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Watergate

By VVAW

The first phase of the Watergate hearings by the Senate Select Committee has come to an end. During the past several weeks we have seen the closest advisors to the President testify about their involvement in the Watergate break in. They have contradicted each other and have given us insight into the mentality of those who run the government. The single clearest thread to the testimony of the witnesses points out the amount of surveillance the administration engaged in to link demonstrations and demonstrators to violence and unlawfullness in an effort to help Nixon win re-election.

The most indicative testimony came from H.R. Haldeman, Nixon's most confident advisor. There was a demonstration in Charlotte, North Carolina at a rally honoring Billy Graham at which Nixon would speak. A memo was sent to Haldeman explaining that the planned demonstration was to be 'violent' and 'obscene'. Next to these words he penned in 'good' and when there was mention made that some of the protest would be directed at Graham, he penned 'great' in the margin of the memo. Haldeman defended this by saying that it would show the true intent of the demonstrators and that it would make the President look good.

In another memo written by Haldeman and sent to John Dean, he wrote, "We need to get our people to put out the story on the foreign or Communist money that was used in support of demonstrations against the President in 1972.", and " We should tie all 1972 demonstrations to McGovern and thus to the Democrats as part of the peace movement."

As Nixon's closest advisor, we can see that the administration encouraged surveillance and infiltration of protest organizations in an attempt to discredit both the organizations and the political opponent of Nixon.

The most obvious of these plans shows up in the infiltration of VVAW/WSO in the Gainesville trial. As in the case of the demonstration at Charlotte, the administration felt that to discredit VVAW/WSO would be to make Nixon look better. They attempted to provoke us into committing acts of violence, but their agent provocateurs failed in each attempt.

We are asked to believe that the White House had no hand in the covert operations of the 'plumbers.' The testimony of Haldeman doesn't substantiate this claim. Knowing that Haldeman was the closest advisor to Nixon, we cannot believe that Nixon did not have a hand in this strategy. According to a Quayle Poll taken, 63% of the American people believe that Nixon should bear the blame for Watergate and a Gallop Poll shows that only 31% believe that Nixon is a good President.

On August 14th, Nixon again stated in a televised address that he accepts the responsibility. In doing so, he takes the blame for the infiltration of political organizations and the break-in of Watergate. He is a criminal an dshould be treated as such. It would be in the best interests of 'national security' to have him face the American people and admit to his criminality, rather than skirt the issue as he did in his August 14th speech.