'NIXON'S WISH' CITED FOR COVER

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Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 
CIA-RDP84-00161R000400210007-0
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RIFPUB
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K
Document Page Count: 
1
Document Creation Date: 
December 23, 2016
Document Release Date: 
February 20, 2014
Sequence Number: 
7
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OPEN SOURCE
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Washrougoo, 4.1 . Declassified and Approved For Release 50-Yr 2014/02/21 : CIA-RDP84-00161R000400210007-0 CIA MEMO UN 1,_141..1.1" ri Mil I V ? 411 . By OSWALD JOHNSTON Stat Writer Six days after the Wa- tergate break-in last June, ? -? federal prosecutor Earl J. 'Silbert revealed at a rou- tine bond hearing involv- 4-ing the burglars that a bank draft of $89,000 link- ed to- Bernard L. Bar- ker. one of -the suspects, ? . had been traced to a bank Mexico City. ' . ? ? ?''.? ' That same day, June 23, 1972; -according to recent " testimony before three "l Congressional committees, ? White House aides H., R. Haldeman and ,John D. .?Ehrlichman tried to enlist "CIA cooperation in block-. 'ing an FBI investigation of an ill-defined Mexico City ...finance operation. ? ? According to a merit? by CIA deputy director Lt. Gcn. Vernon A. Walters which was prepared a few .,.;dayS later but revealed .1' Only yesterday, heading ? off the FBI probe was deemed . so urgent that Haldeniann told CIA offi- cials' that day "it is the President's-wish" that Walters' go to FBI acting , director L. Patrick Gray ? . III to call the FBI investi- gation off. In the annals of the complex Watergate affair, the details of the tortuous financial trial that led . from a Houston mining company, through Mexico , City, to Barker and then to GOP fundraiser Maurice ? Sums' safe did not surface for many weeks. TO WALTERS and to former CIA director Rich- ard M. Helms, who testi- fied yesterday in an open session of the Senate For- eign Relations committee, the connection was totally obscure last June. As Helms recalls it, he was summoned by tele- phone to be at the White, House at 1 p.m. June 23 to . discuss an unidentified subject and to come with . Welters, a former aide to President Nixon who bare- ly six weeks before had been sworn in as CIA dep- uty. Once in Ehrlichman's office, Helms recalled, Haldeman told the men there was a dander the Watergate incident might be capitalized upon by the "opposition." Apparently . some danger to the nation- al security likewise was invoked, as Helms recalls . it, because "Haldeman also mentioned the Bay of Pigs, in an incoherent ? statement I didn't under ' stand." THEN HALDEMAN gave his order: "It was decided at the White House," Helms testified yesterday, that Walters should go to Gray and tell him that continued investi- gation of the Mexican fi- ? mince might, jeopardize CIA operations there. In late November,' a few weeks after Nixon's land- slide victory, Helms was summoned to Camp David 1 and told he was resigning as CIA director, some six months before reaching retirement age, and being reassigned as ambassador . to Iran. Haldeman was I Present at that meeting i with the President, Helms I recalled yesterday. Asked by several sena- .; ' tors 'whether his removal was related to his refusal I to let the CIA be used by the White House in 'the ; Watergate case, Helms had one reply. "I honestly don't knew." STILL ANOTHER' of Walters's "memorandums of conversation" ? writ- ten last year but disclosed ' yesterday to the New York. \ ' ? Times by other congres- - sional sources?quotes Gray as saying that the ' j ' President, during a tele- 1 . phone conversation, had 11 'inquired about "the case," ' " nnnaretit reference to Saar-Neve3 Pl.torlphra Josep,lIve7an Richard Helms testifies. 'Washington. The drafts were.. ,cashed: through Barker's .Miami. bank ac?- '? count before the-money went back into a campaign safe used,. in part, to fi- nance Watergate spying., Some of these connec- tions between Watergate . and the GOP campaign might never have been . made' had Haldeman's :order of June 23, been car- ried out, and the 'Mexico, City bank transaction, -..which Watergate prosecu- tor Silbert revealed that ' day, might , never -have been developed. The full . .? :details - of the Mexican ? ? transaction are still under ? . 'investigation by. a federal grand jury in Houston. ' ? Helms, looking back ? yesterday on-that early stage, of the Watergate scand'al,. streised ? the. -.,seeming innocence of what, Haldeman seemed to-be asking him to do, even aft- er it had been revealed that the reason offered for blocking the FBI probe'? . CIA operations in. Mexico :--- was spurious.-' ? Whether or not Heide- ? "man spoke at . "the . .President's wish." Helms ? made it plain, "assistance ? to the President hasn't ,,been considered a crime until recently." ' HE EXPLAINED: ??,,,..:was only six days after; -;Ee..' Watergate when .-Halcle-: man spoke, the full import - 'of Watergate 'was un- known, he could not under- stand what a Mexican bank transaction had to de . ? ; 'with the incident. ! ? Later, as the scope of the case began to widen, Helms said, "My ' total ?. preoccupation was to keep 'the CIA uninvolved in the whole matter and I suC- .ceeded in so doing." ? ? Walters, in a confiden- tial memorandum of the same conversation, which Sen, Stuart Symington (D- Mo.) in part revealed, at yesterday's hearing, put it . more bluntly. "It is the President's wish that you go to Mr. Gray ..." is the way he heard Haldeman's order. Helms yesterday insist- ed that he had no recollec- tion of the phrase "it is the President's -wish." But he left no doubt that he re- garded an order from ? Haldeman as issuing from the top. "When the President's chief of staff speaks to you," he noted, "you assume he speaks with authority." Haldeman told the New York Times yesterday that the President was not in any way involved in the Watergate cover-up. Helms revealed. yester- day that the CIA immedi- ately checked the only conceivable , link between the Mexican money trans- fer and its own operations in Mexico. This was Man- uel Ogarrio Daguerre, an attorney to whom had re- ceived a $100,000 transfer from Gulf Resources and Chemical Corp. of Houston. as a bill payment April A, 7 1 1972. OGARRIO, Helms told the committee, "had no" relation to the agency," and by June 26 the CIA director and his deputy, were trying to tell White House aides they could not invoke CIA operations to block the FBI probe. Ogarrio, as the investi-' dation eventually was to reveal, bought $89,000 in bank drafts from Banco Internacional in Mexico City April 4, 1972.. The next day the drafts,plus $11,000 in cash,, were delivered by courier' to Nixon fund-raisers in Houston. The money was flown immediately to 13k: 11, This memorandum I; the Watergate inquiry. '11 . ? quotes Gray as telling the President that gate case could not be ' '.'..: covered up and that he i thought that Nixon should ! get rid of those involved The 'memorandum, pre- pared by July 13, is said to . be Walter's recollection of a conversation held just a day earlier with Gray f.ol?l The document quotes II. ? Gray as saying that Presi- .: ' .1 dent Nixon had called him ....a week earlier to congrat- ; ' ulate, him 'on FBI action : . l'rustrating an :airplane i, 4 ,:hijacking in San Francis-,: .1 ,. "Towerd i 1he end of the ' ''conversation," 'according:;. ? to the Walters memoran- ' . him (Grey) 'if he :had ? ;' dum, "the President asked:: ' ! talked to me (Walters) about the 'case: Gray !re , . ,?-.:?; plied-. that he had: The . , !!;li President then asked:him 1.. what his recommendation. was in this case : . ? j ? The memorandum then :?. I continued: ? ' GraY. had, replied ;that . . . _ , the ease could not be cov- ? .ered up and it would lead .1 quite high and he felt that : the President should get ' 1. rid of the people that were' - '' involved. Any attempt to'' -'t involvethe FBI or the CIA . ? ' in this, case could only,? ? ?????:.?:: -;prove a mortal wound and. i? oivould achieve nothing. "The 'President then. --. said, The I should get rid ?.- . I. i - of whoever is involved, no ": :,metter how hign up?' : Gray replied that was his L . ? ;recommendation. .: "The President then asked what I thought and: Gray said my views were the same as his. The Presi- , dent took itwell' and ' im ' thanked h."'' ' Declassified and Approved For Release @ 50-Yr 2014/02/21 : CIA-RDP84-00161Rnnnann91nrm7