Robert Strauss's Watergate Secret

March 20, 2014

Special Report: Robert Strauss, who died Wednesday, was a Democratic powerbroker who thrived in the age of Nixon, Reagan and Bush-41. But an enduring Watergate mystery is whether Strauss earned his GOP spurs by secretly helping the Republicans in the spy scandal, reports Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry

Longtime Washington powerbroker Robert Strauss, who died Wednesday at the age of 95, took to the grave the answer to one of the most provocative Watergate mysteries, whether he was, in effect, a Republican mole serving in the highest ranks of the Democratic Party.

In his later years, Strauss rebuffed my requests for an interview on this topic, but it never seemed likely that he would tell the full truth anyway, answering questions about whether his close collaboration with senior Republicans in the early 1970s was just personal or whether he was privately helping them undermine Democratic election prospects in 1972 and then trying to shut down the Watergate investigation in 1973-74.