Vietnam Veterans Against the War

Vietnam Veterans Against the War is identified in the account as one of the groups targeted by a covert political-intelligence operation. The evidence ties the organization to former FBI agent Alfred C. Baldwin III, who said he had infiltrated it on James McCord’s orders; the book does not detail the organization’s internal structure or describe what happened within it during the infiltration.

The Infiltration

Baldwin’s role emerged as reporters investigated the Watergate operation. They learned that a former FBI agent had participated in the operation, reported that Democratic National Committee headquarters had been under electronic surveillance for about three weeks before the arrests, and said transcripts of intercepted conversations had gone directly to the Committee for the Re-election of the President. The same agent had also infiltrated Vietnam Veterans Against the War on orders from James McCord. The account presents the infiltration as one element of a larger intelligence effort, not as an action by the organization itself.

A week after first reporting the former agent’s participation, the reporters identified Baldwin with help from a committee employee. He was a 35-year-old law-school graduate and former chief of security for a trucking firm, now working for the Committee for the Re-election of the President and paid in $100 bills. Baldwin became the government’s chief witness and an insider with information about the operation. The book gives no further particulars about his access to Vietnam Veterans Against the War, the length of his infiltration, or any information he obtained there.

Place in the Wider Operation

The organization’s appearance in the account gains significance from the company it keeps in the reporters’ list of disparate clues. That list included an attempt to bug George McGovern’s headquarters, Howard Hunt’s investigation of Edward M. Kennedy, Baldwin’s infiltration of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, investigations into leaks to the news media, and James McCord’s rental of an office next to the Muskie campaign headquarters. Considered together, the clues led the reporters to ask whether political intelligence work had been conducted on a broader and longer-running scale than the public understood. They treated the infiltration as evidence relevant to that hypothesis, rather than as proof of the organization’s own involvement in the scheme.

What the Account Establishes

The evidence establishes a specific operational connection: Baldwin infiltrated Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and James McCord had ordered him to do so. It does not specify the mission’s immediate objective, identify any other infiltrators, or describe effects on the organization. Accordingly, Vietnam Veterans Against the War functions in this account as a target that helps show the reach of the political-intelligence effort beyond the surveillance of Democratic headquarters, while the details and consequences of the particular infiltration remain unstated.