Operation Sandwedge
Richard Nixon's 1972 re-election | |
Target |
|
---|---|
Outcome | Succeeded by Operation Gemstone |
Operation Sandwedge was a proposed clandestine intelligence-gathering operation against the political enemies of U.S. President Richard Nixon's administration. The proposals were put together by Nixon's Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman, domestic affairs assistant John Ehrlichman and staffer Jack Caulfield in 1971. Caulfield, a former police officer, created a plan to target the Democratic Party and the anti-Vietnam War movement, inspired by what he believed to be the Democratic Party's employment of a private investigation firm.
The operation was planned to help
Control of Sandwedge was passed to G. Gordon Liddy, who abandoned it in favor of a strategy of his own devising, Operation Gemstone, which detailed a plan to break into Democratic Party offices in the Watergate complex. Liddy's plan eventually led to the downfall of Nixon's presidency, which Caulfield believed would have been avoided had Sandwedge been acted upon.
Background
Watergate scandal |
---|
Events |
People |
In 1968, Richard Nixon, the Republican Party nominee, won the presidential election, defeating Democrat Hubert Humphrey, the incumbent Vice President. Nixon's margin of victory in the popular vote was seven-tenths of a percent.[1][2] Nixon had previously contested the 1960 election, narrowly losing to Democrat John F. Kennedy by a margin of less than 118,000 votes, which amounted to less than two-tenths of a percent of the total.[3] The close margins involved in these elections—in particular, a swing of 28,000 votes in Texas or 4,500 in Illinois would have changed the outcomes in those states[4]—have been cited by historian Theodore H. White as the impetus for future Nixon campaigns valuing every potential vote and not merely seeking a majority.[5] White also makes the claim that electoral fraud was widespread within both main parties of the 1960 election.[6] Nixon appointed H. R. Haldeman as his Chief of Staff; a position which granted Haldeman a relatively large degree of control over the activities of the presidential administration.[7] Haldeman had first worked for Nixon in 1956, when Nixon was running as Dwight D. Eisenhower's vice-presidential candidate in the 1952 election.[8]
By 1971, Nixon's staff were receiving a cursory intelligence report from Haldeman's assistant, Gordon C. Strachan; Strachan's reports essentially collated information about political rallies and campaign groups that had already been gathered by the police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Nixon's initial re-election bid had already involved planting rumors and false information about his opponents as a dedicated strategy; these tactics had been dubbed "political hardball" by Nixon's opposition researcher, Pat Buchanan.[9] In August 1971, Strachan had convinced Jeb Stuart Magruder, a member of the Committee for the Re-Election of the President (CRP)—the campaign group for Nixon's re-election bid—to infiltrate the office of Edmund Muskie. Muskie was a Democratic senator who had been Humphrey's 1968 vice-presidential candidate, and was a front-runner for his party's presidential bid for the 1972 campaign.[10]
Inception
In late 1971,
John Ehrlichman, who was a long-time friend of Haldeman[8] and had also served as White House Counsel, had been part of the operation's inception; by 1971 he was Nixon's domestic affairs assistant.[15][16] Ehrlichman had initially hired Caulfield in 1969. Ehrlichman intended that Caulfield should conduct private investigations while undercover as a private sector employee; it was Caulfield who insisted on working from the White House.[17] Caulfield's work to this end had already resulted in two wiretaps on phone lines—one on Nixon's brother Donald, and another on journalist Joseph Kraft.[18]
Caulfield prepared a twelve-page draft proposal detailing an intelligence-gathering strategy, aimed at the opposition Democratic Party; he worked on this draft for several months and presented it to Nixon's staff in September 1971. The proposal, dubbed "Operation Sandwedge",[nb 1] called for a budget of $500,000 (equivalent to $3,761,709 in 2023), primarily to cover private investigative work and security for the Republican National Convention, although Caulfield intimated privately that it would also include electronic surveillance.[19]
Planned activities
The operation's investigations and surveillance would, in part, assess how the
Caulfield recruited
Cancellation
In October 1971, Haldeman, Mitchell, Magruder and Strachan met to discuss the Sandwedge project.
Liddy built upon the proposals to devise "
Liddy's revised Gemstone plan included a range of illegal activities, including a proposal to
Aftermath
In the course of the Watergate scandal, 69 people were tried for various crimes. Of those tried, 48 pled guilty. Among those found guilty for covering up the affair were Haldeman, Ehrlichmann, Mitchell, Dean and Magruder; Liddy was found guilty for his role in the break-ins. All 48 men served time in prison as a result of their convictions.[29] Faced with impeachment in the aftermath, Nixon resigned the presidency on August 8, 1974.[30] He remains the only president to have resigned the office.[31]
Caulfield has suggested that Sandwedge's cancellation by the administration was an error in judgment, possibly "the most monumental of the Nixon Presidency".[12] He believed that, had Sandwedge been adopted as the campaign's strategy, "there would have been no Liddy, no Hunt, no McCord", and the subsequent Watergate scandal would not have occurred.[12] Speaking of the initial proposal, Dean defended its merits, stating that "Caulfield, not the plan itself, had killed Sandwedge".[32]
See also
Footnotes
- ^ John Dean attributes the name to Caulfield's enthusiasm for golf, noting that a sand wedge club is used to recover a ball from precarious ground.[19]
Notes
- ^ "1968 Electoral College Results". National Archives and Records Administration. November 5, 2019. Archived from the original on October 16, 2021. Retrieved October 16, 2021.
- ^ Black 2007, p. 558.
- ^ White 1975, pp. 70–71.
- ^ White 1975, p. 71.
- ^ White 1975, pp. 71–72.
- ^ White 1975, p. 70.
- ^ Genovese 2009, p. 86.
- ^ a b Severo, Richard (November 13, 1993). "H. R. Haldeman, Nixon Aide Who Had Central Role in Watergate, Is Dead at 67". The New York Times. Archived from the original on October 19, 2012. Retrieved August 18, 2012.
- ^ Dean 1977, p. 72.
- ^ Dean 1977, pp. 72–73.
- ^ Dean 1977, p. 73.
- ^ a b c d e Caulfield, Jack. "Watergate.com's Nixon Era Times: In Their Own Words – Jack Caulfield". Mountain State University. Archived from the original on April 5, 2012. Retrieved October 17, 2015.
- ^ White 1975, p. 154.
- ^ Emery 1994, p. 74.
- ^ Warshaw 2013, p. 274.
- ^ a b c "Jack Caulfield". The Daily Telegraph. July 11, 2012. Archived from the original on September 11, 2012. Retrieved August 17, 2012.
- ^ Emery 1994, pp. 74–75.
- ^ Emery 1994, p. 75.
- ^ a b c d Dean 1977, p. 74.
- ^ Clarke, Thurston (June 2008). "The Last Good Campaign". Vanity Fair. Archived from the original on December 20, 2014. Retrieved September 18, 2021.
- ^ Genovese 1999, p. 27.
- ^ a b Emery 1994, p. 77.
- ^ Meyer, Lawrence (November 10, 1988). "John N. Mitchell, Principal in Watergate, Dies at 75". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on August 30, 2008. Retrieved January 12, 2012.
- ^ a b Emery 1994, p. 78.
- ^ Impeachment 1998, p. 57.
- ^ Dean 1977, p. 75.
- ^ Dean 1977, pp. 81–84.
- ^ a b Knight 2003, p. 725.
- ^ Marsh, Bill (October 30, 2005). "Ideas and Trends; When Criminal Charges Reach the White House". The New York Times. Archived from the original on October 6, 2014. Retrieved August 18, 2012.
- ^ Black 2007, pp. 1007–1010.
- ^ "About the Vice President – Richard M. Nixon, 36th Vice President (1953–1961)". United States Senate. Archived from the original on September 21, 2021. Retrieved September 21, 2021.
- ^ Dean 1977, p. 77.
References
- ISBN 978-1-58648-519-1.
- ISBN 978-0-35230-136-9.
- Emery, Fred (1994). Watergate: The Corruption & Fall of Richard Nixon. Random House. ISBN 978-0-22403-694-8.
- Genovese, Michael A (1999). The Watergate Crisis. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-31329-878-3.
- Genovese, Michael A (2009). Encyclopedia of the American Presidency. Infobase Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4381-2638-8.
- Knight, Peter, ed. (2003). Conspiracy Theories in American History: An Encyclopedia. Vol. 1. ISBN 978-1-57607-812-9.
- United States House Committee on the Judiciary, ed. (1998). Impeachment: Selected Materials, November 1998, Part 1. ISBN 978-0-16057-703-1.
- Warshaw, Shirley Anne (2013). Guide to the White House Staff. ISBN 978-1-4522-3432-8.
- ISBN 978-0-68910-658-3.
External links
- White House Surveillance Activities and Campaign Activities – Hearings before the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, Ninety-third Congress