Watergate Cover-Up For Covert Operations, Washington Post

Buchanan Outlined Plan to Harass Democrats in '72, Memo Shows

By George Lardner
 

Washington Post Staff Writer 


Monday, March 4, 1996; Page A07

Republican presidential candidate Patrick J. Buchanan strongly favored a plan of "covert operations" to harass and embarrass Democratic contenders in the heady days at the Nixon White House before the Watergate scandal. Photo

Then a White House speechwriter and enthusiastic member of the Nixon campaign's "attack group," Buchanan laid out his ideas in an April 10, 1972, memo looking ahead to that summer's Democratic National Convention in Miami Beach. It was addressed to Attorney General John N. Mitchell and White House Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman.

On the memo's last page -- one never turned over to Watergate congressional investigators -- Buchanan and his top aide recommended staging counterfeit attacks by one Democrat on another, fouling up scheduled events, arranging demonstrations and spreading rumors to plague the rival party, all the while being careful not to run afoul of the Secret Service. Read more - Washington Post

Walter Cronkite - Videos 

The cover-up had little to do with the Watergate, but was mainly to protect the covert operations. Bob Woodward

All Politics - Watergate 1973 - Ripping Open An Incredible Scandal

(TIME, April 30, 1973) -- The denials, the evasions, the secretiveness, and, yes, the lies, all had failed. The Watergate case was breaking wide open. A 10-month campaign by some of the highest past and present officials of the Nixon Administration to cover up their involvement was crumbling. Read more - CNN TIME