President Nixon has had an incredibly busy summer; Kissinger's secret trip to China, and now on the weekend of the 15th Nixon is up at Camp David dealing with the economy, culminating in a key speech on the 15th imposing the wage and price freeze and taking the dollar completely off of gold. Nixon and his top staff had their hands full.
But farther down the line, the Plumbers were putting their plans into effect. It was time to organize the break-in of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist. Now Howard Hunt, ex-CIA adventurer who had been involved in the Bay of Pigs fiasco, flew down to Miami to recruit some help. In particular, he met with Bernard Baker,who had worked with him on the Bay of Pigs, and other Cuban-American veterans of that operation. Barker and the others were left on standby, ready to act when the time was right.
(Apologies -- I got a day behind. Actually, though, Emery has Hunt's trip to Miami on "about" the 15th, so there you go).
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
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The CIA's "Family Jewels" file, which was released in 2007, includes a few documents relating to requests that the agency would receive on occasion from its former employee Howard Hunt, such as this report from EEAB, i.e., the External Employment Assistance Branch, which helped retiring agents find new jobs. (It also gives a hint of the CIA's record keeping.)
ReplyDelete"Sometime in the spring of 1972, Frank O'Malley of EEAB received a call from Howard Hunt who asked Frank if he had a retiree or resignee who was accomplished at picking locks. Mr. O'Malley sent him a resume on Thomas Amato who retired 31 July 1971. Mr. O'Malley did not document his EEAB record to show the date of this exchange, but [---] (who also works in EEAB) opines that it occurred sometime between March and May 1972."
See Scott C. Monje, The Central Intelligence Agency: A Documentary History (Greenwood Press, 2008), p. 163.