Alleged CIA Involvement and Internal Power Struggle Behind Watergate Break‑In

to tell them, except that | could agree with their speculation that the motive was revenge for the Bay of Pigs failure. There’ s no doubt in my mind that if you had been elected in 1960, the invasion would have been completely successful. For a while | believed that Bernard Barker was the double agent in Watergate, but | have since come to the conclusion that our leader, James McCord, was guided to do the things he did by certain officials in the CIA. We were definitely set up. They used us to eventually destroy the office of the presidency. You were just as expendable as Kennedy. | shouldn’ t have been surprised Mr. McCord was our Security Chief. | myself, as an infiltrator of Castro’ s inner circle, rose to Director of Security for the Cuban Air Force and Director of Intelligence. Who can you trust? Whereas | agree with Frank Sturgis that the Watergate burglars were “set up,” | question the reason he gives. The CIA was fully aware that relations with the People’ s Republic of China were bound to open up sooner or later. And of course | wanted to earn credit for that in history. Rather, | am convinced that there was a power struggle within the Agency. The “faction” to which Sturgis alludes—most likely led by CIA’ s Richard Helms—was jealous of the Special Intelligence Unit we had developed inside the White House. k kK *k Not only was the Watergate break-in deliberately bungled in order to discredit me, but the White House taping system was never part of my domain. | knew it had been installed by the Secret Service, but | lacked HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_015114