Richard Nixon and the Plot to Kill Jack Anderson
I'm reading Don Fulsom's recently released book on Richard Nixon entitled Nixon's Darkest Secrets: The Inside Story of America's Most Troubled President and in the book Fulsom makes some serious allegations against Nixon, not the least of which is that Nixon was may have authorized the execution of famed investigative journalist Jack Anderson.
Anderson was an American newspaper columnist, who wrote a syndicated political column for United Features Syndicate. He is considered by many to be one of the pioneers of modern investigative journalism. Anderson won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 1972 for his investigation on secret American policy decision-making between the United States and Pakistan during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971. In addition to his newspaper career, Anderson also had a syndicated radio show with the Mutual Broadcasting Network, acted as Washington bureau chief of Parade Magazine, and was a commentator on ABC-TV's Good Morning America for nine years.
Jack Anderson made a lot of enemies in Washington, not the least of which were Nixon and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. Anderson reported on Hoover's apparent ties to the Mafia. Other frequent and favourite topics of his were the Watergate scandal, and the assassination of John F. Kennedy. He also reported on the investigation and harassment by the Nixon administration of John Lennon during the fight to deport Lennon.
President Richard Nixon had a long standing grudge with Anderson. On the eve of the 1960 election, Anderson published a story about a secret loan from Howard Hughes to Nixon's brother Donald and Nixon believed that this was a large part of the reason for hiss loss of the very close 1960 presidential election to John F. Kennedy.
In 1972, Anderson was the target of an assassination plot that was hatched in the White House. Two Nixon administration staff members testified under oath that they plotted to poison Anderson on orders from a senior White House aide. G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt, two members of the Watergate conspirators group known as the "plumbers", met with a CIA operative to discuss the possibilities, including drugging Anderson with LSD, poisoning his aspirin bottle, or staging a fatal mugging. Fulson writes that a doctor employed by the CIA also sat in on the meetings as an advisor on how best to posion someone.
The plot was aborted when Liddy and Hunt were arrested for the Watergate break-in. Anderson was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 1986. He died of complications from the disease in December of 2005 at the age of 83, outlasting Nixon, Hoover and many of his other enemies.
In an article written by Mark Feldstein about Anderson in the Washington Post some months before Anderson's death entitled The Last Muckracker, Feldstein describes Anderson thusly:
"Anderson was able to break these stories in part because he was an independent journalistic entrepreneur, empowered by the technology and economic autonomy of the syndicated column. His reach extended beyond the control of any single editor or publisher. He was a strict Mormon who viewed investigative reporting as a noble calling from God. He believed as a matter of theology that life is an eternal struggle between good and evil, and that the First Amendment was quite literally a divinely inspired charter that sanctioned his muckraking mission."
Anderson was an American newspaper columnist, who wrote a syndicated political column for United Features Syndicate. He is considered by many to be one of the pioneers of modern investigative journalism. Anderson won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 1972 for his investigation on secret American policy decision-making between the United States and Pakistan during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971. In addition to his newspaper career, Anderson also had a syndicated radio show with the Mutual Broadcasting Network, acted as Washington bureau chief of Parade Magazine, and was a commentator on ABC-TV's Good Morning America for nine years.
Jack Anderson made a lot of enemies in Washington, not the least of which were Nixon and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. Anderson reported on Hoover's apparent ties to the Mafia. Other frequent and favourite topics of his were the Watergate scandal, and the assassination of John F. Kennedy. He also reported on the investigation and harassment by the Nixon administration of John Lennon during the fight to deport Lennon.
President Richard Nixon had a long standing grudge with Anderson. On the eve of the 1960 election, Anderson published a story about a secret loan from Howard Hughes to Nixon's brother Donald and Nixon believed that this was a large part of the reason for hiss loss of the very close 1960 presidential election to John F. Kennedy.
In 1972, Anderson was the target of an assassination plot that was hatched in the White House. Two Nixon administration staff members testified under oath that they plotted to poison Anderson on orders from a senior White House aide. G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt, two members of the Watergate conspirators group known as the "plumbers", met with a CIA operative to discuss the possibilities, including drugging Anderson with LSD, poisoning his aspirin bottle, or staging a fatal mugging. Fulson writes that a doctor employed by the CIA also sat in on the meetings as an advisor on how best to posion someone.
The plot was aborted when Liddy and Hunt were arrested for the Watergate break-in. Anderson was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 1986. He died of complications from the disease in December of 2005 at the age of 83, outlasting Nixon, Hoover and many of his other enemies.
In an article written by Mark Feldstein about Anderson in the Washington Post some months before Anderson's death entitled The Last Muckracker, Feldstein describes Anderson thusly:
"Anderson was able to break these stories in part because he was an independent journalistic entrepreneur, empowered by the technology and economic autonomy of the syndicated column. His reach extended beyond the control of any single editor or publisher. He was a strict Mormon who viewed investigative reporting as a noble calling from God. He believed as a matter of theology that life is an eternal struggle between good and evil, and that the First Amendment was quite literally a divinely inspired charter that sanctioned his muckraking mission."