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Posted on Feb. 2003

Egads...Sounds like GW (Full story) Nixon aide tells of talk about bombing Brookings think tank
BY ELIZABETH MEHREN
Los Angeles Times Service

BOSTON - Even by the standards of the Nixon White House, a plan to blow up Washington's preeminent think tank seemed crazy, presidential counselor John Dean recalled Monday.

But there was White House aide John Ehrlichman on the phone one day in 1971, telling Dean that ''Chuck Colson wants me to firebomb the Brookings [Institution].'' Describing the incident to several hundred presidential history junkies at the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, Dean said he was dumbfounded.

'I said, `John, this is absolute insanity,' '' he remembered. ``People could die. This is absurd.''

Dean, who served four months in prison for his role in the Watergate coverup, spun the story casually -- just another believe-it-or-not factoid from the annals of a dark and complicated presidency -- at a two-day conference on the effect of White House taping systems on seven 20th century presidents. The conference ended Monday.

Dean said Colson -- one of President Nixon's top aides -- floated the idea as a way to retrieve certain documents Nixon wanted that were housed in the research center not far from the White House. Colson suggested that, while firefighters were trying to douse the damage caused by a bomb, White House operatives could rush in and seize the papers.

It seemed incredible, but now that he has listened to earlier tapes, Dean said he has heard Nixon 'literally pounding on his desk, saying `I want that break-in at the Brookings.' ''

The practice of White House taping began in 1940 with Franklin Roosevelt, who wanted to make sure he was quoted accurately in the media. Taping ended in 1974, after thousands of tapes exposed illegal and unethical activities that led to the demise of Nixon's presidency. About 3,700 hours of tapes from the Nixon White House have been transcribed and made public.

The two-day discussion attracted scholars, journalists and two grown White House ''children'': University of Pennsylvania Professor David Eisenhower, grandson of President Eisenhower, and Lynda Johnson Robb, elder daughter of President Lyndon Johnson. Also in attendance was Alexander Butterfield, now 77, the White House aide who in 1973 informed a Senate committee that all of Nixon's White House conversations had been taped.

In a panel Monday, Dean captivated the audience with story after story about Nixon, his tapes and the aides who surrounded the president.

Dean, 64, said Nixon was careful even with his most trusted aides to guard his involvement in the Watergate scandal. ''When I first started dealing with Nixon, I wasn't sure how much he knew,'' Dean said. ``I now know he knew far more than I was ever aware of.''

© 2003 The Miami Herald and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.miami.com

Special Report: Election 2000
Gore got 537,179 more popular votes, and only lost the Electoral College thanks to a lot of well-documented funny business.

GW - Bush Job Approval Dips.

Bush gave plum jobs to supporters who worked Florida recount. 13 July 2002, Miami Herald

Bush brothers have crucial lapses. "We're talking about civilians who shouldn't be dead, and children who shouldn't be missing. No leader deserves a courtesy pass on such matters."

More politics. Right -Winger's get the Bush team to prove its anti-abortion credentials by permanently denying money to the United Nations Population Fund.

Affirmative Action Foe Picked for Rights Post. New York Times.


Why are George W. Bush's business dealings relevant? The public deserves to know that he became wealthy entirely through patronage and connections. New York Times.

Pass the Duct Tape. New York Times. The Bush administration's fixation on Saddam seems to have blinded it to the possibility that Osama might be perversely encouraging America in this war.

Bush's Pick: The Ashcroft Tit

Ashcroft's Terrorism Policies Dismay Some Conservatives - he overstates threats, is a loud mouth and more. The talk is `too bad we pushed for him.'

Ashcroft's Words Clash With Staff on Check on Gun Laws. Congressional testimony by Ashcroft last December that the F.B.I. could not legally use records of gun background checks to investigate terrorism suspects conflicted with a formal opinion by his own legal staff.

Say What? Bush needs a history lesson.

20 July 2002. "We still don't know the full extent of our Enron governance because we still don't have a complete list of former Enron employees hired by the Bush administration. (It hardly inspires confidence to know that one of them is its chief economic adviser, Lawrence Lindsey, who also offered such valuable wisdom to Ken Lay.) Nor, of course, do we know the full details of the president's past history at Harken Energy or the vice president's at Halliburton. Those details matter not so much because of any criminality they might reveal — we are rapidly learning that there is no such thing as a prosecutable corporate crime anyway — but because of what they may add to our knowledge of the ethics, policies and personnel of a secretive administration to which we've entrusted both our domestic and economic security.

The head of President Bush's new corporate-crime task force served as a director at a credit-card company that paid more than $400 million to settle allegations of unfair and deceptive business practices.

Tight Lipped Bush. Concerned that the United States is rushing headlong toward a full-scale military confrontation with Iraq, many in Congress are urging Bush to provide a public accounting of its plans.

More Lip Service —Bush Unveils Post - Enron Crackdown on CEOs

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush announced on Thursday he was cracking down on corporate and accounting misconduct but stopped short of tougher reforms advocated by lawmakers and his own treasury secretary after Enron Corp. collapse.New York Times

JOINED AT THE HIP: Enron's corporate treachery has top Republicans trembling in their penny loafers. New York Times.

White House Acknowledges More Contacts With Enron. New York Times

G.A.O. Expected to Sue Over Cheney Panel's Records.

The General Accounting Office is expected to announce today that it intends to file suit against the White House to obtain access to documents from an energy task force headed by Vice President Dick Cheney. New York Times.

Cover-up? Rifts Plentiful as 9/11 Inquiry Begins. Also, Public Demands Answers.

Enron showdown between the accounting office — an investigative arm of Congress — and the Bush team. New York Times

From Europe

The Wimps of War. Bush's unwillingness to take responsibility for solving difficult problems is a large factor in the rift between Europe and the United States. America the Invulnerable? The World Looks Again. American contempt for a weak Europe is producing pressure for more unity, more independence to shock over the way Washington works.

More Flam, BUY BUSH!

Mr. Neil Bush urged the educators to dig into their budgets to buy something: an online American history curriculum developed by an Internet company that he has founded here. The course, which costs $30 a student, seeks to enliven documents like the Articles of Confederation by setting them to a hip-hop beat and illustrating them with Disney-caliber animation.

More than a decade after his role in a failed savings and loan put him in the public eye,* Mr. Bush is emerging as an educational entrepreneur. But as was the case in the early 1990's, Mr. Bush has drawn some criticism that he is trading on the family name, this time by trying to turn a profit on an issue that his two older brothers have championed from their elected perches. Education, in fact, was the signature domestic concern of the president's election campaign. The New York Times.

*Many believe that the 1988 Bush campaign would have been seriously damaged if it had become known to the Dukakis campaign and the American people that Bush's son "was in the thick of the greatest financial scandal in the nation's history." October 21, 1988 - the Colorado savings and loan commissioner calls Mowbray (Kermit Mowbray, President of the Kansas Federal Home Loan Bank) - one of the 12 regional banks directed by the Federal Home Loan Bank Board in Washington - in Topeka and tells him he would close Silverado before the end of October. Shortly before the elections, (October, 1988) the proceeedings were halted. A call had come from Washington asking Mowbray to hold off closing Silverado for forty-five days. No one seemed to know why." Mowbray later explained to the House Banking Committee that it was all a matter of priorities at FSLIC and he could not remember who called him or the reasons the caller had given for requesting the forty-five day delay. (p. 183). The above paragraph from Silverado Savings and Loan The Cover Up of a Cover Up

The Mask Comes Off. Did Americans really want a president who would smile in the faces of poor children even as he was scheming to cut their benefits? New York Times.

From Florida: After Gov. Jeb Bush, at a news conference, stated that the previous election problem was the VOTING public, Florida, at a cost of $32 million, replaced voting machines across the state. Then, a think tank of the nation's newest and brightest minds addressed this very confusing issue, and a new voting box was designed. Yet Jeb Bush's Florida still can't get it right!

Hot Wired Penis Ordered by Court in Jeb Bush's Florida.

In Jeb Bush's Florida, Governor Rigs Child Abuse Panel.

Bush Spent More on Fla. Recount. The Bush campaign spent $13.8 million to win the Florida recount vote, roughly four more times than the Gore's $3.2 million the IRS shows.In addition to paying for lawyers, phones and campaign staff salaries, the Bush campaign paid $13,000 to Enron Corp. and $2,400 to Halliburton Co. for the use of their jets.

Also, Bush and the Texas Land Grab

Fleeing Bush. G.O.P. Lawmakers Bolt Bush's Herd. Questioning Bush stances, Republicans are going their own way. New York Times

DUH! A New York Times/CBS News Poll shows that Americans worry that President Bush and cronies are too heavily influenced by big business.

Is Uncertainty the Only Thing That Is Certain? "You can't even trust the earnings reports. When you find the auditors in bed with the managers, there is nobody to believe."

Watchdog Group Is Suing Cheney and Halliburton.

Under Cheney, Halliburton Altered Accounting Policy. New York Times

How Enron Got California to Buy Power It Didn't Need and how Bush ignored the facts.

Electricity traders at Enron drove up prices during the California power crisis through questionable techniques that company lawyers said "may have contributed" to severe power shortages. New York Times.

On Social Security.

The Binge Mentality in the Federal Budget. President Bush and Congress are sacrificing the public's long-term welfare for their own short-term political gains. Enron was sacrificed for inflated stock prices ... the federal budget sacrifices the health of Social Security and other programs for unaffordable tax cuts. The motivation for both is the same: the decision makers don't believe they should be accountable for the long-run problems. Kenneth Lay walked away from Enron with millions. And the president and most lawmakers in Congress will be gone from office before the effects of the budget policies are fully felt. New York Times

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something," wrote Upton Sinclair, "when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." New York Times.

Social Security Tricks

Bush Uses Own Brand of Math on Social Security. Adopting an example that few financial planners would be likely to embrace, Bush ignores recommendations of his own commission onSocial Security. New YorK Times

June 2001. Justice Clarence Thomas Author Says He Lied in His Attacks on Anita Hill. The author of a best-selling book that attacked thecredibility of Anita F. Hill now says that he lied in print. New York Times.

Truth, Sex, Lies & Videotape. New York Times.

Debate on Court Nominee Centers on Abortion. Nominee over another candidate explicitly because of her anti-abortion views and her closeness to Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's chief political adviser, who engineered her 1994 election to the Texas court.

A sigh of relief, but not a fix in sight — GW Bush's little brother, Jeb, failed to deliver on his promise. Under Fire, Florida Chief of Child Welfare Resigns. 13 August 2002. New York Times.

InCalifornia, Clean Air Rules Force Changes in Autos. 22 July. New York Times

June 27, 2001. Efforts to Save Wetlands Are Inadequate, Study Says. New York Times

June 26. Penguins in Trouble Worldwide. New York Times.

June 7. PANEL TELLS BUSH GLOBAL WARMING IS GETTING WORSE. A panel of top American scientists declared today that global warming was a real problem and was getting worse, a conclusion that may lead President Bush to change his stand on the issue as he heads next week to Europe, where the United States is seen as a major source of the air pollution held responsible for climate change. Full article.

U.S. Losing Status as a World Leader in Climate. New York Times.

As leaders on each side defended their positions, the statements underscored tensions in the relationship between the United States and Europe and European leaders' fears that Mr. Bush was marching resolutely to his own drummer as he dealt with foreign policy issues of common concern. Full text.

A New Strategy to Help Capture Greenhouse Gas. New York Times.

China Said to Sharply Reduce Carbon Dioxide Emissions. New York Times.

Florida's Environment: Dry Tortugas National Park is the last frontier of healthy shallow and deep reef habitats in the Florida Keys archipelago.

A Cool Idea to Save Earth