Well,
I am STILL pissed off today, so I offer here a few choice results of
investigative work into just who Bob Wooodward really is. His life is
SO full of "coincidences" that revolve around possible intelligence
connections that it is almost impossible to believe that he is NOT an
intelligence agent. An intelligence "asset" AT THE VERY LEAST.
----
Bob Woodward
By Lisa Pease
Robert Upshur Woodward rose from obscure reporter working for the
Washington Post to become one of the most famous journalists of recent
times for his role, with that of Carl Bernstein, in "breaking" the
Watergate story. Together, "Woodstein" broke one of the biggest news
stories of all time: a chain of abuse by the Executive office of the
Presidency that led to calls for impeachment, and the eventual
resignation, of President Richard Nixon.
Immortalized by Robert Redford in the movie based on the book All the
President's Men, the real Woodward is quite an enigma. Adrian Havill,
in his recent book Deep Truth, presents the most comprehensive
biography to date of both Woodward and Bernstein. He also details some
of the fabrications that passed for nonfiction in the book from which
the film was based. Most importantly, he gives us a great wealth of
background on who Woodward really is, where he comes from, and what his
connections are.
A Yalie and a Secret
Society Member
The staunchly conservative Bob Woodward grew up in Wheaton, Illinois. A
good student at Yale, he was ultimately one of fifteen seniors "tapped"
for one of that university's secret societies, Book and Snake, a cut
below the more infamous Skull and Bones, but the top of the second-tier
fraternities. Woodward had his first journalistic experience working
for the Banner, a Yale publication. In his 1965 yearbook he was
referred to as a "Banner mogul." Havill writes,
Admiral
Thomas Moorer and former secretary of defense Melvin Laird are both on
record noting that Woodward briefed Al Haig at the White House during
this period. What is suspicious is Woodward's
semi-admittance to Hougan that he had done some briefing, and his
complete denial to Colodny and Gettlin that he had ever briefed anyone
at the White House.
Certainly, with the CIA encouraged to recruit on the Yale campus,
particularly among history majors and secret societies, it is more than
reasonable to assume Bob may have been one of those approached by the
agency, or by a military intelligence unit, especially after four years
of naval ROTC training. Although it would answer a lot of questions
that have been raised about Bob Woodward, at this point one can only
speculate as to whether he was offered the chance to become a
"double-wallet guy," as CIA agents who have two identities are dubbed.
It would certainly be understandable if he decided not to adhere to the
straight and accepted the submerged patriotic glamour and extra funds
that such a relationship would provide. It would also explain the
comments of Pulitzer Prize-winning author J. Anthony Lukas, when he
wrote in 1989 that Bob Woodward was "temperamentally secretive, loathe
to volunteer information about himself," or the Washingtonian's remarks
in 1987: "He is secretive about everything." As Esquire magazine put
it, summing up in its 1992 article on Bob, "What is he hiding?"
The "Floating Pentagon"
Assignment
Three days after graduating from Yale, Woodward was sent by the U.S.
Navy to Norfolk, Virginia, where he was commissioned as an ensign by
none other than U.S. Senator George Smathers from Florida. Bob's
assignment was to a very special ship, called a "floating Pentagon,"
the U.S.S. Wright. The ship was a National Emergency Command Ship-a
place where a President and cabinet could preside from in the event of
a nuclear war. It had elaborate and sophisticated communications and
data processing capabilities. It had a smaller replica of the war room
at the Pentagon. It ran under what was called SIOP-Single Integrated
Operation Plan. For example, in the event of nuclear war, the Wright
was third in line to take full command if the two ahead of it, the
Strategic Air Command in Omaha (SAC) and NORAD, were rendered
incommunicado.
Woodward-straightfacedly-told
authors Colodny and Gettlin (Silent Coup) that he guessed he was picked
for the ship because he had been a radio ham as a kid.
Aboard the Wright,
Woodward had top
secret "crypto" clearance-the same clearance researcher Harold Weisberg
found had been assigned to Lee Harvey Oswald when he was himself in the
Marines. Such clearance in Woodward's case gave him full access to
nearly all classified materials and codes on the ship. Woodward
also ran the ship's newspaper. Woodward has insisted that possessing a
high security clearance is not necessarily indicative of intelligence
work.
The Wright carried men from each of the military services, as well as
CIA personnel. One of Havill's government sources reported that the CIA
would likely have had additional informants on a ship of such
sensitivity, adding that "the rivalry between the services was intense."
After a two and a half year stint on the Wright, Woodward was assigned
to go to Vietnam. Woodward wrote the Pentagon asking to serve on a
destroyer. The wish was granted. One naval captain told Havill that it
seemed reasonable Woodward would have a little pull from his previous
duty to avoid getting assigned to Vietnam. Another former naval officer
disputed that, saying "Nobody got out of going to Vietnam in 1968."
But Woodward did. He was stationed aboard the U.S.S. Fox, based in
Southern California. The personnel on board the Fox included an
intelligence team, many of whom had studied Russian and Asian languages
at the famous armed services language school in Monterey, California.
But Woodward's most stunning deceptions come from the work that
launched his career, his tracking of the Watergate story as retold in
the supposedly nonfiction work All the President's Men. Adrian Havill
found curious discrepancies between accountings of incidents as
reported in the book, and the rest of the available facts (see sidebar
at right).
Given his role in the Watergate cover-up, and the misrepresentations in
his own work, it remains to us a huge mystery why this man is treated
with the reverence he is. Considering his behavior, his background, his
credibility, and his connections, we now feel compelled to join Adrian
Havill in asking who is Bob Woodward? Whom does he serve? Is his career
sustained for the purposes of those with a "secret agenda"?
By 1968, Woodward ran the ship's radio team. In 1969, Woodward was
awarded the Navy Commendation Medal for his communications work. From
there, Woodward moved on to a Pentagon assignment, a job that included
briefing top officers in the government. Admiral Thomas Moorer and
former secretary of defense Melvin Laird are both on record noting that
Woodward briefed Al Haig at the White House during this period. What is
suspicious is Woodward's semi-admittance to Hougan that he had done
some briefing, and his complete denial to Colodny and Gettlin that he
had ever briefed anyone at the White House. Havill notes:
Considering the evidence, Bob Woodward's denial more
strongly
suggests intelligence than it does his uninvolvement in White House
briefings.
Woodward's secrecy about his past, his choice of associates, and what
is known of his activities caused Havill to write:
The question, then, begs itself once more. Was Bob
Woodward ever a
free-lance or retained Central Intelligence Agency liaison officer,
informant or operative . . . ? This author got various forms of
affirmative opinions from intelligence experts. It would explain his
assignment to the Wright and his misleading statements to interviewers.
It would make understandable his being able to get out of going to
Vietnam in 1968, his extension for an additional year at the Pentagon,
his being chosen to brief at the White House and his denials as well.
It would also help explain his subsequent high-level friendships with
leaders of the U.S. military and the CIA.
It would also explain the role Woodward and Bernstein wittingly or
unwittingly played in keeping the CIA's nose clean while making sure
the world saw the President's nose was dirty.
The Legacy of Deep Throat
Whatever his background, whatever his connections, one cannot trust
what Woodward says as fact.
Take,
for instance, his account in Veil of his last interview with dying CIA
Director William Casey. Havill tracked down Casey's family, friends,
hospital security staff and CIA guardians and found that the visit
Woodward described was impossible. First of all, Casey was under 24
hour guard by several layers of security: CIA members, hospital
security, and Casey's family.
And Woodward had already been stopped once while trying to see Casey.
According to one of Havill's sources, Woodward was not merely asked to
leave, as Woodward reported in his book, but was forcibly shoved into
the elevator. And Woodward's story kept shifting. Woodward told a
Knight-Ridder reporter that he had gotten in by flashing his press
pass. To Larry King, Woodward claimed he just "walked in." But even
assuming he somehow managed to get by all of that security, Woodward
would still have been the only person to claim that Casey had uttered
intelligible words in those last hours.
The only other person to make such a claim was Robert Gates, who
himself became CIA Director. The family, doctor and medical staff said
Casey could not make words at this point, only noises. At least Gates
questioned whether he might have been imagining he heard words.
Woodward has never retracted his "conversation." In addition, Woodward
once said that Casey sat bolt upright, which would seem highly
implausible given his rapidly deteriorating state.
Onetime
CIA Director Stansfield Turner, a friend of Woodward's since 1966, said
Woodward told him he'd walked by Casey's room and Casey had waved to
him. Casey's bed was positioned in such a way in the room as to make
that impossible too.
---snip---
But Woodward's most
stunning
deceptions come from the work that launched his career, his tracking of
the Watergate story as retold in the supposedly nonfiction work All the
President's Men. Adrian Havill found curious discrepancies between
accountings of incidents as reported in the book, and the rest of the
available facts
Given his role in the Watergate cover-up, and the misrepresentations in
his own work, it remains to us a huge mystery why this man is treated
with the reverence he is. Considering his behavior, his background, his
credibility, and his connections, we now feel compelled to join Adrian
Havill in asking who is Bob Woodward?
Whom
does he serve? Is his career sustained for the purposes of those with a
"secret agenda"?
---
And here is the sidebar.
---
The Deceptions of All the
President's Men
Had the book been presented as fiction, readers could not complain.
However, the book sits on non-fiction shelves around the world. Maybe
it shouldn't.
In his book Deep Truth, author Adrian Havill presents several events in
All the President's Men that are, to put it generously, highly suspect.
One example is the scene in
which
Woodward and Bernstein have made their first egregious mistake. They
sourced Hugh Sloan's grand jury testimony for a story that Sloan had
never told the Grand Jury, showing that Haldeman was one of the inner
group at CREEP controlling the mysterious slush fund. In the book, the
dejected Woodward and Bernstein walk home in the rain, beaten both
physically and symbolically by the elements, with only newspapers over
their head to keep them dry. Havill did some checking. It never rained
that day. That might seem an inconsequential detail to some, but others
will understand that it was a device created to bring drama. How many
other "events" were merely fictional devices? Havill found several. For
instance, at one point, Carl Bernstein is about to be subpoenaed by
CREEP, and Ben Bradlee advised Carl to go hang out at a movie until
after 5:00 p.m., then to call into the office. According to the book,
Carl went to see Deep Throat, hence the reason for the name "Deep
Throat" having been given to Woodward's secret source. But there was no
Deep Throat playing anywhere in D.C. at that time. In fact, the
theaters were being very cautious, having recently been raided by law
enforcement authorities. Not one theater in town was showing Deep
Throat.
And speaking of "Deep
Throat" . . .
One of the most astonishingly bald-faced inventions was the process by
which Woodward and "Deep Throat" allegedly made contact when they
needed to speak to one another. In the book, much is made of the
spooky, clandestine meetings between "Deep Throat" and Woodward. When
Woodward needed to ask "Deep Throat" something, he was to put a flower
pot with a red flag in it on his sixth floor balcony, which, we are
supposed to believe, this high level source checked daily. When "Deep
Throat" wanted to speak to Woodward, a clock would supposedly be drawn
in his copy of the New York Times designating the meeting time. But
neither of these scenarios fits the reality of where Woodward lived.
Woodward, who could remember the exact room number (710) where he met
Martha Mitchell just once, evidently had trouble remembering the
address at which he had lived. In an interview he once said it was "606
or 608 or 612, something like that." However, Havill found that
Woodward's actual address was 617.
This
is important, because the balcony attached to 617 faced an interior
courtyard. Havill poked around and found that the only way to view a
flower pot on the balcony was to walk into the center of the complex,
with eighty units viewing you, crane your neck and look up to the sixth
floor. Even then, a pot would have been barely visible. There
was an alley that ran behind the building that allowed a glimpse of the
apartment and balcony, but at an equally difficult angle. And in both
cases, we are to believe that this source, who strove hard to protect
his identify, would walk up in plain view of the eighty apartments
facing the inner courtyard or the alley on a daily basis, on the chance
that there might be a sign from Woodward. When Havill tried to poke
around, just to look at the place, residents of the building stopped
him and inquired who he was and what he was looking for. Unless "Deep
Throat" was well known to the residents of the building, his daily
visits seem to preclude being able to keep his identity a secret.
Note
- In 2005, 31 years after Nixon's resignation
and 11 years after Nixon's death, a family attorney stated that
former Federal
Bureau of Investigation Associate
Director Mark
Felt was
Deep Throat. Felt was suffering from dementia at the time and had
previously denied being Deep Throat, but Woodward and Bernstein
confirmed the attorney's claim.
As for the clock-in-the-paper, the New York Times papers were delivered
not to each door, but left stacked and unmarked in a common reception
area. There was no way "Deep Throat" could have known which paper
Woodward would end up with each morning.
Havill, in fact, believes that "Deep Throat" is no more real than the
movie episode or the rain, but rather, a dramatic device. It certainly
worked well. And Woodward's and Bernstein's editor at Simon and
Schuster, Alice Mayhew, urged them to "build up the Deep Throat
character and make him interesting." While it is now clearly known that
at least one of Woodward's informants was, in fact, Robert Bennett, the
suggestions from Colodny and Gettlin in Silent Coup about Al Haig and
Deborah Davis's suggestions in Katherine the Great about Richard Ober
may not be contradictory. Other names that have been suggested have
included Walter Sheridan (Jim Hougan in Spooks) and Bobby Ray Inman
(also in Spooks). If Havill is correct and there is no "person" who was
known as "Deep Throat", it is possible that any or all of the above
were passing along information, explicitly not to be sourced or
credited to them in any way, on deep background.
Havill asks, and then answers, his own questions as to the dishonesty
in All the President's Men:
Why would Bob and
Carl invent or
embellish such seemingly incidental details of their book? Why would
they make up meetings with a character named Deep Throat? The answer is
Bob was consumed by naked ambition, anxious to prove that he could
succeed at his newly chosen profession. There was money and fame at
stake. . .
And maybe a cover story to protect as well.
--------
Let me recap.
"Staunchly conservative." Whatever THAT really means.
Yale undergrad, second level secret society member (one of a total of
15 tabbed for the "honor" of being a member of ANY secret society). and
Naval ROTC cadet.
Upon graduation from Yale, almost immediately assigned to a
"floating
Pentagon" ship, complete with a top secret clearance (Just like ol' Lee
Harvey's) and later a free pass out of Vietnam. Lucky Ensign Woodward,
eh?
Next...a job at the Pentagon. "Briefing" high level spooks like General
Al Haig. This boy was a ROCKET!!! Straight up into NeverNeverland for
HIM!!! What...only a few years from being a Yale undergrad to briefing
the Chief of Staff in the White House? MIRACLE!!!
"...subsequent high-level friendships with leaders of the U.S. military
and the CIA."
WHAT was his rank in the navy again? No mention of it on the net
as
far as I can find. Lieutenant Commander, maybe? No higher, after only a
few years of service. A rank that these "leaders of the U.S. military
and the CIA" generally treat as not much better than a house servant. A
"communications officer" still in his 20s? As in "Take a letter,
sailor."
But...WAIT A MINUTE!!!
There he
is, suddenly in the White House with general "I'm In Charge" Haig, and
soon thereafter having "subsequent high-level friendships with leaders
of the U.S. military and the CIA."
Hmmm... What gives?
Need more? OK...
The last human being to see William Casey alive.
Ye GODS!!! Do you have ANY idea of who Casey was?
He was one of the last of the old school, working O.S.S. officer spies.
All secrets and not an OUNCE of give. He knew every secret that the CIA
had squirreled away since they began rescuing Nazis to use as
counterspies during the Cold War.
A TOMB of secrets.
As Casey lay dying in a hospital, doubtless pumped full of painkillers
and legally non compos mentis...DO YOU REALLY BELIEVE THAT THE CIA
WOULD SIMPLY WALK AWAY AND LET WHATEVER INTRUDER WHO WANTED TO DO
SO
JUST AMBLE IN THERE TO "INTERVIEW" HIM!!!
Please!!!
Let ALONE that Casey was scheduled to testify before the Senate
Committee investigating the Iran-Contra mess in two days. And Woodward
claimed that Casey admitted to him that he was aware of the diversion
of funds from the sale of arms to Iran for the support of the Contras
in Nicaragua!!! New CIA uses dying OLD CIA as patsy. Perfect!!!
No one ELSE even heard Casey say a goddamned WORD around the same time.
Brain cancer and craniotomies'll do that to you, don'tcha know...
Ludicrous on the face of it. Under orders from someone to do something,
for sure.
Here's another howler.
"Onetime
CIA Director Stansfield Turner, a friend of Woodward's since 1966..."
Woodward was still at YALE in 1965!!! And Turner is 20 years OLDER than
Woodward. What? Did they meet at FOOTBALL GAME!!!???
Give me a break.
Let alone all the deceptions implicit in his role in the Watergate
scandal, which are THOROUGHLY enumerated above.
MORE???
OK.
Do it yourself.
You have a computer and an internet connection.
Get to work.
Google Bradlee, the Grahams, WAPO, Allen Dulles, Operation Mockingbird,
Frank Wisner (whose son Frank Jr. was one of the Enron officials who
got away clean. It's gotto be genetic...bad genes plus good contacts.
COMPANY contacts.), and so on.
This is NOT "tinfoil hat" material. It is the stuff of realpolitik,
manipulations that have gone on daily for 60+ years in the underground
area where American government, culture, media and the intelligence
community meet and greet.
Wise up.
The same thing is happening again.
Bet on it.
If you are going to allow yourselves to be fooled...at LEAST know it.
That way, when push comes to shove (and it's going to eventually...NO
con game lasts forever), you will have the option of changing your mind.
If, however, you do NOT look at it, full in the face...then you have no
mind TO change, and the next group of fourflushers will step right up
and continue faking you out of your shoes AND your stake.
Your choice.
Have fun...
And...wake the fuck up.
AG
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