The web of criminality that ended Nixon’s presidency was rooted in his paranoia about and attempts to discredit the peace movement. The White House took extreme measures to hide the truth about the war and counter antiwar narratives. Illegal wiretapping began in 1969 in response to leaks of information about the ‘secret’ bombing of Cambodia. The plumbers were activated in 1971 to discredit Daniel Ellsberg for releasing the Pentagon Papers. They burglarized the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist in Los Angeles in search of incriminating information, a preview of their break-in at Democratic Party offices in the Watergate a year later.
Read the full summary based on my book Protest and Policy in the Iraq, Nuclear Freeze and the Vietnam Peace Movements.
David Cortright 