If You were a Powerful Leader...

Further excerpts from a hilarious book, I am Not a Crook (London: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1973) by the late master of satire, Art Buchwald. This sub-title is called National Security, pages 29-31.

National Security
The only way to understand the issue of national security which Richard Nixon raised as his reason for employing his own superspies is to put yourself in his place.

Pretend for a moment that you are President of the United States. Despite all your dreams and hopes for this country, there are still people "out there" who are trying to "get" you. They could be students, blacks, Congressmen, senators, newspapermen, labor leaders or just misguided souls who are trying to destroy the American way of life.

It is essential, if you are to be elected for a second term, to find out who your enemies are and what they are up to.

Unfortunately, the Constitution of the United States with its archaic Bill of Rights does not provide the President with the weapons he needs to find out who is trying to keep him from being reelected.

Yet as a President of the United States it is your duty to find out if there is a conspiracy to keep you from serving four more years and to discover who is behind it.If some other political party took over the government, God knows what would happen to the country we all know and love.

So you do what any strong leader would do. You set up a unit in the White House to devote itself full-time to find out who the traitors are.

The group would involve itself in wiretapping, bugging, reading mail and breaking and entering the offices and homes of those who are seeking to take away your rightful place in history. It may be against the law, but as President you have to deal with realities.

AT first you authorize the CIA, FBI, Secret Service, National Security Agency and Justice Department to take over this illegal work. But when J. Edgar Hoover (FBI Director) refuses to go along with the plan, you become angry and frustrated.

Here you are President of 200,000,000 people, architect of a generation of peace, leader of the richest, most well-fed country that has ever walked the face of the earth, and they won't even let you do a little bugging and burglary on the side.

So you say, "Nuts to Hoover. I'll hire my own plumbers to do the job."

You tell your staff to set up, but keep your name out of it. You also instruct them not to tell you what they're doing just in case the plan goes awry. But at the same time you want to know the names of those who are out to get you.

Once the plumbers go into operation you discover your wildest fears about national security are true. There is a plot to unseat you as President, planned and financed by the Democratic Party. You also discovered there is another plot by Alabama's Governor George Wallace to do the same thing. Never has the country being in worse danger.

You discover through intelligence that the Democrats have set November 7, as the day they plan to overthrow your government.

You have no choice but to get the plumbers to step up their activities.

Everything is going swell, but then through stupidity which you have nothing to do with, some of your plumbers are caught at the Watergate. Now you have a real problem. You can either reveal to the nation why you set up the plumbers unit in the first place, or you can tell your staff to keep the White House out of it.

For national security reasons you choose the latter, hoping for the good of the country Watergate will go away. But because of a prying judge and an irresponsible press the story comes out.

It really gets you mad.

With new revelations coming out every day you are faced with three choices: (A) resign; (B) wait for impeachment (C) tough it out.

If you were President of the United States what would you do?

My Next Thesis?

Here's an eye-popping article which I found in cyberspace and wish to share here as it is what any prophet of doom will predict is the unfolding tragedy that will befall humankind.

It's about those suicidal bogey folks in the world's most dangerous outfit known as Al-Qaeda and their nuclear ambitions.

I've got to tell you this juicy secret: I have a pretty good thesis in mind about the terrorist nuclear threat. Well, what would you find in it? For a glimpse of it, I would like to quote a lot from that famous bard William Shakespeare with such memorable classic lines as "And all the world's a stage. They have their exits and their entrances: And one man in his time play many parts". Aye, this would be an academic intellectual discourse into modern day political reality laden with underlying implications which would reach the bold conclusion that it is a matter of not the possession method but the timing when the gloomiest prophecy of all time will be fulfilled.

The good news is, you won't read about this thesis, a gloomy script of doom that is fit for a Hollywood movie block-buster simply because this is a nation that has yet to open its mind to those who think out of the box. I might as well have a swell time at Malaysia's only gambling casino around in the Genting Highlands' resort.

Well, how about a book? It's too bloody expensive to publish it ourselves and who dares to publish an unknown writer's piece of fictitious work?

I did hear about certain publications offering payment for articles overseas but to be honest about it, there are too many scams out there! Besides, there's a lot of hue and cry and a siege mentality in many democracies in the West today because of Al-Qaeda. Touching on this sensitive topic in a non-academic environment would certainly ruffle many feathers, and the next thing we know is that we're on the special Guantanamo Camp list, if not that notorious terrorist's death list!

By the way, if you're a movie-buff like me and wish to see the words of the bard in technicolour action on your cinema screens, enjoy the old movie classic, Imperium: Augustus, starring Peter O'Toole as Augustus and Charlotte Rampling as his cunning wife. I saw it recently. In true Hollywood finesse, towards the end, Augustus lies on his deathbed; just before the ancient customary death mask is placed over his face, he calls for an applause from those who are gathered around him, poising the classic line, "Did I play my part well?". What A brilliant line in a movie for a great emperor and the late actor himself! Don't we play our roles in everyday life?

Here is the article that is most interesting:

Portents of A Nuclear Al-Qaeda

By David Ignatius
Thursday, October 18, 2007; A25

Rolf Mowatt-Larssen is paid to think about the unthinkable. As the Energy Department's director of intelligence, he's responsible for gathering information about the threat that a terrorist group will attack America with a nuclear weapon.

With his shock of white hair and piercing eyes, Mowatt-Larssen looks like a man who has seen a ghost. And when you listen to a version of the briefing he has been giving recently to President Bush and other top officials, you begin to understand why. He is convinced that al-Qaeda is trying to acquire a nuclear bomb that will leave the ultimate terrorist signature -- a mushroom cloud.

We've all had enough fear-mongering to last a lifetime. Indeed, we have become so frightened of terrorism since Sept. 11, 2001, that we have begun doing the terrorists' job for them by undermining the legal framework of our democracy. And truly, I wish I could dismiss Mowatt-Larssen's analysis as the work of an overwrought former CIA officer with too many years in the trenches.

But it's worth listening to his warnings -- not because they induce more numbing paralysis but because they might stir sensible people to take actions that could detect and stop an attack. That's why his boss, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, is encouraging him to speak out. Mowatt-Larssen doesn't want to anguish later that he didn't sound the alarm in time.

Mowatt-Larssen has been gathering this evidence since a few weeks after Sept. 11, when then-CIA Director George Tenet asked him to create a new branch on weapons of mass destruction in the agency's counterterrorism center. He helped Tenet prepare the chapter on al-Qaeda's nuclear efforts that appears in Tenet's memoir, " At the Center of the Storm." Now that the uproar over Tenet's mistaken "slam dunk" assessment of the Iraqi threat has died down, it's worth rereading this account. It provides a chilling, public record of al-Qaeda's nuclear ambitions.

Mowatt-Larssen argues that for nearly a decade before Sept. 11, al-Qaeda was seeking to acquire weapons of mass destruction. As early as 1993, Osama bin Laden offered $1.5 million to buy uranium for a nuclear device, according to testimony presented in federal court in February 2001. When the al-Qaeda leader was asked in 1998 if he had nuclear or chemical weapons, he responded: "Acquiring weapons for the defense of Muslims is a religious duty. If I have indeed acquired these weapons, then I thank God for enabling me to do so."

Even as al-Qaeda was preparing to fly its airplane bombs into buildings, the group was also trying to acquire nuclear and biological capabilities. In August 2001, bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, met around a campfire with Pakistani scientists from a group called Umma Tameer-E-Nau to discuss how al-Qaeda could build a nuclear device. Al-Qaeda also had an aggressive anthrax program that was discovered in December 2001 after bin Laden was driven from his haven in Afghanistan.

Al-Qaeda proclaimed a religious rationale to justify the WMD attacks it was planning. In June 2002, a Kuwaiti-born cleric named Suleiman Abu Ghaith posted a statement on the Internet saying that "al-Qaeda has the right to kill 4 million Americans" in retaliation for U.S. attacks against Muslims. And in May 2003, at the same time Saudi operatives of al-Qaeda were trying to buy three Russian nuclear bombs, a cleric named Nasir al-Fahd issued a fatwa titled "A Treatise on the Legal Status of Using Weapons of Mass Destruction Against Infidels." Interrogations of al-Qaeda operatives confirmed that the planning was serious. Al-Qaeda didn't yet have the materials for a WMD attack, but it wanted them.

Most chilling of all was Zawahiri's decision in March 2003 to cancel a cyanide attack in the New York subway system. He told the plotters to stand down because "we have something better in mind." What did that mean? More than four years later, we still don't know.

After 2004, the WMD trail went cold, according to Mowatt-Larssen. Many intelligence analysts have concluded that al-Qaeda doesn't have nuclear capability today. Mowatt-Larssen argues that a more honest answer is: We don't know.

So what to do about this spectral danger? The first requirement, says Mowatt-Larssen, is to try to visualize it. What would it take for al-Qaeda to build a bomb? How would it assemble the pieces? How would the United States and its allies deploy their intelligence assets so that they could detect a plot before it was carried out? How would we reinvent intelligence itself to avert this ultimate catastrophe?

A terrorist nuclear attack, as Tenet wrote in his book, would change history. If we can see how this story might end, perhaps we can deflect the arrow before it hits its target.

The writer is co-host ofPostGlobal, an online discussion of international issues. His e-mail address isdavidignatius@washpost.com.

Watergate Conspiracy: Have a Good Laugh!

Conspiracies can be dangerous for those who are in any way connected to it and history has shown that they can result in awesome consequences for nations and even the world on the whole.

I am not talking about the half-baked, crack-pot Jewish conspiracy garbage. A detailed study and investigation of that conspiracy will yield endless questions and unsubstantiated allegations.

Some of the memorable conspiracies which were not groundless allegations were the French Dreyfuss frame-up, the German Stromberg failed Hitler assassination attempt, the Jim Jones' group killings, 1869 Gould and Fisk's Black Friday and highly possibly Malaysia's May 13 incident based on the May 13 book.

The Watergate conspiracy was a tragic blot in a great nation's history and it resulted in much pain and suffering for those who were involved in it. Ultimately, a brilliant president, President Richard Nixon fell from power, resigning from the Oval Office rather than to face highly likely impeachment by an increasingly furious congress (It was, after all, the time when the world discovered that democracy was alive and well in America, and no one could undermine its Constitution) . He was later pardoned by his successor, Vice-President Gerald Ford.

Nevertheless, there were plenty of jokes about it and some of the wittiest and hilarious satirical works were produced in that traumatic period. Art Buchwald was one of the funny fellows around to write about Watergate.

Here's more rib-tickling stuff from the late satirist Art Buchwald's book, I Am Not a Crook.

MY WATERGATE FANTASY

Everyone has a favorite fantasy after watching the Watergate hearings. I got mine when I watched Tony Ulasewicz** testify how he left manila envelopes filled with $100 bills in phone booths and airport lockers to pay off defendants and lawyers involved in the trial.

My fantasy is that I have to call my wife, so I walk into the lobby of a lawyer's building and head for a public phone booth. I dial my number and get a busy signal. I hang up, wondering how long she'll be on the phone. Then I notice a plain brown envelope taped to the side of the phone. I tear it open and find inside a wad of $100 bills.

I immediately call my wife again. "Remember I told you this morning we couldn't buy any steak for a month? Well, that statement is inoperative. Go out and get six of the most beautiful sirloins you can find." I look in the envelope again. "And you can buy some lettuce, too."

"But we can't afford it," she protests. "I just bought a dozen eggs."

"Don't argue," I say. "We're going to eat steak for a whole week."

I hang up, shove the envelope in my inside coat pocket and nonchalantly leave the booth.

A burly man with a part in the middle of his black, greasy hair comes up to me. "What are you doing with that manila envelope?"

"What business is it of yours?"

"It's my envelope."

"It doesn't have your name on it."

"If you don't give it to me, I'll break your knees with a baseball bat."

Just then a man comes out of the elevator and goes to the phone booth. He searches it and comes out looking puzzled. Then he comes over to the burly man and says, "I thought you told me the legal fee would be in the phone booth."

"It was in the booth," the burly man says, "but this joker took it out, and he won't give it to me."

"There's a law against stealing someone's fee," the lawyer says.

"Show me where there is anything in this manila envelope to indicate this is a lawyer's fee," I reply.

Well, for one thing," the lawyer says nervously, "I always get paid in hundred dollar bills."

"In a phone booth?"

"Our accountant is on vacation." He blushes.

The burly man says, "I better call Mr. Novak." He goes into the booth.

"Who's Mr. Novak?" I ask the lawyer.

"That's the code name for Mr. Kalmbach, the President's lawyer."

The burly man speaks into the phone. "Mr. Novak, this is Mr. Rivers....No, I didn't pay the lawyer because some guy picked up the lettuce in the phone booth before the lawyer got there....The guy won't give it back.... Should we turn him over to the plumbers?.... Well, you better talk to him because I'm going to break his arm.... Hey, Mac, Mr. Novak wants to speak to you."

I take the phone.

"What's your name?" Novak asks.

"Gemstone Sedan Chair II," I reply.

"I understand you found twenty-five thousand dollars in cash in a phone booth."

"That's correct," I reply. "And as a lawyer you should know whatever someone finds in a phone booth belongs to him."

"It does not," he says. "It belongs to the phone company."

"Okay, I'll give the twenty-five thousand to the phone company."

"No, don't do that," Mr. Novak says. "All right, let us for the moment assume the money is yours. Would you be willing to donate it to a defense fund for the poor families and starving lawyers who are trying to help the misguided individuals who broke into the Democratic headquarters early in the morning on June 17?"

"Nope."

"Give me Mr. Rivers again."

Rivers takes the phone. "I gotcha, Mr. Novak.... Let the guy keep the twenty-five thousand and leave another twenty-five thousand in the phone booth for the lawyer.... I'm sorry, Mr. Novak, for the botch-up.... Yes, I agree with you.... There just aren't any honest people in the world anymore."

** Here's what Google says about Tony:

Anthony (Tony) Ulasewicz was one of Nixon's private investigators.

"Ulasewicz achieved fame of a sort during the Watergate scandal, after a virtual lifetime of public service as a cop. Writing with freelancer McKeever, he here fills us in on his background.

Ulasewicz spent time as a beat patrolman in Harlem, then, promoted to detective, worked for
almost 20 years for the New York Police Department's Bureau of Special Services and Investigations. BOSSI's job was to investigate subversion, to infiltrate radical groups and to guard world leaders when they visited Manhattan, especially in connection with U.N.
sessions. Among his cases were the disappearance of an anti-Trujillo Dominican leader, the rise of neo-Nazi George Lincoln Rockwell and a plot to blow up the Statue of Liberty. With Nixon's election to the presidency in 1968, he became a private investigator for the chief
executive, who, he notes, did not trust the CIA, FBI and other intelligence-gathering apparatuses."