"Gerald Ford actually won the 1976 Presidential Election..."
- Tarpley
First Lady Betty Ford Reads President Gerald Ford's Concession Speech to members of the Press with (l-r) Steve, President Ford, Susan, Mike, and Gayle watching behind her.
"Above all, look at the guy's wife - this tells much!" - Tarpley
"In the close 1976 election, Carter prevailed by vote fraud in New York, Ohio, and other states, but Ford was convinced by Nelson and Happy Rockefeller, as well as by his own distraught wife Betty, that he must concede in order to preserve the work of “healing” that he had accomplished since Watergate.
Carter would therefore enter the White House."
- George Bush: The Unauthorised Biography,
Tarpley & Steinberg, 1992
"Well, the general context to this is that Watergate is a Coup d'états.
Watergate is not what you think.
Watergate is not two crusading journalists, Woodward and Bernstein working for the loveable curmudgeon Ben Bradley at the Washington Post and fighting the establishment, and scooping the New York Times, and doing all this crazy stuff...
Watergate is a coup d'état - and it's quite evil, as you can see..."
"Constitutionally, gentlemen, you have the president, the vice president and the secretary of state, in that order.
As for now, I'm in control here, in the White House."
General Alexander Haig,
March 30, 1981
"Bush prepared to make his bid for continuity at the CIA. Shortly after the election, he was scheduled to journey to Plains to brief Carter once again with the help of his deputy Henry Knoche. Early in the morning Bush and Knoche stopped off at the Old Executive Office Building to talk to Budget Director Robert Lynn in order to secure a cash infusion for the CIA, which was facing a budgetary crunch. Bush then dropped in on Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, and also went into the Oval Office to talk to Ford.
The critical meeting with Carter went very badly indeed. Bush took Carter aside and argued that in 1960 and 1968, CIA Directors were retained during presidential transitions, and that it would make Carter look good if he did the same. Carter signalled that he wasn’t interested. Then Bush lamely stammered that if Carter wanted his own man in Langley, Bush would be willing to resign. which is of course standard procedure for all agency heads when a new president takes office. Carter said that that was indeed exactly what he wanted, and that he would have his own new DCI ready by January 21, 1977. Bush and Knoche then briefed Carter and his people for some six hours. Carter insiders told the press that Bush’s briefing had been a “disaster.” “Jimmy just wasn’t impressed with Bush,” said a key Carter staffer [fn 59].
Bush and Knoche then flew back to Washington, and on the plane Bush wrote a memo for Henry Kissinger describing his exchanges with Carter. At midnight, Bush drove to Kissinger’s home and briefed him for an hour.
Knoche said later that he was mightily impressed by Bush’s long day of meeting the budget director, the president, the vice president, the president-elect and the secretary of state, all on the same day, even if the result had been that Bush was fired. At Bush’s 9:30 AM staff meeting in Langley the next day, Knoche and a group of other officialsawarded Bush the Intelligence Medal of Merit. “It was a very touching day,” said Knoche.
Carter first attempted to make Theodore Sorenson, the former Kennedy intimate, his new CIA Director. It soon became clear that certain circles were determined to block this nomination. The Sorenson nomination was soon torpedoed by a series of leaks, including revelations that Sorenson had been a conscientious objector during World War II, plus accusations that he had taken classified documents with him when he had left the government in 1964. Carter tried to get NATO General Bernard Rogers for the post, but finally had to settle for Navy Admiral Stansfield Turner from his own class at Annapolis.
An important internal CIA issue that arose during Turner’s time in Langley was the question of personnel cuts, especially in the operations directorate. To understand Bush’s inflluence on this topic, we must go back to the Watergate era.
During the Schlesinger-Colby period, about 2,000 CIA personnel, representing about 15% of the CIA manpower complement, were dismissed. The method of these firings appears to have been heavily influenced by Shackley and his faction, who argued that CIA personnel who were in danger of being exposed by Philip Agee should be pre-emptively terminated. There is therefore much reason to think that Shackley and Agee were in cahoots. This purge touched many important posts, which could then be filled by Shackley loyalists. A description of the process is offered by retired CIA agent Joseph Burkholder Smith, who served in the Western Hemisphere division:
- A defensive operation was started immediately and every activity, agent, and officer was scrutinized to determine if Agee had already blown them or if he would write about them in his book. A Shackley henchman was installed as chief of operations [was this William Nelson?] and a cryptonym, the Agency’s badge of security significance, was assigned to the task of getting rid of the division’s operations and much of its office staff– the pre-Shackley staff, some were quick to point out. They doubted whether so much destruction was necessary, especially since Shackley had a reputation for ruthlessness and for filling key jobs with his favorites.
Whether or not such a vast amount of house cleaning was really necessary, I could not decide. All I knew was that it was dismal work. [...]
Nevertheless, I was disturbed to have to dismiss so many loyal men and upset to have the defenses I kept putting up to try to salvage something of their old lives summarily dismissed by the Star Chamber conducting the purge in Washington. When Agee’s book finally appeared, not one of the people I was ordered to fire was mentioned. [fn 60]
All of the CIA’s divisions were purged, with justifications offered that ranged from the threat of denunciation by Agee to budget constraints to poor performance to the need to make room for new blood. Schlesinger, who fired 630 officers in five months, was said to be accompanied by bodyguards during this period for fear that some disgruntled covert warrior might exact a horrible revenge.
During Bush’s tenure, the same William Nelson apparently mentioned by Smith seems to have suggested that the administrative purge had not gone far enough. In the spring of 1976, when he was about to be replaced by William Wells, Nelson again raised the issue of operations directorate personnel. “There were a lot of people in the DO [Directorate of Operations] who were marginal performers,” said Nelson in a 1988 interview. “The low middle. We needed quality, not quantity. I told [Bush] that the lower 25 per cent should be identified and should be encouraged to seek other employment….I said we owed these people a lot but not a lifetime job. He [Bush] put it in his pocket and said he would think about it.” [fn 61]
This new round of firings was relegated to Turner, who reportedly was told by Knoche on arriving at the CIA that the agency was “top-heavy.” There was the case of Cord Meyer, Knoche said, who had too much rank for the work he was doing. As Turner later recalled, “It was at this point that I learned about a study the espionage [operations] branch itself had done on its personnel situation in mid 1976, while George Bush was DCI. It called for a reduction in the size of the branch by 1350 positions over a five-year period. No action had been taken. Bush had not rejected it, but neither had he faced up to it.” [fn 62] Turner then proceeded to abolish 820 jobs, which he claims was accomplished through attrition. Other estimates of the Turner firings range between 820 and 2,800.
The plan Turner implemented was thus according to some the Nelson-Shackley-Bush plan. Certain activities of the intelligence community were being privatized and farmed out to such organisms as the National Endowment for Democracy and other such quasi-autonomous non-governmental organizations of Project Democracy. Under Reagan, this privatization of intelligence operations and their increasing assignment to non-governmental organizations was made offocial through Executive Order 12333.
Otherwise, George Bush used his last days at the CIA for his lifelong passtime, servicing his network. On December 16, he appeared at an awards ceremony in the Bubble at Langley to present a medal to Juanita Moody of the National Security Agency Product Organization staff. [fn 63]
During his year at Langley, Bush was especially forthcoming towards Wall Street, above all towards the family firm. On at least one occasion, Bush gave an exclusive private briefing, including forecasts on the future development of the world energy market, for partners and executives of Brown Brothers, Harriman. Such an incident, it is superfluous to point out, entails the gravest questions of conflict of interest. On another occasion, Bush gave a similar briefing to the board of directors of the Chase Manhattan Bank. [fn 64]
As always, Bush had special attention for Leo Cherne, the source of so much of the policy he implemented at the CIA. On November 8, Bush had called Cherne’s attention to a small item in US News and World Report which suggested that “US assessments have so underrated Russia’s strategic buildup that a top-secret study is under way to decide whether to strip the CIA of responsibility for the estimates and give it to an independent office answerable directly to the President.” Another leak on Team B! Bush told Cherne that “the attached is the kind of publicity that I am sure you would agree is very damaging. I really don’t think there is much we can do about it at this point, but I worry about it.”
Bush left Langley with Carter’s inauguration, leaving Knoche to serve a couple of months as acting DCI. In early February Bush wrote again to Leo Cherne, with whom he was now on a first-name basis:
- Thanks for that lovely letter you sent me on Feb. 2nd. I already miss our contacts a lot. I will be leaving for Houston a week from today. [...]
Should you get down that way it would be great to see you. I am joining a couple of Boards that will bring me East from time to time. I hope to keep up my interest in foreign affairs and in national politics. It is quite unclear at the moment how to do these things.
The past has been fantastic; but now I am determined to look to the future. I know it will be full of challenge. I hope it holds frequent contacts with Leo Cherne.
I will follow with interest the President’s decisions on PFIAB. Holler if I can ever be of help to you. I value our friendship.
Sincerely, George [fn 65]
Carter abolished PFIAB and fired Cherne from the IOB. George Bush now turned to his family business of international banking.
NOTES:
59. Evans and Novak column, Houston Post, December 1, 1976. For the pro-Bush account of these events, see Nicholas King, George Bush, pp. 109-110.
60. Joseph Burkholder Smith, Portrait of a Cold Warrior (New York, Putnam), p. 12.
61. Washington Post, August 10, 1988.
62. Admiral Stansfield Turner, Secrecy and Democracy (Boston, 1985), p. 196.
63. James Bamford, The Puzzle Palace, p. 250.
64. Washington Post, August 10, 1988.
65. Ford Library, Leo Cherne Papers, Box 1.
How Carter Stole the 1976 Vote
by Felice Merritt and Barbara Boyd
The 1976 presidential election hinged, just as the 1980 contest promises to hinge, on the results in a handful of states. In 1976, analysis showed that the results in the Electoral College would have been changed by a shift in the results in as few as two highly populated states. A number of Republicans, joining with supporters of Lyndon LaRouche, examined those results and determined to challenge the outcome of the presidential election, believing that it had been decided by widespread vote fraud.
A well-funded and well-organized get-out-the-vote drive, targeting the almost entirely Democratic voters in minority districts of urban areas, coupled with so-called registration reforms such as postcard and same-day registration, created the capacity to affect election outcomes by fabricating relatively small margins of fraudulent votes. Postcard registration permitted the enrollment of millions of new voters. Many of them, subsequent investigation discovered, were "ghost" voters. They did not exist. Same-day registration permitted tens of thousands to be herded from poll to poll, casting multiple votes.
The sum of those votes, it was determined, decided the election.
The case of New York
Although Jimmy Carter, according to the official election results, carried New York State by more than 230,000 votes in 1976, a lawsuit filed by New York Republicans and by LaRouche campaign managers showed that this large margin as well was composed of fraudulent votes.
The New York City Board of Elections received 600,000 postcard registrations from new registrants for the November 1976 general election. Of that number, approximately half were not verified in any way whatsoever. The director of the Board of Elections ordered county officials in New York not to send out nonforwardable first class letters to 280,000 applicants to verify their existence and their addresses, claiming she had neither the time nor the staff to make such checks. Tens of thousands of new registrations were nonetheless accepted by the Board of Elections as many as 12 days after registration was officially closed. The voting rolls were filled with invalid, duplicate, and fraudulent registrations.
A Bronx County newspaper reporter wrote that she had registered 10 times and on Election Day succeeded in voting 10 times. A Westchester County sheriffs sampling of postcard registrations found 20 percent invalid registrations. Random checks in all New York City boroughs revealed similar rates of invalidity as well as 5 to 6 percent duplicate registrations. A check of Bronx registrations showed hundreds registered at the addresses of abandoned buildings and vacant lots.
In the midst of such chaos, the director of the New York City Board of Elections instructed election inspectors: "Do not turn anyone away from the polls." She then issued public service radio announcements encouraging "everyone who registered to come out and vote."
Almost half of them did, resulting in a minimum of 250,000 fraudulent votes being cast in New York State in 1976.
Coordinated through a national Operation Big Vote, local political leaders, poverty officials, social
service directors, ministers, and others targeted the minority popUlations. Then New York City councilman Ramon Velez described how he and his political machine (centered around job training programs, CETA, and drug rehabilitation programs) pulled in 100,000 new postcard voter registrants.
One of the biggest "go-getters" in the big vote operation, Velez said, was the Bronx methadone program SERA, which sent 400 of its members out into the streets to register people. "These guys were clean, rehabbed and not on methadone," he said. Believing that Carter could get an edge in the vote in New York State, he put his machine on full mobilization. "In the last five days before the mail registration deadline, we registered 20,000 people." Velez pointed out that vote fraud is possible "only if a well-organized group is running it." He explained various ways in which bogus registrations can be multiplied throughout the city. "In the South Bronx people can register and give their address at least once in every one of New York's five boroughs. In the South Bronx people can register and give their address as a burned-out building." At the Board of Elections there was so much confusion that "the Board couldn't and didn't bother to check things like that." One of Velez's associates described sending volunteers down to the Board of Elections to process the postcard registrations collected by the organization. No verifications were performed on any of the registrations. After the election, investigators found block after block of burned-out houses and vacant lots with five or six registered voters at each location.
In areas of New York City with a less-organized machine, other discrepancies in election results pointed to similar tampering with votes. In more than 25 percent of the sample precincts chosen at random by investigators, voting records indicate that significantly fewer voters signed in at the polls than total votes cast on the voting machines. Voting machine mechanics report only one explanation for such a discrepancy-unauthorized votes cast on the machine.
The U.S. district court that considered this evidence ruled that significant irregularities had been shown in the election results. However, it ruled, no criminal intent on the part of election officials or Democratic Party workers had been shown, and so declined to overturn the election.
The case of Ohio
Polls taken over the last two weeks indicate that the presidential race in Ohio will be extraordinarily close.
In 1976, Jimmy Carter squeaked by Gerald Ford with a margin of 5,000 votes, or less than one vote per precinct.
In Ohio the coalition of Republicans and LaRouche supporters joined forces to challenge the election results in federal court, claiming vote fraud conducted through the Carter / Mondale campaign organization. Again, the crucial vehicle of the fraud was the registration and voting of thousands of fictitious persons rounded up by trade union and minority organizations to gain a critical Carter margin.
Analysis of Carter's Ohio vote shows that 400,000 of his votes, or 50 percent, came from the urban centers of Cleveland, Cincinnati, Youngstown, Toledo, and Akron-all centers of activity for Operation Big Vote. Under former Ohio secretary of state Ted Brown, the Operation Big Vote postcard and universal registration drives were resisted, with the state maintaining stringent legal requirements statewide for personal registration with a Republican and a Democrat each present. This state law was violated with abandon by Democratic election officials in these urban centers. Court testimony showed thousands of illegal registrations obtained by the appointment of deputy registrars from the ranks of AFL-CIO and UAW officials who conducted their registration drives in union halls-hardly a bastion of
Republican vigilance over registration procedures. As well, large numbers of new voters were signed up in Cincinnati and Cleveland in neighborhoods characterized by block after block of abandoned buildings.
The submitted court testimony in Ohio included numerous examples of vote fraud in the urban centers
where Jimmy Carter gathered his vote: Cleveland: In Ward II, Precinct K, a ward characteristic of Cleveland's inner city, investigators found that 40 percent of the votes were cast by nonexistent voters in a heavy Carter victory. When investigators sent out a sample of 3,200 letters to the addresses listed by voters on registration roles in the city, 10 percent were returned as nondeliverable at the address given by the voter. As investigators pulled registration cards to construct the random sample that they would use to demonstrate the overall invalidity of the statewide vote, they also discovered many registration cards missing from the books altogether. Many of these missing cards were subsequently discovered piled on the desk of Virgil Brown, the Democrat heading the Cleveland Board of Elections and a leader of Carter get-out-the-vote efforts.
Toledo: A sample of letters mailed to the registered addresses of voters here resulted in an 1 1 percent invalidity rate. Investigators, in the process of confirming the random sample utilized in court, attempted to interview persons recorded as voting on Election Day and found a surprisingly high proportion stating that although they were registered, they had not in fact voted. The cause of this phenomenon was an AFL-CIO, UA W get-out-the-vote effort which ran from the precincts where union officials kept minute by minute lists of those who had voted and then called prospective voters from phone banks in the late afternoon to determine whether or not they would, indeed, vote.
Those persons who stated their firm intention not to vote were then voted by the trade unionists. Many
nonvoters who found votes recorded for them stated to investigators that they were called by the union phone bank.
Cincinnati: Black organizations tied to Operation Big Vote in this city bragged about their registration of 50 persons per day from inner city wards consisting of vacant lots. The results of this activity were preposterously high Carter margins in certain inner city wardsmargins that are statistically impossible. For example in inner city wards 17 and 18 of this city, Jimmy Carter garnered 98 percent of the vote.
The random sample of the vote conducted by investigators for the court case concentrated on the five Ohio cities where Carter received 50 percent of his statewide vote. The sample determined that there were 13,40 1 fraudulent votes cast at a minimum in these cities with 23,157 votes that were irregular but not determinably fraudulent. Statistical analysis of these fraudulent votes demonstrated that they were three to one in favor of Carter.
As in New York, the Ohio federal court ruled that while there was massive evidence of voting irregularities and fraud, the U.S. Labor Party and Republican litigants had not demonstrated criminal intent by the Democratic voting officials involved, and on that basis the court case was dismissed. The Ohio secretary of state made an emergency request to the Ohio state legislature for half a million dollars to conduct further investigations; Brown's request was met in the Democratic state legislature with a threat to cut the entire budget of the secretary of state's office if Brown continued his probe.
