G. Gordon Liddy

George Gordon Liddy
Status	Released
Occupation(s)	Attorney, FBI agent, politician, radio personality
Spouse	Frances Ann Purcell
Parent(s)	Sylvester J. Liddy and Maria Abbaticchio
Criminal charge	Conspiracy, burglary, illegal wiretapping
Penalty	20 year imprisonment, later commuted by President Jimmy Carter

George Gordon Battle Liddy (born November 30, 1930) was the chief operative for the White House Plumbers unit that existed during several years of Richard Nixon's Presidency. Along with E. Howard Hunt, Liddy masterminded the first break-in of the 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 served four and a half years in prison for his role in the burglary.

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 in addition to appearing in a cameo role or as a guest celebrity talent in several television shows.

Early years

Liddy was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, to Sylvester J. Liddy and Maria Abbaticchio; his maternal grandfather was of Italian descent. Liddy was raised in West Caldwell, New Jersey and educated at Fordham University. He was named for George Gordon Battle, a New York City attorney who had mentored Liddy's father.

Liddy has said that, as a child, 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 condemn Nazism and Hitler as "evil."

He graduated in 1952 and joined the United States Army, serving for two years as an artillery officer at the time of the Korean War, but did not leave the US due to an injury. He returned home in 1954 to study law at Fordham, earning a spot on the Law Review. Graduating in 1957, he went to work for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) under J. Edgar Hoover, but his work at the agency prompted a supervisor to describe him as "a wild man" and a "superklutz". At age 29, Liddy became the youngest Bureau Supervisor at FBI national headquarters in Washington, D.C., earning multiple commendations from J. Edgar Hoover. He left the FBI in 1962 to practice International Law in Manhattan.

Liddy worked as a lawyer in New York City and a prosecutor in Dutchess County, New York. In 1966, he organized the arrest and unsuccessful trial of Timothy Leary. As an assistant district attorney, he fired a gun into the courtroom ceiling during jury summation. He ran unsuccessfully for the post of District Attorney and then for the United States 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.

White House years

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. These included firebombing the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. (where classified documents leaked by Daniel Ellsberg were being stored), kidnapping anti-war protest organizers and transporting them to Mexico during the Republican National Convention (which at the time was planned for San Diego), and luring mid-level Democratic campaign officials to a house boat in Baltimore where they would be secretly photographed in compromising positions with call girls. Most of Liddy's ideas 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, Liddy was instructed to break into the Democratic National Committee offices in the Watergate Hotel.

Controversies

Watergate burglaries

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 a total of five and half years in prison, including over 100 days in solitary confinement, before his sentence was commuted by President Jimmy Carter and he was released on September 7, 1977.

Advice to listeners

Liddy is noted for controversial advice to his radio audience, including on one occasion in 1994, after the federal raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, Liddy advised his listeners: "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. ... Kill the sons of bitches."

Liddy's connections to John McCain

In 1998 Liddy hosted a fundraiser at his house for John McCain's re-election campaign at which guests could have their pictures taken with McCain and Liddy. Over the years, Liddy, who has referred to McCain as "an old friend," has made at least four contributions totaling $5,000 to the senator's campaigns -- including $1,000 in 2008. When David Letterman asked McCain about his relationship with Liddy, McCain said, "I know Gordon Liddy. He paid his debt. He went to prison and paid his debt, as people do. I'm not in any way embarrassed to know Gordon Liddy."

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 fellow ex-con Timothy Leary on a series of debates which were popular on the college circuit as well. Liddy remained in the public eye with two guest appearances on the 1984-89 television series Miami Vice, playing the role of "Capt. Real Estate," a character loosely based on himself.

Also in the early 1980s Liddy joined forces with former Niles, Illinois Police Officer 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, Liddy emerged to host his own talk radio show. Its immense popularity led to national syndication in under a year through Viacom's Westwood One Network and later Radio America in 2003.

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). Neither novel sold as well as the autobiography.

In Oliver Stone's 1995 movie Nixon, Liddy was played by John Diehl.

In Andrew Fleming's 1999 comedy Dick, Liddy was played by Harry Shearer.

Controversial statements

During Liddy's tenure as a radio talk-show host, many controversial statements have been attributed to him, including causing the release of John Dean's home phone number in 1993 on the radio when Dean was threatening to sue Liddy for defamation and Liddy called Dean's home on the air to only reach his answering machine that announced the phone number. Some of his comments led to condemnation by then President Bill Clinton who was under constant attack by conservative talk radio.

• 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 that his detractors omit some important context:

I was talking about a situation in which law enforced agents 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.

Additionally, Liddy has said that, as a child, 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 condemn Nazism and Hitler as "evil." [2]

Acting career

G. Gordon Liddy has acted in several films, including The Highwayman, Street Asylum, Camp Cucamonga, Adventures in Spying and Rules of Engagement. He also appeared in the television shows 18 Wheels of Justice and MacGyver, had a recurring role on Miami Vice, and guest starred in Al Franken's TV show LateLine. Liddy appeared on a celebrity edition of the NBC TV show Fear Factor on September 12, 2006 (filmed in November, 2005). 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.

External links

• Official Website
• G. Gordon Liddy at NNDB
• G. Gordon Liddy at IMDb
• FAIR Article on G. Gordon Liddy Talk Show Statements