What was the name of the man Nixon said "knew too much?"?

Question

some part-time paperback writer who worked with the spy service in ww2.

Answer 1

Actually, you have Otto Otepka. The quote is during the Kennedy years. Power struggle going on all through the 1950s with Communists everywhere and anywhere. Nixon is a friend of the nut-cases fringes of the extreme right wing of the Republicans. I mean these fringe types think Ike is a Socialist (but not a communist).

Opteka rises throught the ranks at the State Department to Assistant Deputy Director -- a bureacratic job, not a political appointment like the Sec. of State is hired. Anyhow, Kennedy wants a fellow named Rostow who has been previously denied security clearances from government prior to Kennedy. The reason being Opteka. Opteka didn't like the fact that Rostow was the son of a Socialist. The Republicans also despised Dean Rusk as Kennedy's choice for Sec. of State.

Meanwhile, McCarthy was dead. But, strangely enough, McCarthy might have mediated the situation better. Kennedy and McCarthy were related by religion. The McCarthy efforts were belittled as a witch hunt, deflating the Right Wingers.

The Kennedys were able to reduce Opteka's job description down to file clerk in the basement, but not fire him outright. Nixon is paying tribute and acknowleging his solidarity with the Right Wing fringe by stating Opteka was the man who knew too much.