Watergate break-in conspirator Bernard Barker worked for
the Mafia, author says
The main (or second) break-in at the Watergate, discovered
by a security guard, started the rolling scandal that catapulted the Washington Post to national political
prominence and led to the resignation of Richard Nixon. It did not lead to an
opening up of some the previous crimes connected to it, the assassinations of
the 1960s.
Bernard Barker, one of the men convicted for taking part in the break-in, died on June 5. Waldron and co-author Thom Hartmann are now free to release their further blockbuster item that Bernard Barker was working for the Mafia.
Bernard Barker
Emailing in response to questions, Waldron says, “Now
that Bernard Barker is dead, Thom and I are free to reveal what we’ve known
since 1992, when we were told by an aide to Bobby Kennedy: Bernard Barker was
working for the Mafia--specifically godfather Santo Trafficante--at the time of
the Watergate break-in, during 1963 when Barker worked on the most sensitive
parts of the JFK-Almeida coup plan (as E. Howard Hunt’s aide), and in 1961 when
Barker worked on the Bay of Pigs with Hunt.”
Trafficante was known as the ‘godfather’ or
mafia boss of
Trafficante
Waldron adds, “The CIA admits Barker was a CIA agent for
them from 1960 to 1965.” Barker’s agency
code-name was AMCLATTER-1. “Barker began his work for the Mafia earlier, when
he was in
But much of the information contributing to what we know
now did not surface during investigations of the assassination, despite its
being billed in the underworld as the “crime of the century.” Barker’s working
for the Mafia, Waldron says, and the suppression of that tie for investigators,
pertains to the Seventies interrelationships between Congress, the CIA, and the
Ford administration (Bush Sr., Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld) previously
written about: “Barker’s work on the [Cuba] coup plan was completely withheld
from the Watergate Committee, as was his work for the Mafia.”
The plotting against
Waldron says that when Richard Helms, formerly a CIA
director, testified to Congress, “he let it slip that Barker had been fired
from the CIA because of his ties to organized crime. But Helms (and some
other CIA officials who’d worked with him) realized that Barker’s Mafia ties
had been withheld from the Watergate Committee, so Helms soon issued a
retraction, saying he’d been mistaken.”
Now, Waldron says, “more of Barker’s CIA file has been
revealed (though much remains among the one-million-plus CIA files related to
JFK’s murder that are still withheld), including the CIA files withheld from
three Congressional investigations which show that Barker had troubling
organized crime ties just before he was fired from the CIA. In other
words, Helms’s initial testimony had been correct.”
The withholding of information continued into subsequent
investigations. According to Waldron, the Church Committee hearings—which
included testimony by “Trafficante’s pal, Johnny Rosselli”—were also stymied,
although less so than the original
“But of course,” Waldron says, “under Ford/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Bush,
Sr., the CIA still withheld the files about Barker, his Mafia ties, and the
JFK-Almeida coup plan from Congress. And the murders of Rosselli and Sam
Giancana and Hoffa (all linked to Barker’s boss, Trafficante) helped to insure
that that info didn’t come out in the next Congressional investigation (the
HSCA) [House select committee on the assassinations].”
Thom Hartmann plans to talk about some of this material
on his radio show, linked above.
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