Watergate Hearings Day 5: Gerald Alch, Bernard Barker, and Alfred Baldwin (1973-05-24)

The dark side of history: https://thememoryhole.substack.com/

Bernard Leon Barker (March 17, 1917 – June 5, 2009) was a Watergate burglar and undercover operative in CIA-directed plots to overthrow Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
Early life

Barker was born in Havana, to a Russian American father of Jewish descent[1] and a Cuban mother. Therefore, Barker was a dual citizen of Cuba and the United States.[2] At the age of 16, Barker joined the ABC, a revolutionary group opposed to then president Gerardo Machado y Morales. It was during this period that he acquired the nickname "Macho". Worried by these developments, Barker's father sent him to live in the United States. In 1935 Barker became an American citizen, but he returned to Cuba in order to study at the University of Havana.[citation needed]
World War II

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, triggering US entry into World War II, Barker joined the United States Army Air Forces, where he became a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress crewman and a Second lieutenant bombardier. On his thirteenth combat mission, he was shot down on a bombing raid to Braunschweig, Germany, February 10, 1944. The Germans held him as a prisoner of war at Stalag Luft I in Barth. The Red Army liberated the camp on May 2, 1945.[citation needed]
Undercover agent

After the war, Barker returned to Cuba and joined the secret police under Fulgencio Batista.[3] He was later recruited by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and worked for them as an undercover agent. He also did work for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).[citation needed] He joined the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion.[4]
Joins White House plumbers
Address Book of Bernard Barker, discovered in a room at the Watergate Hotel, June 18, 1972

In September 1971, his former CIA superior, E. Howard Hunt, recruited him for the "Plumbers", the Nixon White House's "Special Investigations Unit". He was recruited by Hunt to find background information on Daniel Ellsberg. Ellsberg was under watch for leaking the "Pentagon Papers", a series of articles featured in The New York Times in 1971 detailing U.S. government secrets concerning the Vietnam War's history. Along with Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy, Barker broke into the office of Ellsberg's psychiatrist, Dr. Lewis J. Fielding, in Los Angeles. The mission's purpose was to find discrediting information on Ellsberg. The mission was completed, but largely unsuccessful in finding any damaging information about Ellsberg.[citation needed]

In 1972, Barker was one of the five burglars paid by the Committee to Re-elect the President (CRP), Nixon's re-election campaign fundraising committee, for a break-in at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee, and subsequently was convicted in the Watergate scandal. The others were Frank Sturgis, Virgilio Gonzalez, Eugenio Martinez and James McCord. Along with the other Watergate burglars, G. Gordon Liddy, and E. Howard Hunt, Barker was charged with, and pleaded guilty to, wiretapping, planting electronic surveillance equipment, and theft of documents. Hunt claimed that Barker gave testimony, corroborating his assertion to the Senate Watergate Committee, that the reason they broke in was they were told by Liddy to search for evidence of clandestine financial contributions being received from foreign powers, such as Cuba.

Barker also worked with CRP to get money which went into the Nixon campaign coffers off the books; it was via his bank account that $25,000 from Archer Daniels Midland Chief Executive Dwayne Andreas was obtained by CRP in violation of campaign finance laws.[5][6]

On March 7, 1974, Barker, along with Ehrlichman, Charles Colson, Liddy, Martinez, and Felipe de Diego, was indicted for the Ellsberg burglary.[7] Barker was released pending appeal after serving one year of a two-and-a-half to six-year sentence.
Later life and death

After Barker's release from prison, he worked as a building inspector for the city of Miami, Florida, earning $18,512 per year. He chose early retirement in 1982 rather than fight proceedings seeking his dismissal for loafing on the job.[8]

President Jimmy Carter denied him a pardon.[9]

Barker died of lung cancer in his Miami home on June 5, 2009, aged 92. His fourth wife, Dora Maria Barker, survived him.

Barker was portrayed in All the President's Men, the 1976 film retelling the events of the Watergate scandal, by Henry Calvert.
References

Carlson, Michael (June 7, 2009). "Bernard Barker". The Guardian. Retrieved June 1, 2017.
"Bernard Barker dies at 92; Watergate burglar was a CIA operative". Los Angeles Times. June 6, 2009. Retrieved 2009-09-08.
Carlson, Michael (8 June 2009). "Obituary: Bernard Barker". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 2010-04-10.
"Watergate burglar dies in Florida". BBC. 6 June 2009. Retrieved 2009-09-08.
Friedman, Thomas L. (January 27, 1989). "Bugged Embassy in Moscow Gets Chance for a New Life". The New York Times. New York, New York. Retrieved 2009-09-08.
Myers, Steven Lee (April 27, 1992). "Richard E. Gerstein, Dead at 68; Prosecuted Key Watergate Figure". The New York Times. New York, New York. Retrieved 2009-09-08.
"Beaver County Times - Google News Archive Search".
Krebs, Albin; Thomas, Robert McG. Jr (28 January 1982). "NOTES ON PEOPLE - Bernard Barker to Retire From Miami Job Early - NYTimes.com". The New York Times.

"Ehrlichman Seeks a Pardon for Watergate Crimes". The New York Times. New York, New York. AP. August 15, 1987. Retrieved 2009-09-08. "Two of the burglars of the Democratic headquarters, Bernard L. Barker and Frank Sturgis, were denied pardons by President Carter."

External links

Biography portal

Bernard Barker – Daily Telegraph obituary
Bernard Barker at Find a Grave

Authority control databases Edit this at Wikidata
Categories:

1917 births2009 deathsUnited States Army Air Forces personnel of World War IIRussian JewsAmerican people of Russian-Jewish descentDeaths from lung cancer in FloridaCuban emigrants to the United StatesPeople from HavanaPeople from MiamiMilitary personnel from FloridaUnited States Army Air Forces officersUniversity of Havana alumniWatergate SevenPeople convicted in the Watergate scandalAmerican prisoners of war in World War IIWorld War II prisoners of war held by GermanyFlorida RepublicansShot-down aviatorsAmerican anti-communistsCIA agents convicted of crimes

Alfred Carleton Baldwin (June 23, 1936 – January 15, 2020) was an American FBI agent known as the so-called "shadow man" in the Watergate break-in and the ensuing Watergate scandal. Baldwin had been hired by James McCord for a variety of purposes, one of which became to monitor electronic bugs purportedly planted by McCord in the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) at the Watergate.
Early life and education

Alfred Baldwin was born in New Haven, Connecticut. His great-uncle, Raymond E. Baldwin, served twice as governor of Connecticut and later as a member of the United States Senate.[1] He earned a Bachelor of Business Administration from Fairfield University and a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Connecticut School of Law. He served in the United States Marine Corps.[2]
Career

Baldwin joined the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 1963 and was assigned to offices in Tampa, Memphis, and Sarasota. He resigned from the FBI in 1966 and joined a trucking company as director of security. He later worked to establish a program for law enforcement personnel at the University of New Haven. Baldwin was recruited to work for the Committee for the Re-Election of the President in 1972 and was first assigned as a bodyguard for Martha Mitchell.[3]
Watergate scandal and investigation

Baldwin testified during congressional investigations that he had typed "almost verbatim" transcripts of phone conversations coming from the DNC headquarters, but G. Gordon Liddy testified in deposition that what he had been getting from Baldwin had only been logs that were "useless." Liddy says that he then dictated logs, "editing" as he went, and that he had his secretary, Sally Harmony, type up his dictations on stationery with "GEMSTONE" printed across the top.

Liddy said in his autobiography and in sworn deposition that he only met Baldwin once, and then only briefly, on May 31, 1972, in the dark "listening post" that had been set up by James McCord in room 723 of the Howard Johnson's motel across the street from the Watergate.

Alfred Baldwin said under oath in his congressional testimony that five days earlier than that, on the afternoon of May 26, 1972, he had been introduced by McCord to both Liddy and E. Howard Hunt in the first room McCord had rented, Room 419 of the Howard Johnson's. Baldwin also testified that later on that same night of May 26, about 1:00 or 2:00 a.m., he rode around in a car with McCord and Liddy for "over half an hour" near George McGovern's headquarters, discussing prospects for breaking in there, but that Liddy had finally said: "We'll abort the mission."

According to a 2012 article, Baldwin was distracted watching the film Attack of the Puppet People on TV and did not observe the arrival of a police car in front of the Watergate building,[4] nor did he see the plainclothes officers investigating the DNC's sixth floor suite of 29 offices. By the time Baldwin finally noticed unusual activity on the sixth floor and radioed the burglars, it was already too late.[4]

Liddy's co-commander of the Watergate ops, retired CIA agent E. Howard Hunt, only refers in his autobiography to Alfred Baldwin as an anonymous "monitor" hired by McCord who Hunt purportedly never was introduced to.[citation needed] Yet Hunt relied heavily on the unknown "monitor" for walkie-talkie reports during the Watergate activities. On the morning of June 17, 1972, several hours after McCord and the other burglars had been apprehended in the Watergate building, Hunt said he went up to Room 723 in the Howard Johnson's Hotel and knocked on the door, which was "opened a crack" where he saw an unknown "man with a crew cut indistinctly against the dark background." According to Hunt, he had a brief, terse exchange with this unknown man — Baldwin — and entrusted him with the crucial task of disposing of all the electronic receiving equipment McCord and Baldwin purportedly had installed in Room 723, telling Baldwin, "I don't care if you drive the van into the river; just get the stuff out of here." Baldwin did remove the vehicle with all its gear from the crime scene.

Hunt testified before the United States Senate Watergate Committee on September 25, 1973, that he suspected Baldwin of being a double agent with Democratic ties who betrayed the Watergate operation.[5]

Baldwin was never charged or convicted in relation to the Watergate scandal. He gave a long interview to the Los Angeles Times, which was published in October, 1972. This material set off a string of other investigative articles which, combined with Congressional hearings and law enforcement investigations, eventually broke open the scandal, over the next two years.
Later career and death

In September 1974, Baldwin became a mathematics teacher at Sheridan Middle School in New Haven, Connecticut. He later served as a prosecutor for the Connecticut Superior Court from 1986 until his retirement in 1996. Baldwin died of cancer on January 15, 2020, at the age of 83, though his death was not widely reported until May 2022.[6][7]
References

Writer, TOM CONDON; Courant Staff (15 June 1997). "FROM HARTFORD 25 YEARS LATER, A WATERGATE PLAYER REFLECTS". courant.com. Retrieved 2021-07-31.
"Alfred C. Baldwin". spartacus-educational.com. Archived from the original on 2014-07-02.
"Excerpts From Interview With Man Who Says He Helped in Bugging of Democrats". The New York Times. 1972-10-07. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-07-31.
Shirley, Craig (June 20, 2012). "The Bartender's Tale: How the Watergate Burglars Got Caught | Washingtonian". Washingtonian. Archived from the original on June 7, 2022. Retrieved June 26, 2023.
:Hunt Says Lookout May Have Served as Double Agent," UPI release as published in Deseret News, 25 September 1973, p. A1
Seelye, Katharine Q. (May 10, 2022). "Alfred Baldwin, Lookout for Watergate Burglars, Dies at 83". The New York Times. Retrieved May 10, 2022.

Smith, Harrison (May 5, 2022). "Alfred Baldwin, chief Watergate eavesdropper and lookout, is dead at 83". The Washington Post. Retrieved May 6, 2022.

Categories:

1936 births2020 deathsFederal Bureau of Investigation agentsNixon administration personnel involved in the Watergate scandalFairfield University alumniPeople from New Haven, Connecticut

Given its proximity to the United States Senate and being one of only a few restaurants near the Capitol, The Monocle quickly became a meeting point for members of congress and special interest lobbyists. The Monocle welcomes members of all political parties and considers itself strictly non-partisan.[3][4]

A 1961 column in The Washington Post referred to The Monocle as a "dandy place to rubberneck and dine."[5] A 1985 article about the National Corn Growers Association notes the Monocle as a popular place to meet with peers to coordinate strategies, and according to one anecdote, get tipped off by Senate staff in the Monocle parking lot.[6] Former vice president Walter Mondale once called the restaurant a place "where laws are debated, where policies are set, where the course of world history is changed."
Watergate

The Monocle made an appearance in the testimony of Gerald Alch, former attorney for James W. McCord Jr., during the 1973 Watergate hearings. Alch and McCord discussed the CIA's involvement in the cover-up at the Monocle in December 1972.