Gordon Strachan's role in Watergate...

[EVDebs]

"However, G. Gordon Liddy has claimed in his book Will, and in a sworn deposition1, that Strachan was aware of political intelligence gathering that Liddy was undertaking, including the Watergate break-in. Liddy claims that Strachan discussed the poor quality of the intelligence gathered from the first successful Watergate beak-in and that Liddy told him they were "going back in" to correct the technical problems with the monitoring devices. Dean withheld this information from Haldeman and John Ehrlichman2 which led to the White House adopting the erroneous position that no one in the White House had involvement, it was all contained within CRP. In a 1997 interview with Tom Clancy for the video Eye of the Storm, John Ehrlichman stated Strachan "knows a lot, that he's not telling."

Strachan was indicted along with other White House staffers on March 1, 1974 but all charges against him were dropped on June 10, 1975.

He moved to Utah in 1975 and served as a clerk for Burman & Giauque in Salt Lake City. In 1977 his license to practice law was restored in Utah and he was elevated to a lawyer at the firm until he left for a partnership at Prince, Yeates & Geldzahler. He now is the principal at his own law firm, Strachan & Strachan P.C., in Salt Lake City. His practice is mainly focused on antitrust litigation in the ski industry. He served on the Olympic Organizing Committee for the 2002 Winter Games and is also general counsel to the United States Ski and Snowboard Association. He is the author of several books on law."

http://www.answers.com/topic/gordon-c-strachan

Since Watergate couldn't have blown up the way it did without the participation of the CIA, I agree with John Ehrlichman, and suspect that, along with Alexander Butterfield - who was CIA employed prior to his White House job- Gordon Strachan may possibly have been a CIA employee inside the Nixon White House also.

DUers care to speculate ?

[whistle]

1. Alexander Butterfield and Gordon Strachan were both "dirty"....

...regarding the break-in involvement and Watergate intelligence gathering on the democratic party. Gordon Strachan lied to the committee. The fact that all charges were dismissed on Strachan and that he was allowed to return to Utah and eventually get his license restored to practice law, shouts that he had special immunity and protection which most CIA operatives are generally given when exposed to threats that will blow their cover. As for Butterfield, it was he who exposed that Nixon had ordered secret taping equipment be installed at the White House:

<snip>


The tapes that ensnared -- and felled -- a president
By MIKE FEINSILBER
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON -- It was a Friday afternoon in July, and the witness was just a small fry: Alexander Butterfield, who kept President Nixon's schedule and handled his paper flow. Three staff members of the Senate Watergate Committee were questioning him, preparing for his public testimony the following Monday.



Associated Press
President Nixon gives a thumbs-up sign as he stands beside his wife, Pat, in the East Room of the White House after resigning the presidency on Aug. 9, 1974. He was bidding farewell to those who had served him during his years in office. Also with him are his daughters, Tricia Nixon Cox, far right, and Julie Eisenhower, at left with her husband, David.

Trolling, one asked whether there might be something down at the White House, some sort of recording system?

Butterfield took a breath.

"I was hoping you fellows wouldn't ask me that," he said.

And with that, history turned a corner. What Butterfield revealed that afternoon in 1973 -- and on television to the senators and the world three days later -- was electrifying news: For 2 ½ years, Nixon had been secretly taping his conversations.

Incontestable evidence
Five microphones in his desk and two in wall lamps by the fireplace, still more in the Cabinet Room, at his hideaway in the Old Executive Office Building, and at the presidential retreat at Camp David, Md., picked up everything said in Nixon's presence.

<more>
<link> http://www.chron.com/content/interactive/special/watergate/tapes.html

[EVDebs]

2. Yes, that's what I thought when I came across Strachan's special treatment

It begs the question then, 'what was the CIA's motive to depose Nixon' with the Watergate burglary being a CIA job and the disclosure of the tapes, and cover-up, being a CIA job, with Robert F. Bennett (head of CIA's Mullen & Co.) being a source for Bob Woodward, who's own naval intelligence background put him in contact with guys like Adm Moorer...who wanted Nixon out because of the Delta subs SALT negotiating error Nixon/Kissinger made and also in the Vietnam peace negotiations were possibly letting some non-uniformed servicemen not in on the POW returns.

The FBI and CIA were apparently afraid of the domestic spying operation that the White House was trying to set up with the Huston Plan.

BTW, Gordon Strachan's family lives still in Santa Rosa, CA, just like W. Mark Felt's ! Gordon lives in Park City UT now and practices law.

[whistle]

3. Well, I'm not sure that was the intent, both the CIA and the FBI...

...directors were working with Nixon, pushing the White House agenda. Even Felt claims he did not mean for Nixon to be impeached. It was about power and for the lower guys in the organizations integrity. But Mark Felt was the number two man until Hoover died, then he was passed over twice, so I have to think that at least part of Felt's motivation was revenge. Who he hated most Nixon, Haldemann, Erlickman, who the fuck knows. Maybe we'll find a journal someday where Felt kept personal notes and thoughts, then we'll have some additional insights. But now, Felt's brain is more demented it seems than Ronnie Reagan's, so we may never find out.

[EVDebs]

4. Yes, but Nixon et al knew Felt was a leaker. The CIA informants

inside the White House is where the real damage was done. Without the taping system the whole deal is 'fluff' and unverifiable as to a White House role.

The CIA's rationale for deposing Nixon, again, becomes center stage. Right now, "Deep Throat" whoever they were (multiple sources are necessary for Woodward's claims about him to be true) is merely a vehicle for media play.

No one is digging into Woodward's naval intelligence background and how he became an old friend of Felts, if indeed that is the case. Where'd they meet ? Both had to have been in intelligence when it happened.

[whistle]

5. The Nixon mafia might have suspected, but Nixon was not convinced and...

...actually refused to accept that a man of Felt's loyalty and dedication, shit he was a republican, so Nixon did not believe it could be Felt. Listen, if Nixon knew that Mark Felt was leaking the Watergate links he would have had Mark Felt and his whole family exterminated. That was the kind of man Richard Nixon was. And, if Nixon had known that Felt was Deep Throat at anytime before Nixon died, he would have come out with a public vendetta against Mark Felt. That also was the kind of man Richard Nixon was.

[EVDebs]

6. The CIA links did Nixon in...

"I have told Woodward everything I know about the Watergate case, except the Mullen Company's tie to the CIA."--Robert F. Bennett, testifying before House Special Committee on Intelligence, July 2, 1974.

Robert Bennett was the head of Robert R. Mullen and Co., a CIA front headquartered in the very same building as the CIA's Domestic Operations Division....


So whatever happened to this Robert Bennett guy? Did he disappear, wind up in jail, or die creatively, like so many CIA operatives? Nope. Today, he's a U.S. senator, just like his father."

http://www.metroactive.com/papers/sonoma/07.03.97/scoop-9727.html

And Alexander Butterfield, keeper of the tapes, was a CIA operative in Australia prior to his White House assignment. If Gordon Strachan proves to be a link to the CIA, that will square the circle, since the burglary was CIA-run, the steering of information to Bob Woodward via Bennett who was CIA, and the motivation of the CIA ... which is the only thing left to discern.

[whistle]

8. Interesting, and why would the CIA of all groups want to bring...

...Richard Nixon down? I suppose Nixon had enemies on both sides. He certainly was not mainstream republican of that era. The Rockefeller's hated Richard Nixon and Nelson Rockefeller hated Nixon even more for passing him up as VP and taking Spiro Agnew instead. The old money republicans had no use for Nixon, but he seemed to have the support of the new conservatives that hovered around Washington DC at that time. So, maybe the CIA was beholden to Standard Oil and the Rockefeller billions and whipped up this frenzy of Watergate to do Nixon in? Pretty risky though, they might have blown the whole thing and gotten Spiro Agnew as Nixon's replacement.

Boy, that would have been a combination of Dick Cheney and George Dubya in a single body!

[Zen Democrat]

7. I think Butterfield spilled to the committee and then tried to cover

with his "I wish you hadn't asked that" comment.

I remember Gordon Strachan, he was a pale, weasily fellow who acted like he was little more than a messenger, but his testimony seemed CREEP-Y to me.