Steve McIntyre writes an historical comparison of how “fake-gate” is more like water-gate than one might realize. It just isn’t the name association, it’s about donor lists. And then there’s that interesting twist that Steve points out from WUWT that makes the connection even more interesting. Some excerpts below, and of course a splendid Josh cartoon done specifically for the story. I’ve located what I think are the two comments that inspired Steve to write this essay – Anthony
Gleick and the Watergate Burglars – by Steve McIntyre
We are approaching the 40th anniversary of the original Watergate burglaries. Although everyone has heard of the scandal, most people have either forgotten or are too young to remember that the purpose of the Watergate burglaries was to copy documents listing donors to the Democratic Party and their financial contributions, either hoping or expecting to find evidence of contributions from “bad” sources (the Cuban government).
Like the Watergate burglars, the objective of Gleick’s fraud against Heartland was to obtain a list of donors, expecting to find evidence of “bad” contributions to their climate program (fossil fuel corporations and the Koch brothers.) The identity of objectives is really quite remarkable. The technology of the Watergate burglars (break-in and photography) was different than Gleick’s (fraud and email). And the consequences of being caught have thus far been very different.
In today’s post, I’ll reconsider the backstory of the Watergate burglaries to place present-day analogies to the Watergate era in better context.
I was in mid-20s at the time of the Watergate events. Although it now looms large in contemporary history, it was a very minor story until relatively late in the chronology, when Nixon’s connections to the cover-up were finally established. (The Vietnam War was the dominant story of the day.) My own recollection of events (prior to researching) was mostly established by the movie hagiography of Woodward and Bernstein, though all of the names in the story (from Ellsberg to G. Gordon Liddy) were names familiar to me as a young man. Today’s post is written almost entirely from secondary sources (mostly Wikipedia articles unless otherwise cited), which seem accurate enough on chronological details.
Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers
I’ll start my review of Watergate with Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, which have been cited in some quarters as precedents for Gleick.
…
Postscript
The topic of this post was inspired by a witty remark by a commenter at Anthony’s. He wryly observed that Gleick was increasingly being described by his defenders, not as a “climate scientist”, but as a “water scientist”, and that the logical analogue of “climategate” was therefore “watergate”. From this ironic reminder, I browsed easily accessible information on the original Watergate burglary, which immediately showed that it too was about a search for a donors’ list.
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Since Steve got his inspiration here, I thought it useful to highlight a couple of comments that likely contributed. I didn’t find any single comment that contained both points that Steve mentions, but I did find these two:
Tom_R says: February 21, 2012 at 7:31 pm
Since Dr. Gleick specialized in hydrology and was on a ‘water and technology’ board, maybe this should be called ‘WATERgate’.
What? That one’s already been taken?
Nevermind.
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Philip Bradley says: February 21, 2012 at 5:47 pmNote how at Daily Kos and other media, Gleick is no longer a climate scientist, now merely a water analyst.
Read the full story, well worth your time: Gleick and the Watergate Burglars – by Steve McIntyre
There is of course one major difference between Gliek’s ‘FakeGate’ and ‘Watergate’; the ‘conspirators’ in Watergate did not find any incriminatory material that could be used. Gliek found no incriminatory material that could be used either – so he then proceeded to forge incriminatory material which he then passed off as genuine to his willing and gullible (?) press and blog contacts.
Would you trust a climate ‘scientist’?
Watergate, donors lists, what a great point. I’m embarrassed to admit it never crossed my mind. It shows what can happen when you get wrapped up in the details of Gleick, missing the forest for the trees. This is a rather brilliant point actually and may have a bigger payoff in the end. Bravo Steve McIntyre!
I’m not onboard with this comparison. First, why even go there and associate climate data and military secrecy in the same thought? Real military secrets must have a bright line regardless if they happen to be over-classified. It is enshrined in the Constitution that we can have some secrecy as it is critical to national security. Ellseberg was lucky he didn’t get the chair, as is Bradley Manning. I’m quite sure that in previous years, both would have been in front of a tribunal, given a last meal and hung at dawn, especially the latter who walks out with pilfered secrets while in uniform!
P.S. Good to see you back Gail. Hope all is well!
@renechang
I pick up just one of your interesting questions and will try to shed at least a little light on some of the other indirectly.
“Why would Nixon order a raid on Watergate when he was already 26 points ahead of Senator McGovern?”
The false story is that it was about finding funders. Notable from the comments above is the fact that the people involved in the breakin were known as ‘plumbers’ i.e. they fixed leaks. The story they were after a donor list is probably the fakest portion of the story. What would they want with donor lists? He was not in need of them and there were other ways to get it.
The link between the plumbers and the Cubans and Nixon went back a lot farther than the election campaign. It is now almost forgotten that the assisination squad of cubans assembled to take out Castro was formed about 1959 (perhaps someone can confirm the date). Nixon was in charge of that squad, yes? This off-the record group was upset that they were never deployed – also well known. They practised repeatedly a triangulation sniper attack on a moving vehicle and were always being told they would be deployed soon. The Cuban missle crisis came and went and alla that jazz. They were never sent to accomplish their mission.
But the team remained in contact: the plumbers and the Cubans and their off-the-books plans. That is why the unprofessional nature of the breakins, and that particular group. It was not their regular line of work.
What were they doing there? They sure as heck wen’t after a some mundane donor’s list but they were certainly after documents. They were there to fix a leak. Donors are not leaks. The leak in question was the existence of the trained triangulation shooters, the plan against Castro and that Nixon was their controller ultimate controller. I heard (and that is my source) that the Nixon camp got word that documentary proof of this was around and had found its way into the Watergate Hotel. They were trying to get it back, or at least know what they had. Note that the main characters were the organisers of a hit squad, not private eyes with skills above basic Agent training.
It is famous by now that Bobby Kennedy called from Wasthington to the head of the Secret Service in Dallas the day after JFK was killed saying, “Your people did this!” Add that to the claims that two of the plumbers were seen leaving the scene in Dallas in ’63 (walking away from the wooden fence, dressed as tramps, heading to the train tracks) and you can understand why a hint of impropriety may have been possible with little recourse other than to reveal more and more.
The commonalities with the Gleick Tragedy are still to be fathomed. Did he write alone? If not, with whom? Who checked the text? How many reporters and bloggers were co-conspirators? How far does the convoluted trail of incompetent collusion go? What rapid response teams do we not yet know about who may have been manipulating the press and the public image of climate science? Who funds them and why?
Are the shredders working overtime as we speak? Are there plumbers working right now to erect walls of invisibility to separate themselves from Gleick if he goes down hard and starts to talk? Will he pull a Jones and start throwing his climate comrades under a bus? Stay tuned to this channel.
This could have been said by anyone, and it could certainly have been said about Gleick.
It was actually Gleick himself.
Who’da guessed it?
Way too much off topic and incorrect stuff to dispute here. Let me just mention these three:
– ‘Plumbers’ in a clandestine situation means a whole lot more than fixing leaks. Wiretapping was a key issue in Watergate.
– I never heard anything saying Eisenhower/Nixon planned on killing Castro ever (though I among many wish they had). I am pretty sure that all of the attempts, which were numerous and legendary all occurred at the direction of JFK/RFK (one of their few good ideas IMHO).
– Nixon did not order the burglary. No way. That would be a felony and no matter what you think of him, he would never have done it.
“- Nixon did not order the burglary. No way. That would be a felony and no matter what you think of him, he would never have done it.”
I tend to agree perhaps, but then why cover it up? Knowing what we do about Nixon, he was loyal and a patriot, but he would also typically not resort backing up his men if they were in over their head without his knowing about it, and if they went behind his back, he would let them take the heat themselves.
That is why I think he did order the burglary or at least ok it in some bizarre brainfart moment. We may never know because of how history turned out, but it just does not fit Nixon’s character to cover up anything if he had not known about the incident in the first place. He would have had the entire incident investigated and would have cooperated if he indeed had known nothing about it. That was the Nixon we knew, look at what happened to Spirow.
Nixon surrounded himself with people who were rather crooked, and he got involved. I don’t think he was really all that bad in the end, but he made a mistake and managed to get himself involved in some of the mess and because he was in the end loyal he went down with the ship. As a politician, he was a terrible crook. Because lets face it, he got caught. His mistakes were two therefore. He had bad people around him and he got involved in their “activities.” To say he had nothing to do with the burglary itself is probably missing the point that he would have never covered it up if he hadn’t….and that in itself was what brought him down in the end.
MAVukcevic says:
March 11, 2012 at 2:35 am
If that’s the case then the solar flare may have triggered it.
Let’s not forget Rose Mary Woods and the 18-minute gap (deletion) on Nixon’s recorder.
She was just doing her bit to “hide the decline”
We’re way off topic, but continuing if the mods allow …
Well for one, there is no evidence that Nixon was involved in the break-in. I cannot imagine anything more investigated than Watergate. No dead horse has ever been beaten and flogged more than this one. With the sole exception of the missing minutes on the tapes, what possible stone was left un-turned? I doubt there is any.
I don’t agree with the reasoning that ‘why would he cover it up?’ stands as evidence of involvement. It was probably just the simple case of ‘Mr. President, our guys broke in and bugged the enemy headquarters – and got caught‘. An ‘Oh crap moment’ that they thought they could keep out of the press. Nixon was no doubt aware of many previous black-bag jobs done earlier at FBI or lower level (e.g., Hoover MLK Jr. bugging) and likely felt that this fell squarely into that category, i.e., they were also unknown to the President. In this context, Nixon’s personal responsibility is lessened because in the case of Martin Luther King, both RFK and Hoover actually were involved with the bugging, Now do you think JFK would have resigned over it had it become public? No, His father would have bought his way out (payoff) and perhaps a few resignations.
JFK and Nixon had much in common, however all recent Presidents have something else in common – the automatic knee-jerk reflex to protect the office of the presidency at all costs. The cost that Nixon tried to pay was, in his calculation, a very cheap way to spare the country from the ugly knowledge that a team of ‘plumbers’ did this crime in his name. NOTE: I do believe Nixon should NOT have done this and should have bucked the trend (and it is a long trend going at least back to the 1880’s) of cover-up to protect the office.
So the answer to ‘why would he cover it up?’ is simple – why not? That was what was always done. But it really has nothing to do with him being involved, he most likely wasn’t. One other thing, why would the plumbers involve him? And why would he even want to be involved considering what was going on in the world at the time? Occam’s Razor says Nixon merely had highly motivated people working autonomously that wanted to flush the commies out of the enemy party, no conspiracy is needed.
P.S. Regarding Agnew, you do realize that he was corrupt previously as a governor, right? And it’s not like he was handpicked by Nixon you know. He was one of the classic VP balancing selections. However, he obviously slipped by the vetting process like most of the schmucks that get elected into the District of Criminals. Nothing has changed at all except now we have Presidents who also dodge the vetting process. I guarantee that folks knew more about Agnew in 1968 than they did about Clinton in 1992, and especially Barry Hussein in 2008.
Ref: Blade [March 11, 2012 at 9:52 am]
Don’t forget that a lot of people had a bone to be chewed because of the Alger Hiss case. Nixon figured prominently in that.
Jumping up and down on the Watergate soapbox afforded them a bit of payback.
Nixon and his guys tried to cover up the White House involvement for the same reason the climate alarmists bend the rules, fudge the data, and outright lie about stuff
Noble-cause corruption
Nixon was certain that McGovern would be a disaster for the country (I concur) but Nixon ended up leaving his own awful legacy of distrust in public institutions (some deserved, some not). By elevating Woodward-Bernstein to “star status”, journalism took a giant lurch to the left and down the toilet – – which is where we are today. Thanks Dick.
I believe that the purpose of the Watergate burglarly was to get a looseleaf notebook containing pictures of prostitutes and a list of Democrat donors who had been provided with a choice of the prostitutes from this book as an incentive to make their donation. I don’t know that this makes a real difference in what was done but I do know that the Democrats, who were happy indeed to tout Watergate as something terrible committed against them, were also very eager to keep the target of the breakin secret. The media cooperated with the Democrats in keeping the secret, some say because many of them had been on that list of people provided the special service in question.
In a better world both sides of this issue would remain focused on the pertinent science.
I am a skeptic, but I suspect skepticism’s best spokespersons are letting the excitement of uncovering chicanery distract us all from the all important message. That message, of course, is that the warmist’s science is terminally faulty. But just as we claim that consensus is irrelevant to true science, so too strong evidence of fraud and lies is ultimately irrelevant.
Show me scientifically convincing evidence that our planet is/is not warming dangerously. Let the rest remain secondary – please.
(This message also being sent to JunkScience and ClimateAudit.)
Before all the Nixon apologists go nuts defending the guy, please remember he was the President who gave us OSHA, the EPA, the DEA and signed the ESA into law. We’d be in much better shape today if these federal agencies didn’t exist.
Had Nixon been a Democrat, “Watergate” would be unknown in our current political lexicon.
The corollary: The Democrats get the action while the Republicans get the rhetoric.
This applies to Gleick–had he been a real Heartland director delving into, say, the Pacific Institute, he’d be in jail by now. Talk about a double standard!
Blade commented on the Ellsberg/climategate comparison, and wrote: “First, why even go there and associate climate data and military secrecy in the same thought? Real military secrets must have a bright line regardless if they happen to be over-classified.”
In defense of Ellsberg, and also why I think the comparison to Climategate is valid, it’s important to note that the papers he leaked did *not*, to my knowledge, contain any actual operational military “secrets”. They were high-level think tank forecasts and analyses, but what made them significant was that they showed that the high level analysis that the Pentagon was talking about internally was diametrically opposed to all of their public statements.
Or to put it simply, the only “military secret” in play was the fact that the US Government was intentionally and deliberately lying to the voters about their real views on the war. Although of course *actual* military secrets should be protected, this is a perfect example of how easily the classification system can be corrupted and turned into nothing but a giant ass-covering project for government officials.
Kind of like what the CRU crowd was trying to do when they restricted access to all of their files.
The statement “let’s continue playing the voters for chumps and hope they never find out what we’re up to” should never be allowed to become an “official secret”, whether it’s military or civilian.
copner –
agreed. there may not have been 15 recipients…but, equally, there may have been.
My only comment regarding Nixon is that what he did, previous presidents routinely did. The only difference was that this time the press cared.
@renechang:
I recall hearing a theory that the burglars were looking for evidence the Dems had some scandalous smoking gun they were going to spring to Nixon during the campaign.
Blade says: @ur momisugly
March 11, 2012 at 6:09 am
….First, why even go there and associate climate data and military secrecy in the same thought?
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The comparison is not the “association of climate data with military secrecy” but the fact that information was hidden to prevent the public from seeing they were being told lies. In both cases lies that have a major impact on the USA. In the Ellsberg’s case the Media made the person a “Hero” DESPITE the fact these were “Military Secrets” and in the other case the person is smeared with all sorts of nasty names even though the law stated the e-mails were subject to FOIA and the public had the RIGHT to see them.
Here is another similarity showing that the USA is not run by “The Rule of Law” but by favoritism. (This is the entire point of the discussion BTW)
NIXON:
“…..Sirica, acting on a request from Jaworski, issued a subpoena for the tapes of 64 presidential conversations to use as evidence in the criminal cases against indicted former Nixon administration officials. Nixon refused, and Jaworski appealed to the Supreme Court to force Nixon to turn over the tapes. On July 24, the Supreme Court voted 8-0 (Justice William Rehnquist recused himself) in United States v. Nixon that Nixon must turn over the tapes…..” WIKI
MANN:
“….In a rebuke to the Attorney General, and to the writers of Virginia’s Fraud Against Taxpayers Act, the Virginia Supreme Court dismissed, “with prejudice,” the AG’s civil investigative demand against the University of Virginia….
Cuccinelli’s office had this to say….
“The Supreme Court of Virginia ruled today that the University of Virginia and all other state agencies cannot be served with civil investigative demands which compel agencies to provide information for fraud investigations involving government funds…
Although the court recognized Virginia’s Fraud Against Taxpayers Act contains “functional inconsistencies” on the issue, in its ruling, the court said that the university and other state agencies are not considered “persons” under the act. In doing so, the court explicitly recognized that in some instances in the act, the term “person” will “always [be] construed to include Commonwealth agencies” such as the University of Virginia, while in other instances, it will not.”
Blade says: March 11, 2012 at 6:09 am
“…Bradley Manning. I’m quite sure that in previous years, both would have been in front of a tribunal, given a last meal and hung at dawn, especially the latter who walks out with pilfered secrets while in uniform!…”
You paint them too kindly – speaking of military secrets makes it sound like he stole the ‘secret plan of battle’.
Let us not forget that what he in fact uncovered was incompetence, and casual, unconcerned, negligent killing of civilians. Those who would encourage you in your correct and loyal support of ‘your military’ are those who will be protected by your trust. And amongst them are the guilty and the incompetent.
Forgive me for thinking Mann’s main motivation for that may have been more a vision of his own fame and glory, rather than one of saving mankind.
I can’t help but feel that a person primarily inspired by the latter motivation would have been a lot more meticulous in his work, much more communicative in his prose, and very enthusiastic about sharing his raw data.
WWS and Gail,
No doubt the so-called Pentagon Papers were over-classified, I said as much upthread. This does not excuse the perp, nor the New York Slimes. Also, I did mention that Nixon should have come clean and started a new trend for Presidents, being honest rather than implementing a cover-up. However, as far as comparing scientific climate data with classified material, I have to disagree. That argument fails in so many ways IMHO, not the least of which is that it sounds like something Mann would say.
My point is simply that there must be (and always used to be) a bright line regarding national security (state and military) secrets. Crossing this line means you are flirting with the executioner. We are now in a situation where we are practically rationalizing steal them first, and sort them out later. That is not how a sane state survives. The proper answer to addressing over-classified material is to get in touch with the Constitution in which the people and the states grant the feds secrecy but not in a broad sense like we see today. We must simply elect people that understand the Constitution and prod them to pass laws or we will need to go over their heads with another Amendment. Laws like FOIA are a step in the right direction, and further movements towards keeping only important things regarding national security under wraps is the rational approach. Obviously mil satellite orbits and resolution and many other armed forces material falls into this category.
Ellsberg and Manning may have pilfered data that was over-classified but both should have been hung purely on principle, killing two birds with one stone so to speak (liberating over-classified material while upholding national security and treason principles). I’ll take that as a win-win, thanking them for their sacrifice on their walk to the gallows. It is much better to make fast and clear examples out of such people of which there are far too many. When someone like Aldrich Ames is still alive, eating and sleeping on the taxpayer dime in a federal pokey it is safe to say we have moved into the surreal! It can’t be too far off that the Rosenbergs get posthumous pardons and a Peace Prize for liberating over-classified secrets and promoting international military parity. That’s not so far-fetched considering the current occupant of the oval office.
One other thing about the Pentagon Papers, this has morphed into a classic example of bait and switch in popular culture. On one hand it is only ‘data from various think tanks and shady NGO’s’. Then on the other hand ‘it exposed important lies by the administration about the Viet Nam war’. We see this strategy currently with President Dumbo first telling the people that Obamacare is just an insurance regulation, but then tells the courts that courts that Obamacare is a tax. Whatever works. It will be part of our undoing.
I realize at about comment 50, this will only be read by the moderators, but there is something here about how much easier a computer is to hack by going after the users rather than the system. The sort of attack Gliek did is broadly called ‘social engineering’. I’m a little surprised that HI and other foundations don’t have a standing policy to help prevent this.
Such a policy would be something like “any new email address must be confirmed by voice or confirmation coming from known good email address.” Or something along those lines. Similar to the idea of ‘double opt in’ for e-newsletters. Basically you sign up and get a confirmation email that you signed up.
I also realize this is OT, so Moderators feel free to bit bucket this.
AC:
I am one of the many non-Moderators who read your post that is on-topic. And I thank you for it.
Richard