The Watergate burglary’s fiftieth anniversary has passed, and Jefferson Morley, a longtime journalist and political biographer, has written a history of that event; the focus is Richard Helms, the man that ran the CIA and had to walk a tightrope between the demands of President Richard Nixon, and what best served the CIA. This book is for sale now.

If you are searching for just one book to read about the Watergate debacle and/or Nixon, this isn’t it. However, if you are a hardcore Nixon buff, as I am, or if you are a researcher, looking for specific information for academic study, you can hardly do better.

My thanks go to Net Galley and St. Martin’s Press for the invitation to read and review.

Helms was a slick operator, walking a tightrope as he sought to protect the reputation of the agency while maintaining cordial relations with Nixon and those around him. For some of this, there’s a heavy irony involved here; how can anybody ever make the CIA look less than sleazy? But of course, leftists like me are not the ones Helms wanted to impress in the first place.

As the administration sought to damage political enemies that might prevent Nixon’s reelection for a second term, its shady dealings—hiring thugs to ransack a psychiatrist’s office in search for dirt on an opponent, and planting bugs in the office of the Democratic Party in the Watergate Hotel—proved to be the president’s undoing.

Two of the ugly characters in service to Nixon were in charge, for example, of interviewing candidates for a “riot squad” of counterdemonstrators to oppose the anticipated throngs of antiwar demonstrators that were anticipated in Washington. “One of them was Frank Sturgis, whose reputation for violence preceded him. ‘The men were exactly what I was looking for,’ Liddy rumbled in Will, his best-selling memoir. ‘Tough, experienced and loyal. Hunt and I interviewed about a dozen men. Afterward Howard told me that between them they had killed twenty-two men, including two hanged from a beam in the garage.’”

The burglaries had too many moving parts to be kept completely under wraps, and consequently, the president and his top advisors were soon looking for scapegoats below themselves, men that could be packed off to prison while the country regained confidence in the administration that had supposedly brought them to justice. At one point, they had Helms in their sights as a possible fall guy, and the former CIA director, McCord, who was retired, caught wind of this and was having none of it. In a letter, he said, “If Helms goes and the Watergate operation is laid at the feet of the CIA where it does not belong, every tree in the forest will fall. It will be a scorched desert. The whole matter is at the precipice now.”

There are moments when I wonder if the ghost of Richard Nixon haunts the White House, cackling with glee to see a former president in far more trouble today than he himself experienced when he was there. Who knows what the old dog would have thought about the political machinations unfurling today?

Morley has a conversational narrative tone that works wonders. Because I had fallen behind, I checked out the audio version from Seattle Bibliocommons, and narrator John Pruden does a fine job bringing it to life. But the most impressive aspect of this book is the research behind it, with treasure troves of primary documents and brilliant integration of data from multitudinous places. The endnotes are impeccable, enabling other researchers to trace back the facts to their original sources if they need or desire it.

For a niche readership of researchers, this is a five star work, but I suspect most interested parties will be of a more widespread readership; for them, this is still a fine read at four stars. Most satisfying.

Scorpion’s Dance is very very educational, so if you’re simply looking for a watergate scandal story, this isn’t it. It took me forever to dig into and wade through this one. It’s well-written and factual and a super interesting time in history, but I feel like only a US History teacher/nerd would really get excited about it. If you’re super into this time period, pick it up, you’ll enjoy.

My impressions of this book are a combination of an issue of timing (with the January 6th hearing currently in session, I am a little tired of "Presidents behaving badly"), generational disconnect (I had not yet been born when Watergate occurred), and the writing style. I started this prior to the publication, but didn't make it far. After publication, I bought the audiobook version to complete my review. Sadly, the audiobook didn't help either. I found the text dry and never felt invested in the events. I appreciated the insight offered about Nixon, pre-presidency, and some of the behind the scenes moves regarding Cuba, but for the most part, I was just bored. I shouldn't have to live through the events in a history book to be immersed in them. Scorpions' Dance fell short of compelling, for me.

President Nixon, CIA Director Helms, and Watergate

Watergate took place fifty years. In light of the myriad scandals today, the burglary itself seems rather quaint. However, that wasn’t the whole story. Morley tells a much more complete story based on some documents that have recently been released.

Nixon and his CIA Director were men of large egos and both had things to hide. I hadn’t realized the extent of CIA involvement in planned assassination attempts in South America. There was also the Kennedy assassination and the problematic conclusion of the Warren Commission that found Oswald acted alone. Morley does and excellent job of laying out all this history. It reads almost like a spy novel.

The book also looked at the question of how far a president can go. How far above the law is he? I found his discussion on point with the problems politicians and ordinary citizens are grappling with today. This is an excellent book for people to read unless we understand the things that happened in the past we will be doomed to continue to recreate the crises.

The book was very well researched and easy to read. If you lived through the Watergate era, you may be surprised at how much you didn’t know. I was. It’s a book for people interested in the Kennedy assassination as well the actual Watergate crimes. I highly recommend this book.

I received this book from St. Martin’s Press for this review.

Here we are at the 50th anniversary of Watergate. A small time break-in with a coverup that still casts a huge shadow. This is a well researched and well written look at what was hiding under the rocks when it came to the secrets held by Nixon and Helms. As I read it and traveled back in my memories to the days of watching it unfold in real time, I have to wonder if those in power today might not benefit from reading it. Much of it sounds eerily familiar. As the saying goes - those who do not learn from history are bound to repeat it. As I finished the last page I couldn't help but wonder how much went on then that we will never learn the truth of. Very unsettling and a book well worth reading.
My thanks to the publisher St. Martin's and to NetGalley for giving me an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

Synopsis: "Nixon and Helms went back decades; both were 1950s Cold Warriors, and both knew secrets about the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba as well as off-the-books American government and CIA plots to remove Fidel Castro and other leaders in Latin America. Both had enough information on each other to ruin their careers.

After the Watergate burglary on June 17, 1972, Nixon was desperate to shut down the FBI's investigation. He sought Helms' support and asked that the CIA intervene—knowing that most of the Watergate burglars were retired CIA agents, contractors, or long-term assets with deep knowledge of the Agency's most sensitive secrets. The two now circled each other like scorpions, defending themselves with the threat of lethal attack. The loser would resign his office in disgrace; the winner, however, would face consequences for the secrets he had kept."

My thoughts: I didn't know much more about Watergate than a short section in high school taught me and I really learned a lot from this book. It was surprisingly easy to listen to, even though typically history is a challenge for me to get into. I think the author did an excellent job on this one.

Thanks so much to St Martin's Press for the chance to read to this book prior to release. This will be available for purchase on June 7.

June 17, 1972. For me, it was the day of my wedding. By my first anniversary, it was the day of the Watergate break-in. We watched the Senate hearings amazed to realize the significance of that day in history, personal and national.

As I well know, its been fifty years since that day. It was time to revisit those events (Watergate, that is!) and discover new insights.

Scorpions’ Dance is about what Helms and Nixon had on each other, the secrets they kept and the secrets they shared.
from Scorpions’ Dance by Jefferson Morley

I was hooked from the Introduction. Morley argues that Watergate was the culmination of the relationship between Dick Helms, respected director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and President Richard M. Nixon. He narrates a history of CIA involvement in a plot to kill Fidel Castro and the murder of a nonpolitical general in Chile that Helms covered up. He connects CIA men and hired assassins and criminals to the Watergate break-in. He paints a picture of a uncontrite president and a CIA director who bent laws, and even lied, convinced it was for national security.

The story arc goes back to the assassination of President Kennedy and the order that the Warren Commission conclude that Oswald was a lone assassin, which Robert Kennedy never believed. Oswald said he was “a patsy”, then was (conveniently) killed by a man connected to the Mafia. Everyone wanted to wrap it up and move on. No one wanted the public to connect the dots, leading back to the plot to kill Castro. And, the CIA didn’t want anyone to realize that they had been tracking Oswald for years and had failed to protect the president.

The colorful cast of characters includes Howard Hunt, both a CIA spy and a novelist of spy novels. His CIA-produced film Animal Farm was a box office success; he had “tweaked” its anti-Communist message. Hunt was recruited to help overthrow the government of Guatemala whose plans upset the United Fruit Company. Along with Chuck Colson and G. Gordon Liddy, he became one of “The Plumbers” who were ordered to discover who a journalist obtained confidential information. There are the CIA’s “assassination program” hit men. Nixon’s faithful secretary and gatekeeper Rose Mary Woods who. oops, erased eighteen minutes of tape.

Morley calls his book “a biography of power.” The personal power of two men, but also the power of the CIA which spied on Americans, including those involved with antiwar protests and civil rights activists. President Harry S. Truman was appalled by the CIA’s expansion into “peacetime cloak and dagger operations,” and pushed to end the organization he started. And the power of President Nixon, empowered by his landslide victory, who wanted dirt on his political foes.

The Watergate investigation did result in more oversight of the CIA. But the revelations in this book are disconcerting, and one has to wonder what else has been swept under the carpet.

I received a free egalley from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

Free ARC from NETGALLEY

Truth is stranger than fiction in this dance of death and madness. Read this and understand, it is not an anomaly, it still happens! :)

Scorpions’ Dance by Jefferson Morley I knew nothing about this book when I began to read it. I did not know if it was an espionage fiction book or non-fiction. As I started, I still was not sure. Could Mr. Morley’s ideas be true? I did some research and he was a journalist for 15 years with The Washington Post and since then has devoted his research to activities of the CIA from the Vietnam War, through the Bay of Pigs, Kennedy’s assassination and Watergate. Woven into all of this, is Richard Helms who rose to Director of the CIA and the keeper of secrets that should never see the light of day. As one who is old enough to have lived through this era, old nightmares came back. The book does not just rehash old information and misinformation but uses documents that have been released since President Biden took office. And yet there is still so much more still locked away in the CIA. How are they able to do this? Richard Helms until he was caught in perjury finally in covering for Richard Nixon exposed the justification he used. Or perhaps convinced himself. And this was that he served the President no matter who (and he did serve both Democrat and Republican presidents) and that his responsibility was to protect the presidency and well as “The Company”- the CIA. And if this meant lying to Congress under oath which he did multiple times then so be it. It was finally during the cleansing by G. Ford that the Justice Dept. brought charges against him. He was able to negotiate “nolo contendere” deal by which he did not have to admit guilt. He was given a suspended sentence and a $2,000 fine. He died 22 October 2002, and we still live with the policies put in place during his time at the CIA. Or, perhaps we do not. How would we know?

My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher St. Martin's Press for an advanced copy of this new history on Watergate and the people involved.

The cover- up is usually worse than the the crime. Well when the crime was the Watergate scandal and the cover- up involved CIA assassinations against world leaders, and other people who were considered enemies to freedom well what is worse comes down to morality. And who can control both the narrative and the history. If the President does it, than it is not a crime, and is Senators in closed door meetings don't ask the right questions, or follow up their questions well is that a crime. Jefferson Morley in his book Scorpions' Dance: The President, the Spymaster, and Watergate is another book investigating the scandal and the players, soon to be celebrating its 50th anniversary. The book details the relationship between President Richard Nixon and his CIA Director Richard Helms and how both needed each other to stop their respective rocks from being flipped over and exposing secrets better kept hidden from sight.

Richard Helms was known as the "Man who Kept the Secrets" as a book about him was titled. Blue blood, with the ivy league background so necessary for intelligence work at the time, Helms was a CIA mainstay, rising from the early OSS days as an operator, to planning and finally Director of CIA. Helms used a combination of style, guile and a keen bureaucratic sense to get to the top of his world. Richard Nixon the man from Whittier was everything Helms was not. From humble stock, without the opportunities given to other wealthier stock, Nixon hated the blue blood ivy leaguers, though he longed to be accepted by them. A man of many contradictions, fears, and self loathing, Nixon promised to be a uniter, while running a very divisive campaign, and his run at the presidency looked like it was going to be even worse. Watergate was a small crime, almost quaint in our days of coups, but Nixon hoped to use Helms to keep the problem under control, as most of the members were CIA employees one way or the other.

Another look at a political scandal about presidential overreach and what a sitting president can do and not do. Maybe a few politicians will read this and go, hmm we should do something, but humans never seem to learn from history. The book is very well written and sourced, with a lot of interesting points raised and addressed. I've read a lot of books on Watergate, and found this one to be quite different and eye opening. Helms had his secrets, assassination of political leaders one of them, and I love the tie in to the death of President Kennedy, along with the long litany of real crimes the CIA and the US military would have loved to have done. The writing is very good, never hyperbolic, but reported straight. An interesting new look at Watergate, and it is amazing at how little changes in government.

Recommended for students of history, politics and Nixon of which I am a fan. The more I read about Nixon the more I wonder if he will ever truly be understood. This book takes a long look at a difficult time in America. One that seems more and more familiar today.