The Watergate

by Joseph Rodota

  “Having an apartment in Watergate and being so close to members of the government,” the countess recalled years later, “made my espionage more effective and constant.”

  As part of her “espionage,” the countess formed a company to place “favorable information about the Argentinian government” in the American press. Rampant corruption, economic depression stemming from the 1981–82 financial collapse (and a resulting $43 billion in foreign debt), and the military defeat in the Falklands War, forced the Argentinian junta to call for democratic elections in October 1983, at which Raúl Alfonsín was elected president. The countess enlisted in the venture her brother William and her brother-in-law Kenneth Crosby, who had worked for the FBI in Argentina during World War II, collecting information on pro-Nazi groups, and later opened an office of Merrill Lynch in Havana, Cuba. “I think neither of them made any money from this,” she recalled, “but they were very enthusiastic.”

  Shortly after William Casey was sworn in as director of the CIA, the countess sent him a list of thirty “influential” European and South African conservatives she said would “gratefully assist in any endeavor to improve relationships,” including Brian Crozier, a British author and founder of “the 61,” a private spy network.

  She wrote to White House aides Michael Deaver and Richard Allen, requesting a meeting between Manuel Fraga—whom she described as the leader of Spain’s “most important right party”—and President Reagan. A five-minute meeting and a photograph with Reagan, she explained, “would give psychological strength to the people of the right in Spain.” National Security Council aide James M. Rentschler took up her request with the Spanish Desk at the Department of State, which recommended the president not meet with a Spanish political leader until he had first met with Prime Minister Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo, head of the coalition government. “The main question is timing,” Rentschler informed Allen, while noting the Countess of Romanones was a “delicious name!” Her request for a meeting was declined.

  In 1985, the countess launched a campaign to land an ambassadorship. She suggested to Casey it “might create a problem” if she were to become the ambassador to Spain, because of her royal title, and offered instead to be sent to El Salvador. Casey called the White House on her behalf. A White House aide vetted her application and, in a memo to Robert M. Kimmitt, the National Security Council’s top lawyer, reported the countess was “an enthusiastic supporter” of Roberto D’Aubuisson, a far-right politician linked to death squads in El Salvador and who had recently lost an election to rival José Napoleón Duarte. “She may be eminently qualified for some other position,” the Reagan White House aide wrote, “but we do not need a fan of Major Bob as our Ambassador to San Salvador.”

  In 1987, the countess released a memoir, The Spy Wore Red: My Adventures as an Undercover Agent in World War II, detailing her exploits, which included delivering secret documents around Europe and transmitting messages in Morse code. She organized groups of female agents to cross into Germany and “investigate Gestapo and SS activities.” Late in the war, she attempted to cross the border with a small suitcase full of microfilm and radio equipment, narrowly escaping detection, imprisonment and, almost certainly, execution. She confessed to falling in love with a double agent for the Nazis (identified only as “Pierre”) and revealed she had committed a murder. Her code name during the war was Butch. Her publisher, Random House, changed it to Tiger, she said, because Butch “had other implications.”

  Michael Gross, a reporter and fashion columnist for the “Living/Style” section of the New York Times, called her book “breezy and gossipy,” “a welcome addition to the espionage genre” and “seedy and sophisticated.”

  After her husband died in 1987, the countess sold their Watergate apartment. She kept writing, however, and released a second memoir in 1990, The Spy Went Dancing, about her hunt for a NATO mole, with the Duchess of Windsor as her accomplice. “Espionage is like a drug,” she told a reporter for People magazine, as she sipped Diet Coke from a champagne glass. “It makes life very exciting.”

  A year later, in an article titled “The Spy Stripped Naked,” Women’s Wear Daily declared the countess’s books “may be more fiction than fact.” Reporter Susan Watters tracked down a declassified file in the National Archives containing eighty pages of “routine reports” from an agent code-named Butch, covering “social life in Madrid and rumors about German agents.” The file contained no mentions of the exploits in the countess’s book, such as the time she claimed to have “blasted a would-be assassin with her Beretta.” The countess was outraged. The files prove nothing, she said. Even if the memos were hers, she would never have written down everything she saw during her service. “You have to keep many things secret,” she said.

  She acknowledged, however, that her original manuscript had been rejected by a half-dozen publishers, so she made revisions, re-creating dialogue and simplifying the story line while keeping the “core” of the tale authentic. In her author’s note at the beginning of The Spy Wore Silk, she explained that although some “dramatic moments” had been left out, and various conversations “re-created,” her intention throughout “has been to capture the essence and flavor of the places, events, and conversations that actually took place.” Her publisher said the countess had invented a new genre: “romantic nonfiction.” The countess was simply trying to make the OSS “look good,” said Ray Cline, Anna Chennault’s lunch companion on June 16, 1972, the day of the Watergate break-in, who was now teaching at Georgetown University. “Espionage is mostly boredom,” he said. “Once in a while, about 2 percent of the time, it’s very exciting. But 98 percent is drudgery. In order to get her books published, she decided to glamorize.”

  The countess went on to write two more books: The Well-Mannered Assassin (1994) and El Fin de Una Era (2010 in Spanish, 2015 in English). A selection of her jewels was auctioned off by Sotheby’s Geneva in 2011, including the ruby and diamond demi parure—a matching necklace and earring set—she wore in the Town & Country photo shoot at the Watergate nearly two decades earlier, which sold for $409,230, and a 1936 diamond bracelet watch, given to her by the Duchess of Windsor, which sold for nearly six times its high estimate.

  RICHARD KIND, A “SLENDER, HAUGHTY BACHELOR,” OPERATED a million-dollar gay prostitution service named Friendly Models out of a townhouse in Georgetown. Kind answered six incoming telephone lines as escorts hung around shooting pool or played video games as they waited for appointments. He provided callers with detailed physical descriptions of his stable of thirty escorts, some as young as eighteen, most of them “clean-cut and collegiate.” For diplomats and other international clients, Friendly Models offered escorts who could speak French, Spanish, German and Italian. One call boy, identified only as “Ken” in a Miami Herald report, said Friendly Models got the “carriage trade of the gay out-call business” in Washington—serving only the well-to-do market. Prices varied from $60 to $200 a night, payable by Visa or Master Charge, with receipts marked “R.S.K. Associates”—Richard Kind’s initials. “Ken” told Herald investigate reporter Frank Greve he regularly serviced clients on Washington’s Embassy Row, in the hunt country of Virginia and at the Watergate Hotel and apartments.

  Leroy Williams was a straight-A student from the only black family in the Sixth and Izard Church of Christ in Little Rock, Arkansas. At the suggestion of congregation member Bob Scott, Williams applied for a position as a congressional page and was accepted. The congregation’s Bible study class raised the money to send Williams to Washington. He started as a page in late June 1981 and was elevated to page supervisor by the end of summer. In January 1982, however, Leroy Williams resigned abruptly from the page program and returned to Little Rock.

  Six months later, on the CBS Evening News broadcast the night of June 30, 1982, a young man was interviewed—on camera, but only in profile, to shield his identity—by correspondent John Ferrugia. According to the report, a congressman had approached the young man, who was
at the time a “page overseer,” and asked him to come to his office later that evening. “We just sat and talked casually about what had gone on that day,” the young man said. “And then he kind of made a pass at me. He told me that he thought I was real nice looking and I was just sitting there trying to soak all this in, because it was really kind of a shock. Then he just started coming on to me and then one thing just happened after another. We did have a sexual relationship at that time.” The young man said he had sex with the congressman a total of three times, including once at the Watergate.

  “What’s the compensation here?” the reporter asked.

  “I never saw any money and I don’t know anybody who ever has,” the young man said. “But the way that ‘The Hill’ works is that you climb the ladder, so one favor deserves another.”

  Back in Little Rock, Bob Scott recognized the voice of the CBS informant. Without question, he said to himself, it was Leroy Williams.

  The story picked up momentum quickly. The Miami Herald reported “a 16-year-old Congressional page” had revealed members of Congress attended “drug parties” and made “homosexual advances.” Federal investigators suggested as many as six congressmen could be homosexuals. CBS and NBC reported as many as twelve members of Congress were under investigation for cocaine use. Representative Larry E. Craig, a Republican from Idaho first elected to Congress in the 1980 Reagan landslide, issued a statement saying reports linking him to any homosexual activities were false and “despicable.” The FBI contacted Williams and asked him to share his story. Williams reached out to Scott, who agreed to represent him.

  On Tuesday, July 6, in the Arkansas Gazette, Leroy Williams was identified by name for the first time in connection with the unfolding scandal. Williams said he had arranged appointments with male prostitutes for a Capitol Hill staff member, a Government Printing Office employee and a U.S. senator. He told the New York Times the sexual encounter between the senator and a male prostitute—identified only as “Roger”—took place at the Watergate. Williams appeared on Little Rock television station KARK-TV and described in detail what happened at the Watergate:

  We at first sat down. We all had a drink and . . . [they] moved to the master bedroom. About an hour later [they] came out and [the Senator] thanked me for making a call for him and expressed the fact that if there was anything he could do for me to get in touch with his office.

  Williams said he did not enjoy making the arrangements. “It was something that I just accepted as part of the way you survive while you’re in DC,” he said. He admitted drug use and homosexual encounters, both before and after going to Washington. He named three congressmen and one senator, but the names were deleted from the broadcast when it aired. Rumors circulated on Capitol Hill that at least seven members of Congress, including two members of the House leadership, had engaged in homosexual activities. But Jack Russ, the deputy doorkeeper in the U.S. House of Representatives, called Williams “a pathological liar.”

  With Scott by his side, Williams met with FBI agents in Little Rock for about six hours. He took—and failed—a lie-detector test. Scott and Williams flew to Washington, and Williams testified before the House Ethics Committee. He shared with them the names of three congressmen with whom he said he had sex, and the name of the U.S. senator whose Friendly Models encounter he said he had arranged. “Despite the fact that he failed his polygraph test and despite charges by Capitol Hill officials that he’s a pathological liar, Leroy Williams maintains he is telling the truth,” reported ABC News congressional correspondent Carole Simpson.

  Over the next forty-eight hours, Williams began to change his story. He said he did not have sex with three different congressmen “at least seven” times, but only four times. CBS News tracked down “Roger,” the Friendly Models escort who had allegedly serviced an unnamed senator at the Watergate. “Roger” said he did not have sex at the Watergate with a senator; he had sex there with Leroy Williams.

  On July 10, the Washington Post reported Williams admitted lying about arranging a sexual encounter at the Watergate. Williams told the Post he had met a “congressman” once for a drink at the Peacock Lounge at the Watergate Hotel, but they did not have sex. (Curiously, the Post reporter did not catch Williams’s error: the Peacock Lounge was located in the Les Champs arcade, at the other end of the Watergate complex, and not at the hotel.) “You associate congressmen with big things; the Watergate’s something big in DC, any way you look at it,” Williams said. “And so I guess I was just . . . the evil part of me saying, hey, here’s something that sounds good, you know. If you can stick him at the Watergate and make it sound like you know something went on at the Watergate, then that’ll make the story sound twice as good.”

  Leroy Williams returned to Little Rock. In mid-August, he was arrested and fined $77 for public intoxication at a local theater showing The Rocky Horror Picture Show. A week later, he was interviewed by two congressional investigators at DeGray Lake, near Arkadelphia. The following day, at a press conference in Little Rock, Williams said his entire story was a fabrication.

  “For the past few months I have made some very serious accusations,” he said. “These accusations are not true. I have lied. I regret that I have lied. Words can never express the remorse I feel for the pain and the trauma that I’ve caused.” Williams said he did not have sex with any members of Congress and did not arrange a homosexual liaison between a senator and a male prostitute. When asked if he knew of any homosexual relationships involving elected officials, he said, “There may be, but not to my personal knowledge.”

  “It was my original intention to help the page system, not to hurt it,” Williams said. The pages, he said, worked long hours with little adult supervision. Williams said he had been pressured by other pages into abusing drugs and alcohol, and had left the program because he feared he was at risk of becoming an alcoholic.

  Richard Kind, the owner of Friendly Models, was charged with conspiracy to pander. He jumped a $2,500 bond and disappeared, according to police and his lawyer. He left behind an IRS lien for $1,028,902.16 for unpaid personal and business taxes on his earnings from 1978 to 1982.

  Williams returned to Washington and met with the House Ethics Committee one more time. Over a three-hour session, he recanted his earlier allegations. As Williams left the Capitol, Scott, his pro bono attorney, waved reporters away, telling them his client would not talk to anyone again on the matter. Williams never gave another interview on the controversy. He left Arkansas and moved to Florida, where he now lives with his sister.

  In 2007, Scott told the Idaho Statesman that “Congressman C” in the 1982 House Ethics Committee report was then-congressman Larry Craig. “I am positive he named Larry Craig in 1982,” Scott said. In his 1982 interview with CBS News, Williams said he had sex with Congressman C on three occasions; he then told the FBI he had “sexual relations” with Congressman C on two occasions. According to the House Ethics Committee report, Williams’s testimony to congressional investigators about these encounters contained “details” that were different from what he told the FBI. “Congressman C has denied ever propositioning or having sexual relations with Williams. He has said that he never met alone under any circumstances with Williams and does not know him.”

  In the aftermath of the congressional page scandal, some editors and reporters asked themselves how this false story had spiraled out of control. “He was everybody’s exclusive,” acknowledged CBS News president Howard Stringer. “I think we should have found that out sooner.” On CBS, Williams was identified only as a “former page overseer.” On another network, he was a “former page.” In the Arkansas Gazette, the charges were from “an unidentified former page from Little Rock.”

  According to a postmortem by the Associated Press, the fierce competitiveness of the news business in the post-Watergate era played a role in feeding the scandal. Since Watergate, more than twenty-five members of Congress had been convicted of various criminal charges. Journalists were now will
ing to listen to allegations they might have dismissed as preposterous before the night of June 16, 1972.

  GUESTS WOULD APPROACH THE FRONT DOOR OF JEAN-LOUIS at the Watergate through a long, subterranean hallway; along one side, behind glass, were racks of wine and champagne. What guests did not know, however, was that the bulk of Palladin’s wine inventory was scattered all over the Watergate behind unmarked doors, in racks and storage bins. The staff spoke about these “undisclosed locations” only in code, in order to deter break-ins.

  With the support of Nicolas Salgo, Jean-Louis Palladin built one of the great wine cellars in the United States, recalled Mark Slater, who worked as a bartender, cellar master and, finally, as maître d’ for Jean-Louis. Salgo’s family owned vineyards, which supplied house wines for the hotel. Salgo attended wine auctions in France, and the hotel had an import license. Shortly after Slater arrived, he heard rumors of the secret wine storage room and tracked it down to a location in the garage. To open the door, he needed two keys—from the hotel’s general manager and the chief accountant. When they finally opened the door, Slater said he felt “like Howard Carter gazing into King Tut’s tomb.” Cases of the finest wines in the world—all acquired by Nicolas Salgo—were stacked throughout the room. When Slater completed his inventory, he discovered the cellar included all the iconic wines of the 1920s through the 1940s, including the 1945 Château Moutone Rothschild, the “wine of the century.”