John Dean on Countdown: Watergate Burglars Were Looking For Financial Info To Embarrass Dems

[Hissyspit]

Dean interviewed by Keith Olbermann tonight says that, while doing research for his new revised edition of "Blind Ambition," he found that Nixon had a tip that there was a kickback scheme involving the Florida convention.

Did Nixon Order It? Dean says there is no evidence he directly ordered it, but inspired it.

Dean says there is NO evidence there was actually a kickback scheme.

KEITH: "What did Nixon expect to happen when he put out that he wanted this information that was only available in these offices' desks?"

DEAN: "I think you've nailed it."

"I was falsely accused of ordering the break-in, so there was a lawsuit and it led to this research."

[grantcart]

1. The most credible story is that Nixon had been paid

$ 200,000 by Howard Hughes to ensure that there would be no nuclear testing in Nevada.

Nixon took the money and later did not stop the testing - which would have been very difficult to do at that time.


Nixon was paranoid that Hughes was going to take his revenge by leaking the payment to Nixon.


Larry Obrien, Chairman of the DNC had also served as a lobbyist for Hughes. Nixon hoped that he could find information that would neutralize the information that Hughes had about him.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate

Meier told Donald that he was sure the Democrats would win the election because they had considerable information on Richard Nixon’s illicit dealings with Howard Hughes that had never been released, and that Larry O’Brien had the information, <33> (O’Brien who had received $25,000 from Hughes didn’t actually have any documents but Meier claims to have wanted Richard Nixon to think he did). It is only a question of conjecture then that Donald called his brother Richard and told him that Meier gave the Democrats all the Hughes information that could destroy him and that O’Brien had the proof.<34> The fact is Larry O'Brien, elected Democratic Party Chairman, was also a lobbyist for Howard Hughes in a Democratic controlled Congress and the possibility of his finding about Hughes illegal contributions to the Nixon campaign was too much of a danger for Nixon to ignore and O'Brien's office at Watergate became a target of Nixon's intelligence in the political campaign.<35> This theory has been proposed as a motivation for the break-in.

[Maccagirl]

2. I read about the Hughes connection in a book

"The 70 Greatest Conpiracies, Cover-ups amd Cabals.." as well. Sounds right to me. Hughes played both sides politcally but I still think the cover-up coming from the WH had more to do with the burglers ties to black ops.

[Hissyspit]

5. The movie "The Hoax" inserts those ideas into the Clifford Irving scam.

Lots of fun to watch, whether true or not:

http://www.fandango.com/thehoax_97349/movieoverview

[grantcart]

6. Actually it was in a Playboy article a long time ago. It had a lot of detail

and made the most sense

Nixon wasn't an idiot. There wasn't any political reason to but the Watergate. But he was hypersensitive to criticism and worried about the Hughes money. His brother had a loan from Hughes before and it broke in 1960 and was an embarassment.

[DJ13]

4. That makes more sense than the sanitized Dean version

Nixon won a landslide in 72 without any dirt on the Democrats, seems rather implausible the GOP thought they needed dirt to win.

[grantcart]

7. Well at the time of the burglarly the landslide wasn't in the bag yet

the GOP didn't need the dirt but Nixon was hypersensitive to criticism and in 1960 a loan to his brother from Hughes had already caused embarassment.

[ddeclue]

3. How ironic!

They ended up outing Nixon's slush funds instead.

[Festivito]

8. Searching for embarrassing financials by conducting an embarrassingly financed search.

Irony. Corrupt. Stupid.