Excerpt of an Interview of Admiral Thomas H. Moorer
by Len Colodny — January 27, 1987

MOORER:

Why don't you put that in your book, if you've got proof, oh, I don't give a damn.

COLODNY:

I understand that, I was checking to see if you were, I mean, I know if he was writing about me, and I knew the guy, I'd be damned curious as to why —

MOORER:

They write about me every day. I mean, do you — you oughta see, I'm, I must have, uh, 15 calls a month — similar to the one you're just making.

COLODNY:

OK- —

MOORER:

But, ah, uh, in this book, and that book and they want me to say, uh, what Kissinger did here and what Nixon did there and what Laird did there, I'm writing a book about — you say you're writing a book about Woodward. They say they're writing about the Son Tay Prison Raid, they're writing a book about the MIAs in Hai Phong —

COLODNY:

Well —

MOORER:

It's all in so, uh, uh, I [BACKGROUND NOISE] [INAUDIBLE] Woodward is not that big a wheel to me.

COLODNY:

All right, lemme ex-, —

MOORER:

— don't follow everything he does.

COLODNY:

No, but let me explain to you what are the reasons we're look-, so closely at the spy scandal. David Young, who was in the White House, and investigated it, was quoted as saying that to understand Watergate, you had to understand the Moorer-Radford affair. And in doing, in res- —

MOORER:

You know, but that's, had nothing whatever to do with Watergate.

COLODNY:

Hold, hold on a second, lemme just tell you what documents we have, and you, um, you may or may not be familiar with these documents. Uh, we've obtained, uh, the tape recording of the interview between Welander and Ehrlichman and, and, uh, Young on December 22nd of 1971. We've obtained the transcript of that doc, of that, uh, tape.

MOORER:

OK, OK.

COLODNY:

We've also obtained the polygraph interviews, tests and test results of Yeoman Radford and Rear Admiral Welander, which were done on December 16 and 17 of '71, by Raymond J. Weir of the NSA at the request of W. Donald Stewart. We've also obtained the re-interview of Rear Admiral Welander on January 7th, 1972, by Mr. J. Fred Buzhardt, General Counsel, and W. Donald Stewart.

MOORER:

Yeah.

COLODNY:

We've also obtained transcripts of telephone conversations between the White House and Secretary Laird on December 22nd, 23rd and January 3rd of 1972, discussing on how to handle this matter. Are you familiar with the documents that I've just, uh —

MOORER:

I didn't even know they existed. Why don't you put 'em all in your book?

COLODNY:

[TAPE DISTORTION] Let me ask you something. You don't, you didn't know that the, the interview, that the interview with, uh, Admiral Welander existed?

MOORER:

I knew that they were, they were talking to him about it, but to be able to recall dates that near 17 years ago, —

COLODNY:

No, but you —

MOORER:

Of course I didn't know, that, uh, uh, who was talking to him or whatever.

COLODNY:

You didn't know that they contradicted — they in fact supported Yeoman Radford?

MOORER:

Nope.

COLODNY:

You had no idea of that.

MOORER:

Nope.

COLODNY:

How, I, I find that hard to understand, that these didn't, that you wouldn't have been aware of these particular documents.

MOORER:

Well, why would I?

COLODNY:

Because clearly they're, they're, Admiral Welander is saying, in effect, that he was, it was in fact a spy ring or whatever you wanna call it. In fact, he was getting —

MOORER:

[INAUDIBLE] you said he's saying that in effect. He didn't say that.

COLODNY:

No, I, I can read you, you a quote, uh, this is direct from the, uh, from Admiral Welander on the tape recording. He the night of the, the material that came back from China, he said, I spent the night culling through this, and 90 percent of it, I just burned. But there were a few things that gave some fairly significant insights that, what, what were going on, so I assembled them and I made some comments and a cover sheet. And I carried them to Admiral Moorer and he read them and we discussed them. That's not an allusion. That's a, —

MOORER:

That, that is, uh, I don't know where you got — I didn't know that he screened through the thing, but I knew, I, uh, he did carry 'em to me and I had just returned from, uh, uh, a visit out to, uh, —

COLODNY:

San Clemente.

MOORER:

— San Clemente and I had been told every damn thing that was in there.

COLODNY:

So I, wai- —

MOORER:

And I gave the things back to Haig.

COLODNY:

But, but here's the p-, — he goes on to talk about all kinds of other documents in this, in this inter- —

MOORER:

I don't know about any other documents.

COLODNY:

Well, in the, in the Buzhardt interview, he describes how he pad the, the materials and how he would take them to you. In addition to that, I've interviewed Secretary Laird, and I asked Secretary Laird specifically. He said he had seen the Buzhardt report. And I

MOORER:

Well, I reckon he sure as hell had, he, he's the one that, uh, set it up.

COLODNY:

I understand, and I said to him, was it your understanding, ha-, having read that report, was it your understanding that Admiral Moorer had in fact been involved in this operation. Uh, did Fred H-, did Fred Buzhardt tell you that he was? And he answered, uh, yes. Fred Buzhardt told me that Admiral Moorer was involved, unquote.

MOORER:

Well —

COLODNY:

I mean, there, uh, I'm s- —

MOORER:

Lemme, uh, tell you when, um, uh, Radford was called before the Senate Armed Service Committee.

COLODNY:

Mm-hmm.

MOORER:

You see, and, uh, Senator Hughes, who was probably the most anti-military Senator on the Committee, —

COLODNY:

Right.

MOORER:

Without a doubt. He asked, uh, uh, Radford, uh, you know, have, if, if I had, uh, given him any instructions to do what he did. And he said, no, he said, uh, that, uh, that — I think he said he'd never seen me but once in his life, which is true.

COLODNY:

Well, I r-, I've read the Senate testimony —

MOORER:

And furthermore, he said, well, what were the papers that you, you sent over to him, uh, so he said, he started out by saying agendas. For the meetings. And Hughes said, how in the hell you expect Admiral Moorer to go to a meeting if he doesn't have the agenda? I mean, uh, —

COLODNY:

No, but, here's, here's the point, Admiral, and this is the, this is the problem. You have Admiral Welander, who's certainly a lot closer to you than Yeoman Radford was. He describes himself as reporting directly to you when he's asked the series of questions about that, uh, by John Ehrlichman. And, uh, he goes on to describe getting materials about SALT, learning about the Paris peace talks, I mean, it goes on and on and on about material that you all didn't know about. And John Mitchell has told me you didn't know about the China trip.

MOORER:

Heh!

COLODNY:

I'm only telling you what John Mitchell said.

MOORER:

Wait a minute, wait a minute. I could tell you right now that, uh, Mitchell, uh, wouldn't have known what I knew and I, I did know about it.

COLODNY:

I'm only s- —

MOORER:

How come he didn't tell you that?

COLODNY:

OK.

MOORER:

I'm not gonna tell you how I knew about it, but I knew about it.

COLODNY:

Well, you see, Admiral Welander, uh, well I, lemme, lemme just put it to you this way. He goes into detail as to what was gotten through this operation, there was SALT material, there was the Paris peace talk material, and the China material —

MOORER:

Look. Lemme just, uh,

COLODNY:

[Cough]

MOORER:

— stop right here.

COLODNY:

Yeah.

MOORER:

I had met with Kissinger frequently, every week. And went into his office with the two of us and talked about these things and I'm not aware of anything that I ever learned from Radford that I didn't know already. And let's leave it at that.

COLODNY:

I unders- —

MOORER:

So, uh, uh, these meetings and telephone calls are not documented. And, uh, uh, as a matter of fact I made it a habit, in view of the atmosphere existing at the time, to write down just as little as possible.

COLODNY:

Why would Admiral Welander be saying all these things —

MOORER:

Well, he didn't know what I was doing, either.

COLODNY:

No, but he knows what he was doing. He's talking about how he took you the materials and how you to- —

MOORER:

All right, he took me some, some materials following the China trip and there wasn't a single damn thing in there that I hadn't talked to Kissinger about, they on the same committee, so, uh, uh, why in the hell — I wasn't, uh, you know, I didn't know that, uh, the press was gonna get into the damn thing, it wasn't, uh, uh, —

COLODNY:

Where do you —

MOORER:

— spy case or anything like that.

COLODNY:

Well, where do you fit — well, clearly, the, the material — we've interviewed everybody that did the investigating — each one—

MOORER:

You, you intimate, uh, uh, you interviewed Buzhardt and —

COLODNY:

Well, Buzhardt's dead.

MOORER:

Yeah. Well, he, uh, uh, you read what he wrote. All right. OK.

COLODNY:

I, I've read the inter- —

MOORER:

I, uh, uh, through the whole thing, I can tell you that, uh, uh, Buzhardt didn't know what the hell's going on.

COLODNY:

Well —

MOORER:

And, and so you can go around, I imagine, and our bureaucratic system and you, if you were trying to prove whatever the hell you're trying to prove, —

COLODNY:

What I'm trying to un- —

MOORER:

And you, you can find people who'll say everything. I can build up just as many people to say the opposite —

COLODNY:

No, but Admiral, Admiral, this is Admiral Welander, these are, these are doc-, these documents —

MOORER:

I told you that the things they brought me were things, I don't remember him telling me anything I didn't know already.

COLODNY:

I, I'm not arguing whether you knew it or didn't know it, and I can't, I wasn't there. All I have is, is material which Admiral Welander says, yes, we were r-, yes this is what we were doing, we were taking Memcons, we were taking this, we broke into Henry Kissinger's briefcase, he describes the break-in to Kissinger's briefcase, it isn't like we're talking about —

MOORER:

When he — wait a minute, now. When you say, we did this, we did that.

COLODNY:

Well, I mean he's saying —

MOORER:

Welander did not break into —

COLODNY:

Well, Radford broke into —

MOORER:

And [INAUDIBLE]

COLODNY:

Kissinger's —

MOORER:

But Radford, uh, has got a history of his own.

COLODNY:

But, but the point I'm making is, that he is saying to them, yes, we knew what he was doing. It wasn't, ah, i-, your cen- —

MOORER:

— I don't have time to talk to you, —

COLODNY:

All right —

MOORER:

— you write any damn thing you —

COLODNY:

Can I ask you —

MOORER:

— fine with me.

COLODNY:

Can I ask you one last question?

MOORER:

No.

COLODNY:

Please,
[PHONE HANGS UP]
Admiral?
[END OF CONVERSATION]