Dear Friends,
The Film
On Sunday August 9 I attended a viewing of the documentary named "Watergate Secrets and Betrayals" at the Angelika theater. It is based on the books of Geoff Shepard. For all that I have heard and read about Watergate, the documentary did bring something new to light.
The author, Geoff Shepard, uncovered new and shocking information. Using FOIA requests he got access to records at the National Archives. He went looking for records from the White House and discovered records from the Special Prosecutor, Leon Jaworski. Mr. Shepard found a memo describing how the Special Prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, met in secret with Judge John Sirica and plotted how to send secret data from the grand jury to Senator Ervin's Watergate Committee. Judge Sirica and Leon Jaworski both wanted to remove Nixon! It could be argued that their misdeeds were as bad as Nixon's.
In the documentary we hear how John Dean changed his testimony. We also learn that the 245 page testimony read by John Dean to the Committee was written by the Committee's lead counsel, Sam Dash. John Dean admitted to destroying evidence.
You can stream the film at your home for $4 as a rental or $8 to own repeated access. Here is the website to view the film: https://
The Interview with Geoff Shepard
After the film, our host arranged for an interview with Geoff Shepard, the author, on Zoom. That was a fascinating time. We learned that as a young lawyer he met Richard Nixon at an event in New York City. Richard Nixon was kind to young Geoff Shepard, so when Richard Nixon became President then Geoff Shepard applied for a White House Fellowship and was on staff during Watergate.
Geoff Shepard said that he argued against the hiring of G. Gordon Liddy for the White House staff. He was pleased when Liddy was reassigned to the Committee to Re-elect the President. He thought that Liddy would do no harm there! Mr. Shepard had many interesting comments. Unfortunately, I did not bring a notebook.
He did mention how surprised he was to learn that a Navy Yeoman in the Communications Department copied secret documents from Henry Kissinger and gave the secrets to a Navy Admiral. This is referred to as the Moorer-Radford Affair: https://en.wikipedia.
The Watergate burglars were mostly CIA contract workers. With the CIA meddling in Nixon's campaign and the Navy spying on Nixon, this shocking behavior foreshadowed the Obama government interfering with the Trump campaign.
During his interview he pointed to a bookcase which contained every book written by any person associated with Watergate. He has read and researched a lot. Besides his own books, he recommended 2 other books:
Silent Coup: The Removal of a President by Len Colodny and Robert Gettlin
Secret Agenda: Watergate, Deep Throat, and the CIA by Jim Hougan
Geoff Shepard has placed a lot of research material on his website: https://
Anti-Trump and Anti-Nixon
CNN put together a 4 part documentary on Watergate,
Watergate, Blueprint for a Scandal starts off attacking Donald Trump and then focuses on attacking Richard Nixon. If you have HBO Max or Amazon Prime then you can watch it. The documentary keeps going back to attacking Trump. The documentary paints Judge John Sirica as a hero. Now we know that Sirica was guilty of judicial misconduct and that he violated Richard Nixon's constitutional rights. It's amazing how decades later many people still revile Richard Nixon.
Leon Jaworski and John Sirica were not heroes. They were scoundrels plotting against Nixon and his set of scoundrels. It's worth your time to see the documentary that is available for streaming on https://watergatesecret.
Thank you for your patience.
Robert
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