times, Matthew Fleischer, Opinion: “50 Years Ago, LAPD Raided the Black Panthers. SWAT teams have been targeting Black communities ever since,” December 8, 2019

Marin Independent Journal, State of California report on 1971 bombings, March 3, 1972 (article title unknown)

Michigan Daily, Christopher Zbrozek, “The Bombing of the Ann Arbor CIA office,” Oct. 24, 2004

National Geographic: Andrea King Collier, “The Black Panthers: Revolutionaries, Free Breakfast Pioneers,” Nov. 4, 2015

The Nation, Michael O’Donnell, “Raw Judicial Power: on William Rehnquist,” Oct. 3, 2012

The New Yorker:  Jonathan Schell, “The Time of Illusion,” June 2, 1975

New York Times (in chronological order):

Robert R. McFadden, “College Strife Spreads,” May 8, 1970

Linda Charlton, “Many Colleges Reopen, but Students at 158 Schools Are on Strike Indefinitely,” May 12, 1970

Paul L. Montgomery, “War Protests Continue; Colleges Poorly Attended,” May 13, 1970

Robert M. Smith, “Supreme Court to Weigh Mitchell’s Wiretap View,” June 22, 1971

“Political Kidnapping Plot Tied to White Panthers,” March 17, 1971, p.51

“White Panthers Call Charge of Kidnap Plot ‘Fabrication’,” March 18, 1971, p.26

Earl Caldwell, “Panther Is Released Because of Wiretap,” May 5, 1971

Fred P. Graham, “Senate Confirms Powell by 89 to 1 for Black’s Seat,” Dec. 7, 1971

“Rehnquist Confirmed by Senate, 68-26,”Dec. 11, 1971, p.1 (no byline)

Agis Salpukas, “15,000 Attend Michigan U Rally to Protest Jailing of Radical Poet,” Dec. 12, 1971, p.76

Robert M. Smith, “Nixon Names Aide as Chief of F.B.I. Until Elections,” May 4, 1972, p.1

Fred P. Graham, “High Court Curbs U.S. Wiretapping Aimed at Radicals,” June 20, 1972, p.1

Editorial, “The Restraint of Law,” June 20, 1972, p.38

Donald Janson, “17 of Camden 28 Found Not Guilty,” May 21, 1973, p.1

“Ann Arbor Defies New Marijuana Law,” July 15, 1973, p.33 (no byline)

Agis Salpukas, “U.S. Foregoes Trial of Weathermen,” Oct. 16, 1973

Anthony Ripley, “Jury Named Nixon a Co-Conspirator But Didn’t Indict,” June 7, 1974

Lesley Oelsner, “Watergate Jury Convicts Mitchell, Haldeman, Erlichman and Mardian in Cover-Up Case; Acquits Parkinson,” Jan. 2, 1975, p.1

Seymour M. Hersh, “1971 Tape Links Nixon to Plan to Use ‘Thugs’,” Sept. 24, 1981

Tim Weiner, “In Tapes, Nixon Muses About Break-Ins at Foreign Embassies,” Feb. 26, 1999, p. 13 Section A

“Rose Mary Woods, Nixon’s Secretary, Dies,” Jan 23, 2005 

Douglas Martin, “Robert Mardian, 82, Nixon Campaign Lawyer, Dies,” July 22, 2006

Douglas Martin, “Anthony J. Russo, 71, Pentagon Papers Figure, Dies,” Aug 8, 2008

Tim Weiner, “Charles W. Colson, Watergate Felon Who Became Evangelical Leader, Dies at 80,” April 21, 2012

Book Review, December 9, 2012 letter of Wallace Johnson responding to a review of a biography of William Rehnquist

Rob Tannenbaum, “The Who’s Roger Daltry Is Not Nostalgic for Woodstock,” Aug. 7, 2019, part of its Woodstock at 50 series

Politico Magazine, “Watergate Created Roger Stone. Trump Completed Him” by John A. Farrell, January 29, 2019

Rolling Stone, Lowell Bergman & David Weir, “Revolution on Ice: How the Black Panthers lost the FBI’s war of dirty tricks,” Sept. 9, 1976

San Francisco Examiner, “Agnew Kidnap Talk by White Panthers,” March 16, 1971

Time Magazine, Bryan Burroughs, “The Bombings of America That We Forgot,” September 20, 2016

Washington Monthly Magazine, David Broder, “The Story That Still Nags at Me,” Feb. 1987

Washington Post:

John P. MacKenzie, “Court Curbs Wiretapping on Radicals,” June 20, 1972, p.1

Obituary of Robert Mardian, July 21, 2006

Yale Law Journal, Kate Redburn, “Zoned Out: How Zoning Law Undermines Family Law’s Functional Turn,” 2019, 128:2412

Other Articles

Antiwar and Radical History Project – Pacific Northwest; “The May 1970 Student Strike at UW,” Zoe Altaras.

Jack Caulfield, “In their own words,” The Nixon Era Times (official publication of the Nixon Era Center at Mountain State University

Ward Churchill, “To Disrupt, Discredit and Destroy” – The FBI’s Secret War Against the Black Panther Party, an essay from Agent of Repression, available online.

Hugh “Buck” Davis, “A People’s History of the CIA Bombing Conspiracy (the Keith case); or, How the White Panthers Saved the Movement,” a transcript of his address to the Detroit and Michigan National Lawyers Guild Annual Dinner, 2010, posted by Ann Arbor District Library (retrieved April 2020) (Cited herein as “Buck Davis, A People’s History”)

CNN, “Great Mystery of the 1970s: Nixon, Watergate and the Huston Plan,” by Doug Brinkley, CNN Presidential Historian, and Luke A. Nichter, updated June 17, 2015

FreedomLeaf.com, “No Equity in Detroit when it comes to cannabis,” Bill Weinberg, March 2, 2018

Jeff A. Hale, Ph.D., “The White Panthers’ ‘Total Assault on the Culture,’” essay in Imagine Nation; the American Counterculture of the 1960s and ‘70s, Ed. Peter Braunstein and Michael William Doyle (New York: Routledge 2002) (also available at the website MC5 Gateway)

Jeff A. Hale, “Wiretapping and National Security: Nixon, the Mitchell Doctrine, and the White Panthers,” (1995), LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses, 6015.

Robert Havey, “Panther by the Tail,” Bentley Historical Library Magazine

Jordan Moran, University of Virginia Miller Center, “Nixon and the Pentagon Papers.”

Ari Melber, Noel Hartmon, and Liz Johnstone, “NBC News Exclusive: Memo Shows Watergate Prosecutors Had Evidence Nixon White House Plotted Violence,” June 18, 2017, reporting on the discovery of an 18-page memo written June 5, 1975 by Nick Akerman. 

National Archives:  H. R. Haldeman, The Nixon White House Tapes (National Archives, Prologue Magazine, Summer 1988, Vol. 30, No.2)

NPR.org, “Judge Damon J. Keith, Judicial Giant and Civil Rights Icon, Dies at 96.” Virginia Gordan. 4/28/19

Daniel A. Simmons, “ ‘Must Be the Season of the Witch’: The Repression and Harassment of Rock and Folk Music During the Long Sixties” (2013) Doctoral Dissertation.19. (Available at OpenCommons@UConn) 

Robyn Spencer, post on Dukeupress, “The Black Panther Party and Black Anti-Fascism in the United States,” January 2017

Adam Woodhead, “How hippies turned a college town into the dope capital of the Midwest,” at vice.com, May 22, 2019

Websites of former BPP and WPP members:

Black Panther Party: www.itsabouttimebpp.com/home/home.html  – created by Black Panther Party alumni, with articles, documents, photos and more, including many issues of The Black Panther.

John Sinclair Freedom Rally on December 10, 1971: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqbHsUcuN6I

John Sinclair’s website:  https://johnsinclair.us

Kresge Arts in Detroit, Monograph of the life of Leni Sinclair: https://kresge.org/sites/default/files/library/ea2016-lenisinclair.pdf

Bobby Seale’s website:  www.bobbyseale.com

Other Websites, Archives, and Misc.

The Camden 28 website: http://www.camden28.org/

Counterpunch.org, “The Gainesville 8,” by David Swanson, Aug. 23, 2013

Detroit Artists Workshop, Abbie Hoffman at Woodstock

www.kent.edu/may-4-1970

Transcript of the Deposition of G. Gordon Liddy on Dec. 6, 1996 in Maureen K. Dean and John W. Dean v. St. Martin’s Press, Inc, et al, No. 92-1807, In the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (cited herein as “Liddy Deposition”)

“Leni & John Sinclair Kick Out the Jams Motherfucker!” interview, 1x Run. Date not provided. Retrieved April 30, 2020.

“Six things you didn’t know about the DEA,” at the U.S. Navy Seal website, www.wearethemighty.com

University of Michigan, Bentley Historical Library, “Human Rights Party (Ann Arbor, Mich.) records: 1970-1979.” 

University of Virginia Miller Center, Jordan Moran, “Nixon and the Pentagon Papers”

University of Washington, Mapping American Social Movements Project, “May 1970 Student Antiwar Strikes,” by Amanda Miller

Watergateinfo.org, “Smoking Gun tape”: https://watergate.info/1972/06/23/the-smoking-gun-tape.html

White House tapes at University of Virginia Miller Center; reported at www.kentwired.com.

https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/jackson-state-killings/

AFFIDAVIT OF JOHN MITCHELL

(Filed in White Panther wiretap case; included in US v USDC, 407 US 297 at 300, n.2 and in US v USDC for Eastern District of Michigan, 44 F2d 651 (1971), filed on December 18, 1970 in support of government’s response to motion to dismiss :

JOHN N. MITCHELL being duly sworn deposes and says:

1. I am the Attorney General of the United States.

2. This affidavit is submitted in connection with the Government’s opposition to the disclosure to the defendant Plamondon of information concerning the overhearing of his conversations which occurred during the course of electronic surveillances which the Government contends were legal.

3. The defendant Plamondon has participated in conversations which were overheard by Government agents who were monitoring wiretaps which were being employed to gather intelligence information deemed necessary to protect the nation from attempts of domestic organizations to attack and subvert the existing structure of the Government. The records of the Department of Justice reflect the installation of these wiretaps had been expressly approved by the Attorney General.

4. Submitted with this affidavit is a sealed exhibit containing the records of the intercepted conversations, a description of the premises that were the subjects of surveillances, and copies of the memoranda reflecting the Attorney General’s express approval of the installation of the surveillances.

5. I certify that it would prejudice the national interest to disclose the particular facts concerning these surveillances other than to the court in camera. Accordingly, the sealed exhibit referred to herein is being submitted solely for the court’s in camera inspection, and a copy of the sealed exhibit is not being furnished to the defendants. I would request the court, at the conclusion of its hearing on this matter, to place the sealed exhibit in a sealed envelope and return it to the Department of Justice, where it will be retained under seal so that it may be submitted to any appellate court that may review this matter. 

A SHORT LIST OF RECOMMENDATIONS

Movies:

“Panther” (1995)  directed by Mario Van Peebles – dramatization of the early years of the Black Panther Party in Oakland. 

“The Murder of Fred Hampton” (1971) - documentary by The Film Group. Extensive footage of Fred Hampton speaking and of Bobby Seale and other Party members. Film also highlights evidence in the Panthers’ Chicago apartment proving murder by police. Available to stream for free at https://vimeo.com/434141029

“Sir! No Sir!” (2005) – documentary about anti-war activism in the military during the Vietnam War, which also gives a great overview of the anti-war movement as a whole. This movie puts lie to the myth that the movement and soldiers were at odds. 

“The U.S. vs. John Lennon” (2006) – documentary on Lennon’s later years when he became politically active.

“Walk with Me: the Trials of Damon J. Keith” (2016) – documentary 

Books:

John Sinclair, Guitar Army – available on John’s website, linked above in Websites of former BPP and WPP members

Bobby Seale, Seize the Time – available on Bobby’s website, linked above

Huey P. Newton, War Against the Panthers: A Study of Repression in America – Huey Newton’s doctoral dissertation, June 1980. Available as a printed book or as a pdf file at ouleft.org/wp-content/uploads/Huey-WATP.pdf

Huey P. Newton, Revolutionary Suicide (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973), autobiography. Reissued by Penguin Classics 2009 (also available as an ebook).

Huey P. Newton, To Die for the People (New York: Random House, 1972), edited by Toni Morrison; a collection of essays including On the Defection of Eldridge Cleaver, 1971, In Defense of Self-Defense, 1967; The Women’s Liberation and Gay Liberation Movements, 1970. Reissued by City Lights Publishers 2009.