Tag: White House tapes

Nixon asked CIA about the ‘Who shot John angle’

Nixon Helms
President Nixon and CIA Director Richard Helms.

The 42nd anniversary of the Watergate burglary reminded me of  Richard Nixon’s obsession with the “whole of Bay of Pigs thing.”

H.R. Haldeman, White House chief of staff for Nixon, wrote in his memoirs that he had come to the conclusion that his boss used the phrase as a kind of coded reference to the assassination of President Kennedy.

A tape of a conversation between Nixon and CIA director Richard Helms in October 1971 lends credence to the notion. Listen to the tape, published online by Luke A. Nichter, a history professor at Texas A&M University.

Nixon, it is clear, was interested in what he called the ‘Who Shot John?’ angle.

Listen.

Scroll to Top