George Gordon Battle Liddy, better known as G. Gordon Liddy is a retired American
lawyer and convicted felon best known as the chief operative in the White House
Plumbers unit that existed from July–September 1971, during Richard
Nixon's presidency. He was convicted of conspiracy, burglary, and illegal
wiretapping for his role in the Watergate scandal.
Separately, along with E. Howard Hunt, Liddy organized and directed the
burglary of the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate
building in May and June 1972. After five of Liddy's operatives were arrested
inside the DNC offices on June 17, 1972, subsequent investigations of the
Watergate scandal led to Nixon's resignation in 1974. Liddy was convicted
of burglary, conspiracy and refusing to testify to the Senate committee
investigating Watergate. He served nearly fifty-two months in federal
prisons. Liddy later joined with Timothy Leary
for a series of popular debates on various college campuses, and similarly
worked with Al Franken in the late 1990s. From 1992 to 2012 Liddy served as
a radio talk show host until his retirement on July 27, 2012. His radio
show as of 2009 was syndicated in 160 markets by Radio America and on both
Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio stations in the United States. He
has been a guest panelist for Fox News Channel in addition to appearing in a
cameo role or as a guest celebrity talent in several television shows.
Early years = Youth, family, education =
Liddy was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Sylvester James Liddy and Maria. Largely
of Irish descent, his maternal grandfather was of Italian descent.
Liddy was raised in Hoboken and West Caldwell, New Jersey. He was named for
George Gordon Battle, a New York City attorney and Tammany Hall DA nominee who
had mentored Liddy's father. Liddy spent grades 1 through 3 at the
Academy of the Sacred Heart. He was enrolled in the fourth grade at SS Peter
and Paul Parochial School. He was enrolled in St. Aloysius Parochial
School at the sixth grade level in September 1941. He graduated in 1944 and
in September of that year he entered Saint Benedict's Preparatory School in
Newark, New Jersey, from which he graduated in June 1948, aged 17.
= College, military, law school = He was educated at Fordham University,
graduating in 1952. While at Fordham he was a member of the National Society of
Pershing Rifles. Following graduation, Liddy joined the United States Army,
serving for two years as an artillery officer during the Korean War. He
remained stateside for medical reasons. He returned to New York in 1954 to
attend Fordham University School of Law, earning a position on the Fordham Law
Review. After graduating from law school in 1957, he went to work for the Federal
Bureau of Investigation under J. Edgar Hoover.
FBI Liddy joined the FBI in 1957, initially
serving as a field agent in Indiana and Denver. In Denver, on September 10,
1960, Liddy apprehended Ernest Tait, one of two people to be a two-time Top Ten
Most Wanted fugitive. At age 29, Liddy became the youngest Bureau Supervisor at
FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C.. A protege of deputy director Cartha
DeLoach, Liddy became part of director J. Edgar Hoover's personal staff and
became his ghostwriter. Amongst his fellow agents he had a reputation for
recklessness and was known primarily for two incidents. The first was an arrest
in Kansas City, Missouri during a black bag job; he was released after calling
Clarence M. Kelley, former FBI agent and chief of the Kansas City Police. The
second was running an FBI background check on his future wife before their
marriage in 1957, which Liddy later referred to as "purely a routine
precautionary measure." Prosecutor and politician
Liddy resigned from the FBI in 1962 and worked as a lawyer in New York City
until 1966. He was then hired by then district attorney Raymond Baratta as a
prosecutor in Dutchess County, New York after interviewing and providing
references from the FBI. In 1966, he led a drug raid on Timothy Leary's Milbrook
estate which resulted in an unsuccessful trial. The case generated much publicity
though other lawyers complained Liddy received credit for something in which
he played a relatively small role. He was also reprimanded for firing a
revolver at the ceiling in a courtroom. He ran unsuccessfully for the post of
District Attorney. In 1968, he ran for the United States House of
Representatives in New York's 28th congressional district, running under
the slogan "Gordon Liddy doesn't bail them out; he puts them in", but lost to
Hamilton Fish IV in a close race. He then worked with Egil "Bud" Krogh,
Gordon Strachan and David Young, all aides to John D. Erlichman, Assistant to
the President For Domestic Affairs. He then attained the post, in 1972, of
General Counsel, Finance Committee of the Committee to Re-elect the
President,. In Sept. 1973 Krogh, Liddy, Young and Erlichman were indicted for
conspiracy to commit burglary. White House undercover operative
In 1971, after serving in several positions in the Nixon administration,
Liddy was moved to Nixon's 1972 campaign, the CRP, 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. His formal
title at CRP was general counsel of the finance operation.
At CRP, Liddy concocted several plots in early 1972, collectively known under the
title "Operation Gemstone". Some of these were far-fetched, intended to
embarrass the Democratic opposition. These included kidnapping anti-war
protest organizers and transporting them to Mexico during the Republican National
Convention, as well as luring mid-level Democratic campaign officials to a house
boat in Baltimore, where they would be secretly photographed in compromising
positions with prostitutes. Most of Liddy's ideas were rejected by Attorney
General John N. Mitchell, but a few were given the go-ahead by Nixon
Administration officials, including the 1971 break-in at Daniel Ellsberg's
psychiatrist's office in Los Angeles. Ellsberg had leaked the Pentagon Papers
to The New York Times. At some point, Liddy was instructed to break into the
Democratic National Committee offices in the Watergate Complex.
= Watergate burglaries = Liddy was the Nixon Administration
liaison and leader of the group of five men who broke into the headquarters of
the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate Complex. At least two separate
entries were made in May and June 1972; the burglars were caught and apprehended
on June 17. The purposes of the break-in were never conclusively established. The
burglars sought to place wiretaps and planned to photograph documents. Their
first attempt had led to improperly-functioning recording devices
being installed. Liddy did not actually enter the Watergate Complex; rather, he
admitted to supervising the second break-in which he coordinated with E.
Howard Hunt, from a room in the adjacent Watergate Hotel. Liddy was convicted of
conspiracy, burglary and illegal wiretapping.
Liddy was sentenced to a 20-year prison term and was ordered to pay $40,000 in
fines. He began serving the sentence on January 30, 1973. On April 12, 1977,
President Jimmy Carter commuted Liddy's sentence to eight years, "in the
interest of equity and fairness based on a comparison of Mr. Liddy's sentence
with those of all others convicted in Watergate related prosecutions", leaving
the fine in effect. Carter's commutation made Liddy eligible for parole as of
July 9, 1977. Liddy was released on September 7, 1977, after serving a total
of four and a half years of incarceration.
After prison In 1980, Liddy published an
autobiography, titled Will, which sold more than a million copies and was made
into a television movie. 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 the lecture circuit and was listed as the
top speaker in the college circuit in 1982 by The Wall Street Journal. He
later joined with LSD proponent Timothy Leary on a series of debates which were
popular on the college circuit as well; Leary had once been labeled by Liddy's
ex-employer Richard Nixon as "the most dangerous man in America." Liddy
remained in the public eye with two guest appearances on the television
series Miami Vice as William "Captain Real Estate" Maynard. Who was a shadowy
former covert operations officer that Sonny Crocket knew from his military
service in South Vietnam. He appeared in the 1993 Golden Book
Video release of Encyclopedia Brown: The Case of the Burgled Baseball Cards as
Corky Lodato. In Miami Vice, he acted with John Diehl, who would later go on
to portray Liddy himself in Oliver Stone's 1995 movie Nixon. Liddy's other
TV guest credits include Airwolf, MacGyver and the short-lived The
Highwayman. Comic book author Alan Moore has stated that the character of The
Comedian from his graphic novel Watchmen was based in part on Liddy. In the 1979
TV adaptation of John Dean's book Blind Ambition, Liddy was played by actor
William Daniels. In the early 1980s, Liddy joined forces
with former Niles, Illinois policeman and co-owner of The Protection Group,
Ltd., Thomas E. Ferraro, Jr., to start up a private security and
countersurveillance firm called, G. Gordon Liddy & Associates. The firm was
not a success, however, and it filed for bankruptcy on November 12, 1988. In
1992, he emerged to host his own talk radio show. Less than a year later, its
popularity led to national syndication through Viacom's Westwood One Network
and later on, Radio America, in 2003. Liddy's show ended on July 27, 2012.
In addition to Will, he wrote the nonfiction books, When I Was a Kid, This
Was a Free Country, and Fight Back! Tackling Terrorism, Liddy Style, he
published two novels: Out of Control and The Monkey Handlers. His novels did not
sell as well as his non-fiction works. Liddy was one of many people interviewed
for the biography of Abbie Hoffman, Steal this Dream, by Larry "Ratso"
Sloman. Controversial statements
August 25, 1986: Liddy's felony convictions rendered him unable to
legally possess firearms. Despite this, Liddy founded G. Gordon Liddy &
Associates, a private security firm. When asked how he was able to maintain
such a close relationship with guns despite his status as a convicted felon,
Liddy replied, "Mrs. Liddy has an extensive collection of firearms, some
of which she keeps on my side of the bed."
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 claimed his detractors omitted some important context:
Acting career Liddy acted in several films, including
Street Asylum, Feds, Adventures in Spying, Camp Cucamonga, and Rules of
Engagement. He appeared on such television shows as The Highwayman,
Airwolf, Fear Factor, Perry Mason, and MacGyver. He had a recurring role on
Miami Vice, and guest starred in Al Franken's LateLine. On April 7, 1986, he
appeared at WrestleMania II as a guest judge for a boxing match between Mr. T
versus Roddy Piper. Liddy appeared on a celebrity edition
Fear Factor, the show's series finale, on September 12, 2006. At 75 years of
age, Liddy was the oldest contestant ever to appear on the show. Liddy beat
the competition in the first two stunts, winning two motorcycles custom built by
Metropolitan Chopper. In the final driving stunt, Liddy crashed and was
unable to finish. He was also an interviewee in the
documentary, The U.S. vs. John Lennon as well as a commercial spokesman for
Rosland Capital, selling gold on television commercials.
Personal life Liddy was married to Frances
Purcell-Liddy, a native of Poughkeepsie, New York, for 53 years until her death
on February 5, 2010. She was an educator. The couple had five children
and twelve grandchildren. References
External links G. Gordon Liddy NNDb profile
Liddy on TuneIn