G. Gordon Liddy
George Gordon Battle Liddy (born
November 30,
1930) was the chief operative for President
Richard Nixon's
White House Plumbers unit. Along with
E. Howard Hunt, Liddy masterminded the
first break-in of
Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate building in
1972. The subsequent cover-up of the
Watergate scandal led to Nixon's resignation in 1974. Liddy later became an
American radio talk show host, actor and political strategist. Liddy's
radio talk show is now
syndicated in 160 markets and on both
Sirius Satellite Radio and
XM Satellite Radio stations in the
United States. He has also been a guest panelist for
Fox News Channel.
Liddy was born in
Hoboken, New Jersey, raised in
West Caldwell, New Jersey, and educated at
Fordham University. He graduated in 1952 and joined the
United States Army, serving for two years as an
artillery officer in the U.S. during the
Korean War. He returned home in 1954 to study
law at Fordham. Graduating in 1957, he went to work for the
FBI under
J. Edgar Hoover. That same year he married Frances Ann Purcell. Liddy tells a story of an unusual encounter he had with Hoover: while paying the director a courtesy call, the purpose to which Hoover had only briefly alluded, the latter launched into a bizarre 45 minute tirade against
Eleanor Roosevelt. In this tirade he said that the former First Lady was an enemy of the Bureau and a subversive. Liddy later said, "Despite the irrelevance, I found this fascinating." He joked that afterwards another young agent approached him saying he was also going to have a meeting with the legendary director and wanted to know how to make a good impression. Liddy put on his best poker face and told his colleague to just let Mister Hoover know how much he loved and admired Eleanor Roosevelt.
Liddy left the FBI in 1962 and worked as a lawyer in
New York City and
Dutchess County, New York. In 1966, he organized the arrest and unsuccessful trial of
Timothy Leary. In his autobiography,
Will, he recounts finding the Leary mansion to be filled with
hippies tripping on
LSD and sitting in piles of their own
feces. He ran unsuccessfully for the post of District Attorney and then for the
House of Representatives in 1968, but used his political profile to run the presidential campaign of
Richard Nixon in the 28th district of New York.
In 1971, after serving in several positions in the Nixon administration, Liddy was moved to Nixon's 1972 campaign, the
Committee to Re-elect the President, (officially known as
CRP but to opponents known as CREEP), in order to extend the scope and reach of the White House "Plumbers" unit, which had been created in response to various damaging "leaks" of information to the press. At CRP, Liddy concocted several plots, some far-fetched, intended to embarrass the Democratic opposition. Most were rejected, but a few were given the go ahead by Nixon Administration officials, including the break-in at
Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office. Ellsberg had leaked the "Pentagon Papers" to the New York Times. At some point, he was instructed to break-in to the Democratic National Campaign headquarters in the Watergate complex. He insists that he resisted the order, pointing out that the break-in served no useful purpose, but relented when his objections were overruled. The break-in attempt was uncovered and the political and legal fallout led to the downfall of President Nixon. There is a great deal of speculation as to the actual origins of the order to break-in to the Watergate offices. Liddy's account can be found in his autobiography,
Will.
Attempting to find a solution to the heat coming down on the Nixon administration, Liddy suggested several far fetched ideas as a distraction, one of which included Liddy just "getting assassinated on some street corner".
For his role in
Watergate, which he coordinated with Hunt, Liddy was convicted of conspiracy, burglary and illegal wiretapping, and received a 20-year sentence. He served four and a half years in prison before his sentence was commuted by President
Jimmy Carter.
In 1980, Liddy published an autobiography, titled
Will, which sold more than a million copies and was made into a television movie. The book received reviews that were typically laudatory of Liddy's writing ability and sense of humor, if not of his personal character. In it he states that he once made plans with Hunt to kill journalist
Jack Anderson, based on a literal interpretation of a Nixon White House statement "we need to get rid of this Anderson guy".
In the mid-1980s Liddy went on joint lecture tours with fellow ex-con Timothy Leary.
In 1992, Liddy joined the talk circuit and then became host of a syndicated radio program (first through Unistar, and later CBS, before joining Radio America in 2003) espousing extremely conservative views, which was characterized by his highly provocative style.
In addition to
Will and the nonfiction books
When I Was a Kid, This Was a Free Country (2002) and
Fight Back! Tackling Terrorism, Liddy Style (2006, with his son Cdr. James G. Liddy, J. Michael Barrett, and Joel Selanikio), Liddy has published two novels:
Out of Control (1979) and
The Monkey Handlers (1990). The latter performs the unexpected feat of educating the fan of the macho action-adventure story about the cruelties of
animal experimentation.
Liddy describes himself as having been sickly as a child, and possessed of many irrational fears. To confront and overcome these fears, Liddy performed various acts that would "kill the fear". Examples include catching, cooking and eating a
rat (in order to overcome a
phobia to rats) and climbing a tree during a
thunderstorm (in order to overcome a phobia to
lightning).
One of Liddy's most famous feats of endurance involved holding his hand on a candle flame until the flesh on his hand was burned. According to the book
All The President's Men, he did this once at a dinner party and afterwards somebody asked "What's the trick?". He replied, "The trick is not
minding."
For many years Liddy was agnostic, but has reverted to Roman Catholicism.
During Liddy's tenure as a radio talk-show host, many controversial statements have been attributed to him, some of which would eventually lead to condemnation by then-President Bill Clinton.
* August 26, 1994 -
Now if the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms comes to disarm you and they are bearing arms, resist them with arms. Go for a head shot; they're going to be wearing bulletproof vests." ... "They've got a big target on there, ATF. Don't shoot at that, because they've got a vest on underneath that. Head shots, head shots.... Kill the sons of bitches.* September 15, 1994 -
If the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms insists upon a firefight, give them a firefight. Just remember, they're wearing flak jackets and you're better off shooting for the head.Liddy claims that his detractors omit some important context: [
1]:I was talking about a situation in which the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms comes smashing into a house, doesn't say who they are, and their guns are out, they're shooting, and they're in the wrong place. This has happened time and time again. The ATF has gone in and gotten the wrong guy in the wrong place. The law is that if somebody is shooting at you, using deadly force, the mere fact that they are a law enforcement officer, if they are in the wrong, does not mean you are obliged to allow yourself to be killed so your kinfolk can have a wrongful death action. You are legally entitled to defend yourself and I was speaking of exactly those kind of situations. If you're going to do that, you should know that they're wearing body armor so you should use a head shot. Now all I'm doing is stating the law, but all the nuances in there got left out when the story got repeated.
G. Gordon Liddy has acted in several movies, including
The Highwayman,
Street Asylum,
Camp Cucamonga,
Adventures in Spying and
Rules of Engagement. He also appeared in the television show
18 Wheels of Justice, had a recurring role on
Miami Vice, and guest starred in
Al Franken's TV show
LateLine.
* Despite their political differences, Liddy and
Al Franken are friends. Franken has been on Liddy's radio show multiple times. Liddy shares a similar friendship with noted feminist
Camille Paglia, who has also appeared several times on his show. Liddy is friends with yet another well-known liberal: Lanny Davis. A lawyer, a friend of the Clintons, and an outspoken supporter of
President Clinton during his controversial second term, Davis has been on Liddy's radio show numerous times, and for many years, when Davis appeared on Liddy's show, he would be boasted as "The liberal's liberal" and "Defending the Indefensible – The Clinton Presidency", and would have a special spiel played after Jan Hammer's
Miami Vice Theme (the theme song from 1992 until 1998) started the show, as it did originally. Liddy made a guest appearance on Whoopi Goldberg's television talk show in 1993.
* Liddy's show initially was a four-hour format, with
Review and Comment on the News in the second hour, and the other three hours could be call-in or guests. On
Listener Appreciation Day, there would be no guests and call-in's for the three call-in hours. The show later switched to a format where a news commentary took the first segment of each hour.
* During the
Review and Comment on the News segment of his radio show, Liddy will not say the full name of the
Washington Post. He instead bleeps out the name, saying, "Washington's quaint little alternative newspaper, the Washington *bleep*." Liddy claims that he does this in order to avoid being sued by the Post for
trademark infringement, although trademark law does not prohibit such mentions. (Liddy will occasionally mention the full name of the Washington Post, if the newspaper itself is involved in a controversial or newsworthy matter.)
* Liddy has described that, as a child in the 1930s, he grew up in a German-American community that included many admirers of
Adolf Hitler, and that listening to Hitler's speeches "made me feel a strength inside I had never known before." As an adult, however, he came to condem
Nazism and Hitler as "evil". [
2]
* Liddy was stationed at
Coney Island at an anti-aircraft battery during his two years in the
US Army, and never saw combat.
* Liddy claims that he is the only white man ever to have engaged in
weight training with the
Fruit of Islam (the paramilitary wing of the
Nation of Islam). This occurred while he was in prison.
* Liddy's son
Tom is a popular syndicated talk show host in
Phoenix,
Arizona.
* Liddy is portrayed in the 1999 Watergate satire
Dick by humorist
Harry Shearer as an especially high-strung, secretive crook.
* Liddy was a guest judge for a boxing match between
Mr. T and
"Rowdy" Roddy Piper at the New York portion of
WrestleMania 2.
* Liddy says
tongue in cheek that he did not allow any Soviet Bombers into
New York while he was stationed at
Coney Island.
* [
3] Liddy's website
* [
4] G. Gordon Liddy -- An interview
* [
5] FAIR Article on G. Gordon Liddy Talk Show Statements
