Alfred C. Baldwin III

Alfred C. Baldwin III
Born	Alfred Carleton Baldwin III (1936-06-23)June 23, 1936 New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.
Died	January 15, 2020(2020-01-15) (aged 83) New Paltz, New York, U.S.
Education	Fairfield University (BBA) University of Connecticut (LLB)
Known for	Role in the Watergate scandal
Relatives	Raymond E. Baldwin (great-uncle)
Military career
Service/branch	United States Marine Corps
Years of service	1957–1960
Battles/wars	Vietnam War

Alfred Carleton Baldwin (June 23, 1936 – January 15, 2020) was an American

Baldwin joined the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 1963 and was assigned to offices in Tampa, Memphis, and Sarasota. He resigned from the FBI in 1966 and joined a trucking company as director of security. He later worked to establish a program for law enforcement personnel at the University of New Haven. Baldwin was recruited to work for the Committee for the Re-Election of the President in 1972 and was first assigned as a bodyguard for Martha Mitchell.^[3]

Watergate scandal and investigation

Baldwin testified during congressional investigations that he had typed "almost verbatim" transcripts of phone conversations coming from the DNC headquarters, but G. Gordon Liddy testified in deposition that what he had been getting from Baldwin had only been logs that were "useless." Liddy says that he then dictated logs, "editing" as he went, and that he had his secretary, Sally Harmony, type up his dictations on stationery with "GEMSTONE" printed across the top.

Liddy said in his autobiography and in sworn deposition that he only met Baldwin once, and then only briefly, on May 31, 1972, in the dark "listening post" that had been set up by James McCord in room 723 of the Howard Johnson's motel across the street from the Watergate.

Alfred Baldwin said under oath in his congressional testimony that five days earlier than that, on the afternoon of May 26, 1972, he had been introduced by McCord to both Liddy and E. Howard Hunt in the first room McCord had rented, Room 419 of the Howard Johnson's. Baldwin also testified that later on that same night of May 26, about 1:00 or 2:00 a.m., he rode around in a car with McCord and Liddy for "over half an hour" near George McGovern's headquarters, discussing prospects for breaking in there, but that Liddy had finally said: "We'll abort the mission."

According to a 2012 article, Baldwin was distracted watching the film Attack of the Puppet People on TV and did not observe the arrival of a police car in front of the Watergate building,^[4] nor did he see the plainclothes officers investigating the DNC's sixth floor suite of 29 offices. By the time Baldwin finally noticed unusual activity on the sixth floor and radioed the burglars, it was already too late.^[4]

Liddy's co-commander of the Watergate ops, retired

Hunt testified before the United States Senate Watergate Committee on September 25, 1973, that he suspected Baldwin of being a double agent with Democratic ties who betrayed the Watergate operation.^[5]

Baldwin was never charged or convicted in relation to the Watergate scandal. He gave a long interview to the Los Angeles Times, which was published in October, 1972. This material set off a string of other investigative articles which, combined with Congressional hearings and law enforcement investigations, eventually broke open the scandal, over the next two years.

Later career and death

In September 1974, Baldwin became a science teacher at Sheridan Middle School in New Haven, Connecticut. He later served as a prosecutor for the Connecticut Superior Court from 1986 until his retirement in 1996. Baldwin died of cancer on January 15, 2020, at the age of 83, though his death was not widely reported until May 2022.^[6][7]

References