In September 1960, Caddy and a group of about 60 young people met at the home of William F. Buckley in Sharon, Connecticut. This meeting led to the formation of the Young Americans for Freedom (YAF). Caddy was elected as the YAF National Director. Claire Vaile later wrote that Buckley decided to mentor Caddy and his friends: "The loss of Goldwater for the Vice-Presidential nomination convinced Buckley that young conservatives in the GDP needed to be fostered from the top down. He believed that young conservatives, with his guidance, could change the American political discourse." (3)

As Susan Agnes Stussy has pointed out: "The group aimed to mobilize young conservatives in response to the dominant leftist movements of the 1960s, such as the Civil Rights and antiwar protests. Predominantly composed of white and Christian members, YAF advocated for U.S. military involvement in Vietnam, free-market economics, states' rights, and limited government intervention." (4)

John A. Andrew described how "encounters with fascism" during the Second World War had compelled people to feel uncomfortable with government overly regulating social behaviour and developed more liberal attitudes. (5) According to another historian, over the next twenty years, activists from YAF "worked at the grass roots to construct an alternative political culture based on their ideas, captured the Republican Party, and wound up profoundly reshaping American politics in the process." (6)

This view is supported by Wayne Thorburn, an historian and former YAF member: "it is clear that this was a group of future leaders in business, academia, government, law, and the media. It reminds us also that while it is interesting and informative to trace through the accomplishments of the organization over its years of activity, the real impact of Young Americans for Freedom has been its development of new generations of conservative leaders, individuals who would help bring about the conservative success of the 1980s and beyond." (7)

Caddy later recalled: "Upon completing my six months of active duty in the Army at the end of 1961 under a program that required me to serve an additional five and a half years in the reserves after which I received my Honourable Discharge, I enrolled in the New York University School of Law in 1962 in the evening division. During the day I worked in the Manhattan office of New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller on the staff of Lieutenant-Governor Malcolm Wilson who was a conservative Republican while Rockefeller was a liberal one. The office was located at 22 West 55 th  Street and was a five-story townhouse privately owned by the governor. Only about forty people worked in the building as it was the inner sanctum of the Rockefeller political machine." (8)

After graduating from law school Caddy went to work for General Foods Corporation at its headquarters in White Plains, New York. In 1969, Caddy was sent to work for the Robert Mullen Company, which General Foods had retained for years as its public relations firm. In 1970 E. Howard Hunt joined the Mullen Company staff, having been placed there by Richard Helms, the CIA director, upon Hunt's alleged retirement from the agency. Hunt knew Caddy's mentor, William F. Buckley, who had worked under him as an agent for the CIA in Mexico City years earlier. (9)

Hunt recalls meeting Caddy for the first time in 1970 at the Robert Mullen Company. "Through CIA's placement service I was introduced to Robert Mullen, head of a small public relations firm in Washington…. The CIA placement officer had told me that the Mullen firm had "cooperated" with CIA in the past. This cooperation was identified as the firm's having established and managed a Free Cuba Committee for the CIA. So, I inferred that my CIA background would not prove a handicap to employment with Mullen as it had with several multinational firms." (10)

In April 1972, Caddy was called into the office of John Kilcullen, a partner in the Washington law firm where he worked. Kilcullen was a loyal Republican who told him that he had been asked to volunteer an attorney to work for the Lawyers Committee for the Re-Election of the President. He added that he had chosen Caddy for the job and that he had to report to John Dean, Counsel to the President. On 25 April Dean gave him instructions to help discover information that could be used to damage potential Democratic candidates for the presidency. (11)

Caddy was also contacted by E. Howard Hunt and he was asked to join him and Lawrence Houston, General Counsel to the CIA, at a restaurant on the Maryland side of the Potomac River. Houston asked Caddy if he was interested in going to work for the CIA and said that if I did, my assignment would be to construct a luxurious hotel on the seashore in Nicaragua into which the Communist Sandinista leaders would be lured and compromised. Caddy told Houston and Hunt that he would have to think about their proposal. However, he later recalled "in my mind I already knew it was something I could not pursue for personal reasons." (12)  

Caddy now believes there was another reason for this meeting: "When E. Howard Hunt called me at the law firm where I worked in April 1972 and invited me to join him and CIA General Counsel Laurence Houston at a meeting in the empty dining room of a restaurant on the Maryland side of the Potomac River.  Hunt did not disclose the purpose of the meeting.  It turned out the ostensible purpose was to recruit me to join the CIA on a special project involving Nicaragua when in reality it was to scoop me out to be the go-to attorney if an event occurred in the near future." (13)

On 17th June 1972, Frank Sturgis, Virgilio Gonzalez, Eugenio Martinez, Bernard L. Barker and James W. McCord were arrested during a break-in into the Democratic Party headquarters at Watergate Office Building. As soon as E. Howard Hunt had become aware of the arrests, he started making telephone calls: "My first was to lawyer Douglas Caddy… His sleepy voice didn't sound too happy. ‘Yes' he said. ‘Doug? This is Howard. I hate to wake you up, but I've got a tough situation, and I need to talk to you. Can I come over?' That was the beginning of Watergate – a scandal that would bring down a president and destroy my life in the process." (14)

Caddy later reported what Hunt said when he arrived at his house: "Hunt explained to me what had occurred inside the Democratic National Committee headquarters at Watergate culminating in the arrests of James McCord and the four Cuban-Americans. I was appalled at what I heard and immediately realised the dire threat it posed as a criminal case to the survival of the Nixon Administration…. From my apartment Hunt telephoned Gordon Liddy… Shortly before 5 a.m. both Hunt, in my apartment, and Liddy, on the telephone with me, retained my services as their attorney to represent them and the five arrested burglars in the case." (15)

G. Gordon Liddy now telephoned Jeb Magruder, the deputy director of the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CRP) to tell him, "That five of our men had been arrested in DNC headquarters" and that he should tell John Mitchell, the Attorney General, about what had happened. Mitchell then gave permission for Liddy to tell Richard Kleindienst, the Deputy Attorney General "to help get McCord out of jail right away – before it's found out who he really is." Kleindienst refused to help and so Liddy returned to his office and continued to destroy all the records of his illegal actions. (16)

The Watergate burglars first appeared in court for their arraignment on Saturday, June 17, 1972, just hours after their early-morning arrest.  The only journalist in the courtroom was Bob Woodward. Several people who have researched the case believe that it was Carl M. Shoffler, a detective in the police department's intelligence unit, who had arrested the burglars, was the man who tipped off Woodward. In his book, Secret Agenda: Watergate, Deep Throat and the CIA (1984) Jim Hougan points out that both H. R. Halderman (The Ends of Power) and Carl Oglesby (The Yankee and Cowboy War) both believed that it was Shoffler who told Woodward about the Watergate burglars appearing in court that morning.  (17)

E. Howard Hunt was also highly suspicious of Carl Shoffler. In an interview with Time Magazine he asked why Shoffler was in a position to arrest the Watergate burglars on 17 June 1972: "There were just too many fishy things that occurred. What was the Mod Squad (Shoffler's group) doing out on the street some two or three hours after they were supposed to be off duty? McCord was an electronic hitchhiker who shouldn't have been allowed on our operation… There were just too many things that went wrong for them all to be a coincidence." (18)

Shoffler, who had been injured on duty some months before, was assigned to desk work on the evening of 16 June 1972. His shift ended at 10.00 p.m., but he voluntarily undertook a second shift, joining a plainclothes tactical unit cruising the streets in the early-morning hours. Shoffler, who according to Carl Oglesby, already knew James W. McCord, was sitting with three other officers, in a parked police car, a minute from Watergate building when Watergate Security Guard Frank Wills found the second taped door and called the police for help. (19)

Jim Hougan has also questioned the reason why Shoffler volunteered for a second shift. This meant two eight-hour shifts back-to-back. The following day was Shoffler's birthday. His wife and children had gone to Pennsylvania on the afternoon of 16 June to spend the weekend at Shoffler's parents' home. Shoffler was to join them that weekend to celebrate his birthday with his parents. Given the long journey in front of him, it seems odd that he chose to work a second shift on that particular night."

Hougan adds: "Adding to the suspicious surrounding Shoffler is the fact that he is no ordinary cop. Prior to joining the police department in Washington, he had served for years in the Vint Hill Farm Station in Virginia. This is one of the NSA's most important domestic "listening posts."  Staffed by personnel assigned to the Army Security Agency (ASA), Vint Hill Farm is thought to be responsible for making intercepting communications traffic emanating from Washington's Embassy Row. By itself, this proves nothing, but it is ironic that the police officer responsible for making the most important IOC (Interception of Communications) bust in American history should himself have worked in the same area only a few years earlier. (20)

Captain Edmund Chung was Shoffler's commanding officer at Vint Hill Farm Station in Virginia.  Chung claims that he had dinner several months after the Watergate break-in. According to Chung, Shoffler told him that the arrests were the result of a tip-off and that he had been in contact with Alfred Baldwin prior to the break-in. Shoffler added that if he ever made the whole story public, "his life wouldn't be worth a nickel". Shoffler later denied the story and suggested that Chung was a CIA agent. (21)

Jim Hougan claims that it is unclear if it was Carl M. Shoffler who tipped off Bob Woodward to be in court to see the Watergate burglars when they first appeared in court for their arraignment on Saturday, June 17, 1972, just hours after their early-morning arrest. It may be more than a chain of coincidences, though Shoffler himself, admitted, considering the information available, said: "If I was a jury, I'd convict me." (22)

Woodward later wrote about his attendance at the courtroom. "One person stood out. In a middle row sat a young man with fashionably long hair and an expensive suit with slightly flared lapels, his chin high, his eyes searching the room as if he were in unfamiliar surroundings." Woodward sat down next to him and asked if he was in court because of the Watergate arrests. "Perhaps," the man said. "I'm not the attorney of record. I'm acting as an individual." He then said his name was Douglas Caddy. (23)

Caddy later recalled: "As the five were being arraigned in court late that Saturday, a Washington Post reporter named Bob Woodward, himself a former military intelligence agent assigned to the Nixon White House, sought me out. I found myself in the awkward position of providing evasive answers, because at that point few persons knew of the involvement of Hunt and Liddy, and anything I might say could place them in legal jeopardy." (24)

During the court hearing James McCord was asked by the judge about his current employment. He replied that he was a security consultant and then went on to say he had previously worked for the CIA. As soon as Woodward heard this, he knew he had an interesting news story. Why had McCord revealed his association with the CIA? Is it possible that Woodward had been told by someone in the CIA that he was going to give that information that morning? (25)

Woodward returned to the office with news of McCord's statement. The city editor, Barry Sussman, decided that the story should appear on the front page of the newspaper. The first paragraph of the story read: "Five men, one of whom said he is a former employee of the Central Intelligence Agency, were arrested at 2.30 a.m. yesterday in what authorities described as an elaborate plot to bug the offices of the Democratic National Committee here." (26)

The phone number of E. Howard Hunt was found in address books of Bernard L. Barker. Hunt, a former senior figure in the CIA who at the time was working at the time as a consultant to Charles Colson, special counsel to President Richard Nixon. Hunt records in his autobiography, American Spy: My Secret History in the Cia, Watergate and Beyond (2007) that he received a telephone-call from Bob Woodward who asked him. "Some men have been arrested, and one of them had your name in his notebook. His name is Barker. Is he a friend of yours?" Hunt admitted that he replied without thinking: "Oh my God." (27)

As Douglas Caddy was Hunt's lawyer, the authorities wanted to know if he had any information on the Watergate break-in: "While I was in the federal courthouse working on the case on June 28, Assistant U.S. Attorney Donald Campbell approached me and handed me a subpoena to appear "forthwith" before the federal grand jury that had been convened to investigate the case. Campbell then grabbed me by the arm and physically pulled me into the grand jury room. Principal Assistant U.S. Attorney Earl Silbert immediately began asking me questions and demanding answers as the grand jurors looked on… I answered hundreds of questions and even had my bank account subpoenaed by the prosecutors, but I refused to answer 38 key questions that had been publicized by the prosecution and which attempted, through my lips as their defense attorney, to implicate and incriminate Hunt and Liddy." (28)

The Washington Post reported on the links between Caddy and Hunt: "During the extraordinary court proceeding yesterday, it was revealed that the attorney, Douglas Caddy, has been questioned at least twice about the possible involvement of the Central Intelligence Agency in the case. And Caddy was ordered to testify before a federal grand jury about his relationship with Howard Hunt, the one-time White House consultant. Caddy's attorney did disclose to the court that Caddy has been before the grand jury three times for a total of about 14 hours and answered all but roughly 10 per cent of about 14 hours of the 300 to 400 questions asked him. (29)

One of the questions that Judge John J. Sirica wanted answering concerned how Douglas Caddy was appointed as the Watergate burglar's attorney. It was pointed out that at around 9:30 a.m. Caddy appeared at police headquarters to represent the arrested men, who had made no telephone calls. Sirica wanted to know who told Caddy that the men had been arrested. (30)

President Richard Nixon became interested in Caddy and asked John Ehrlichman about his role in the break-in. Ehrlichman replied: "He (Caddy) represented the five guys who got caught the night they were caught, and he was at the police station within minutes after the police brought the prisoners there. He'd obviously been called by someone from the outside. Well, I think what had happened is that Hunt was in the neighborhood, and when he saw those guys get caught or heard it over the bug, he called Caddy and Caddy went down and tried to arrange bail and advised them not to talk and so forth." Ehrlichman added that Caddy was a Republican who had been very active in the "very conservative Young Americans for Freedom." (31)

Caddy later explained. "I strongly believed that my answering the 38 questions would violate the attorney-client privilege. For example, two questions asked were: ‘At what time did you receive a telephone call in the early morning hours of Saturday, June 17, 1972?' and ‘From whom did you receive a telephone call in the early morning hours of June 17, 1972?' Obviously if I answered these and the remaining 36 questions Hunt and Liddy would inevitably have been implicated in the break-in, although they had not been arrested. "(32)

Judge Sirica found Caddy in contempt of court and was placed in custody of the U.S. Marshal. After spending a short time in the cell block directly behind the courtroom, he was taken down the elevator to the basement and placed behind bars in the central cell block imprisoning people awaiting their various trials. As the New York Times reported: "Late this afternoon, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit stayed the penalty pending a hearing… Mr Caddy was then released without bond." (33)

Two weeks after the Watergate arrests Douglas Caddy began receiving phone-calls from a man who called himself Mr. Rivers. The purpose of the calls was the request for Caddy to pay "hush money" to Hunt, Liddy and the five arrested burglars. On 6 July 1972, Caddy told Rivers he was unwilling to carry out the task and did not want him to contact him again. Caddy later found out that Rivers was Anthony Ulasewicz, a former New York City detective who carried out numerous assignments for the White House. (34)

On 20 July, Hunt began to threaten the White House with public disclosure of his other secret activities in the Special Investigative Unit unless he was paid off. According to Hunt's biographer, Tad Szulc, he sent a message, saying "the writer has a manuscript of a play to sell," via Douglas Caddy, to be passed on to the White House. Caddy gave this message to Paul O'Brien, an attorney for the Committee to Re-Elect, who in turn, passed it on to John Dean. (35)

In October 1972, James W. McCord got a call from his attorney, Gerald Alch, who wanted to arrange a meeting about the case. According to McCord, Alch's opening words were, "I have just come from Bittman's office (Howard Hunt's attorney William Bittman). Nobody gets up on that (witness) stand during the trial. In return, they will get executive clemency, money while in prison and rehabilitation afterwards." McCord refused the deal. "I went over my concerns that the whole business had the appearance of a control mechanism to keep the men quiet prior to the Nixon election by the use of money as a weapon and tool." (36)

The objective of paying "hush money" was to ensure that the men pleaded guilty and did not give evidence against the men who arranged for the Watergate break-in to take place. However, McCord was not willing to take the money from this source because he did not want to help Richard Nixon to win the 1972 Presidential Election. This reinforces the idea that McCord wanted the Watergate break-in to fail and the main objective was to bring down Nixon. This was the view of H. R. Halderman, Nixon's Chief of Staff, who wrote in The Ends of Power (1978) that the Watergate operation made no sense: "Nixon didn't need any political information, useful or otherwise, to defeat McGovern. He was about 64-36 in the polls, an unprecedented lead." Haldeman was convinced that McCord wanted to be arrested and that he was in the pay of either the Democratic Party or the CIA. (37)

Negotiations continued with James McCord. John Dean promised McCord an eventual government job and his family's financial security. McCord proposed that the trial could be dismissed if prosecutors introduced telephone conversations regarding Watergate that he had made to the Israeli and Chilean embassies - both of which were illegally wiretapped. Dean rejected this strategy. (38)

One of the reasons that McCord might have been unwilling to take John Dean's money was that he might have been well rewarded by the CIA to get Nixon to resign. When he was arrested, McCord met Garey Bittenbender in the police station. Bittenbender was the police officer who served as McCord's liaison between the CRP and the police Intelligence Division. They had a brief conversation and McCord told Bittenbender that the Watergate break-in was "a CIA operation".  (39)

Soon after the Watergate break-in James McCord destroyed a large number of documents that he kept in his home safe. Also present during the fire was Lee R. Pennington. At the time Pennington was director of the Washington office of the ultraconservative American Security Council. He was also, and had been for more than fifteen years, a contract agent of the CIA Security Research Staff. Pennington said that he helped McCord destroy every shred of paper that was found in McCord's office. (40)

The director of the CIA, Richard Helms, also decided to erase all tapes and burn all transcripts of conversations secretly recorded on what has been described as the CIA's "central recording system". More than four thousand pages of recorded conversations were destroyed, obliterating the behind-the-scenes record of Helms's six and a half years as DCI. Senator Mike Mansfield had ordered that all materials having to do with the Watergate affair be preserved, pending the Senate's scheduled hearings on the subject. Helms insisted that none of them had anything to do with the Watergate affair. "Who in the public can make an allegation that there were any tapes that were Watergate-related?" Lucien Nedzi replied: "The problem is, if the shoe was put on the other foot, how can you prove they weren't Watergate-related?" (41)

If McCord was unwilling to take the money, Hunt and the other burglars were willing to be rewarded for their silence. Rivers (Ulasewicz) had also been in contact with William Bittman, the lawyer who had agreed to represent Howard E. Hunt and supplied him with $25,000 for his legal costs. Rivers had not contacted Hunt directly because he assumed his telephone had been tapped by the FBI. Rivers eventually contacted Hunt's wife, Dorothy Hunt, via a phone booth in Potomac Village, and she was asked for an estimate of each arrested man's monthly living expenses and attorneys' fees, including those of Hunt and Liddy. The following day, she gave the amount to Rivers, who replied, "Well, let's multiply that by five to cut down on the number of deliveries."  (42)

John Dean was giving the job of arranging the payment of "hush money". This money was given to Dorothy Hunt. (43) According to Tad Szulc, Hunt's biographer, Hunt collected over $200,000 from the White House over a short period of time. (44)

In his book, The President's Private Eye (1990), Anthony Ulasewicz, admitted that he had was the man supplying the money to Dorothy Hunt. "She (Dorothy Hunt) started calculating everybody's needs and came up with a minimum figure of $3,000 a month, but as she didn't want to worry about a monthly delivery from the post man, it was better, she said, to get a big chunk up front to relieve the pressure on everybody. ‘So let's start with $10,000 or $15,000 apiece to get this thing off the ground,' she said. She wanted the advance to cover five months of living expenses. She said Barker, Sturgis, Gonzales, and Martinez needed at least $14,000 apiece and that Barker needed another $10,000 for bail, $10,000 more under the table, and $3,000 for ‘other expenses.' Twenty-five grand apiece were needed for Sturgis, Gonzales, and Martinez's attorneys. I told Mrs. Hunt to slow down. Now she was talking about $400,000 or maybe $450,000. That wasn't even close to the amount Dean had told Kalmbach to raise when they met in Lafayette Park."  

Ulasewicz claims he delivered a total of "$154,000 to Dorothy Hunt in four separate instalments: $40,000, $43,000, $18,000 and $53,000. She was never satisfied with the amount of money I gave her. She never believed that I didn't have (and didn't want) the power to determine the breadth of financial support she said was necessary to keep things afloat. Neither Kalmbach nor I knew whether she was delivering what those involved were supposed to receive. She kept telling me about Barker's problems down south; that he needed a lot of cash to keep the lid on things in Miami."  (45)

On 8th December 1972, Dorothy Hunt had a meeting with Michelle Clark, a journalist working for CBS. Was she about to betray Nixon and the others involved in the cover-up? According to Sherman Skolnick, Clark was working on a story on the Watergate case: "Ms Clark had lots of insight into the bugging and cover-up through her boyfriend, a CIA operative. In the summer of 1972, prior to any major revelations of Watergate, Ms Clark tried to pick the brains of Chicago Congressman George Collins, regarding the bugging of the Democratic headquarters. (46)

Dorothy Hunt, Michelle Clark and George Collins took the Flight 533 from Washington to Chicago. The aircraft hit the branches of trees close to Midway Airport: "It then hit the roofs of a number of neighborhood bungalows before plowing into the home of Mrs. Veronica Kuculich at 3722 70th Place, demolishing the home and killing her and a daughter, Theresa. The plane burst into flames killing a total of 45 persons, 43 of them on the plane, including the pilot and first and second officers. Eighteen passengers survived." Hunt, Clark and Collins were all killed in the accident. (47)

Just before Dorothy Hunt boarded the aircraft, she purchased $250,000 in flight insurance payable to E. Howard Hunt from an airport vending machine. In his book American Spy (2007) Hunt claims he was unaware that his wife planned to do this. In the book he also tried to explain what his wife was doing with $10,000 in her purse. According to Hunt it was money to be invested with Hal Carlstead in "two already-built Holiday Inns in the Chicago area". (48)

H. R. Halderman, who was fully aware of the negotiations taking place between Hunt and Dean found this account difficult to believe. "Howard Hunt, supposedly so desperate for $122,000 he would threaten the White House with blackmail, should have been floating in money. He not only had had received thousands of dollars from Kalmbach and LaRue, but his wife had been tragically killed in an aeroplane crash, and the insurance Hunt collected was substantial. Mrs Hunt was carrying thousands of dollars in cash when her plane crashed enroute to Chicago. She was the paymaster for the burglars. But the burglars were in Washington and Miami. Why was she taking the money to Chicago? Hunt reportedly said he intended to lavish the cash in a real estate venture in Illinois. If he had enough money for real estate speculation, why was he so desperate for funds as we were led to believe?" (49)

As Peter Dale Scott has pointed out: "Of the more than a dozen suspicious deaths in the case of Watergate... perhaps the most significant death was that of Dorothy Hunt in the crash of United Air Lines in December 1972. The crash was investigated for possible sabotage by both the FBI and a congressional committee, but sabotage was never proven. Nevertheless, some people assumed that Dorothy Hunt was murdered (along with the dozens of others in the plane)." Howard Hunt saw his wife death as a warning and dropped all further demands on the White House and agreed to plead guilty to the Watergate burglary in January 1973. (50)

Negotiations were also carried out directly with James McCord. Dean promised McCord an eventual government job and his family's financial security. McCord proposed that the trial could be dismissed if prosecutors introduced telephone conversations regarding Watergate that he had made to the Israeli and Chilean embassies - both of which were illegally wiretapped. Dean rejected this strategy. (51)

Daniel Schultz who represented Frank Sturgis, Virgilio Gonzalez, Eugenio Martinez, and Bernard L. Barker claimed at their trial that they believed they were involved in a legitimate national security operation rather than in a crime, saying that his clients were "men convicted of a crime who are not criminals." Sturgis, Gonzalez, Martinez, Barker and Hunt all pleaded guilty and received the following sentences: Sturgis (1 to 4 years in prison); Gonzalez (1 to 4 years in prison); Martinez (1 to 4 years in prison); Barker: (18 months to 6 years in prison); Hunt (2½ years to 8 years in prison and fined $10,000). (52)

Seymour Hersh wrote an article in the New York Times claiming that all these men were receiving hush money and were pressured to plead guilty.  Hersh speculated that the money came from the Committee for the Re-election of the President. Officials  of the organisation "had acknowledged privately that they are unable to account for $900,000 in cash raised for President Nixon's 1972 campaign - far more than the $235,000 mentioned in court as the cost of the activities of the Watergate group." (53)

On 19 March 1973 James W. McCord sent a letter to Judge John J. Sirica where he argued: "Several members of my family have expressed fear for my life if I disclose knowledge of the facts in this matter, either publicly or to any government representative. Whereas I do not share their concerns to the same degree, nevertheless, I do believe that retaliatory measures will be taken against me, my family, and my friends should I disclose such facts." However, he was willing to state that: "(i) There was political pressure applied to the defendants to plead guilty and remain silent. (ii) Perjury occurred during the trial in matters highly material to the very structure, orientation, and impact of the government's case, and to the motivation and intent of the defendants. (iii) Others involved in the Watergate operation were not identified during the trial, when they could have been by those testifying." (54)

James McCord's sentencing was postponed until June and then postponed again. Finally, in November 1973, McCord was sentenced to one to five years and began serving his sentence in March 1975 but was released after only four months because of his cooperation in the Watergate investigation. (55)

Douglas Caddy had been wise not to have got involved in distributing "hush money". From what he learnt since he has a theory about the Watergate operation. "The CIA, which had successfully positioned Hunt inside White House, had prior knowledge of the planned break-in. Once the arrest of the burglars occurred, the CIA turned its attention to manipulating the cover-up using Hunt to mount the campaign to get ‘hush' money.  I believe the CIA was behind the break-in and assigned Hunt to influence Gordon Liddy to mount it. Its aim was to install a wiretap. The CIA's purpose was to bring down the Nixon presidency because of the threat to it of the Huston Plan and of Nixon's encroachment on the most important intelligence concern of the CIA." (56)

In 1964 Douglas Caddy agreed to serve as a board member of the International Youth Federation of Freedom (IYFF) that had been established by Tongsun Park, someone he first met when they were students at Georgetown University‘s School of Foreign Service. Caddy later recalled it was basically a paper organization. "It was essentially dormant during its entire existence although the manager's office of the exclusive George Town Club in Washington that Tongsun owned also served as IYFF's office. The George Town Club's membership comprised the elite of Washington who flocked to the exclusive dining facility not only for its superb menu but for being able to mingle with senators and congressman who comprised the bulk of the membership." (57)  

In 1976, Tongsun Park was charged with bribing members of the U.S. Congress, using money from the South Korean government, in a successful effort to convince the United States government to keep U.S. troops in South Korea. The scandal involved the uncovering of evidence that the Korea Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) was allegedly funnelling bribes and favours through Park in an attempt to gain favour and influence in American politics. (58)

Caddy became involved in the scandal when Maxine Cheshire of the The Washington Post published an article on him by reporter Maxine Cheshire that attempted to implicate him in the corrupt activities of Tongsun Park. Cheshire implied that Caddy was a central figure in the scandal. (59) Caddy was questioned by staff members of the US House of Representatives ethics committee about his relationship with Park, but never testified publicly. (60)

Caddy was never charged with any offence but following the publication of a report detailing the scandal, two members of Congress were charged with crimes: Representative Richard T. Hanna of California and Representative Otto Passman of Louisiana. Passman was acquitted after a trial. Hanna pleaded guilty to 40 counts of conspiracy, bribery, receiving illegal gratuities, mail fraud and failing to register as a foreign agent and was sentenced to 6–30 months in federal prison." (61)

In 1979 Douglas Caddy moved to Houston, Texas and was admitted to the Texas Bar to practice law that same year. In 1980 George Strake Jr., who was the Texas Secretary of State under Governor William Clements, asked him to join his staff as Director of Elections for the State of Texas. In 1981 he became legal counsel to the Texas Policy Institute, which was about to receive a $250,000 grant from the Moody Foundation of Galveston, Texas. In 1982 Caddy began work with Shearn Moody, Jr., on several other Moody Foundation grants. (62)

Moody had long served on the board of the charitable foundation, helping to direct millions of dollars in grants to just causes. However, the Internal Revenue Service accused him of  making millions of dollars of grants to himself and therefore owing more than $14 million in taxes and penalties. According to an article in The Houston Post , it was Caddy who prompted investigations into Shearn Moody. As a result, he received bomb threats, been followed, had his phones tapped and the windows of his office shot out in the night. "Yet Douglas Caddy still feared he might just be paranoid…. His fears, apparently, were not unfounded. In a sworn statement submitted to a Houston private investigator and the FBI, a former military explosives expert says Caddy was the target of an alleged bomb plot hatched by Galveston millionaire Shearn Moody. The expert claimed that Moody tried to hire him to "blow (Caddy's) legs off" because Caddy prompted investigations into impropriety within the multimillion-dollar Moody Foundation." (63)

In December 1987, Shearn Moody Jr. was convicted of defrauding his family's charitable foundation of nearly $1.5 million and faced up to 85 years in prison. The New York Times reported that "Mr. Moody, ousted earlier this year as a Moody Foundation trustee, could also be fined as much as $4.5 million when he is sentenced." (64) He was sentenced to five years in federal prison and was released on parole in May 1991. (65)

Douglas Caddy first became involved with Billie Sol Estes when he was working for Shearn Moody, Jr.. In 1983, Jimmy Day, who was in the federal prison in Big Spring, Texas, contacted Moody to say that a fellow inmate, Billie Sol Estes, wanted to tell all he knew about his close criminal relationship over many decades with President Lyndon B. Johnson, who had died ten years earlier in 1973. Shean asked Caddy to visit Billie Sol Estes in prison.

A few weeks later Caddy visited Billie Sol Estes in prison. Caddy was told that he had a story to tell about Johnson that "would rock the world". Caddy suggested he should write a book about it and in January 1984, after he was released from prison, Billie Sol Estes asked if it was possible to write it under a Moody Foundation Grant. Shearn agreed to give him $100,000. (66)

In March 1984, Billie Sol Estes appeared before a grand jury in Robertson County and testified that Lyndon Johnson was behind the 1961 murder of U.S. Department of Agriculture official Henry Marshall. The Dallas Morning News reported: "Convicted swindler Billie Sol Estes told a grand jury that Lyndon B. Johnson was one of four men who planned the 1961 murder of an agricultural official… The sources said Estes testified that the group feared the official would link Estes' illegal activities to the vice president. Estes, who testified before the Robertson County Grand Jury on Tuesday, told grand jurors that Johnson felt pressure to silence Henry Harvey Marshall of Bryan, a regional USDA official in charge of federal allotment programme, sources said." (67)

Before he started his book Billie Sol Estes asked Caddy to obtain for him immunity from prosecution from the U.S. Department of Justice. Caddy received a reply from Stephen S. Trott at the US Department of Justice. He asked for evidence about the claims made by Estes: "I must make sure that several things are understood at this time concerning Mr Estes' proffered cooperation. First, if after reviewing your offer of proof we decide the information that Mr. Estes can provide is credible and in all other respects warrants further investigation – a decision which will be made unilaterally by the government – it will be necessary for Mr. Estes to be interviewed and to reveal everything he knows about the possible criminal violations. He will have to do so completely, truthfully and without guile." (68)

On receipt Trott's letter Caddy conferred with Estes who provided him with the information that Trott required. Caddy then replied to Trott's letter on 9 August 1984, and it included claims that Lyndon B. Johnson, Malcolm (Mac) Wallace and Cliff Carter were involved in the deaths of John Kinser, Harold Orr, Coleman Wade, Josefa Johnson.and John F. Kennedy: "Mr. Estes was a member of a four-member group, headed by Lyndon Johnson, which committed criminal acts in Texas in the 1960's. The other two, besides Mr. Estes and LBJ, were Cliff Carter and Mac Wallace. Mr. Estes is willing to disclose his knowledge concerning the following criminal offenses: (i) The killing of Henry Marshall; (ii) The killing of George Krutilek; (iii) The killing of Ike Rogers and his secretary; (iv) The killing of Harold Orr; (v) The killing of Coleman Wade; (vi) The killing of Josefa Johnson; (vii) The killing of John Kinser; (viii) The killing of President J. F. Kennedy."

The letter went onto say that: "Mr. Estes is willing to testify that LBJ ordered these killings, and that he transmitted his orders through Cliff Carter to Mac Wallace, who executed the murders. In the cases of murders nos. 1-7, Mr. Estes' knowledge of the precise details concerning the way the murders were executed stems from conversations he had shortly after each event with Cliff Carter and Mac Wallace." (69)

Billy Sol Estes was not the first person to claim that Lyndon Johnson could order the killings of people who were causing him problems. J. Evetts Haley makes this point in A Texan Looks at Lyndon (1964). Haley writes in some detail about the corrupt relationship between Johnson and Estes. He claims that between 1958 and 1960 Estes ran a vast scam getting federal agricultural subsidies. According to Estes he obtained $21 million a year for "growing" and "storing" non-existent crops of cotton. It was this scam that Henry Marshall, was investigating when he died in 1960. Haley pointed out that three men who could have provided evidence in court against Estes, George Krutilek, Harold Orr and Howard Pratt, all died of carbon monoxide poisoning from car engines. (70)

Haley argued in his book that Malcolm (Mac) Wallace was used by Johnson to kill these characters. It was not only Haley who believed that Wallace was involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. According to Barr McClelellan, a lawyer who worked for Johnson, in 1970 Wallace returned to Dallas and began pressing Edward A. Clark for more money for his part in the assassination. It was then decided to kill Wallace. "He had to be eliminated. After driving to see his daughter in Troup, Texas, he went by L & G's offices in Longview, Texas. There his exhaust was rigged for part of it to flow into his car." On 7 January 1971, Malcolm Wallace was killed while driving into Pittsburg, Texas. He appeared to have fallen asleep and after leaving the road crashed his car. Wallace died of massive head injuries. (71)

One person who believed Haley's view that Henry Marshall was murdered was Clinton Peoples, the Texas Ranger who originally investigated the death of Marshall. He was convinced that he had been murdered although the official verdict was suicide. After his retirement from the Texas Rangers, he continued to investigate the death of Marshall. In 1979 he interviewed Billy Sol Estes in prison. Estes promised that "when he was released, he would solve the puzzle of Henry Marshall's death". (72)

Assistant Attorney General Trott and FBI agents examined the agency file on Billie Sol Estes to determine if the pursuit of granting immunity to him was warranted. They concluded it was and Caddy and three FBI agents flew from Washington to Abilene to meet with Billie Sol Estes to hear what he had to say. At the last moment Estes withdrew from negotiations to gain immunity. He was adamant about this, so the three agents departed and flew back to Washington. (73)   

Billie Sol Estes explained his decision in his autobiography: "After a further series of letters, a meeting was set up at a hotel in Abilene. As the day approached, I received a series of telephone calls from my Italian friends. I was informed my discussions with the Justice Department was a mistake. They insisted that if I appeared to be going through with the discussions, my life would end. I do not know how they found out about the discussions, my life would end. I do not know how they found out about the discussions. Now I may be dumb, but I am not stupid and I do not have a death wish." (74)

Clint Peoples continued with his investigation into the relationship between Malcolm Wallace and Lyndon Johnson. According to Phillip F. Nelson, LBJ: The Mastermind of JFK's Assassination (2010): "After working on his own time for many years to break the Wallace murders open, and tie him directly into the Kennedy assassination as well, as he was about to announce his findings, his car was broadsided by a large truck, immediately killing him… Captain Peoples knew too much and was still a threat to certain people and institutions as late as 1992." (75)

Clint Peoples' assistant, a woman named "Georgia" (she was scared of publicity and refused to allow her name to be revealed) decided to cooperate with French researcher William Reymond for his 2003 French book on Billie Sol Estes. She stated that when she went to the funeral home for the viewing, a woman came up to her and told her not to tell anyone else, but that she had witnessed the entire incident; she said it was no "accident," because Clint's car was pushed off the road from behind by a "big red truck" and the weather was clear, the road was dry. The driver of the truck did it intentionally, she said, and then left the scene. (76)

In May 2008, Robert Merritt contacted Douglas Caddy by telephone to ask him if he would help him write a book about what he knew about Watergate.  Caddy agreed to do so but they never met as he lived in Houston and Merritt lived in New York City. The book, Watergate Exposed: How the President of the United States and the Watergate Burglars Were Set-Up was published in 2010. (77)

Merritt became a member of Metropolitan Police Department in 1969. Soon afterwards he developed a close relationship with Detective Carl M. Shoffler of the MPD Intelligence Division, who recruited him as a "Confidential Informant". Merritt later recalled "From the spring of 1970 until October 1971 I worked for Carl and for the MPD Intelligence Division… In October 1971… Carl arranged for me to be transferred to the Washington, D. C. field office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I was delegated to work with Special Agents Terry O'Connor and Bill Tucker. The FBI assignment primarily dealt with targeting the Institute for Policy Studies and the Weatherman Underground, two organisations deemed radical and dangerous under the government's COINTELPRO program, although no organization in the country was immune from investigation… Instructions included engaging in multiple criminal acts, such as planting drugs (they gave me about 500 ‘dime' bags of pot valued at $10 each and 5 or more ounces of cocaine) to clandestinely place upon unsuspecting protesters against the Vietnam War or radical political foes of the Nixon White House, bugging, instigating violence at demonstrations by throwing the first rocks at the police, cutting wires to sound equipment at left-wing public events and protests, giving misinformation to protestors, spreading lies and rumours, creating racial friction, causing thousands of protestors to be arrested, engaging in theft, burglary, mail fraud, filing false police reports against individuals, and many other crimes against citizens who were merely exercising their First Amendment rights." (78)

Robert Merrit also had his own informants, one of whom tipped him off on 1 June 1972, of the burglars' plan to break into the Democratic National Committee two weeks later. Merritt passed this information to Carl Shoffler who set up an entrapment scheme. His plan was to become the most famous detective in the world. Shoffler arrested the burglars inside the Watergate building on 17 June 1972, shortly after midnight. (79)

According to Merritt: "Shoffler came to my apartment in Washington, DC, late in the morning of the day of the events at Watergate and exulted in having made the arrests. He told me that he had had secretly telephoned the Washington Post soon after the arrests to tip the newspaper off to what had occurred… Shoffler said, ‘The intention of the Watergate break-in was to destroy the Nixon presidency. President Nixon was guilty of nothing in its planning'. Shoffler said that there were hidden motivations involved, such as the fear of law enforcement agencies that their turf would be reduced by President Nixon through a scheme known as the Huston Plan, the CIA's concern that President Nixon planned to reorganize the intelligence agencies and their operations, and the Defense Department's opposition to President Nixon's new China policy." (80)

Merritt, who was bi-sexual, claimed that Shoffler approached him and told him to establish a homosexual relationship with Caddy, stating falsely that Caddy was gay and a supporter of Communist causes. In fact, Caddy had a long record of being a right-wing activist being the National Director of the Young Americans for Freedom. (81)

Merritt recalled that on 20 June 1972, "Shoffler showed up at my apartment with his supervisor, Police Sergeant. Paul Leeper. They asked me if I knew someone by the name of Douglas Caddy, who lived at the Georgetown House, a high-rise apartment, at 2121 P St., N.W. which was directly across the street from my apartment. They wanted me to establish a sexual relationship with Douglas Caddy knew to show up for the arraignment of the burglars after the arrest. They asserted that Douglas Caddy had to be in on the conspiracy with the burglars and that in the past he had been shadowed when he frequented a leather-Levi gay bar in Greenwich Village in Manhattan… They told me that this was the most important thing that I could do for my country and that I would be well-paid if I undertook the assignment. Their initial offer was $10,000. I did not commit to doing the assignment." (82)

Merritt eventually told Shoffler that he was unwilling to carry out the assignment. In March 1973, nine months after the initial overture and a month after the first Watergate trial ended, Merritt met with Shoffler, Paul Leeper, and two FBI agents, Terry O'Connor and William T. Tucker. Once again, they attempted to persuade him to take the Caddy assignment, this time offering an initial $25,000. When he refused Leeper said that he could be paid as much as $100,000 if he took the assignment. According to his own testimony, Merritt again refused. (83)

In recent years Douglas Caddy has moved to the left. He describes himself as a "progressive-liberal" who supported Al Gore for President in 2000 and Howard Dean for President in 2004 and belongs to People for the American Way (ACLU). He believes that the Conservative Movement, which he helped found in late 1950s, is now controlled by sociopaths and opportunists who pose a dire threat to our democracy. (84)

(1) Douglas Caddy, Being There: Eyewitness to History (2018) pages 6-8

(2) Gregory L. Schneider, Cadres for Conservatism: Young Americans for Freedom and the Rise of the Contemporary Right (1999) page 14

(3) Claire Vaile, Douglas Caddy, Being There: Eyewitness to History (2018)

(4) Susan Agnes Stussy, Young Americans for Freedom (2019)

(5) John A. Andrew, The Other Side of the Sixties: Young Americans for Freedom and the Rise of Conservative Politics (1997) page 12

(6) Gregory L. Schneider, Cadres for Conservatism: Young Americans for Freedom and the Rise of the Contemporary Right (1999) page ix

(7) Wayne Thorburn, A Generation Awakes: Young Americans for Freedom and the Creation of the Conservative Movement (2010) page 38

(8) Douglas Caddy, Education Forum (11 July 2023)

(9) Douglas Caddy, Being There: Eyewitness to History (2018) page 17

(10) E. Howard Hunt, Undercover: Memoirs of an American Secret Agent (1974) page 141

(11) Douglas Caddy, Being There: Eyewitness to History (2018) page 20

(12) Douglas Caddy, Being There: Eyewitness to History (2018) page 21

(13) Douglas Caddy, email to John Simkin (28 August 2026)

(14) E. Howard Hunt, American Spy: My Secret History in the Cia, Watergate and Beyond (2007) page 240

(15) Douglas Caddy, Being There: Eyewitness to History (2018) page 21

(16) G. Gordon Liddy, Will: The Autobiography of G. Gordon Liddy (1980) pages 250-253

(17) Jim Hougan, Secret Agenda: Watergate, Deep Throat and the CIA (1984) page 320

(18) E. Howard Hunt, Time Magazine (27 August 1974)

(19) Carl Oglesby, The Yankee and Cowboy War (1976) page 274

(20) Jim Hougan, Secret Agenda: Watergate, Deep Throat and the CIA (1984) page 320

(21) Edmund Chung, interviewed by a staff member of the Watergate Committee (20 May 1973)

(22) Jim Hougan, Secret Agenda: Watergate, Deep Throat and the CIA (1984) page 320

(23) Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, All the President's Men (1974) page 16

(24) Douglas Caddy, Being There: Eyewitness to History (2018) page 22

(25) Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, All the President's Men (1974) page 18

(26) The Washington Post (18 June 1972)

(27) E. Howard Hunt, American Spy: My Secret History in the Cia, Watergate and Beyond (2007) page 240

(28) Douglas Caddy, Being There: Eyewitness to History (2018) pages 22-23

(29) The Washington Post (2 July 1972)

(30) Barry Sussman, The Great Cover-Up: Nixon and the Scandal of Watergate (1974) page 9

(31) John Ehrlichman, Oval Office Tapes (19 July 1972)

(32) Douglas Caddy, Being There: Eyewitness to History (2018) page 23

(33) The New York Times (14 July 1972)

(34) Douglas Caddy, Being There: Eyewitness to History (2018) page 27

(35) Tad Szulc, Compulsive Spy: The Strange Career of E. Howard Hunt (1974) pages 159-160

(36) James W. McCord, A Piece of Tape: The Watergate Story - Fact and Fiction (1974) page 46

(37) H. R. Halderman, The Ends of Power (1978) pages 154-166

(38) J. Anthony Lukas, Nightmare: The Underside of the Nixon Years (1999) pages 267–268

(39) Jim Hougan, Secret Agenda: Watergate, Deep Throat and the CIA (1984) page 218

(40) Lee R. Pennington, testimony before the Lucien Nedzi House Select Committee on Intelligence (25 February 1974)

(41) Jim Hougan, Secret Agenda: Watergate, Deep Throat and the CIA (1984) page 232

(42) E. Howard Hunt, American Spy: My Secret History in the Cia, Watergate and Beyond (2007) page 254

(43) John Dean, Blind Ambition: The White House Years (1976) page 203

(44) Tad Szulc, Compulsive Spy: The Strange Career of E. Howard Hunt (1974) page 162

(45) Anthony Ulasewicz, The President's Private Eye (1990) pages 256-257

(46) Sherman Skolnick, The Secret History of Airplane Sabotage (8 June 2001)

(47) St. Petersburg Times (28 September 1973)

(48) E. Howard Hunt, American Spy: My Secret History in the Cia, Watergate and Beyond (2007) page 263-264

(49) H. R. Halderman, The Ends of Power (1978) page 256

(50) Peter Dale Scott, Deep Politics and the Death of JFK (1993) page 306

(51) J. Anthony Lukas, Nightmare: The Underside of the Nixon Years (1999) pages 267–268

(52) The New York Times (10 November 1973)

(53) Seymour Hersh, New York Times (14 January 1973)

(54) James W. McCord, letter to Judge John J. Sirica (19 March 1973)  

(55) Garret M. Graff, Watergate: A New History (2022) page 525

(56) Douglas Caddy, email to John Simkin (28 August 2026)

(57) Douglas Caddy, Being There: Eyewitness to History (2018) pages 89-90

(58) Mark Grossman, Political Corruption in America: An Encyclopedia of Scandals, Power, and Greed (2003) page 208

(59) Maxine Cheshire, The Washington Post (16 October 1977)

(60) Dianna Hunt, The Houston Chronicle (18 January 1987)

(61) The New York Times (25 April 1978)

(62) Douglas Caddy, Being There: Eyewitness to History (2018) page 95

(63) Dianna Hunt, The Houston Chronicle (18 January 1987)

(64) New York Times (2 December 1987)

(65) The Houston Post (31 May 1991)

(66) Douglas Caddy, Being There: Eyewitness to History (2018) page 107-108

(67) The Dallas Morning News (23 March 1984)  

(68) Stephen S. Trott, letter to Douglas Caddy (29 May 1984)

(69) Douglas Caddy, letter to Stephen S. Trott at the US Department of Justice (9 August 1984)

(70) J. Evetts Haley, A Texan Looks at Lyndon (1964) pages 133 -138

(71) Barr McClelellan, Blood Money & Power: How LBJ Killed JFK (2003) page 242

(72) John Simkin, Clint Peoples (January 2020)

(73) Douglas Caddy, Being There: Eyewitness to History (2018) page 116

(74) Billie Sol Estes, Billie Sol Estes A Texas Legend: The Man Who Knows Who Shot JFK (2004)

(75) Phillip F. Nelson, LBJ: The Mastermind of JFK's Assassination (2010) pages 297-298

(76) William Reymond and Billie Sol Estes, JFK le Dernier Témoin: Assassinat de Kennedy, enfin la vérité (2003) pages 282–283

(77) Douglas Caddy, email to John Simkin (25 August 2026)

(78) Robert Merritt, Watergate Exposed: How the President of the United States and the Watergate Burglars Were Set-Up (2010)

(79) Douglas Caddy, Being There: Eyewitness to History (2018) page 49

(80) Robert Merritt, affidavit (29 July 2009)

(81) Jim Hougan, Secret Agenda: Watergate, Deep Throat and the CIA (1984) page 321

(82) Robert Merritt, affidavit (29 July 2009)

(83) Douglas Caddy, Being There: Eyewitness to History (2018) pages 50-51

(84) Douglas Caddy, email to John Simkin (29 August 2026)