The Clinton Administration was really big on illegal eavesdropping, but
few people ever paid it much attention. The two different Bush
Administrations were pretty bad as well, and Reagan waffled back and
forth about "the decency of it".
-jma
http://intelligencenews.wordpress.com/2011/07/29/01-773/
Nixon White House may have bugged Pentagon leadership
JULY 29, 2011
By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Everyone familiar with American political history knows about the �White
House Plumbers�, a covert special investigations unit established during
the Presidency of Richard Nixon, and tasked with spying on his political
opponents. The unit�s bungled attempt to burgle the Watergate offices of
the Democratic National Committee, in 1972, eventually led to Nixon�s
resignation. But the Watergate burglary was but one of many operations
conducted by the �Plumbers�, who were one of several �dirty tricks�
units managed by the Nixon White House. Now, nearly 40 years after the
Watergate scandal erupted, veteran intelligence correspondent Jeff Stein
provides new information that suggests the Nixon White House may have
bugged the Pentagon telephones of senior American military officials.
Stein managed to track down Dave Mann, a former member of the Pentagon�s
Counterintelligence Force, who in 1971 stumbled upon a classified report
claiming that listening bug signals had been detected emanating from
offices in the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The signals had been picked up by
a technical surveillance countermeasures (TSCM) team during a routine
sweep of the Pentagon, in search of unauthorized interception devices.
Mann run some tests to verify the TCM team�s report, and discovered that
the bug signals originated from the personal office telephone line of
General William Westmoreland, who was then the US Army�s Chief of Staff.
He also discovered that the telephone of his assistant had been
compromised, as well as the telephone lines belonging to the US Army�s
assistant secretary, its logistics director, and at least one general.
Mann�s personal conclusion was that the phone lines were most likely
bugged with the cooperation of the Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone
Company, which was at that the time considered an operational wing of
the FBI, under Director J. Edgar Hoover. Along with a colleague, Tom
Lejeune, Mann presented his findings to his superiors, who in turn
initiated a formal investigation into the wiretaps, code-named GRAPPLE
TRIP. But Mann, who is now semi-retired from the military and lives in
Tennessee, told Stein that �there was a lot �and I mean a lot� of
pressure to prove GRAPPLE TRIP to be a fluke or a miswired telephone�.
Which is precisely what happened: the investigation concluded that the
bug signals were emitted due to �crossed wires in the telephone system�.
The final view of the report, which was never declassified, was that
�persons unknown had accidentally modified the telephone instrument�,
said Mann.
--
James M. Atkinson
President and Sr. Engineer
"Leonardo da Vinci of Bug Sweeps and Spy Hunting"
Granite Island Group
jm..._at_tscm.com
http://www.tscm.com/
(978) 546-3803
Received on Sat Mar 02 2024 - 00:57:20 CST