G. Gordon Liddy testifies he was in the dark about Watergate break-in

Mpls (red)Star Tribune / AP ^ | 7/2/02 | Gretchen Parker

[Valin]

BALTIMORE -- Watergate conspirator G. Gordon Liddy on Monday testified that he was kept in the dark about the 1972 break-in he helped organize - even as he lay in wait that night with radio transmitters at the Watergate hotel.

[Middle Man]

Pierre Rinfret, who among other things was a close advisor to Nixon, thinks it was Leonard Garment and tells why.

[Deadeye Division]

bttt

[visitor]

I found it interesting that Hillary Clinton and other Clinton White House Staff were Nixon Watergate prosecutors ...rto

[Marianne]

BUMP for the G-man.
I always found it interesting that the only two people who survived the "Watergate" mess were Henry Kissinger and Alexander Haig, both Rockefeller protégés.

[BluesDuke]

I don't know that Kissinger (who I remember having been critical of the Watergate affair) and Haig being "Rockefeller proteges" is all that pertinent in the Watergate context. If you think about it, had Nixon been a New Yorker rather than a California he would have qualified himself as a Rockefeller Republican (though, perhaps, given his political seniority over Rockefeller - who didn't become a known Republican commodity until he became New York's governor in the late 1950s - the term could well have become Nixon Republicans) - I've said it elsewhere, but except for his vocal and active policymaking anti-Communism as a member of Congress, a Senator, and Vice President Nixon was otherwise a very liberal Republican.

[BluesDuke]

In terms of Nixon's resignation, the motive for the break in did not matter.

Actually, it does, if you consider John Dean using the Nixon White House climate viz the coming re-election campaign as his beard - and if you consider, in hand with that, that Nixon was buying a bill of goods Dean was selling and was not troubling himself to discover the actual truth, beginning with John Mitchell's actually having refused the proposals that became the Watergate operation. Colodny and Gettlin in Silent Coup make much, and back it up, about that aspect of the scandal. There will come a day when John Dean will have plenty for which to answer at last.

[MosesKnows]

Liddy will say anything to anyone

Your comment was confusing. Liddy did not write Silent Coup,. Liddy wasn't interviewed for the 20th anniversary Watergate radio show, and Liddy has nothing to do with what Woodward writes.

Liddy still has a radio show and I enjoy having access to a radio talk show host with as much knowledge about law, history, and government as Liddy. Liddy also makes a fairly decent Dr. Laura. If you know of another one like Liddy, I'd be interested in listening to him.

I would agree that he does enjoy listening to himself. However, since I enjoy listening to him listen to himself it does not annoy me as it apparently does you. Perhaps your time is better spent with the children who replaced Liddy’s original show. I believe they are called The Don and Mike Show.

[chaosagent]

He's back on KSEV 700AM. He comes on 9pm - 12mn after Laura Ingraham.

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

I PO'd plenty of libs when Clinton was erected to office. While they were having orgasms at the thought of two lawyers (Bill and Hill) running the country, I brought up the point that most of the Watergate "bad guys" were lawyers. I told them that Watergate taught them nothing. Of course I knew that, I just wanted to see their reaction. It was hilarious.

[ASA Vet]

You don't rob a place .....

You don't rob burgle a place....

[AmericanInTokyo]

Check this: "Assorted boyfriends and former husbands of both Rikan and her sometimes roommate, Maureen "Mo" Biner (who married key Watergate figure John Dean, which makes Mo a pivotal character, according to scandal revisionists) were associated with the Quorum, an early 1960s "swingles' club run by Bobby Baker, a former aide to Lyndon Johnson. Scott surmises that all roads led to Baker's club for a reason: the Quorum functioned a lot like the mob-and-intelligence-infested sex traps of the 1970s. "

[AmericanInTokyo]

And this, too:

"Another intriguing sidenote: Golberg ghost wrote Maureen Dean's biography, Washington Wives. Maureen "Mo" Dean is the wife of Watergate figure John Dean. Both are at the center of the controversial conspiracy theory that recasts the Watergate break-ins as an attempt to retrieve an address book containing the names of Washington call girls who were servicing bigwig Democrats. As the theory goes, some of these call girls were part of an intelligence operation -- possibly run by the CIA -- to compromise Democrat VIPs. Authors Len Colodny and Robert Gettlin speculate in their book, Silent Coup, that Dean wanted the address book not to smear Democrats, but to protect his career. According to Colodny and Gettlin (who are being sued by John Dean), one of the names in that little black book belonged to Dean's then-fiancee Mo Biner, the future Mo Dean. Dean denies the book's allegations. "

[T-Bird45]

No, it was really Forrest Gump ... :-)

[San Jacinto]

The motive for the burglary was irrelevant to the eventual resignation of Nixon in the sense that it was the cover up that brought him down, not the break in itself. No matter the motive, Nixon was going to thwart any investigation because there was a lot of activity -- Plumbers, etc. -- which an investigation of White House involvement would have uncovered. Nixon, as well as Halderman and Erlichman, were not going to let that happen.

On the other hand, the motive for the break in is an important aspect of the Watergate saga ---- a story which impacted American history. Yet, the media has never focused on what the motivation for the burglary might have been. If anyone points out that the break-in seems to make no rational sense, the answer seems to be, "Well, they were just stupid."

Colodny and Getlin put the lie to such a premise. They reveal the real purpose of the operation and the culprit behind it. Yet, during the 30th anniversary of the event, the media black out of Silent Coup continues.

If the verdict in the Maxie Wells trial goes against Liddy, the media will say the verdict vindicates the Wash. Post version of events and dismisses the "looney" theories which contratict the Post version. On the other hand, if the verdict goes in favor if Liddy, the media will say practically nothing at all. And on it goes.

[BluesDuke]

The motive for the burglary was irrelevant to the eventual resignation of Nixon in the sense that it was the cover up that brought him down, not the break in itself. No matter the motive, Nixon was going to thwart any investigation because there was a lot of activity -- Plumbers, etc. -- which an investigation of White House involvement would have uncovered. Nixon, as well as Halderman and Erlichman, were not going to let that happen.

True enough, but the fact that Nixon accepted the Dean scenarios and let Mitchell dangle without bothering to discover the full truth was a tragic mistake. I don't know for certain, though I've read and appreciated the Colodny/Gettlin thesis, but I can't help wondering if Nixon mightn't have saved himself a peck of trouble by probing as far as he could (Mitchell was his closest friend in the Administration; for a guy out to cover his friends' behinds, it seems odd that Nixon would have accepted a scenario that essentially left Mitchell out to dry) and, needless to say, by avoiding a coverup, since he surely knew nothing of the burglary until after it happened (even if he, like most, assumed the wrong motive...)

On the other hand, the motive for the break in is an important aspect of the Watergate saga ---- a story which impacted American history. Yet, the media has never focused on what the motivation for the burglary might have been. If anyone points out that the break-in seems to make no rational sense, the answer seems to be, "Well, they were just stupid."

Nixon himself, on the assumption that Larry O'Brien was the target, thought as much. He said it outright in his memoirs (Colodny/Gettlin cited the passage explicitly) - of all the places to seek political intelligence, the last place you'd go would be to the national headquarters office.

Colodny and Getlin put the lie to such a premise. They reveal the real purpose of the operation and the culprit behind it. Yet, during the 30th anniversary of the event, the media black out of Silent Coup continues.

I'm not sure the blackout will ever end, not even if (highly unlikely) John Dean ever decided to come legitimately clean about the whole thing. Colodny/Gettlin embarrassed a few too many people.

If the verdict in the Maxie Wells trial goes against Liddy, the media will say the verdict vindicates the Wash. Post version of events and dismisses the "looney" theories which contratict the Post version. On the other hand, if the verdict goes in favor if Liddy, the media will say practically nothing at all. And on it goes.

What a surprise! ;)

[L.N. Smithee]

If Liddy wins a lot of folks are going to be eating crow.

And if he loses? Will he go back to his routine of grunting in lieu of comment?

[San Jacinto]

"...the fact that Nixon accepted the Dean scenarios and let Mitchell dangle without bothering to discover the full truth was a tragic mistake"

I can see that your thoughts and mine have run along similar lines. Mitchell and Nixon were mutual admirers. Yet when Halderman came to Nixon with Dean's implication that Mitchell had authorized the break in, Nixon simply picked up that ball and went with it, and never so much as questioned Mitchell about it.

There was something about the culture of the Nixon White House that made it very vulnerable to internal intrigue, and Dean made the most of it.

[San Jacinto]

And if [Liddy] loses? Will he go back to his routine of grunting in lieu of comment?

The loquacious Mr. Liddy had never been one to merely grunt. His seven year silence re Watergate was in effect until the statutes of limitation had run. Since then he has been quite willing to discuss the matter, perhaps to a fault. Recently, the Discovery Channel ran a show about Watergate in which it interspliced edited comments by Liddy in such a way as to make it appear he was the originator of the scheme.

In any event, whether the case goes against Liddy or not, I'm quite sure he will make his views well known.

[BluesDuke]

There was something about the culture of the Nixon White House that made it very vulnerable to internal intrigue...

That has to rank as the understatement of the thread. It puts me in mind of John Mitchell's comment (to Colodny and Gettlin), "It's just the way you put it. It was his personality and mode of operation that did him in."

[Deadeye Division]

Jury Rejects Liddy Defamation Suit

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