Bernard Leon Barker (March 17, 1917–June 5, 2009), known as "Macho" or by his mother's maiden name, "Terry", was a Watergate burglar, and burglar of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office.
Barker was born in Havana, to a Russian American father .[1] He was a B-17 crewman in World War II, a Second Lieutenant bombardier, in the 331st Squadron, 94th Bomb Group, 8th Air Force. On his thirteenth combat mission, he was wounded and shot down on a bombing raid to Brunswick, Germany, February 10, 1944. The Germans held him as a prisoner of war at Stalag Luft I in Barth. The Red Army liberated the camp on May 2, 1945.[2]
He was a former member of the Cuban secret police under the Batista regime.[3]
He joined Operation 40 and the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion.[4]
Later, his former CIA boss, E. Howard Hunt, recruited him for the "Plumbers", the Nixon White House's "Special Investigations Unit". In 1972, Barker was one of the five burglars paid by the Committee to Re-elect the President (CREEP), Nixon's re-election campaign fundraising committee, for a break-in at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee, and subsequently was convicted in the Watergate scandal. The others were Frank Sturgis, Virgilio Gonzalez, Eugenio Martinez and James McCord.
Along with the other Watergate burglars, G. Gordon Liddy, and E. Howard Hunt, Barker was charged with, and pled guilty to, wiretapping, planting electronic surveillance equipment, and theft of documents.
Barker also worked with CREEP to get monies which went into the Nixon campaign coffers off the books; it was via his bank account that twenty-five thousand dollars from Archer Daniels Midland Chief Executive Dwayne Andreas was obtained by CREEP in violation of campaign finance laws.[5][6]
Some conspiracy theorists claimed he was complicit in the 1963 John F. Kennedy assassination,[4] together with other Watergate figures like Frank Sturgis and E. Howard Hunt. A Dallas deputy police officer by the name of Seymour Weiztman recognized him during the time of the Watergate scandal. On the day of the assassination of President Kennedy, Weitzman had been the first police officer to run up to the picket fence area seconds after the last shots. There he found a man who displayed Secret Service credentials. Weitzman claims this man was Bernard Barker.
In September 1971, Barker had begun his work for the Nixon administration when he was recruited by Hunt to find background information on Daniel Ellsberg. Ellsberg was under watch for releasing what came to be known as the "Pentagon Papers", a series of articles featured in the New York Times in 1971 detailing U.S. government secrets concerning the Vietnam War's history. Barker had been recruited along with Eugenio Martínez to help Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy break into the office of Dr. Lewis J. Fielding, Ellsberg's psychiatrist. The mission's purpose was to find discrediting information on Ellsberg. The mission was completed, but largely unsuccessful in finding any damaging information about Ellsberg. On March 2, 1974 Barker was indicted for the break-in.[2] Barker was released pending appeal after serving one year of a two-and-a-half to six-year sentence.
Barker was a dual citizen of Cuba and the United States; his father was American, his mother Cuban.[7]
After Barker's release from prison, he worked as a building inspector for the city of Miami, Florida, earning $18,512 per year. He chose early retirement in 1982 rather than fight proceedings seeking his dismissal for loafing on the job.[8]
President Jimmy Carter denied him a pardon.[9]
Barker died of lung cancer in his Miami home on June 5, 2009, aged 92. His fourth wife, Dora Maria Barker, survived him.