Episode 52: Tricky Dicks: Watergate and the CIA w/ Jefferson Morley
Added 2022-06-17 17:33:18 +0000 UTCIn this second episode of our Watergate double feature here on the 50th anniversary of that fateful botched burglary, Aaron talks with Jefferson Morley about his new book, Scorpions' Dance: The President, the Spymaster, and Watergate. Therein, Watergate is presented as a tale of two Dicks—Nixon and Helms. On the surface, Watergate was a notorious presidential scandal. The further one looks into the case, the more the whole affair looks like an Establishment civil war fought over deeper issues of world historic importance.
Jefferson Morley is a Washington author and veteran journalist whose novelistic non-fiction books explore untold chapters in the history of the American nation. Some of his other books include The Ghost: The Secret Life of CIA Spymaster James Jesus Angleton and Our Man in Mexico: Winston Scott and the Hidden History of the CIA.
Special thanks to Casey Moore for the episode art and Dana Chavarria for the sound engineering!
Music: “Song in D” by Mock Orange
Comments
Trickier Dickier
Chungo Bungo
2022-09-20 01:08:20 +0000 UTCJust listened to Garland Nixon hosted discussion with Scott Ritter and Ray McGovern (who mentions American Exceptionalism) - would be good to get Ritter interview as he thinks there is a lot bigger likelihood of nuclear war than just about anyone else I’m reading or listening to - and unfortunately he makes a persuasive case - would be really interesting to have him on to talk about Taiwan and Ukraine by December 2022.
John McElroy
2022-06-22 01:52:55 +0000 UTCGiven the degree of high criminality in running the empire, it is absurd to look at what Bill Clinton and Trump were impeached for--or even what took Nixon down on the smoking gun tape. Scandals are just less deadly ways of doing what assassination does more murderously. Spitzer, Al Franken, Gary Hart...there scandals were not even peccadilloes relative to routine US policies.
Aaron Good
2022-06-21 16:14:28 +0000 UTCSadly, it seems partly like a generational thing I have found that many people who are good on deep political aspects of the Cold War...are not good on the New Cold War. Of course I say that the Cold War never ended. Tiananmin, shock therapy, and NATO expansion were continuations of the Cold War. So were the Central Asian "counterterror" adventures of the 1990's. In a fundamental sense, the 911 Wars and the Arab Spring Wars were also a part of this. I think many people who can remember an America that wasn't as overtly corrupt, still cling to some notions that prevent them from disregarding all the propaganda mobilized US adversaries today. As you will see in the book, I think that the China business played a part in Watergate, but it was peripheral. I'd say it was not a decisive factor because the policy did not change after Watergate. Meanwhile, as Chomsky says, Nixon WAS the last liberal president. With him gone, Rockefeller/Trilateral Commission doctrine (neoliberalism) became Establishment cosmology--contra what Nixon was planning. So if you want to understand why JFK was killed, look at policy: LBJ reversed JFK's foreign policy in Vietnam, Indonesia, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America (including Cuba), USSR, and even Europe (for example, JFK supported Aldo Moro while subsequent US leaders threatened to murder him before he was murdered). But we will get into all this!
Aaron Good
2022-06-21 16:08:03 +0000 UTCMorley is pretty good on JFK and the US deep state, but when it comes to Russia and China he really goes off the rails. It's unfortunate, because grasping great power politics is a huge part of understanding the CIA's antics. Morley doubts that Nixon's rapprochement with China was a factor in Watergate. But I'm not so sure I agree. I have always wondered if China was the turning point for the CIA (not to mention Nixon's diplomacy with the USSR), and it strikes me as very significant that the CIA Watergate burglars were discovered just a few months after Nixon's visit to China.
Ben Norton
2022-06-21 15:14:46 +0000 UTCWhen Trump tried and failed to shake down Zelinsky by holding up an arms deal for a political favor—let’s be honest—that’s the type of thing a professional politician like Hillary Clinton or Richard Nixon would get done five times before they even had breakfast.
William T Patton
2022-06-21 01:22:20 +0000 UTCI like Jefferson but his normie, Democrat take on the “big lie” and the Trump/Ukraine phone call were unbearable. It is mainstream history that elections are stolen in the U.S. The mafia stuffing the ballot box in WEst Virginia and Illinois for Kennedy over Nixon in 1960, Lyndon Johnson’s “landslide” win over Coke Stevenson in the 1948 senate race.
William T Patton
2022-06-21 01:12:10 +0000 UTCThey MUST personalize and make it all about Putin. Of course they have people who understand political realities, but talking about that would only be reasonable if we lived in a democracy where policy was set in consultation with an informed public. Instead, they decide on the policy and then official assessments of reality are delivered according to what will best manufacture consent.
Aaron Good
2022-06-20 14:51:57 +0000 UTCYes, that is very much analogous to Stop the Steal. But in terms of Ukraine, the other big lie is Maidan--that a Democratic administration did not just overthrow a government in classic CIA style.
Aaron Good
2022-06-20 14:48:34 +0000 UTCThe comparable "big lie" for the Dems is Russiagate. No matter how good a liberal can be on history, they still seem to have roadblocks on more recent events. The Ukraine proxy war would not be possible without Russiagate.
Ned Schafer
2022-06-20 12:56:07 +0000 UTCNot just Putin either - Burns knew that there was a broad spectrum of Russian support from Putin’s left and right in the Duma that would not tolerate an incursion on their border. This is an existential threat, especially dressed up in Nazi rhetoric and cannot be ignored in light of the resistance in Luhansk and Donetsk regions
John McElroy
2022-06-20 09:16:14 +0000 UTCWhen Morley started in on his lack of sympathy of Russia piece, it reminded me that William S Burns (now the director of CIA) was the author of the “brightest of red lines” for Putin about NATO memo to Condi Rice before the PNAC Bush WH people decide to make a massive blunder in Bucharest 2008 and announce the desire to allow Georgia and Ukraine entry into NATO. Putin signaled his intentions to Burns in 2004 - 18 years previously. And it does not take much analysis to see how each of Burns, Blinken, Biden, and Nuland to name a few have risen in position during this time. CIA and intelligence state’s role in the build up to war in this region is as clear as day. Even Mearsheimer’s most recent presentation accounts for this understanding https://youtu.be/qciVozNtCDM
John McElroy
2022-06-20 09:06:29 +0000 UTCYeah, I would wonder if his annoyance stemmed from the fact that he'd rather just not mention it. Because as I recall, he didn't say that it didn't happen--which is the McPravda standard propaganda lie. So maybe even bringing up the subject means having to get into territory that he'd rather avoid. idk
Aaron Good
2022-06-19 21:45:22 +0000 UTCBy the way, I recommend "The Murder of Allende" by Róbinson Rojas Sandford, if you haven't already read it. He was a journalist who I believe worked with or in the Allende administration. The same writer also has a book on the JFK assassination that brought in the power elite angle very early on.
Listen man
2022-06-19 21:09:01 +0000 UTCGreat job keeping Morley honest at the end, Aaron. I've listened to him in a few venues and the only time I've heard anger creep into his voice is when you brought up the 2014 coup in Ukraine. Very interesting that's what get his dander up.
Listen man
2022-06-19 21:03:29 +0000 UTC
