My Opinion
Watergate survivor must speak about failure, scandal

G. Gordon Liddy is here!?! He will speak at Eisenhower Auditorium at 8 p.m. tonight. He is here to speak about success and how to prevail. The only trouble is that G. Gordon Liddy is responsible for the most damaging political scandal in American history. Mr. Liddy, before you talk about success, you should cover the vast extent to which you failed.

Things were going great in June 1972. Nixon was president and my mother was nine months pregnant. We were finally leaving Johnson's jungle-jamboree Vietnam and setting world communism up for a giant fall by simply ignoring it.

There were even rumors the Beatles were getting back together. The presidential election of 1972 was already in Nixon's hands. Then Liddy screwed everything up.

Operation Crystal had been approved and Jeb Magruder sent Liddy on his way to wiretap the Democrats. Crystal was part of an overall plan called Gemstone. Liddy had sold Gemstone to Magruder, who was then an official in Nixon's election campaign. Liddy had been placed in charge of the political intelligence program which was directed by Magruder.

Although the plan to bug the Democrats was twice rejected as stupid, dangerous and illegal, it was still carried out after Liddy campaigned vigorously for its approval. Liddy designed, proposed and carried out a plan which would result in the fall of Richard Nixon.

Liddy was one of the "Plumbers," a group which had originally been designed to stop the massive leaks that were coming out of the White House. Leaks in 1972 could be deadly, as they jeopardized negotiations with China, Vietnam and the Soviet Union. The "plumbers" were needed to plug the leaks.

Nixon was dealing with pressure and treachery from all sides. Daniel Ellsburg had leaked a top-secret classified report about how the United States had fumbled into Vietnam and then got stuck there. Leaks occurred almost daily and some directly endangered American fighting forces in Vietnam. Foreign agents working within protest groups organized demonstrations, which on more than one occasion tried to storm the White House. Buses were used by the Secret Service to block the rushing mobs. The third Marine division was even camped out in the Old Executive Office building next door -- just in case. The most dangerous threat however, came from the enemy within. Not only were top officials leaking information to the press, but they were also spying on the president of the United States.

Ultra top-secret communications between Nixon and Henry Kissinger about the war between India and Pakistan and other national security crises were finding their way into the New York Times. The source turned out to be a yeoman in the U.S. Navy. After an investigation, it turns out that the yeoman was working for an admiral who was opposed to Nixon's policies of detente with the Soviet Union and China. Many in the military and Congress who were on the far right were against Nixon's policies toward a peaceful coexistence with a Communist Soviet Union and China. The leaks had to be stopped and the FBI, under J. Edgar Hoover, did not cooperate. The plumbers were the only solution, but in the end they were used stupidly and in many instances, illegally.

During the presidential election of 1972, the Committee to Re-Elect the President thought it needed political intelligence (dirty laundry) so it turned to Liddy -- the ex-plumber.

Liddy never seemed to realize the big picture of what he was doing. His superiors such as Magruder, John "Ratboy" Dean, John Mitchell and H.R. Haldeman never realized that this was not just a political operation, but that it was as dirty and illegal as some of the tactics used by their opponents.

Liddy took dirty tricks to a whole new level and never ran out of ideas. Videotaping drunk Democrats with hookers was another Liddy idea that would have been effective, but in the end was just plain stupid.

On that night in June 1972, Liddy would go from being an unknown White House employee to a celebrity. He would not testify against his superiors and as a result, would spend years in the worst federal penitentiaries available. The loyalty of G. Gordon Liddy cannot be questioned. Throughout Watergate and his subsequent imprisonment, he at no point believed he was harming the United States. Liddy failed ultimately from his unquestioning loyalty and his nutty ideas.

Mr. Liddy, please talk first tonight about how to fail. That may be more important, as my generation may not know the true lessons of Watergate.