Operation Tulip: Inside Facebook's Secretive Push To Build Holland's Biggest Data Center

[bucolic_frolic]

3. And I.T.T. reverberated through Watergate and Nixon's DOJ

https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/news/behind-nixons-big-sd-scandal/

Behind Nixon's Big SD Scandal


Back in 1972, the GOP planned to hold the Republican National Convention here. It would be a triumphant coronation in Nixon’s “Lucky City” for the man who’d go on to wallop his opponent in the November election.

Then a scandal erupted over a convention-related bribe, and San Diego’s dream of Republican glory vanished. But soon, the city’s young mayor, Pete Wilson, created the new “Finest City” slogan to boost the city’s sagging spirits. The scandal itself was quickly forgotten as Watergate and a presidential resignation captured the public’s attention.

A new book puts the bribery scandal into perspective, revealing its crucial role in the downfall of a president. I interviewed the book’s author, Mark Feldstein, about the dirt he discovered while writing “Poisoning the Press: Richard Nixon, Jack Anderson, and the Rise of Washington’s Scandal Culture.”

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https://www.deseret.com/1996/8/9/19259150/tactics-used-during-watergate-were-1st-tested-in-itt-scandal

"On the eve of the 1972 election campaign, the Justice Department suddenly announced it had dropped the ITT suits and settled out of court. The political policymakers never bothered to explain this stunning development. They gambled on the media's limited resources, short attention span, difficulty explaining complicated matters and inability to function when information is cut off.

But sources inside ITT provided us with jigsaw pieces that we were able to put together. The chief piece was an internal memo from ITT's lobbyist-in-chief Dita Beard, tying the $400,000 contribution to the antitrust settlement. The memo ended with a request - "Please destroy this, huh?" - that had been ignored.

The Senate Judiciary Committee immediately convened a hit-and-run hearing, not to investigate but to refute the scandal. A parade of Justice and ITT witnesses soulfully and indignantly professed innocence before a panel that was on the side of miscreants. Most of the senators unashamedly revealed themselves, not as judges sternly searching for the truth, but as a rooting section for the accused.

We asked to appear as witnesses against this righteous breast-beating. With elaborate courtesy, the senators agreed to listen to our testimony after everyone had gone home. So we testified out in the hall in front of the TV cameras."