Barker and a secret team of seven men went to Miami to hire provocateurs for a New York demonstration in May. Four of this team were arrested at the Watergate Hotel. Three men were in Miami at the time, and one left the country because, according to the New York Times, he was “headed for trouble.”
Money to pay for street scenes and fights with police and radicals came from the same money man, Bernard Barker, who served as the conduit of funds for the Bay of Pigs invasion. This time Barker was handing out crisp, consecutive CIA $100 bills that came to Miami’s Republican National Bank, from a secret source in Mexico, via a secret source in Chile.
James McCord, Chief of Security for the Committee to Re-elect Richard Nixon, and Chief of Security for the Republican National Committee, was paid for the Watergate job with the same funds that hired street altercations.
That observation fits in with the “Squad 19” plan which was arranged for San Diego. When the convention was moved to Miami, a whole new group of street people would have to set the milieu for confrontations. Some persons could be imported.
One man in Miami was offered $700 “CIA money” to demonstrate on the streets in August for the republican Convention.
Bernard Barker handed out $30,000 to the Watergate boys for hotel expenses and elaborate equipment: $10,000 went to Washington provocations where a few people were supposedly shot. Bernard Barker was telling people in Miami that “something is going to happen at the time of the conventions.” He was then planning demonstrations in approval of Nixon’s bombing of Haiphong Harbor.
Frank Sturgis was planning other demonstrations for the republican Convention. Even the law enforcement people in Miami thought that was strange. According to the Washington Post:
“Law enforcement officials… found no solid explanation of why Sturgis and Martinez were seeking rooms for the Republican Convention, rooms for which the party has no need.”
Two private Catholic colleges received a call from Sturgis asking for “lodging in August for Young Republicans.” He left with them his phone number at Bernard Barker’s real estate office. Sturgis also called Barry College, said he was an “organizer” and wanted rooms for 200 places.
Where were these Young Republicans coming from? We do know that Karl Rove was a contact person.
Simultaneously, Eugenio Martinez, real estate partner of Barker, was making his own reservations to bring in Young Republicans — about 3,000 of them — for convention time. Depending upon the background, training, beliefs of a para-military, religious, violently anti-communist element, there is no way of telling if Martinez, Barker and Sturgis were planning to import trouble.
If they hired provocateurs for the Washington demonstrations in May, who were they making these Miami reservations for in August? Who was killed in Washington?
April 24, 1972