One of the happy unintended consequences of the Russia Hoax of 2016 was that it exposed Americans to the mendacity, amorality, and chicanery of our Deep State and Intel Community (“IC”). Another was learning about the Falstaffian character Stefan Halper. Halper’s role in the hoax—the FBI used him to surreptitiously question Page, Papadopoulos, other others—sent me down a rabbit hole leading to Carter, Nixon, and JFK.
Stefan Halper was a legacy hire: the nephew of a CIA operative and the son-in-law of a giant figure in the agency’s history, Ray Cline. Cline had begun at the OSS, then segued to a role as a sort of historian of the CIA. He moved up and up, including a stint as head of the Taiwan station in the late 50s, and had a starring role at a famous meeting in 1962 where Cline deciphered for President Kennedy the U2 plane’s photos of Russia’s missile sites in Cuba.
Cline lost his run for CIA director to his frenemy Richard Helms, so he transitioned to a different posting in a different IC agency. Technically, that new, non-agency post would prove important in the Watergate investigation, for it gave Helms plausibility when he denied CIA involvement in Watergate when there were many indications that Cline may have directed the Watergate bungled burglary, the subsequent bungled coverup, and Nixon’s not-bungled forced resignation.
The Watergate Hotel in 1972. Public domain.
As many experts, such as Deep Throat’s attorney John O’Connor, have posited, the entire Watergate burglary operation seems to have been a purposeful “own goal.” From taping the door locks, which inevitably drew a security guard’s attention, to Bob Woodward’s curious lies to John Dean’s strange conduct to the unethical of Judge Sirica, the affair was replete with red flags.
Cline knew lead burglar E. Howard Hunt very well, having worked with him for the OSS as far back as the Chinese theater in WW2. That was the beginning of Cline’s specialty in the Far East when famed General Chenault set up the precursor to Air America to aid the conquered countries in fighting the Japanese. And, as noted above, Cline would head the Taiwan station at the beginning period of the U2 spy flights.
As a proponent of Taiwan’s independence, Cline led what became known as the Taiwan Lobby alongside Senator and failed presidential candidate Barry Goldwater. The Taiwan Lobby advocated for Chiang Kai-shek’s government and against Mao’s Red China mainland entity. The benign view says they opposed Mao’s totalitarian communist regime, while the cynical view is that Chiang’s venality and rumors concerning Air America and the associated CIA’s morally dubious and lucrative ventures underpinned this support.
Whatever the reasons, when Nixon, in an effort to lessen the USSR’s power, “opened” Red China to the West in early 1972, that was destined (if not even intended) to slight and sideline Taiwan. Around that time, the recently retired spook, Hunt, joined the White House. Intriguingly, Hunt told the Jersey City Journal in an interview released on July 19, 1971, that he was joining to help organize Nixon’s trip to China.
Sometime around that time, Stefan Halper also joined the admin. At various points, he would later claim to have worked in the Domestic Policy Council—yes, the very same DPC out of which the Plumbers Unit Watergate burglars would operate. Curiously, Halper would also later claim that he was hired to help organize Nixon’s trip to China.
The linchpin to the botched coverup, and per some historians, the actual decision to wiretap the Democratic National Committee office at the Watergate, was the young White House counsel, John Dean. Dean seems to have not only possessed a wonderful memory—his detailed testimony accounting of the coverup was later substantiated by the Nixon Oval Office tapes—but also seemed to have been the driving force behind the cover-up itself.
Funnily enough, Dean was the former college roommate and close friend of Senator Goldwater’s son, Barry Jr. They would later co-write a biography on Barry Sr. Also, funnily enough, Goldwater was the eminence grise Republican figure whose journey to the White House in August 1974 to tell Nixon the jig was up prompted the President’s resignation that weekend. (Incidentally, the man responsible for running and then revealing the existence of the taping system, Alexander Butterfield, was later credibly accused of being a CIA plant.).
Watergate would have never happened without Helm’s curious actions—and again, Helms was Cline’s frenemy. At the onset of the FBI investigation, Nixon’s men beseeched Helms to shut down the inquiry by citing the vague yet legally potent excuse of national security concerns.
Indeed, Watergate did almost inexorably lead to national security revelations, for it paved the way for the Church Commission and revelations about some Deep State family jewels. Helms could have easily shut it all down, but he didn’t. Ironically, in the end, Watergate got him, too. Helms was forced to resign in (a modicum of) disgrace only to transition quickly to a posting as Ambassador to Iran.
What did Cline have on Helms? That’s a story for another time. Suffice it to say Cline knew Helms from the beginning of both of their careers. As the agency’s historian, Cline would have known some of Helms’ negatives, such as certain personal and career connections that could be charitably described as Nazi-adjacent.
How did Watergate turn out for Cline, Halper, Dean et al.? Cline would continue as a speaker, historian, and occasional advisor to politicians such as former CIA director George Bush. In that capacity, it seems he was able to place his son-in-law Halper into the Bush 1980 primary campaign, which was soon to be the Reagan-Bush ticket.
Halper would be publicly accused of stealing Carter policy documents for the Republicans. Later, Halper fronted a CIA bank, got arrested for driving while coked-up, and somehow made his way to the world of academics and publishing at Cambridge while occasionally undertaking clandestine operations for the government, such as the General Flynn smear and the Russia hoax.
Dean would milk Watergate for decades, writing book after book and then, during the Trump admin years, appearing every couple of days on CNN to claim that this (or that) was worse than Watergate. His Watergate-era smarmy countenance has settled into avuncularly smug.
As for Taiwan, it remains (for now) independent of its mainland behemoth brother. Watergate might have given the island nation an extra 50 or so years lease on life. As posited in this 2021 article, it seems that Nixon was primed to completely abandon Taiwan, even militarily.
Curiously enough, a previous president had also indicated his willingness, if not to abandon Taiwan, at least to open Mao’s mainland China. That would be John F. Kennedy, who apparently told then-Secretary of State Dean Rusk that, after his upcoming victory in the 1964 election, he would be able and willing to change policy and shock the world by opening China.
All of which is to say that when you look at Stefan Halper’s role in the attacks on Trump, his roots in Deep State manipulation are very deep indeed.
Norman Krieg is a pseudonym.
