ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, November 22, 1996 TAG: 9611250115
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: The Washington Post
President Richard Nixon ordered a break-in and theft at the Brookings Institution in June 1971 so he could learn what information the public policy center had collected on the Vietnam War, according to newly released White House tapes.
In a conversation that took place a year before the Watergate break-in that eventually drove him from office, Nixon told Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman to ``break into the place, rifle the files, and bring them out.''
At one point, with characteristic gruffness and punctuating each word, Nixon said, ``You go in to inspect and clean it out.''
No evidence has surfaced in the last quarter-century that the late president had advance knowledge of the break-in at Democratic headquarters in the Watergate, and this is the first direct proof he authorized another burglary. No break-in at Brookings was ever reported.
While Nixon's words were made public only this week, in tapes released by the National Archives, his administration's anxiety over leaks concerning U.S. involvement in Vietnam and fear Brookings might have obtained classified papers have been long known. The tapes reveal Nixon feared the liberal-leaning think tank and would go so far as to order a burglary to discover what it had.
The archives log said National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger, Defense Secretary Melvin Laird and Attorney General John Mitchell were also in the room. Mitchell has since died, and Kissinger and Laird denied knowledge of any break-in talk Thursday.
Nixon gave the order on June 30, 1971, the day the Supreme Court rejected the administration's request to block continued publication of the Pentagon Papers. Haldeman, writing in his now-published diaries, said the president and top aides believed that June day that a conspiracy existed among people who wanted to make Vietnam War documents public.
Haldeman died in 1993.
LENGTH: Short : 46 lines KEYWORDS: 3DAby CNB