Watergate CIA Files

Watergate CIA Files

This collection includes 2,910 pages of material.

The Watergate scandal led to President Richard Nixon's resignation. Watergate is often used as a disambiguation to refer to the culpability and impact surrounding various improper and/or illegal activities alleged to have been undertaken by members of the Nixon administration, including:

Vice President Spiro Agnew conviction on tax fraud stemming from bribery charges in Maryland; Bebe Rebozo accepting large contributions to Nixon's campaign; Dirty trick campaigns; Establishing the White House special investigations unit, later dubbed the “plumbers,” for “covert and unlawful activities,”; and using the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Internal Revenue Service as political weapons.

The Watergate break in involved previous CIA employees or contacts Howard Hunt, James McCord, Eugenio Martinez, and Frank Sturgis. This has led to speculations and investigations into possible CIA involvement into the Watergate break in.

President Nixon subsequently ordered H.R. Haldeman to have the CIA block the FBI's investigation into the source of the funding for the burglary. The National Security Act of 1947 was signed into law by President Truman. Part of the Act established the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The Act includes a ban on intelligence operatives from operating domestically. 

Content includes:

CIA Files

The CIA'S 156 page Working Draft of CIA Watergate History, "The CIA Inspector General Report on the Watergate Break-In Scandal." (December 1974)

132 pages of excerpts from the CIA's "Family Jewels" reporting related to Watergate and support sought by the Watergate burglars from the Agency. In 1973, CIA director James R. Schlesinger ordered senior officers to compile a report of current or past CIA actions that may have fallen outside the Agency's charter, was inappropriate, or illegal. This resulted in a 693-page loose-leaf book of memos that was passed on to William Colby when he succeeded Schlesinger as Director of Central Intelligence in late 1973.

439 pages of general CIA FOIA releases of documents dating from 1969 to 1988. Includes information about CIA association with Watergate burglars, the search of CIA files for information related to Watergate, information on the Watergate and Ellsberg cases, and cooperation with Congressional investigative bodies.

909 pages of files released by the CIA in September 2017 in response to a FOIA request for documents related to CIA contact with Watergate related figures.


Key Nixon Tapes Regarding Watergate and the CIA

Twenty-five minutes of audio of Nixon’s secretly recorded tapes regarding Watergate and the CIA. Includes the "Smoking Gun" tape, abstracts, and transcripts.

 
Congressional Documents

1,214 pages of Congressional transcripts and reports from House and Senate investigations into CIA and Watergate connected matters. The material includes:

Inquiry into the Alleged Involvement of the Central Intelligence Agency in the Watergate and Ellsberg Matters – House of Representatives Hearings Transcripts May 11 to July 2, 1974

Inquiry into the Alleged Involvement of the Central Intelligence Agency in the Watergate and Ellsberg Matters – House of Representatives Report – October 23, 1973 

U.S. Senate CIA Foreign and Domestic Activities (Church Commission) Secret Hearing Report January 22, 1975


Document Highlights in this collection includes:

An August 27 CIA memo concerning CIA assistance in providing fake documents to E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy to be used for breaking into the office of Dr. Lewis Fielding, Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist. The memo notes that Liddy (referred to by his first name George) would like his documents to use the alias "Roy James Anderson."

A January 3, 1975, memorandum of conversation between President Ford and national security advisors on allegations of CIA domestic activities made in an article by New York Times columnist Seymour Hersh. President Ford asked those assembled, "Was the CIA involved in Watergate?" Then Secretary of Defense, and former CIA director during the Nixon Administration (February 2, 1973 – July 2, 1973) James R. Schlesinger replied in part, "There is a layer in the Agency which you can never really find out what is going on.  So, you don't ever want to give them a clean bill of health. I am not sure that Bill (Colby, Director of Central Intelligence September 4, 1973 – January 30, 1976) knows all, nor that I did. You should defend it and call for clean actions, but not give them a wholesale acceptance." In the meeting Ford responds by laying the foundation for the establishment of what became the Rockefeller Commission.

A section of the working draft of a report titled, "CIA Watergate History," produced by the CIA's Inspector General, confirms that the CIA aided Hunt and Liddy's covert operation to examine medical files held by Ellsberg's psychoanalyst covering the two-year period in which he was undergoing analysis.

Watergate tape audio and transcript of Nixon and Haldeman discussing having the CIA ask the FBI to halt their investigation of the Watergate break-in. This 7 minute and forty-four second tape segment is often referred to as the

"The Smoking Gun," was recorded in the White House Oval Office on June 23, 1972, between 10:04 and 11:39 AM. It captures a conversation between Haldeman and Nixon discussing the progress of the FBI's investigation especially the tracing of the source of money found on the burglars. They propose having the CIA ask the FBI to halt their investigation of the Watergate break-in by claiming that the break-in was a national security operation.

In the Arena by Richard Nixon (1990) Excerpt - In an excerpt from Richard Nixon’s memoir “In the Arena” published in 1990.  Nixon confirms that he did ask the CIA to block an FBI investigation of the Watergate break-in, an apparent attempt to obstruct justice that led to his resignation, but the CIA refused. He called it an “inexcusable error of following the recommendation from some members of my staff-some of whom I later learned, had a personal stake in covering up the facts-and requesting that the CIA intervene."

U.S. Senate CIA Foreign and Domestic Activities (Church Commission) Hearing Transcript January 22, 1975, contains an excerpt from an individual view of Senator Howard H. Baker, Jr., from "The Final Report of the Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, U.S. Senate." Baker says, "While the CIA has previously belatedly acknowledged some of the technical support it provided to Hunt and Liddy prior to the Fielding break-in, the CIA has continually downplayed the extent of that technical support as well as the specific approval and detailed knowledge of such support by high level CIA officials."