Early Wiretaps of Nixon Administration Officials
When the secret bombing of Cambodia began to be leaked to the press several of Nixon’s top aides believed the leaks to have come from within the offices of the National Security Council. Henry Kissinger, then Nixon’s Secretary of State, was determined to convince Nixon that the leaks were from elsewhere. Kissinger approached J. Edgar Hoover and requested that several of Nixon’s top political aides and the office and home telephones of several reporters be tapped as a means of identifying the source of the leaks. These wiretaps began in 1969.
Hoover informed Kissinger that the FBI suspected Kissinger’s aide at the National Security Council, Morton Halperin, was the source of the leak to New York Times reporter Henry Beecher, who had first broken the story. Hoover ordered that Halperin’s phone be tapped, and for the next nearly two years the illegal tap was in place to monitor Halperin’s communications. Once the secret bombing was revealed there were no further follow-ups to the story containing additional information in the press. Halperin holds the distinction of being the first person known to be the victim of an illegal wiretap ordered by the Nixon administration.
Once the first wiretap to control leaks was installed others soon followed. The Vietnam War had been a major factor during the 1968 election campaign. Nixon ordered the creation of a team less than two weeks into his first administration to begin planning his re-election campaign in 1972. As the Nixon Administration went on he ordered, through the FBI, the wiretapping of leaders of the anti-war movement, and public figures who were outspoken against the war. Nixon also ordered the creation of a list of those figures who were considered his political enemies.
What came to be called the White House Enemies List was actually two lists, one of 20 individuals revealed in 1973, and another of 576 individuals which was exposed later that year. The first list of 20 was compiled for John Dean, Nixon’s White House Counsel who explained its purpose as, “…how we can use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies,” In a memo to administration official Lawrence Higby. The intent was to have the Internal Revenue Service harass the persons on the list of twenty with continuous tax audits.
Actor Paul Newman was on the list, and later described his place there as his greatest achievement. Morton Halperin, suspected of leaking the story of the Cambodian bombing, was on the list as well. When newsman Daniel Schorr read the list on television in 1973 he was surprised and amused to come upon his own name. Schorr had previously had his neighbors questioned by the FBI regarding his personal habits and activities in an attempt to discredit him. The IRS through its Commissioner, Donald Alexander, refused to comply with the request for audits on the individuals listed as Nixon’s enemies.