Did Richard Nixon Try To Blackmail The C.I.A. Into Helping Him Quash The Watergate Investigation?

Richard Nixon attempted to get the CIA to use its influence on the FBI to bring the Watergate investigation to a halt. Nixon hoped that if the CIA indicated that national security issues were at stake, the FBI would back off. Nixon instructed his aide H. R. Haldeman to tell CIA director Richard Helms that, if the investigation went ahead, Nixon was worried that "that whole Bay of Pigs thing might come out."

On the face of it, this is a puzzling remark since the Bay of Pigs operation became public as soon as the operation failed in 1960. This was more than a decade before the time when the remark was made.

In his book, the Ends of Power, Haldeman wrote that, because of the voice taping system which had been installed in the White House, Nixon used code words for certain very sensitive subjects. According to Haldeman, his code phrase for the Kennedy assassination was "Bay of Pigs." This has led some conspiracy theorists to believe that, in order to save his own political career, Nixon was threatening to expose the CIA's role in assassinating President Kennedy.

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