Texas A&M Letter

Letter From the President of Texas A & M University - Central Texas to Len Colodny. (Click for PDF)

Len Colodny, Warrior for Truth

January 21, 1938 ~ July 2, 2021

-Writen by Robert Gettlin

How do you say goodbye to someone who truly changed the world?

How do you lay to rest a treasured friend, partner, and guide who burned so bright and was relentlessly strong, like a candle in the wind when the skies were dark and filled with storms, and he alone lighted the way?

What do you do when that flame burns out and the physical glow is no more?

These are the questions that have come back to me time and again in the weeks since Len died on July 2 at the age of 83. He was a loving husband, father, and grandfather to his family, and an unflinching and loyal friend to so many from diverse backgrounds and views. And, of course, he was a brilliant analyst, an unstoppable investigator, and a bestselling author. He left us a rich and remarkable legacy that helps us understand pivotal and shattering events in our recent American story. His goal was to correct mistaken and misunderstood history, to unveil that which was hidden and to explain its meaning.

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These are the questions that have come back to me time and again in the weeks since Len died on July 2 at the age of 83. He was a loving husband, father, and grandfather to his family, and an unflinching and loyal friend to so many from diverse backgrounds and views. And, of course, he was a brilliant analyst, an unstoppable investigator, and a bestselling author. He left us a rich and remarkable legacy that helps us understand pivotal and shattering events in our recent American story. His goal was to correct mistaken and misunderstood history, to unveil that which was hidden and to explain its meaning.

Len Colodny was a warrior for truth.

His great legacy that lives on is the trove of materials and records he bequeathed to Texas A&M University, and which are archived in the very appropriately named “Colodny Collection.” Len’s enduring wish was that others follow the path he began to carve, and there are indeed more than a few journalists, writers, and historians who will tell you that he encouraged them to do that, and that they blazed their own trails.

Len co-authored two groundbreaking books, one a national bestseller – Silent Coup: The Removal of a President, published in 1991. That book was a game changer, like Len himself. And because of that book we better understand what actually happened in the Watergate saga and in the complicated tragedy of Richard Nixon’s presidency.

Len Colodny, Warrior for Truth

In Memory of Leonard Colodny, 1938-2021. Len was a New York Times bestselling author, political analyst, and investigator. His research and writing on Watergate and the Nixon Administration was groundbreaking.

Please visit the link below to donate in memory of Leonard Colodny:

All donations support the operations of the Central Texas Historical Archive at Texas A&M University - Central Texas, which houses the Colodny Collection


Midnight Rider Podcast

Midnight Writer News Episode 158 – S.T. Patrick with Robert Gettlin on “Watergate, Silent Coup, and Len Colodny

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Articles of Interest

Interview with Pentagon Spokesperson Jerry Friedheim

Interview with Pentagon Spokesperson Jerry Friedheim by Robert Gettlin - September 25, 1990 Listen to the Interview with Pentagon Spokesperson Jerry Friedheim GETTLIN: And I've discovered that even the Deep Throat, Woodward and Bernstein story ...

Interview with Defense Secretary Melvin Laird

Interview with Defense Secretary Melvin Laird March 6, 1989 - Robert Gettlin and Len Colodny Listen to the Interview with Defense Secretary Melvin Laird GETTLIN: Are you saying that you weren't aware at the time, ...

Interview with Admiral Thomas H. Moorer

Interview with Admiral Thomas H. Moorer by Robert Gettlin - October 4, 1989 Listen to Interview with Admiral Thomas H. Moorer GETTLIN: See the thing about it, he had contacts at the White House, from his time that...

Radford Quote

Radford was asked what they were trying to do; he replied: "Well, bringing Nixon down. Really, getting rid of Kissinger-Kissinger was a real monkey wrench in things."

"The Forty Years War"

"The Forty Years War: The Rise and Fall of the Neocons from Nixon to Obama" introduces Fritz Kraemer Fritz Kraemer meeting with President Nixon and Kissinger in the Oval Office, October 24, 1972 (Ollie Atkins, White House Photographer) Click to o...

"SC" and "TFYW" in the Media

In the Media Silent Coup Co-Author Available for Interviews The Watergate Break-in: 50 Years Later View a multitude of panel discussions on a variety of interesting facts from Watergate, told directly by the participants, themselves. Convened by...

Key To Watergate

Key To Watergate "Silent Coup" Chapter 9 - The Last Break-in and are the basis for the "Key to Watergate”, a documentary on A & E Network hosted by Bill Kurtis.Produced by Barbara Newman in 1992, she is now a senior fellow with the Founda...

Sam Dash

How Did I Miss The “Dash” For years, I helped Phil Stanford as he worked on his book "White House Call Girl". Phil obtained Heidi Rikan's Little Black Books. Yes, there were two of them, filled with pages of sports stars, businessmen, and a few p...

White House Call Girl

"White House Call Girl" Evidence Package Confirms "Silent Coup" Theory- 25 years later Click on Book to View the Evidence Package By Phil Stanford Heidi's the name. And in case you haven't figured out the game yet, you might want to take a peek at...

Deep Throat?

"Deep Throat" Used to Hide Haig: "Deliberate Erasures" on White House Tape What was Concealed: Woodward, by using "Throat", is concealing the person that actually erased the tape or at the very least witnessed it being erased. Why This Is Signifi...

Bob Woodward Articles

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein

From the Military’s Lips to Your Ears: A Trip Through the Reporting of Bob Woodward

By Ray Locker

Key leaders of the military have serious reservations about the mental stability of President Donald Trump, leading them to leak wildly to author Bob Woodward, according to stories in his latest book, "Fear."

The initial reports about the book indicate a military in virtual rebellion against Trump, disregarding his orders about attacking Syrian President Bashar Assad.

The players most prominently mentioned in Woodward’s book — White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, both former Marine generals — made the routine denials of cooperating with Woodward, but their connections are clear. (continued)


Woodward-Haig Connection

Bob Woodward lied* to conceal his early ties to General Alexander Haig. In 1969 and 1970, Navy Lt. Bob Woodward manned the Pentagon's secret communications room, which transmitted messages around the world, including the back channel communications for Henry Kissinger and President Richard Nixon. In that duty, Woodward often delivered messages from the worlds top leaders to Gen. Alexander Haig, Kissinger's deputy at the National Security Council.

"I never met or talked to Haig until sometime in the Spring of '73." (Woodward interview with authors 03/06/1989)

Why is this significant:

This relationship is critical to the Watergate scandal, as Haig was the key source for Woodward on his most important story, that there were "deliberate erasures" on a critical Nixon White House tape. Woodward - Haig Connection

Bob Woodward’s Secret. Shouldn’t He Have Disclosed It?

On January 12, 1974, the nation's hottest young reporting duo had a story on the front page of the Washington Post that had tremendous national security and political ramifications: the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was receiving secrets stolen from the White House.

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein had the story, based on Woodward’s sources. It came at a difficult time for the White House, as President Nixon was spiraling toward resignation.

But, despite the story's potential impact, Post readers only knew part of the story. They did not know, because Woodward did not tell them, that he was writing about his former boss and a longtime associate and patron during the time he served in the Navy. (He began working at the Post just one year after leaving the Navy.)


"Deep Throat" Used to Hide Haig: "Deliberate Erasures" on White House Tape

Colodny tells Woodward in the interview transcript below: "the word that jumps out at you is deliberate. Because if somebody is deliberately erasing tapes that are before Judge Sirica, we're talking about a crime."

It is significant because, if for "Throat" to know it was deliberate, he either erased the tape or witnessed its destruction. It is clear that both the process of elimination and Woodward's changing story about "Throat" as a source, that Alexander Haig is the source that told him that there were deliberate erasures on the White House tapes.

Listen to an Excerpt of the Exclusive Interview with Bob Woodward


"Silent Coup, The Removal of a President"

"Silent Coup, The Removal of a President" BookSILENT COUP is the excavation of some vital of some vital hidden history, of a national scandal within a scandal, and of a literary-journalistic atrocity of revealing while concealing.

There are several virtues that make this book quite remarkable among political writing of our era. What follows is a finely styled, fast-paced narrative, gripping as it is disturbing. Distinguished from so much written about Watergate and Richard Nixon, it also happens to be true.

You are about to read the story of a coup d’état, of all political events the most dramatic, suspenseful, sinister. To make the subject even more ominous, this is an American coup, albeit carried out (for a change) in the United States itself.

- Roger Morris, former National Security Council Staff Member under Henry Kissinger

More (Includes the Update)

"The Forty Years War" Introduces Fritz G.A. Kraemer

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Kraemer believed that power came from military strength and that any sign of weakening military resolve invited trouble from our rivals.

President Ronald Reagan first adopted Kraemer's theory in 1981, and it has been a force ever since.

"A rigorous and critical examination of the neoconservative movement and the bureaucratic, ideological battles over American foreign policy.

Highly recommended" - Library Journal

More (Includes the Update)