"Silent Coup"
Absolutely. As did the author.
While much has been written about Richard Nixon's government and his resignation, the powerful forces behind his removal from office have never been exposed. In "Silent Coup", Len Colodny and Robert Gettlin have written an explosive new history of the fall of the president. The product of an extraordinary seven-year investigation, "Silent Coup" documents the political and personal agendas that combined to destroy Richard Nixon.
The truths unearthed by Colodny and Gettlin are shocking: They show the president at war with the government of his own making. Among many revelations in "Silent Coup" are these:
* The military spy ring, reporting to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that penetrated the White House while opposing Nixon's foreign policy goals.
* The presidential aide really behind Watergate: the details of his own clandestine and unauthorized intelligence operation; how he engineered the Watergate cover-up, lied to Congress, and placed the blame on everyone but himself.
* A woman whose name in a private address book may have helped cause Nixon's downfall.
* The Watergate burglar (speaking here for the first time) who was given a special floor plan and a key to a desk that was the true target of the break-in.
* The reporter who has concealed his real military background and long-standing Pentagon and White House contacts, and how he protected them - and their motives - with the cover name "Deep Throat."
* The White House Chief of Staff to whom Nixon turned for help, but who worked mightily to conceal the military spy ring and in the end was a moving force behind the president's resignation.
* The true target of the breakin was in fact "NOT" Larry O'Brien's phone, Chairman of the DNC, but that of an escort service the Democrats set up for out of town male visitors.
"Silent Coup" contains exclusive new material gathered from hundreds of interviews, from still unreleased government documents, from the complete Oval Office logs of Nixon's presidency, and from a painstaking cross-examination of the books and testimonies of the major and minor players in the story. The result is a major revision of history, one that will forever change our understanding of how and why Richard Nixon was forced to resign his office.
Len Colodny, an investigator and political analyst, has been working on "Silent Coup" since 1984. He was a businessman, public official, campaign manager, and political consultant before beginning the investigation that produced this book. He is a member of the Society for Professional Journalists.
Robert Gettlin was a national reporter in the Newhouse Newspapers Washington Bureau. He has been involved in investigative reporting for seventeen years, covering Congress, politics, the environment, the military, national defense, NASA, and virtually every major federal agency.
I heard this years ago on an A & E special about "Watergate". The show's contention was that John Dean set up the break in because his girlfriend's (Maureen, later his wife) name was in the books of that escort service. It had absolutley NOTHING to do with Nixon or his re-election. I've often wondered who convinced Nixon it DID have something to do with him and got the cover-up rolling.
I'll have to read this book.
I first read Silent Coup in the early 1990's after listening to G. Gordon Liddy recommend it. I've gone back to it on many occasions since. It is still what I believe to be the most credible explanation about the motivations that led to the Watergate break-in.
The connection between Lieutenant Woodward when he was in the Navy, and Admiral Moorer and Moorer's statement on tape on CNN has never been adequately investigated.