Final_Judgment

[370] Final Judgment 467
the reference regarding the "Bay of Pigs" and the Kennedy assassination
into his memoirs and that it was published without his knowledge and that it
was simply not true. Haldeman failed to explain, however, why he had
never read his own memoirs before they were published or why he never
repudiated the supposedly spurious—but often noted—claims by his coauthor
immediately after the book was published.)
There were others who also believed that the CIA was a prime mover
behind the Watergate scandal. Even the Washington Post (which
became the foremost media voice in the Watergate affair) reported:
"Charles W. Colson (a top Nixon adviser) made a startling series of
allegations about Nixon's fears of CIA involvement in the Watergate
scandal. Colson portrayed the president as a virtual Oval Office captive
of suspected high-ranking conspirators in intelligence circles, against
whom he dare not act for fear of international and domestic political
repercussions. His underlying suspicion was that the CIA planned the
break-ins at Watergate. The motive: to discredit the president's inner
circle of advisers:' 955
It appears indeed that Nixon was blackmailing the CIA over its
involvement in the JFK assassination and attempted to use this knowledge
against the CIA for political leverage after the Watergate affair began to
unfold. However, there is a great likelihood that, from the very beginning,
the bungled "break-in" at the Watergate was actually a set-up that was
designed to fail. And behind that set-up was the CIA itself.
There have been more than a few investigators who have looked into
the Watergate affair—including the aforementioned Carl Oglesby—who
have concluded that the Watergate burglars were, in fact, infiltrated by a
"double agent" or agents who deliberately ensured that the Watergate
burglars were caught in the act: A piece of masking tape "accidentally" left
over a door latch—horizontally, rather than vertically, thereby exposing it—
alerted Watergate security that shenanigans were afoot.
ANGLETON'S BURGLARS?
While it has been suggested E. Howard Hunt himself was one of those
who helped "bungle" the break-in—a view evidently held by G. Gordon
Liddy and certainly by Eugenio Martinez, 9 5 6 two of the other
burglars—another likely double agent was James McCord who was directly
responsible for the travesty of the tape.
Although not known to the public before the Watergate scandal,
McCord was not a run-of-the-mill "CIA agent." He had not only been the
senior CIA security official in Europe but was also later responsible for
security at CIA headquarters at Langley, 957 not insignificant positions by
any means. Yet, in ostensible "retirement" the CIA's high-ranking security
expert managed to "bungle" a two-bit burglary.