The Watergate Burglars: Nixon, Dirty Tricks and the CIA

Alfred Baldwin, Lookout for Watergate Burglars, Dies at 83

MAY 11, 2022

Alfred C. Baldwin III had a ringside seat to the hapless Watergate break-in on June 17, 1972. He was the lookout, watching from a perch across the street with a mission to warn his burglary compadres inside the Watergate complex if law enforcement was approaching. When he finally did see the police swoop in, he was too late to warn the burglars. He fled from his lookout post but was later picked up by the F.B.I. READ MORE

Alfred Baldwin, chief Watergate eavesdropper and lookout, is dead at 83

MAY 5, 2022

Alfred C. Baldwin III, a former FBI agent who served as the chief eavesdropper and lookout for the Watergate burglars, but then became a key government witness in the scandal that brought down President Richard M. Nixon, died Jan. 15, 2020, at a care center in New Paltz, N.Y. He was 83. Like Watergate conspirator James W. McCord Jr., whose death in 2017 was not widely reported for two years, Mr. Baldwin did not want his death publicized. Both men’s deaths were first reported by London-based writer and filmmaker Shane O’Sullivan, who noted Mr. Baldwin’s passing in the updated paperback edition of his book “The Watergate Burglars,” which came out on Tuesday. READ MORE

Eugenio Martinez, Watergate burglar pardoned by Reagan, dies at 98

FEBRUARY 3, 2021

Eugenio Martínez, a Cuban exile who worked for the CIA, sought to overthrow Fidel Castro and inadvertently helped topple another political leader, Richard M. Nixon, after being arrested with four other burglars at the Watergate office building, died Jan. 30 at his daughter’s home in Minneola, Fla. He was 98...By some accounts, Mr. Martínez’s pardon was the result of a final chapter in his life as a covert operative. According to former CIA officer Félix Rodríguez and documentary filmmaker Shane O’Sullivan, author of the book “Dirty Tricks: Nixon, Watergate and the CIA,” Mr. Martínez worked as a double agent starting in 1977, providing intelligence to the FBI after meeting with Cuban intelligence officials in Mexico, Jamaica and Havana. READ MORE

By not fighting for facts, Senate Republicans might’ve saved Trump

FEBRUARY 5, 2020

Last week’s decision by Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) to vote against calling witnesses in President Trump’s impeachment trial, which sealed Trump’s acquittal, will have his mentor, Howard Baker, turning in his grave. Baker was the ranking Republican on the Senate Watergate Committee who famously asked, “What did the president know, and when did he know it?” In his opening statement to the committee in May 1973, Baker pledged to conduct a “bipartisan search for the unvarnished truth. … We will inquire into every fact and follow every lead, unrestrained by any fear of where that lead might ultimately take us.” This is decidedly not the road taken by Alexander and his Republican colleagues today. READ MORE

The real threat to Trump from the impeachment hearings

November 24, 2019

Gordon Sondland’s belated admission during the impeachment hearings last week of a “quid pro quo” offered by President Trump to Ukraine has been hailed as a “John Dean moment,” a reference to the whistleblowing testimony of the White House counsel during the Senate Watergate hearings. Like Dean during Watergate, as new witness accounts have highlighted contradictions and evasions in his testimony, the ambassador to the European Union has shifted from protecting the president to protecting himself by implicating key players around him. But as in Watergate, the door to Sondland’s bombshell testimony was opened by whistleblowers whose cumulative testimony forced his hand. READ MORE

A Watergate burglar’s account of his crimes — and what it tells us about the Mueller probe indictments

MAY 9, 2019

When Watergate burglar James McCord died two years ago at the age of 93, his family wanted no obituary. So his death didn’t make national news until just a few weeks ago, when it was reported on the day the Mueller report was released. Given McCord’s pivotal role in bugging Democratic National Committee headquarters and exposing the Watergate coverup, the news could not have been more timely. Two years before his death, McCord shared a PowerPoint presentation with his family, revealing important details about his CIA career and his secret motivation for the break-in that were never revealed publicly. READ MORE

JAMES MCCORD OBITUARY

April 28, 2019

It is somehow fitting that the death of James McCord – the CIA agent and Watergate burglar whose arrest then sensational trial in 1973 set in motion the scandal that eventually forced the resignation of the US president Richard Nixon – should have evaded public notice for almost two years. McCord’s death in 2017, aged 93, was first reported in Shane O’Sullivan’s 2018 book Dirty Tricks, about the Nixon scandals, but it was not until it was mentioned on the website Kennedys and King last month that it was picked up by major media. In death, as in life, McCord remained in the shadows. READ MORE

James W. McCord Jr., Who Led the Watergate Break-In, Is Dead at 93

April 18, 2019

James W. McCord Jr., a security expert who led a band of burglars into the shambles of the Watergate scandal and was the first to expose the White House crimes and cover-ups that precipitated the downfall of the Nixon administration in 1974, died on June 15, 2017, at his home in Douglassville, Pa. He was 93. The death went unreported by local and national news organizations at the time. It was apparently first reported by the London-based writer and filmmaker Shane O’Sullivan in his book “Dirty Tricks: Nixon, Watergate, and the CIA,” published last year. READ MORE

Watergate conspirator James McCord Jr. died two years ago. His death was never announced

April 18, 2019

James W. McCord Jr., a retired CIA employee who was convicted as a conspirator in the Watergate burglary and later linked the 1972 break-in to the White House in revelations that helped end the presidency of Richard M. Nixon, died June 15, 2017, at his home in Douglassville, Pa. He was 93. The cause was pancreatic cancer, according to his death certificate obtained at the Berks County Register of Wills office in Reading, Pa. Mr. McCord’s death was first reported in “Dirty Tricks,” a 2018 history of the Watergate investigation by filmmaker Shane O’Sullivan. READ MORE

Why we still need to know more about Paul Manafort’s misdeeds, even after the Mueller report

MARCH 25, 2019

While the special counsel could not establish collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government in its hacking of Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee emails, questions remain about the ties between President Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and Russian actors during the 2016 election...Manafort’s case recalls the dramatic fall from grace of John Mitchell, Richard M. Nixon’s campaign director during the 1968 and 1972 elections. At the height of the Watergate crisis, Nixon encouraged Mitchell to “step forward” and take the blame to protect the White House, hinting at a future pardon — the motive some ascribe to Manafort’s refusal to “flip” on Trump. READ MORE

Michael Cohen’s testimony exposed a direct parallel between Trump and Watergate

MARCH 6, 2019

The delayed sentencing of former national security adviser Michael Flynn — for lying to investigators about “sensitive matters” discussed with the Russian ambassador to the United States during the Trump presidential transition — leaves unanswered questions about alleged collusion between Flynn and the Russians during the 2016 campaign. It also evokes parallels with another former national security adviser, Richard Allen. Allen played a leading role in the Anna Chennault affair, a secret plan formed by Richard Nixon’s campaign to collude with the South Vietnamese government during the 1968 presidential campaign and sabotage Vietnam peace talks in Paris to ensure a Nixon victory. READ MORE

The national security adviser who colluded with foreign powers — decades before Michael Flynn

December 26, 2018

dirty tricks review

December 10, 2018

Richard Nixon. Watergate. The CIA. Cuban burglars. Put them all together, and you have the makings of a story that still resists easy explanation. Documentary filmmaker O’Sullivan (Who Killed Bobby?: The Unsolved Murder of Robert F. Kennedy, 2008), whose earlier work has concentrated on the assassinations of Kennedy family members, turns to the role of the intelligence community in the events now collectively known as Watergate...O’Sullivan’s theories aren’t exactly definitive, but he offers intriguing possibilities in this consistently surprising book. READ MORE

The Cuban spy and Watergate burglar who won a presidential pardon

December 3, 2018

In anticipation of the Mueller report, political commentators and historians have drawn numerous parallels with Watergate and the impeachment proceedings against President Richard M. Nixon. A month after Nixon’s resignation in August 1974, President Gerald R. Ford pardoned him. But history has forgotten the only other man granted a presidential pardon for his role in the Watergate crimes, and why the pardon was given. READ MORE

WATERGATE: DIRTY TRICKS, AN OCTOBER SURPRISE, AND THE CIA

NOVEMBER 30, 2018

With the news cycle of late nearly engulfed by the questions — and spy games — swirling around “Russiagate,” taking a fresh look at Watergate could be an especially worthwhile endeavor. Luckily, revisiting the rise and fall of President Richard Nixon is exactly what Shane O’Sullivan does for us in his new book, Dirty Tricks: Nixon, Watergate and the CIA. O’Sullivan — Jeff Schechtman’s guest in this week’s WhoWhatWhy podcast, and an author/filmmaker whose previous work has dug into the Kennedy assassinations — takes us beyond the popular Woodward-and-Bernstein Hollywood scenario, revealing instead the deepest workings of Nixon’s cronies. From the Anna Chennault affair and the Ellsberg break-in to Watergate and the CIA, the author provides new information in a number of areas. READ MORE

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