Written by Andrew K. Arnett
After the congressional hearing on MKULTRA I headed back to the Hotel Hive. Later that evening I ventured out for some exploration. Wandering through the storied canyons of the Watergate complex got me dwelling on the somber history that clings to this place like black mold on bathroom tiles. Watergate was a sordid affair. A low watermark of American history. They don’t call the area Foggy Bottom for nothing. No wonder no tourists were treading these sidewalks on a night like this. It was as lonely as hiking through Death Valley. Watergate is the last thing one wants to be reminded of while the country celebrates its 250th birthday. So notorious was the scandal that the suffix “gate” has been added to infamous scandals since.
Nonetheless I was drawn here if for no better reason than I could see Watergate from my hotel—it was right down the street from the Hotel Hive. Perhaps fate put me here for a reason because something clicked in my head. A realization. A connection, however tenuous it may appear, between MKULTRA and the Watergate scandal. This is one the historians have yet to rubber stamp. But the timing and details are too close to be mere coincidence. Let’s start with the timing. In 1971, Nixon had the Secret Service install microphones inside his desk in the Oval Office. From February 16, 1971 to July 13, 1973, Nixon recorded 3432 hours of conversation. These tapes would ultimately lead to the downfall of Nixon.
On June 17, 1972, a group of operatives associated with Nixon’s campaign, led by former intelligence agents G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt, were busted whilst attempting to burglarize and plant bugs in the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Hotel. This was implemented as Operation Gemstone. The general theory regarding the whole motive for the break-in was that Nixon was seeking “dirt” on the Democrats, whether through illegal finances or sexual scandals.
In 1973, as the Watergate probe was unfolding, CIA Director Richard Helms ordered the destruction of all files related to MKULTRA. Here is a chronological link between Watergate and MKULTRA and researchers referencing the link make the distinction that this is not an operational link. Rather, it is part of a broader attempt by the CIA to minimize exposure to its secret programs. A lot of secrets were being exposed during the FBI investigation.
The Supreme Court ordered the White House to release the full un-redacted tapes. Paranoia ran thick through the corridors of the Nation’s Capitol. Nixon’s cover-up during the investigation ultimately led to his impeachment in 1974. One year later, in 1975, MKULTRA was revealed to the public by the Church Committee of the United States Congress and Gerald Ford’s United States Presidents Commission on CIA Activities within the United States.
With that being said, an operative link between the two scandals may be felt if you cut a little deeper to the bone. H.R. Haldeman, White House Chief of Staff to Nixon, alleged that the CIA sabotaged the Watergate break-in and subsequent cover-up to smear Nixon. This was due to a tense relationship with the President as well as the agency’s attempts to conceal its own ties to high-end escort services and certain Kompromat, or sexual blackmail rings. Later, it would be revealed that MKULTRA would use safe houses in cities like San Fransisco to film compromising sex acts between individuals.
Let’s not forget that a number of the Watergate Plumbers were former members of the CIA, including Howard Hunt. Hunt concocted a plan to secretly dose Daniel Ellsberg with LSD prior to a public speech he was about to give, in order to discredit the man. Ellsberg had recently released the Pentagon Papers which threatened to tarnish Nixon’s reputation regarding the Vietnam War. The surreptitious dosing by LSD was of course an M.O. of the MKULTRA program.
Espionage leads to strange bedfellows. During the cover-up, Nixon feared the FBI was closing in on the White House so his advisors (Dean, Haldeman and Mitchell) hatched a plan to get the CIA to pressure the FBI to drop the Watergate probe in the name of national security.
The “Smoking Gun” tape between Nixon and Haldeman insinuated that the investigation, if continued, may eventually “open the whole Bay of Pigs thing up again,” as well as “the ‘Who shot John’ angle.” The implication here is that the CIA assassination plan for Castro would be exposed to the public, as well as deeper probes into the JFK assassination.
Richard Helms got the message to acting FBI Director L. Patrick Gray. Gray was willing to halt the investigation but only if the CIA put the request in writing. The CIA rebuffed the offer. This is a curious turn of events and shows that a mere piece of paper proved too problematic for the CIA to commit to a potentially historic decision. Of course, they were elbow deep in burning their own files, the last thing they needed was to accrue more receipts.
The reality is that the Watergate probe exposed a general environment of intelligence abuse and power run amok. This further pushed congress, the Supreme Court and journalists to probe even deeper into the matter and the CIA were in a panic to cover-up their own tracks. After all, MKULTRA was an illegal human experimentation program that used powerful psychoactive drugs on unwitting Americans, Canadians and others, with the goal of altering human behavior. The use of hypnosis, electroshock, isolation, sexual abuse, lobotomies and certain forms of torture were all on the table.
To run this massive operation, the CIA operated under the guise of “research” and front organizations at over 80 institutions including hospitals, universities, prisons and pharmaceutical companies. CIA documents show that these experiments into “chemical, biological, and radiological” methods of mind control cost tax payers about $10 million dollars or $87.5 million adjusted for inflation.
With all this being said, it is safe to say that Watergate fostered a political climate that led to the CIA destruction of MKULTRA files and the subsequent congressional hearings into the MKULTRA program. What is still left to be determined is whether or not MKULTRA itself has a direct link to Watergate, or for that matter to the downfall of Richard Nixon.
Andrew K. Arnett is a writer for New Dawn Magazine and author of the bookThe Crowley Conspiracy available on Amazon. On X @AndrewArnett
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