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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 36, Number 19. 2nd August 1973

"Squad 19"

"Squad 19"

We all know how the paranoid Nixon made sure McGovern never had a show in that last US Presidential elections, but if Edward Kennedy had been nominated as Democratic candidate, it seems that Nixon planned really drastic action. A forth-coming book The Glass- House Tapes by a former Los Angeles police undercover agent, Louis Tackwood, describes the formation of "Squad 19" by the Los Angeles police conspiracy section and the FBI—

"The plan entailed planting a number of agents provocateurs both inside and outside the 1972 Republican convention (at that time planned for San Diego). Agents were to infiltrate the groups planning demonstrations against the war and poverty. At the time of the demonstrations, these agents were to provoke street battles with police surrounding the convention hall. Meanwhile, agents inside the convention hall were to plant explosives timed to blow up coincidental with the riots in the streets. The purpose is to kill a number of delegates.

"The result would be to create a nationwide hysteria that would then provide President Nixon with the popular support necessary to declare a State of National Emergency.

"Orders came directly from the State Department of Justice, District Attorney Evelle Younger, on these fecial squads. "Nixon would then arrest all militants and left wing revolutionaries and cancel the 1972 elections. He could invoke special emergency powers leading to the detention of political actrvists. Martial law would be achieved."

Nixon did form a 16 man Military Reserve Unit under his Office of Emergency Planning and Preparedness to deal with the necessary arrangements for rounding up radicals. McCord, caught spying in the Watergate and security chief for both the CRP and the Republican National Committee, was a member of this unit.