A few years ago while in San Francisco, Bob Woodward made an intriguing remark. He told the San Francisco Chronicle he wouldn’t expose Deep Throat until the man died but that when he died people would begin to research the case and one thing would lead to another. Woodward said it would all lead to a “fantastic” discovery.

Now that we know that Deep Throat was W. Mark Felt, former #2 man at the FBI and the architect of J. Edgar Hoover’s COINTELPRO scheme to thwart the lives of thousands of anti-Vietnam war dissidents, the question looms large. What “fantastic” discovery was Woodward referring to?

In early Watergate contacts, Mark Felt told Woodward that the White House “regarded the stakes in Watergate as much higher than anyone outside perceived.” Felt “made veiled references to the CIA and national security.” In All The President’s Men, Woodward expanded on the subject as follows. At the height of his investigation, Woodward met with Felt, whose hands were shaking. Woodward’s notes say Felt said “everyone’s life was in danger…. “The covert activities involve the whole US intelligence community and are incredible. (Felt) refused to give specifics because it is against the law. The cover-up has little to do with Watergate, but was mainly to protect the covert operation.” (p. 72-3, 318 All the President’s Men)

Let’s recap: Mark Felt told Woodward that all the intelligence agencies were involved in a covert project that was “incredible,” or “fantastic,” as Woodward later put it. Felt said the Watergate cover-up had little to do with Watergate, more to do with protecting the covert project.

Why does Woodward think that when we learn that Deep Throat was an FBI chief, we’ll begin to discern the nature of that “incredible” covert project? Apparently, the covert project was so large and controversial that it impinged on Felt’s role in law enforcement.

What were Felt’s motives for meeting secretly with Woodward in order to in expose Nixon’s crimes? Some say it was frustration because Felt was passed over when Nixon appointed an outsider to head the FBI after J. Edgar Hoover died, or committed suicide as Anthony Summers suggests, after Nixon tried to force Hoover out of office. As Summers wrote in his biography of Hoover, Nixon may have had abundant dirt on J. Edgar Hoover, himself (homosexual parties and payoffs from the mob), which would have given Nixon critical leverage in the end. Whether Hoover’s demise figured in Mark Felt’s “Deep Throat” move against Nixon is difficult to say. Felt described Hoover as both disciplined and tyrannical. It’s possible that after Hoover died, Felt regretted having violated so many people through break-ins, job sabotage and other crimes committed under COINTELPRO. In 1980 Felt was convicted for having ordered break-ins of anti-war Weatherman underground figures’ homes but was soon pardoned by Reagan.

Felt may have had deeper motives for exposing Watergate. What was Felt’s main contribution to Woodward and Bernstein? In addition to telling about an “incredible” covert operation involving all the intelligence agencies, Felt told the two reporters to “follow the money,” which led investigators to roughly $100,000 laundered through Mexico to help pay the Watergate burglars and buy their silence. And what did Nixon and his cronies fear would be discovered through Watergate? Some of the burglars were CIA employees, and at the time, Nixon was engaged in a struggle against CIA director Richard Helms. Woodward and Bernstein were aghast when they discovered the CIA connection to the Watergate.

As the scandal unfolded in the press, Nixon called CIA director Richard Helms into his office and warned him to help steer the FBI away from Watergate because it would lead to revelations about “the Bay of Pigs,” which Nixon aide H. R. Haldemann interpreted as referring to the JFK assassination. Helms literally began to shout when Nixon threatened that “the Bay of Pigs” story might be exposed. Thanks to the confession of former CIA officer David Atlee Phillips (see Mark Lane’s book about E. H. Hunt’s lawsuit against Lane), we now know that the CIA was involved in the assassination. The CIA faked Oswald diversions in Mexico to make Oswald look suspicious by contriving a connection to Cuba. It was a typical intelligence ploy.

Five months later, Nixon fired Richard Helms and the Watergate case began to drag Nixon down. But why did Nixon distrust Helms so deeply?

After studying Nixon and Helms during Watergate, Sen. Howard Baker said, “Nixon and Helms have so much on each other, neither of them can breathe.” Numerous studies suggest that Helms’ CIA tried to bring the Watergate case to public attention, perhaps to get revenge on Nixon for previous doings. James McCord, one of the Watergate burglars, was a former CIA officer, as was E. H. Hunt, also. As Jim Hougan and other researchers have documented, McCord volunteered information to investigators and made seemingly intentional mistakes that led Washington DC police to catch the burglars in the act. McCord repeatedly taped open the Watergate building’s doors so that security guard Frank Wells discovered the tape on two different security rounds. McCord was the CIA’s former chief of physical security yet he taped the doors in a sloppy, visible way as though trying to attract attention.

More to the point, Nixon had close ties to one military industrial faction (Du Pont, Bush and cohorts) that had long worked against a Howard Hughes-related faction on a major covert project involving exotic aviation technologies. Nixon’s favoritism may have given Richard Helms a revenge motive to work against Nixon in Watergate.

Herbert Liedtke, the man who provided half of the $100,000 hush-up money funneled through Mexico to the Watergate burglars, was the business partner of George Bush Sr. in a company now called Pennzoil. Nixon’s famous remarks about “the Texans” helping Nixon in the Watergate case has been interpreted as a reference to both Liedtke and Bush Sr. As Nixon told one of the Watergate conspirators at the time, “George Bush will do anything for us.” (see Nightmare, by Anthony Lukas)

What, exactly, was Nixon referring to in his “Bay of Pigs” remarks? Former Pentagon insider Col. Fletcher Prouty suggests that the real subject of concern may have been Gen. Ed Lansdale, an Air Force officer who worked with the CIA and was photographed in Dealey Plaza on the day JFK was shot. Prouty and some of his Pentagon colleagues who worked with Lansdale are convinced that Lansdale is the man in the black suit who was photographed as he walked past the “hobo” suspects on Dealey Plaza about an hour after the shooting. Prouty said Lansdale specialized in organizing sniper teams, and appeared to have orchestrated the shooter team that killed Kennedy. After the 1978 House Assassinations committed re-opened the JFK case, a New York Times book pointed to the mob as having organized the murder. The Times and other corporate sheets have neglected to discuss the Lansdale story.

So what is the “fantastic” aspect of the Watergate case that Woodward referred to? What is it about Felt that Woodward thinks will lead us to a major breakthrough?

Don’t ask Woodward. As managing editor of the Washington Post, he has worked too long within Graham family money circles to step forward and make an explicit statement. Katharine Graham’s family was extremely wealthy throughout her childhood and was intermarried with prominent Jewish financial families. Growing up in a variety of mansions, one of which was literally a palace in the New York countryside, Katharine adopted her parents’ Republican outlook as a teenager yet grew more liberal with the rise of fascism. Bob Woodward was raised a Republican and later worked for the Office of Naval Intelligence before he became a reporter. He hand delivered secret documents to Pentagon leaders and the White House during the Vietnam War, which may be why Mark Felt favored Woodward: Woodward wasn’t one of those anti-war people who, as Kissinger later noted, verged on civil conflict with the administration.

Owned by Katharine Graham’s family, the Washington Post has long been criticized for being a CIA-friendly sheet, if not its mouthpiece, in some cases. Some Post writers, i.e. Walter Pincus, were once CIA employees and are rumored to have directly aided the CIA while working at the Post. Katharine Graham once remarked that “governments need to keep secrets,” suggesting that she wasn’t about to air the CIA’s dirtiest laundry. For economic reasons, Post editors want to be favored by sitting administrations in order to get exclusive stories. During the current phase of “globalization” (code word for Bush’s Orwellian kind of empire) Post writers are even more reluctant to embarrass the government. Some critics have panned Woodward’s last book, Bush at War, for being little more than leaks by Bush insiders trying to cultivate close relations with the paper that sank Nixon.

In her autobiography, Katharine Graham wrote that upon hearing JFK had been shot, her mother remarked that the US is just another “goddamned banana republic.” Katharine’s decision to include the remark in her autobiography suggests that she suspected criminal conspiracy in the assassination, even though she denied the fact for most of her life. Katharine Graham’s biographer Deborah Davis wrote that after Katharine’s husband Phillip commited suicide, Richard Helms’ purported grandfather, Gates White McGarrah, steered Katharine Graham into the purchase of Newsweek magazine before others found out that it was up for sale. If biographer Davis is correct, Katharine Graham had a conflict of interest in her coverage of Richard Helms because Helms’ purported grandfather helped Katharine go from owning a metropolitan sheet to owning a national news magazine.

As Woodward suggests, those who research Mark Felt will find that one aspect of the story, does, in fact, lead to another. There may be more to the Helms-Graham relationship than is commonly known. Read the following story: www.newsmakingnews.com/helmslobuono.htm for a summary of how Howard Hughes and Richard Helms may not merely have worked toward the same CIA ends; they may have shared aspects of their identity. A comparison of photos on the link above shows that Hughes and Helms were look-alikes when photographed from certain perspectives. The history of the subject suggests that a double identity may have been arranged through Rockefeller and Mellon family sponsorship, presumably for oil industry and intelligence reasons.

Watergate burglars specifically targeted Hughes lawyer Larry O’Brien’s files during the burglary of Democratic National Headquarters in 1972 because O’Brien was Chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Why did Nixon’s men risk arrest to learn more about Hughes lawyer O’Brien and Democratic Party strategy in 1972?

During Nixon’s failed 1960 run against John Kennedy for the presidency, an unpaid $205,000 loan by Howard Hughes to Nixon’s brother Donald embarrassed Nixon and may have cost him the election. Hughes money given to Nixon on later occasions also proved embarrassing. It was a recurrent theme during Nixon’s years in office.

Nixon may have suspected that further Hughes and Helms-CIA dirt on Nixon might be used in the 1972 campaign, hence the Watergate break-in was planned in order to go through Larry O’Brien’s files and check on the possibility. In 2003, Jeb Stuart Magruder stated that Nixon, himself, ordered the break-in. The resort to criminal means suggests that Nixon may have been afraid of something, or someone in the CIA, which is consistent with Bob Woodward’s remark that those who investigate W. Mark Felt will make unexpected discoveries. Of course, we now know that the CIA was (and still is) a hotbed of murder, narcotics trafficking, and more. But what is so “fantastic” about that? Was there a larger struggle going on within government that the public was unaware of?

Obviously, the “incredible” covert project wasn’t COINTELPRO. Although Felt objected to some aspects of COINTELPRO, Woodward’s recent article about Felt says that Felt followed FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover’s instructions on COINTELPRO largely without question. Perhaps the biggest thorn in the side of law enforcement during Felt’s FBI years was massive narcotics trafficking by the CIA and other intelligence agencies.

Historians have documented Air America’s heroin shipments for defense and CIA purposes, plus countless CIA and defense intelligence interventions to stop prosecutions of narcotics traffickers. US intelligence agencies have thwarted local, state, and federal prosecution of narcotic traffickers for decades by saying that narcotics cases were part of their intelligence operations. National security has been invoked to keep FBI and other officials quiet.

For example, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover opposed the formation of the CIA, fearing that it would become a hotbed of corruption where intelligence officers would live richly by taking bribes. During World War II, US intelligence used Meyer Lansky’s gangsters in “Operation Underworld” and after the war, Lansky’s mob reigned supreme in US narcotics trafficking. During the Vietnam War, heroin was stuffed into the cadavers of dead GI’s by CIA defense operatives, then shipped to America for sale. In 1979 a nightmarish case of narcotics, murders and theft was investigated by the FBI: Mexican Miguel Nazar Haro, head of Mexico’s spy agency, was indicted in San Diego, but the CIA intervened to stop the case. In the Iran Contra case, Oliver North noted that George Bush Sr. was present at a meeting in which cocaine shipments by the Contras were apparently condoned. Later, Danilo Blandon, the prime seller of cocaine to Los Angeles when the Crips and the Bloods were getting into the trade, was targeted for arrest. An FBI teletype of a conversation between Blandon and his lawyer about Blandon’s guns-for-drugs enterprise reads, “CIA winked at this sort of thing.”

In other words, Mark Felt’s most honest FBI agents were forced to watch their anti-narcotics work be sabotaged by corrupt intelligence officers. A recent example of the sort is the case of Sibel Edmonds, the FBI translator who said that during the months before 9-11, she read FBI documents about possible terrorist plans to fly a civilian jet into the twin towers but when she tried to tell news media she was silenced by Bush’s Attorney General John Ashcroft. Sibel Edmonds says that in her FBI work, she read documents about massive narcotics trafficking abetted by US government agencies. She told reporter Amy Goodman she saw documents about “criminal investigation, and money laundering investigation, drug related investigations that actually have major information regarding 9-11 incidents.”

Daniel Hopsicker’s recent book Welcome to Terrorland shows that Bush Jr.’s subordinates worked to prevent public awareness of narcotics trafficking surrounding the 911 hijackers’ flight training in the small coastal city of Venice, Florida. Apparently, numerous heroin flights preceded the arrest of two men caught with 43 pounds of heroin in the private jet of Wally Hilliard, a businessman with Bush family and CIA ties. The heroin was seized by DEA agents at Hilliard’s small Venice, FL airport/flight school where 9-11 ringleaders Mohammed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi were training, at the time. How does this relate to Deep Throat?

For decades, FBI men like Mark Felt were pushed aside and told to shut up so that “intelligence”-related narcotics shipments could proceed into the United States unhampered, for national security reasons. But which “incredible” and “fantastic” covert project did such narcotics trafficking point to?

The obvious answer, the only massive project that eclipsed Watergate on a major scale, is narcotics trafficking that secretly funds “reverse-engineered” black budget technologies, some of which are truly bizarre. Which covert project back in 1971-2 was more important than Watergate? Government whistle-blower and former head of Air Force Project Pounce, Col. Steve Wilson, told researcher Richard Boylan that "the first successful U.S. antigravity flight took place July 18, 1971 at S-4 (on Nellis Air Force base in Nevada), wherein light bending capabilities were also demonstrated to obtain total invisibilities. Present at this flight were notables such as Admiral (Bobbie Ray) Inman (former National Security Agency director), who is now head of SAIC (Science Applications International, Incorporated) in San Diego, CA, which makes the antigravity drives."

Physician Steven Greer is the head of an organization called CSETI that has videotaped testimony by 570 current and former defense, intelligence, and aviation officials who report direct experiences with “aliens” and UFO’s while on duty. Says Greer, “I have interviewed other very well placed people who have connected these black projects to the drug trade. One, a senior SAIC (Science Applications International Corporation) executive directly told me of this and how there was an army of 8000 men who did nothing but import drugs under the cover of classified, need-to-know operations. He stated that of the 8000 men involved (as of 1997 when we spoke of this) that 2000 of them had been killed for sometimes minor infractions of security. He assured me that this was a major covert funding source and that it was destroying our country, but nobody is willing to take on such a lethal and powerful group to stop it.” (p. 268-9, Disclosure, by Steven Greer). Admiral Bobby Ray Inman appears to be Greer’s informant on the subject. Inman should know; he was Director of Naval Intelligence in 1974, Vice Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 1976, and Deputy director of the CIA from 1980-81 under Reagan before working for SAIC.

Buttressing Inman’s story, is that of Former Army Col. Phillip Corso, who worked in Eisenhower’s White House and in the Pentagon. Corso wrote a memoir stating that a major high-level campaign to copy downed “alien technology” began as early as 1961, if not sooner. As the project developed, private industry began to gain control over the project. President Eisenhower told Brigadier General Stephen Lovekin and others that alien-related affairs and technology were being taken from his control. As Eisenhower said, “It is not going to be in the best hands.” (Lovekin’s testimony, p. 235, Disclosure, by Steven Greer) Eisenhower’s fears were echoed in his farewell statement that “we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

Those who are new to the subject of alien technology may not know that for decades numerous top US officials have made public admissions on the subject. The list includes former presidents, astronauts, high-ranking Pentagon brass, and more. See CSETI’s publications on the subject.

If Gen. Lovekin and others are correct, a power struggle within the US government centered on one simple question: who would control the most important technology that had ever been “discovered” by humankind? (scavenged might be a better word) Who would own and control what we now know as “electrogravity” technology (antigravity)?

Other CSETI witnesses report that the Hughes Corporation did extensive research on downed alien antigravity technology. Witnesses to Hughes work on antigravity are: aerospace contractor James McCandlish, Air Force Lt. Col. John Williams, classified graphics worker Don Johnson, and a top secret scientist and engineer named “Dr. B.” (p. 265, Disclosure) In other words, Howard Hughes, who figured importantly in Watergate, was heavily involved in an “incredible” covert project.

Hughes’ role in the covert project may have been frustrated when Nixon contributor Robert Vesco escaped the United States in 1971 with $224 million in Investor's Overseas Service (IOS) money, much of which was dirty money laundered into the Bahamas to avoid paying taxes. Howard Hughes may have lost millions in the theft because, as Hughes biographers Bartlett and Steele report, many millions of Hughes’ money was laundered into the Bahamas, where it mysteriously disappeared during the same time period.

In 1971 when the first successful US antigravity flight assured that manufacture of such technology would soon follow, a shady financier named Robert Vesco met and did business with Hughes' arch competitors in the Du Pont family just before Vesco escaped abroad with the looted IOS millions. The two Du Ponts sold a company called All American Aviation to Vesco, who was then known for mob ties. Shortly afterward, Vesco, who was short on cash at the time, took millions from All American’s accounts and used it to bankroll his looting of IOS’ $224 million.

In other words, Du Pont money made the IOS looting possible. Vesco consulted with mob financier Meyer Lansky's aides, Dino and Eddie Celini, in Rome before looting IOS. In short, just before Nixon's 1972 re-election campaign and Watergate, Hughes (and Helms at the CIA) may have been betrayed, Hughes nearly bankrupted, by a Du Pont faction that was competing with a Hughes-Mellon-Rockefeller faction for control of reverse-engineered antigravity technology. Later the Hughes-Mellon-Rockefeller faction joined with Allied Chemical, the company that Katharine Graham’s father had owned a major share in.

Within months, Richard Helms’ Hughes-related CIA was maneuvering in ways that helped to expose the Watergate case, perhaps as revenge against Nixon, who had favored the Du Pont faction and Vesco over Hughes.

As a result of his big cash losses, Hughes’ finances were crippled and Hughes Aircraft was soon taken over by Du Pont–controlled General Motors. All of the reverse-engineered, antigravity technology that Hughes had been working on was apparently taken by Du Pont family interests. It was an aviation coup, of sorts, that involved the worst of organized crime.

Those who haven’t read about such subjects won’t appreciate just how “fantastic” the further implications of the Mark Felt story actually are. Would Bob Woodward actually come right out and speak about such things?

Not explicitly. Woodward is employed by a family that had a financial stake in military-industrial contracts of the sort. Katharine Graham’s father, Eugene Meyer, was the prime organizer of Allied Chemical Corporation. Meyer, who later became Herbert Hoover’s governor of the Federal Reserve Board, earned most of his fortune through Allied Chemical, which later merged with Martin-Marietta, now part of Allied-Lockheed Martin. Allied-Lockheed Martin is deeply involved in the manufacture of Cosmic Top Secret technologies used in craft like the Stealth bomber, the X-22A, the TR-3B and other craft like the reported TAW-50, the most recent gravity-manipulating craft in the United States arsenal. The famous Skunk Works is an Allied-Lockheed Martin facility.

As numerous government whistleblowers have stated, question remains as to who actually controls such technologies: the US government or a cabal of private manufacturers who have used billions in black budget narcotics profits to fund reverse-engineered technologies in order to avoid having to report the cash flows to Congress. Secrecy of the sort has allowed certain private estates to lie and steal from the US government without Congressional oversight. In other words, greed, rather than secrecy, may be the motive. Back in 1972 when W. Mark Felt helped expose Nixon in Watergate, the CIA was up to its eyebrows in criminal activities.

When antigravity “flight” was reportedly first achieved in 1971, Nixon’s second presidential campaign was being organized and Watergate would soon follow. The winner of the 1972 election would have leverage in determining who would profit by the manufacture of reverse-engineered anti-gravity technology. *Some researchers say it isn’t actually “anti-gravity” technology because it manipulates different kinds of gravity, instead. Retired naval engineer Col. Tom Bearden and others write at length about their experience with “electrogravity” technology. Over time, Bearden has become the grand old man of electrogravity theory, yet black budget physicists may have slightly different equations for electrogravity. In 1947 when Truman’s National Security Act was first implemented, black budget labs reportedly plunged into the study of reverse-engineered technology with an intensity that rivaled the Manhattan Project.

Did Bob Woodward hint at such “fantastic” subjects when he discussed Deep Throat with the San Francisco Chronicle a few years ago? He might have, but as the employee of a family whose fortune derived from Allied-Lockheed Martin, he had little room to discuss such subjects openly. The best he could possibly do while working for Katharine Graham’s son, Donald, at present, would be to vaguely hint at such subjects. Non-corporate press has taken the lead in reporting on such topics, given that corporate sheets tend to be compromised due to their dependence on defense-related advertisers and finance.

Watergate occurred at the height of the Cold War, hence Mark Felt and others who ranked high enough in the US government to know about antigravity technology assumed that it was “illegal” to talk about it. They feared that the Soviets or other challengers might misuse such technology. As CSETI witness “Dr. B” noted, military men who spoke loosely about the project were killed to keep it secret.

So how would Woodward have known enough to appreciate the “incredible,” or “fantastic” nature of the project? Woodward had two direct routes to information about aliens and antigravity technology. During Woodward’s Navy intelligence stint, he personally handed secret documents to top Pentagon Brass and the White House. According to dozens of CSETI witnesses, an abundance of information about secret labs, UFO sightings, and foreign encounters of the sort is handled by top Pentagon brass daily. Secondly, for years the Navy has had a special role in researching recovered “alien” technologies because when downed alien craft were first seized for study, the US military assumed that they were nuclear powered.

The Navy was the first service to experiment with nuclear reactors at a research station near Twin Falls, ID because the Navy wanted to use them to power submarines. For that reason, Woodward’s Navy has long had its own program of research and intelligence regarding recovered alien technology, although the Army and the Air Force tried to compete with separate programs. In short, Woodward had two possible routes to information about recovered technology: his ONI briefings to top Pentagon brass (and the White House), and the Navy’s traditionally more independent role in researching alien technology.

During his “Deep Throat” meetings with Woodward, Mark Felt probably didn’t need to explicitly say that the “incredible” covert project shared by all intelligence agencies concerned antigravity technology. All Felt had to do was make an oblique hint. Given his previous intelligence work at the highest levels in government, Woodward should have understood Felt immediately.

Even if Woodward didn’t understand the “incredible” nature of the secret project that loomed so largely behind Watergate, he has had 32 years since then to pick up on the subject. By the time Woodward spoke to the San Francisco Chronicle a few years ago, hundreds of witnesses had publicly testified about antigravity technology. Perhaps that’s why Woodward went out of his way to emphasize that a “fantastic” discovery may soon unfold, now that we can begin to analyze Mark Felt’s cryptic revelation.

However, Woodward has little reason to think most readers will go from learning about Felt, to a succession of further discoveries, culminating in a “fantastic” breakthrough. Watergate is old news. It won’t hold the public’s attention for long.

The fantastic nature of the covert project that Mark Felt spoke about requires sustained, if not combative, reporting on the scale of Watergate by major news outlets. Given the lack of investigative reporting done by the handful of conglomerates that control most US media 32 years after Watergate, it will take a major crisis to tease out such details. However, given the scale of the project, the leads should be abundant.

*A People’s Commonality Posting