As Tom Oliphant notes in today’s Boston Globe, the CIA leak coverup “worked” by stalling any outcome until well past the November 2004 presidential election.
And that coverup was actively abetted by insider journalists, among them Bob Woodward, Cokie Roberts, Chris Matthews, and William Safire. So it’s something of a pleasant surprise to read this today from the editorial board of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:
There is a cancer on the presidency, and it cannot be exorcised by the resignation of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby.
There, in that sentence, is the echo of the words of John Dean to his then-president, Richard Nixon. But while Dean continues to fight “cancers” as he sees them, a once-dogged, truth-seeking reporter who helped uncover that “cancer” has sold his soul in exchange for access inside the White House. Last Friday night, Bob Woodward minimized the outing of a CIA NOC/analyst on CNN’s Larry King:
BOB WOODWARD: [T]his began not as somebody launching a smear campaign that it actually — when the story comes out I’m quite confident we’re going to find out that it started kind of as gossip, as chatter …
— from Larry Johnson’s “Bob Woodward, Lost in Cronyism?”
Oliphant, linked at Salon‘s Daou Report, wrote today:
NO ONE really noticed, but Patrick Fitzgerald made an unassailable point last week about the timing of the indictment that his CIA leak investigation has produced so far.
”I would have wanted nothing better,” he said, ”that when the subpoenas were issued in August of 2004, witnesses testified then, and we would have been here in October of 2004 instead of October of 2005.”
… the quixotic pursuit of a nonexistent right or privilege by some news organizations is one reason President Bush was reelected last year.
Beyond Scooter Libby’s lies, it was insider journalists — more concerned with their networks of sources than with the illegal disclosure of classified information — who stalled Fitzgerald’s investigation until after the November 2004 election. And it’s insider journalists (unlike Tom Oliphant and the Seattle PI‘s editors) who are continuing to minimize Fitzgerald’s work and failing to see their own complicity in the stall and the coverup:
COKIE ROBERTS on ABC’s This Week last Sunday:
The one good piece of news in terms of our trade (journalism) is that Fitzgerald did not indict under the espionage act, he did not say that leaking classified information was found because that would dry up sources so completely that we would never have a conversation again. (Crooks & Liars has the video.)
Cokie Roberts, who uttered that amoral concern for protecting her sources, is the daughter of the long-deceased former Democratic majority leader Hale Boggs who, during the early 1970s. outspokenly railed against J. Edgar Hoover and Nixon’s handling of the Watergate scandal.
Then there’s now-retired NYT columnist William Safire who, last July, said that “he was afraid to rigorously condemn a ‘chilling’ assault on journalism by the courts [Fitzgerald], fearing reprisals against a colleague jailed for contempt of court.” On Meet The Press October 30, Safire accused Fitzgerald of stepping outside the law and beyond his role as a prosecutor:
We’re talking about something that’s happened here that I think is a body blow to the freedom of the press in America, and that is the tendency of a prosecutor who is now a media darling but who will be seen in future years as someone who went too far in exposing the press to the need to carry out the laws.
Perhaps most astonishingly, a few minutes later, Tim Russert smeared Judge Hogan as a “Clinton appointee”:
TIM RUSSERT: … the interesting thing is one of the judges who was appointed by President Clinton, who’s for a federal shield law, said it wouldn’t apply in this case because it was an investigation into national security.
Below the fold are more of Safire’s and Russert’s assertions of clubby protectionism for elite journalists against a (let’s face it) non-elite prosecutor and a Clinton judge.
Shifting back to today, briefly: As you’ve also noted, the media is abetting the White House’s drive to change the focus from “‘Bush the victim’ [and “Scooter the Indicted”] to the ‘Bush rebound'” (Pre$$titutes) … Continued below:
As Pre$$titutes, linked at the Daou Report, points out today:
BUSH’S REBOUND: The Libby indictment was an inflection point, marking a nadir in Bush’s political fortunes. Going forward, the new media narrative – and the White House’s raison d’etre – has shifted from “Bush the victim” to the “Bush rebound.” A hasty SCOTUS pick to appease the distressed base, a roll-out of Avian Flu strategy, upcoming elections in Iraq, more terror speeches and who knows what else. All these are part of a concerted p.r. offensive with a single objective: to show an uptick in Bush’s approval ratings. Once that occurs, and it likely will, the media and the rightwing noise machine can create a self-reinforcing loop by using the poll numbers to cement the ‘rebound’ narrative. [Read More]
Lest we allow the press to rush headlong into the White House-propelled “Bush is recovering” meme, let’s pass around Oliphant’s column today in which the elegant writer makes clear that Patrick Fitzgerald went to great lengths to be “sensitive to” journalists’ privacy but also pursued his investigation of a real crime against national security:
By the summer of last year, the indictment makes clear, Fitzgerald already had Libby on the hook. He had testified twice before the grand jury, claiming that his knowledge of Valerie Plame Wilson’s classified CIA position and status as former ambassador Joseph Wilson’s wife had come from reporters. Fitzgerald had already taken a statement from NBC’s Washington bureau chief, Tim Russert, flatly contradicting Libby’s entire story. Russert had made his statement under ground rules that kept Fitzgerald from asking for anything beyond Russert’s end of a phone conversation with Libby, thus protecting what Libby said to him.
That largely unnoticed fact shows Fitzgerald being sensitive to a journalist’s desire to shield a source from disclosure while pressing for the information (what Russert said to Libby) that was most material. Deals between the prosecutor and reporters for The Washington Post show similar sensitivity.
Time magazine and its correspondent Matt Cooper, and The New York Times and its correspondent Judy Miller contested their subpoenas, which postponed the final stages of the investigation until this summer. Fitzgerald prevailed in each case — no surprise, since the governing constitutional law is clear. Even in victory, Fitzgerald was careful to limit his questioning of reporters and examination of their notes; this was no fishing expedition but a diligent search for evidence from what amounted to witnesses to an alleged crime. …
This segment from last Sunday’s MEET THE PRESS transcript is worth a fast scan. The collusion among insider members of the press is clear in this exchange:
WILLIAM SAFIRE: … I’d just like to make the point about the First Amendment. We’re talking about something that’s happened here that I think is a body blow to the freedom of the press in America, and that is the tendency of a prosecutor who is now a media darling but who will be seen in future years as someone who went too far in exposing the press to the need to carry out the laws. The press is not an arm of the law. And I think in Judy Miller’s case, for example, she’s suffered 85 days in jail. She’s getting a lot of flak from a lot of people who don’t like a tough-minded, hard-driving investigative reporter who did wonderful work. She’s a super reporter, did wonderful work on calling attention and getting a Pulitzer Prize and being part of the team that exposed al-Qaeda a year before September 11 and helped me, frankly, in focusing attention on the oil-for-food scandal.
MR. RUSSERT: But even within The New York Times…
MS. WOODRUFF: Yeah.
MR. RUSSERT: …the public editor of The Times has said it’s probably best she not come back.
MR. SAFIRE: I…
MR. RUSSERT: Maureen Dowd said she’s a woman of mass destruction. She’s very controversial even at The Times.
MR. SAFIRE: She’s never run for Miss Congeniality, but she’s a great reporter and I’m proud to have served with her.
MS. WOODRUFF: She has three editors, though, in Jill Abramson and Bill Keller and then a Washington bureau chief, Phil Taubman, though, who have said–who’ve openly disputed her account of events. I mean, you could even say that–they said she’s deceived. I mean, I don’t–I mean, I’m not in a position to know what was inside her head. I just want to say on this whole privileged reporters protecting their sources–I don’t know a reporter who wants to go, you know, and talk before a grand jury. I’m sure Tim was uncomfortable with it, but this case…
MR. RUSSERT: Well, we resisted and the court orders you…
MS. WOODRUFF: Right.
MR. RUSSERT: …and, in fact, the interesting thing is one of the judges who was appointed by President Clinton, who’s for a federal shield law, said it wouldn’t apply in this case because it was an investigation into national security.
MS. WOODRUFF: It’s an investigation where reporters were central to the case…
MR. RUSSERT: But it’s awkward.
MS. WOODRUFF: …and to proving that somebody lied. And can I just quickly double back to–go ahead.
MR. RUSSERT: We’ve got to go.
MS. WOODRUFF: You’ve got to go.
MR. RUSSERT: Judy Woodward, to be continued. Judy Woodward, David Brooks, David Broder, Bill Safire. We’ll be right back.
Just as it’s true that more tragedy is caused by ignorance than by malice, so too I think it’s fair to say that the failure of the media here in the US to do it’s proper job will ultimately bring more destruction upon the country than even the war and economic policies of the reigning regime in Washington.
Democracy cannot exist without an informed electorate, and the Fourth Estate now belongs to the corporatocracy. Their zombies are disgusting to watch, but I’m starting to think Chris Matthews is in trouble.
He seems scared. Russert told about his testimony after Libby’s indictments. Joe Wilson says in his book that Matthews called him to tell him Rove said his wife is “fair game.” The indictments are in, and Russert’s gone public? Why not Matthews? Waiting for the Rove indictments? Afraid he might be part of them? Did Matthews lie to the GJ, too? (I know it sounds stupid to speculate about him, but he’s begging for it, and I can’t stand it!!)
Watching him last night with Howard Dean was great! He kept trying to get Dean to say he was “pro-choice,” and Dean kept insisting he believes in the individual right to choose health care. Great meme, Howard!
I don’t know if matthews is scared insome way because of the investigation so much as he’s just backsliding personally, regressing back into former modes of behavior.
I believe he had a fairly serious alcohol abuse problem and that sometime last year or the year before he made a concerted attempt to get it under control. I think he had some success with this as his demeanor on his show changed pretty dramatically; he raised his voice less and was less strident generally, he really reduced the frequency he interrupted people, and he seemed to actually listen to his guests morte often.
That’s all gone now, and if anything he’s worse now than he was prior to his brief episode of self-improvement. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he started drinking again. And I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s becoming aware that he’s losing his appeal and influence within the punditocracy. (His ratings are slipping as his commentary becomes less informative and less accurate, and the reporter David Gregory looks to be MSNBC’s “up and comer” as far as real news and analysis is concerned.
All these millionaire pundits can go shit in their hats as far as I’m concerned. They’ve been their own biggest fans for far too long and they simply have lost the ability, let alone the will, to do their jobs.
I saw him last night, and I felt like putting my arm into the TV and grabbing him by the neck.
I also don’t understand why Dean just didn’t put and end to Mathews harassment.
Her reporting–if you can call it that–of Gulf War II made me a believer in Pacifica Radio and Democracy Now.
I think it is Cokie Robert’s reputation that will be in trouble and not Pat Fitzgerald’s.
I hate to be impolite in this setting, but my only comment regarding Cokie, neeColleen Boogs, PumpkinHead, and the rest – fuck ’em.
Look, ya all, I understand the premice that the media was complicit. I think we all do, so why are we just talking about it?! Can we not change it??!! If we simply dont buy the papers that they speak in, and we demonstrate this with our letters and or noncomlicity in their actions, then maybe we can make a difference. It is a government of, by and for the people, right?? In the constitution it is stated that the press must reamin free to report the truth. This administration and those that preceded it, are to blame for the fault in this. We must always be vigalent to this.
And I think Fitzgerald was urging us to do just that — be vigilant. We also need to alert those who are not vigilant … at least as much as we can!
November 2040 presidential election
It’ll take that long to get any measure of honesty out of them.
Not to be outdone, E.J. Dionne wrote the same theme today:
I wonder if Oliphant will be on with Al Franken and will have anything to say about their columns starting off with essentially the same theme and quote?
Here’s Michael Smerconish at Huffington Post with a long, interesting quote from Matthews:
Before he quit writing a column for the SF Chronicle, Matthews was against the Iraq war. But there he is, stuck in the middle of the corporatocracy.
It’s scary going up against this White House.
Did Matthews say that on the record?
That was my question. Also, was Mathews the MSNBC person that Libby called Russert to complain about?
Yes, I’m quite sure I read that it was Matthews who Libby complained about … in fact, I think I wrote about it the other day (I’m laughing … )
BTW:
I’m cross-posted at DailyKos.
Sorry I didn’t give better context. He asked Matthews if Russert called him after Libby called Russert. I just thought it was particularly telling that Matthews is able to tell this so quickly, but not discuss it openly on his show.
Here’s the first paragraph of the writer’s bio:
Michael Smerconish is the Philadelphia radio market’s premier talk host who is heard daily on Infinity Radio’s 50,000-watt WPHT, found at 1210 AM. The program reaches Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware. Smerconish is also a frequent guest host for Bill O’Reilly on the nationally syndicated Radio Factor. For several years, Smerconish has been a popular columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News. In 2003, author Bernard Goldberg re-published one of Smerconish’s Daily News columns in his book Arrogance, a follow-up to his bestseller Bias. Smerconish is a familiar face on Fox News, MSNBC and CNN where he provides commentary on current events.
… I shouldn’t assume he’s a reliable source, but he’s widely heard, I guess …
Michael Smerconish at Huffington Post (link before blockquote), said that’s what Matthews told him. Not me!! I’m just reading ;0
This is in part based on emptywheel’s excellent analysis over at The Next Hurrah suggesting that Matthews may have been one of the original 6 journalists leaked to, sometime between July 6-July 8. It seems logical because,as others have shown in this thread, Scooter calls up Russert on July 10 to complain about Tweety’s July 8 Hardball piece in which Tweety repeatedly refers to Libby by name and the OVP as the guys who ordered Wilson to Niger (see this Crowley piece for partial transcript of that show).
Which got me thinking, you know, Libby’s GJ testimony about his conversation with Russert (per the indictment) just never really sounded like ole Pumkinhead to me. It really sounded like Tweety, with the “look, look at what I know” style he loves to display (which is probably why he blabbed Libby’s name on Hardball in the first place). Of course, this is precisely why he might have been one of the original targets of the leak, they’d figure that he’d blab the information to everyone. And that might give Libby and Rove a semi-plausible “we heard this from reporters” defense.
What I envision happening is a planned whisper campaign some time in late June-early July (after the Pincus piece and the New Republic piece, probably before Wilson’s op-ed), possibly instigated by Libby/Rove (or others within the OVP), among the Washington beltway insiders/press corpse along the lines of “I heard Wilson’s wife was CIA and that’s why he was sent to Niger.” You know, just a rumor (which would somewhat substantiate Woodward’s comment, although he’s in denial about how the press willfully allowed this whole thing to blow up), certainly not something anyone would publish. But it gets back to Wilson. And he’s pissed.
So, he pushes back with the op-ed as a shot across the bow to the OVP, who retaliates with the Get Wilson campaign (the original “leaks” by Rove/Libby).
I would bet Tweety heard about Wilson and Valerie (though maybe not her name) from some of his Hardball friends (Andrea Mitchell springs to mind), and when Libby called him up to spread the misinformation that it wasn’t Darth Cheney that sent Wilson, but his wife, he buts in and starts saying, “ooh, ooh, is she CIA? Cause that’s what I heard. All the reporters know about it!” And maybe Libby says yes, maybe he just says, I don’t know, but someone at CIA sent him.
And then, couple days later after Libby’s seething mad about the Hardball piece, he calls up Russert to complain about Tweety and then asks him if Tweety’s talked to him (Russert) about Libby’s and his conversation. And he proceeds to tell him the gist of the story, not failing to mention that Tweety was passing an incredible rumor that Wilson’s wife was CIA and that all the reporters know. Again, maybe he confirms, maybe not, probably Russert says nothing in response. But it plants a bug in Russert’s ear.
To me, this would explain Russert’s cryptic holding out on testifying (didn’t want to rat on Matthews/NBC) even when he had nothing of substance to say. And it also explains his weird outburst on his CNBC show Saturday night in which he revealed that he was puzzled by Scooter’s phone call until after the Novak piece came out (“so THAT’S what he meant”). It also may explain Matthew’s weird behavior on his show, anytime he goes too far from the Repub talking points, they threaten him or NBC president with loss of access .
And I think it may answer why Scooter attributed the information to Russert and not (truthfully) to Matthews. He probably knew Matthews would testify if asked (Matthews said as much in Wilson’s book), so he couldn’t hide behind Matthews. And even if Russert did squeal, I think Scooter’s planning on falling back on the “I forgot” or “I get Matthews and Russert mixed up” defense. Notice even in his testimony to the GJ, he flips back and forth betweeen “he said– I said–he said, sorry, he, Mr. Russert said to me.” HOw much you wanna bet that his lawyer’s going to point to that and say, look he was confused, he doesn’t even know who said what.
Since Matthews is getting more unhinged by the day, I suspect we’ll learn something along those lines soon.
“…a once-dogged, truth-seeking reporter who helped uncover that ‘cancer’ has sold his soul in exchange for access inside the White House.”
And it is a serious one.
Woodward was NEVER a “once-dogged, truth-seeking reporter”. He was an intelligence asset reporting in an intelligence-allied newspaper and involved in a plot to get rid of Nixon because Nixon crossed certain interests in this country with his efforts to reach détente with China. Plus…he was getting mentally unstable and had a LOT of questionable financial and political contacts. (Read Bebe Rebozo and Spiro Agnew for more on THAT subject.)
Ignoring this idea opens the door to the (media created) meme that “the media” can be trusted to tell the truth.
It cannot.
It is owned by the corporate forces who control this country. There are factions, of course, but that’s where it’s at.
Bob Woodward, Cokie Roberts, Chris Matthews, William Safire, Larry King, Tim Russert, Bob Woodward, Matt Cooper, Judith Miller, the publishers and editors on the NY Times and WAPO and USA Today, the news producers at the networks, Time, Newsweak and anyone else who climbs the corporate ladder to a position of real, mass media info-power in the United States…all bought and sold by different factions of the Permanent Government. Or at the very LEAST as sensitive to the movements of those who nourish them as is a plant’s leaves to the movements of the sun.
Powertropic instead of phototropic.
It is only here, on the net, that real information can be found. Plus a few independent newspapers both in the US and around the world. Everyone else has a self-interested, economically driven axe to grind.
And judging from the rapid fall of dKos to a cowardly, centrist cadre of…of I do not really know what, fools, moles or some unholy combination of both…I wouldn’t count on the internet being free of serious corporate infiltration for TOO damned long.
From this serious mistake regarding the media…one that started waaaay back in the Kennedy administration with the false story of the Bay of Pigs and the reporting about Vietnam and really got its act together during the coverups regarding the various assassinations of the ’60s…stems ALL of our current troubles.
An independent media would have stepped away from the Clinton/blowjob farce and seriously investigated the vote fraud in Florida in 2000.
And history would have been different.
But there IS no independent mass media.
And no independent mass media stars except perhaps Seymour Hersh. Although I suspect that he’s got HIS handlers/allies/controllers too. They’re just more intelligent than MOST of the powerful factions that are fighting to control who cuts up the collection of multi-trillion dollar Moms and apple pies we laughingly call “America”.
So, Susan…and the rest of us well-meaning bloggers as well…let us be very careful who we trust.
And be VERY careful of Woodward.
I know Hallowe’en over…but spooks are SCARY.
ESPECIALLY when they look and act just like real people.
Later…
AG
Thanks for telling me to be careful of Bob Woodward. I think I already am… and that reference was to his work in the early 1970s.
You make your assertions about him being an asset without any attribution or links.
At this point, I have no more reason to believe you than Bob Woodward.
on his intel history somewhere. I’ll try to dig it up.
AG
Arthur, please post a link + a one-paragraph snippet, not the entire diaries. Thanks. I e-mailed you about this but maybe you didn’t see that note.
OK.
Take it down of you want…I guess whoever’s interested will have seen it by now.
Next time I’ll do as you suggest above.
AG
Carl Bernstein is more likely to criticize media and government complicity than Woodward. He’s got the background to prove it: Nixon haters in the family, red diaper cousins who became liberals. And so forth.
Woodward has always struck me as a patrician sort who is stuck on himself. I still remember when he visited our campus when he (and I) were much younger. There was something funny about him, I thought. An older girlfriend who attended a lunch with him wasn’t impressed either. Now I know why.
You’ll know MORE “why”.
AG
conservative forces at the Post. Remember, when he was younger, as an NROTC at Yale, he worked in communications as well as intelligence. That’s how he met Deep Throat, Mark Felt. That’s how he probably got those secret interviews with William Casey.
Katharine Graham’s late husband and former editor-in-chief Ben Bradlee more than once have been alleged to be connected with the intelligence community.
Just a comment – Katherine Graham wasn’t married to Ben Bradley.
The comment was a little awkwardly written, but that’s not what it said. It was TRYING to say that both Phil Graham (Katharine’s husband, now dead at the present time) and Bradlee were known intel assets. As is Ms. Graham. BET on it.
AG
Thank you, Arthur.
Sorry, my analyst said I was twisted.
What?
You go to the same analyst as Lambert, Hendricks and Ross?
AG
Katherine Graham was married to Philip Graham.
Ben Bradlee is married to someone who slept her way to the top, too.
to post that article I wrote about Woodward as a reply to Susanhu’s comment on my links in my previous comment.
To no avail.
It doesn’t appear.
Anyone know why this might be happening?
AG
I’ll try again.
AG
that I mention above.
Posted on dKos 6/5/05.
Before the July 4th Massacre.
When dKos was still an alternative left wing rather than a semi-official mouthpiece for part of the Democratic Party establishment.
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.Bob Woodward…ALL smoke and mirrors?
Yesterday I posted a diary titled “The Deep Throat thing. Spooks to the left of me, spooks to the right…” which posited, among other things, the possibility that this current “Deep Throat” brouhaha is in reality part of the war between the intelligence community and BushCo that has been raging since Bush was elected.
“True” OR “false”.
Several kossacks agreed with me, yet others used the “tinfoil hat” epithet to dismiss the idea as conspiracist bullshit. I got pissed off and lambasted those people as sleeping media dupes. People who use subconsciously embedded catchphrases in exactly the way they have been programmed to do so by the mass media, to denigrate any and all legitimate looks at the nasty workings of our government that are ALWAYS exposed once you begin turning the over rocks underneath which this power structure does its most effective work.
Well, I am STILL pissed off today, so I offer here a few choice results of investigative work into just who Bob Wooodward really is. His life is SO full of “coincidences” that revolve around possible intelligence connections that it is almost impossible to believe that he is NOT an intelligence agent.
An intelligence “asset” AT THE VERY LEAST.
Check it out. (Scroll a little more than halfway down for a recap if you’re in a hurry.)
—-
(Jan., 1996. From http://www.webcom.com/ctka/pr196-woodward.html)
By Lisa Pease
Robert Upshur Woodward rose from obscure reporter working for the Washington Post to become one of the most famous journalists of recent times for his role, with that of Carl Bernstein, in “breaking” the Watergate story. Together, “Woodstein” broke one of the biggest news stories of all time: a chain of abuse by the Executive office of the Presidency that led to calls for impeachment, and the eventual resignation, of President Richard Nixon.
Immortalized by Robert Redford in the movie based on the book All the President’s Men, the real Woodward is quite an enigma. Adrian Havill, in his recent book Deep Truth, presents the most comprehensive biography to date of both Woodward and Bernstein. He also details some of the fabrications that passed for nonfiction in the book from which the film was based. Most importantly, he gives us a great wealth of background on who Woodward really is, where he comes from, and what his connections are.
A Yalie and a Secret Society Member
The staunchly conservative Bob Woodward grew up in Wheaton, Illinois. A good student at Yale, he was ultimately one of fifteen seniors “tapped” for one of that university’s secret societies, Book and Snake, a cut below the more infamous Skull and Bones, but the top of the second-tier fraternities. Woodward had his first journalistic experience working for the Banner, a Yale publication. In his 1965 yearbook he was referred to as a “Banner mogul.” Havill writes,
Certainly, with the CIA encouraged to recruit on the Yale campus, particularly among history majors and secret societies, it is more than reasonable to assume Bob may have been one of those approached by the agency, or by a military intelligence unit, especially after four years of naval ROTC training. Although it would answer a lot of questions that have been raised about Bob Woodward, at this point one can only speculate as to whether he was offered the chance to become a “double-wallet guy,” as CIA agents who have two identities are dubbed. It would certainly be understandable if he decided not to adhere to the straight and accepted the submerged patriotic glamour and extra funds that such a relationship would provide. It would also explain the comments of Pulitzer Prize-winning author J. Anthony Lukas, when he wrote in 1989 that Bob Woodward was “temperamentally secretive, loathe to volunteer information about himself,” or the Washingtonian’s remarks in 1987: “He is secretive about everything.” As Esquire magazine put it, summing up in its 1992 article on Bob, “What is he hiding?”
The “Floating Pentagon” Assignment
Three days after graduating from Yale, Woodward was sent by the U.S. Navy to Norfolk, Virginia, where he was commissioned as an ensign by none other than U.S. Senator George Smathers from Florida. Bob’s assignment was to a very special ship, called a “floating Pentagon,” the U.S.S. Wright. The ship was a National Emergency Command Ship-a place where a President and cabinet could preside from in the event of a nuclear war. It had elaborate and sophisticated communications and data processing capabilities. It had a smaller replica of the war room at the Pentagon. It ran under what was called SIOP-Single Integrated Operation Plan. For example, in the event of nuclear war, the Wright was third in line to take full command if the two ahead of it, the Strategic Air Command in Omaha (SAC) and NORAD, were rendered incommunicado. Woodward-straightfacedly-told authors Colodny and Gettlin (Silent Coup) that he guessed he was picked for the ship because he had been a radio ham as a kid.
Aboard the Wright, Woodward had top secret “crypto” clearance-the same clearance researcher Harold Weisberg found had been assigned to Lee Harvey Oswald when he was himself in the Marines. Such clearance in Woodward’s case gave him full access to nearly all classified materials and codes on the ship. Woodward also ran the ship’s newspaper. Woodward has insisted that possessing a high security clearance is not necessarily indicative of intelligence work.
The Wright carried men from each of the military services, as well as CIA personnel. One of Havill’s government sources reported that the CIA would likely have had additional informants on a ship of such sensitivity, adding that “the rivalry between the services was intense.”
After a two and a half year stint on the Wright, Woodward was assigned to go to Vietnam. Woodward wrote the Pentagon asking to serve on a destroyer. The wish was granted. One naval captain told Havill that it seemed reasonable Woodward would have a little pull from his previous duty to avoid getting assigned to Vietnam. Another former naval officer disputed that, saying “Nobody got out of going to Vietnam in 1968.”
But Woodward did. He was stationed aboard the U.S.S. Fox, based in Southern California. The personnel on board the Fox included an intelligence team, many of whom had studied Russian and Asian languages at the famous armed services language school in Monterey, California.
By 1968, Woodward ran the ship’s radio team. In 1969, Woodward was awarded the Navy Commendation Medal for his communications work. From there, Woodward moved on to a Pentagon assignment, a job that included briefing top officers in the government. Admiral Thomas Moorer and former secretary of defense Melvin Laird are both on record noting that Woodward briefed Al Haig at the White House during this period. What is suspicious is Woodward’s semi-admittance to Hougan that he had done some briefing, and his complete denial to Colodny and Gettlin that he had ever briefed anyone at the White House. Havill notes:
Considering the evidence, Bob Woodward’s denial more strongly suggests intelligence than it does his uninvolvement in White House briefings.
Woodward’s secrecy about his past, his choice of associates, and what is known of his activities caused Havill to write:
The question, then, begs itself once more. Was Bob Woodward ever a free-lance or retained Central Intelligence Agency liaison officer, informant or operative . . . ? This author got various forms of affirmative opinions from intelligence experts. It would explain his assignment to the Wright and his misleading statements to interviewers. It would make understandable his being able to get out of going to Vietnam in 1968, his extension for an additional year at the Pentagon, his being chosen to brief at the White House and his denials as well. It would also help explain his subsequent high-level friendships with leaders of the U.S. military and the CIA.
It would also explain the role Woodward and Bernstein wittingly or unwittingly played in keeping the CIA’s nose clean while making sure the world saw the President’s nose was dirty.
The Legacy of Deep Throat
Whatever his background, whatever his connections, one cannot trust what Woodward says as fact. Take, for instance, his account in Veil of his last interview with dying CIA Director William Casey. Havill tracked down Casey’s family, friends, hospital security staff and CIA guardians and found that the visit Woodward described was impossible. First of all, Casey was under 24 hour guard by several layers of security: CIA members, hospital security, and Casey’s family. And Woodward had already been stopped once while trying to see Casey. According to one of Havill’s sources, Woodward was not merely asked to leave, as Woodward reported in his book, but was forcibly shoved into the elevator. And Woodward’s story kept shifting. Woodward told a Knight-Ridder reporter that he had gotten in by flashing his press pass. To Larry King, Woodward claimed he just “walked in.” But even assuming he somehow managed to get by all of that security, Woodward would still have been the only person to claim that Casey had uttered intelligible words in those last hours. The only other person to make such a claim was Robert Gates, who himself became CIA Director. The family, doctor and medical staff said Casey could not make words at this point, only noises. At least Gates questioned whether he might have been imagining he heard words. Woodward has never retracted his “conversation.” In addition, Woodward once said that Casey sat bolt upright, which would seem highly implausible given his rapidly deteriorating state. Onetime CIA Director Stansfield Turner, a friend of Woodward’s since 1966, said Woodward told him he’d walked by Casey’s room and Casey had waved to him. Casey’s bed was positioned in such a way in the room as to make that impossible too.
—snip—
But Woodward’s most stunning deceptions come from the work that launched his career, his tracking of the Watergate story as retold in the supposedly nonfiction work All the President’s Men. Adrian Havill found curious discrepancies between accountings of incidents as reported in the book, and the rest of the available facts (see sidebar at right).
Given his role in the Watergate cover-up, and the misrepresentations in his own work, it remains to us a huge mystery why this man is treated with the reverence he is. Considering his behavior, his background, his credibility, and his connections, we now feel compelled to join Adrian Havill in asking who is Bob Woodward? Whom does he serve? Is his career sustained for the purposes of those with a “secret agenda”?
And here is the sidebar.
Had the book been presented as fiction, readers could not complain. However, the book sits on non-fiction shelves around the world. Maybe it shouldn’t.
In his book Deep Truth, author Adrian Havill presents several events in All the President’s Men that are, to put it generously, highly suspect. One example is the scene in which Woodward and Bernstein have made their first egregious mistake. They sourced Hugh Sloan’s grand jury testimony for a story that Sloan had never told the Grand Jury, showing that Haldeman was one of the inner group at CREEP controlling the mysterious slush fund. In the book, the dejected Woodward and Bernstein walk home in the rain, beaten both physically and symbolically by the elements, with only newspapers over their head to keep them dry. Havill did some checking. It never rained that day. That might seem an inconsequential detail to some, but others will understand that it was a device created to bring drama. How many other “events” were merely fictional devices? Havill found several. For instance, at one point, Carl Bernstein is about to be subpoenaed by CREEP, and Ben Bradlee advised Carl to go hang out at a movie until after 5:00 p.m., then to call into the office. According to the book, Carl went to see Deep Throat, hence the reason for the name “Deep Throat” having been given to Woodward’s secret source. But there was no Deep Throat playing anywhere in D.C. at that time. In fact, the theaters were being very cautious, having recently been raided by law enforcement authorities. Not one theater in town was showing Deep Throat.
And speaking of “Deep Throat” . . .
One of the most astonishingly bald-faced inventions was the process by which Woodward and “Deep Throat” allegedly made contact when they needed to speak to one another. In the book, much is made of the spooky, clandestine meetings between “Deep Throat” and Woodward. When Woodward needed to ask “Deep Throat” something, he was to put a flower pot with a red flag in it on his sixth floor balcony, which, we are supposed to believe, this high level source checked daily. When “Deep Throat” wanted to speak to Woodward, a clock would supposedly be drawn in his copy of the New York Times designating the meeting time. But neither of these scenarios fits the reality of where Woodward lived. Woodward, who could remember the exact room number (710) where he met Martha Mitchell just once, evidently had trouble remembering the address at which he had lived. In an interview he once said it was “606 or 608 or 612, something like that.” However, Havill found that Woodward’s actual address was 617. This is important, because the balcony attached to 617 faced an interior courtyard. Havill poked around and found that the only way to view a flower pot on the balcony was to walk into the center of the complex, with eighty units viewing you, crane your neck and look up to the sixth floor. Even then, a pot would have been barely visible. There was an alley that ran behind the building that allowed a glimpse of the apartment and balcony, but at an equally difficult angle. And in both cases, we are to believe that this source, who strove hard to protect his identify, would walk up in plain view of the eighty apartments facing the inner courtyard or the alley on a daily basis, on the chance that there might be a sign from Woodward. When Havill tried to poke around, just to look at the place, residents of the building stopped him and inquired who he was and what he was looking for. Unless “Deep Throat” was well known to the residents of the building, his daily visits seem to preclude being able to keep his identity a secret.
As for the clock-in-the-paper, the New York Times papers were delivered not to each door, but left stacked and unmarked in a common reception area. There was no way “Deep Throat” could have known which paper Woodward would end up with each morning.
Havill, in fact, believes that “Deep Throat” is no more real than the movie episode or the rain, but rather, a dramatic device. It certainly worked well. And Woodward’s and Bernstein’s editor at Simon and Schuster, Alice Mayhew, urged them to “build up the Deep Throat character and make him interesting.” While it is now clearly known that at least one of Woodward’s informants was, in fact, Robert Bennett, the suggestions from Colodny and Gettlin in Silent Coup about Al Haig and Deborah Davis’s suggestions in Katherine the Great about Richard Ober may not be contradictory. Other names that have been suggested have included Walter Sheridan (Jim Hougan in Spooks) and Bobby Ray Inman (also in Spooks). If Havill is correct and there is no “person” who was known as “Deep Throat”, it is possible that any or all of the above were passing along information, explicitly not to be sourced or credited to them in any way, on deep background.
Havill asks, and then answers, his own questions as to the dishonesty in All the President’s Men:
Why would Bob and Carl invent or embellish such seemingly incidental details of their book? Why would they make up meetings with a character named Deep Throat? The answer is Bob was consumed by naked ambition, anxious to prove that he could succeed at his newly chosen profession. There was money and fame at stake. . .
And maybe a cover story to protect as well.
Let me recap.
“Staunchly conservative.” Whatever THAT really means.
Yale undergrad, second level secret society member (one of a total of 15 tabbed for the “honor” of being a member of ANY secret society). and Naval ROTC cadet.
Upon graduation from Yale, almost immediately assigned to a “floating Pentagon” ship, complete with a top secret clearance (Just like ol’ Lee Harvey’s) and later a free pass out of Vietnam. Lucky Ensign Woodward, eh?
Next…a job at the Pentagon. “Briefing” high level spooks like General Al Haig. This boy was a ROCKET!!! Straight up into NeverNeverland for HIM!!! What…only a few years from being a Yale undergrad to briefing the Chief of Staff in the White House? MIRACLE!!!
“…subsequent high-level friendships with leaders of the U.S. military and the CIA.”
WHAT was his rank in the navy again? No mention of it on the net as far as I can find. Lieutenant Commander, maybe? No higher, after only a few years of service. A rank that these “leaders of the U.S. military and the CIA” generally treat as not much better than a house servant. A “communications officer” still in his 20s? As in “Take a letter, sailor.”
But…WAIT A MINUTE!!! There he is, suddenly in the White House with general “I’m In Charge” Haig, and soon thereafter having “subsequent high-level friendships with leaders of the U.S. military and the CIA.”
Hmmm… What gives?
Need more? OK…
The last human being to see William Casey alive.
Ye GODS!!! Do you have ANY idea of who Casey was?
He was one of the last of the old school, working O.S.S. officer spies. All secrets and not an OUNCE of give. He knew every secret that the CIA had squirreled away since they began rescuing Nazis to use as counterspies during the Cold War.
A TOMB of secrets.
As Casey lay dying in a hospital, doubtless pumped full of painkillers and legally non compos mentis…DO YOU REALLY BELIEVE THAT THE CIA WOULD SIMPLY WALK AWAY AND LET WHATEVER INTRUDER WHO WANTED TO DO SO JUST AMBLE IN THERE TO “INTERVIEW” HIM!!!
Please!!!
Let ALONE that Casey was scheduled to testify before the Senate Committee investigating the Iran-Contra mess in two days. And Woodward claimed that Casey admitted to him that he was aware of the diversion of funds from the sale of arms to Iran for the support of the Contras in Nicaragua!!! New CIA uses dying OLD CIA as patsy. Perfect!!!
No one ELSE even heard Casey say a goddamned WORD around the same time. Brain cancer and craniotomies’ll do that to you, don’tcha know…
Ludicrous on the face of it. Under orders from someone to do something, for sure.
Here’s another howler. “Onetime CIA Director Stansfield Turner, a friend of Woodward’s since 1966…” Woodward was still at YALE in 1965!!! And Turner is 20 years OLDER than Woodward. What? Did they meet at FOOTBALL GAME!!!???
Give me a break.
Let alone all the deceptions implicit in his role in the Watergate scandal, which are THOROUGHLY enumerated above.
MORE???
OK.
Do it yourself.
You have a computer and an internet connection.
Get to work.
Google Bradlee, the Grahams, WAPO, Allen Dulles, Operation Mockingbird, Frank Wisner (whose son Frank Jr. was one of the Enron officials who got away clean. It’s got to be genetic…bad genes plus good contacts. COMPANY contacts.), and so on.
This is NOT “tinfoil hat” material. It is the stuff of realpolitik, manipulations that have gone on daily for 60+ years in the underground area where American government, culture, media and the intelligence community meet and greet.
Wise up.
The same thing is happening again.
Bet on it.
If you are going to allow yourselves to be fooled…at LEAST know it. That way, when push comes to shove (and it’s going to eventually…NO con game lasts forever), you will have the option of changing your mind.
If, however, you do NOT look at it, full in the face…then you have no mind TO change, and the next group of fourflushers will step right up and continue faking you out of your shoes AND your stake.
Your choice.
Have fun…
And…wake the fuck up.
AG
See below.
(Just another cyber-mystery, I guess…)
AG
AG
Actually, see my e-mail to you and my post to you above.
Things are getting crazy around here.
Look,(as they all say on TV now)just about everybody in America works for a corporation. And everybody compromises to some extent because of that fact. But there are countervailing forces within the media, and reporters are not all tools of corporations, let alone the imperial government.
I do worry that the TV stars of so-called news are more thoroughly corrupt than at any time I can think of. The problem with Chris Matthews is he thinks with his glands, and says the first thing that pops into his mouth. He’s made a living being provocative. But put him next to Tim Russert, and he shrinks to nothing.
And Tim Russert is no prize either. There’s somebody very insecure behind those eyes. He’s no Murrow.
Newspapers have their problems, but they also have their traditions and their guilds. I am most worried about these TV people with their clubby insider, fellow wealthy celebrity atttitudes. Some poor reporter who won’t turn over the name of a whistleblower in some county courthouse will wind up raped in jail someday because of these people. They are throwing away the credibility that real reporters and columnists bled for.
The broadcasting empires are thoroughly corrupting our political life for their own profit and power. There will be an exception or two, but I’m convinced you no longer get to be a news media star unless you sell your soul to them. This year we’ve seen pretty much the last of the last generation with any integrity or committment to journalistic standards leave the air.
But there are still a few younger TV reporters who keep their heads down and do their jobs. You just don’t see them very often getting the anchor desk or their own shows.
as a recommended one at the orange site. This is typically excellent work by SusanHu that deserves to be shared.