Jump to content

G. Gordon Liddy: Difference between revisions

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Browse history interactively
← Previous editNext edit →
Content deleted Content added
VisualWikitext
restore with cite
better source
Line 42: Line 42:
==After prison==
==After prison==
{{Original research|date=December 2007}}
{{Original research|date=December 2007}}
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". <ref>http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/12/19/america/web.1219obitand.php</ref>
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".<ref>{{cite book
| author = Liddy, G Gordon
| year = 1996
| title = '''Will'''
| publisher = St. Martins Press
| pages = 208-211.
}}</ref>


In the early 1980s, Liddy joined forces with former Niles, IL Police Officer and co-owner of The Protection Group, Ltd., [http://www.bugsweeps.com/info/bus_week.html 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 12 November 1988. <ref>http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE5D8163CF931A25752C1A96E948260</ref> In the mid 1980s Liddy went on joint lecture tours with fellow ex-con [[Timothy Leary]].
In the early 1980s, Liddy joined forces with former Niles, IL Police Officer and co-owner of The Protection Group, Ltd., [http://www.bugsweeps.com/info/bus_week.html 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 12 November 1988. <ref>http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE5D8163CF931A25752C1A96E948260</ref> In the mid 1980s Liddy went on joint lecture tours with fellow ex-con [[Timothy Leary]].

Revision as of 23:09, 22 February 2008

George Gordon Battle Liddy
StatusReleased
Occupation(s)Attorney, FBI agent, politician, radio personality
SpouseFrances Ann Purcell
Parent(s)Sylvester J. Liddy and Maria Abbaticchio
Criminal chargeConspiracy, burglary, illegal wiretapping
Penalty20 year imprisonment, later commuted

George Gordon Battle Liddy (born November 30, 1930) was the chief operative for 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.

Early years

Liddy was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, to Sylvester J. Liddy and Maria Abbaticchio; his maternal grandfather was of Italian descent.[1] 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". [2]

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. He returned home in 1954 to study law at Fordham. Graduating in 1957, he went to work for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) under J. Edgar Hoover.

Liddy left the FBI in 1962 and 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. 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.[citation needed]

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.

After prison

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".[3]

In the early 1980s, Liddy joined forces with former Niles, IL 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 12 November 1988. [4] 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 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). Neither novel sold well.[citation needed]

For many years Liddy was agnostic, but he has reverted to Roman Catholicism.

Controversial statements

During Liddy's tenure as a radio talk-show host, many controversial statements have been attributed to him, including giving out John Dean's home phone number in 1993 on the radio when Dean was threatening to sue Liddy for defamation. Some of his comments led 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 claimed, after the fact, that his detractors omit some important context: [5]

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.

Acting career

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. 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.

Footnotes

  1. ^ http://www.wargs.com/other/liddy.html
  2. ^ http://mediamatters.org/items/200411230004?offset=20&show=1
  3. ^ Liddy, G Gordon (1996). Will. St. Martins Press. pp. 208-211.
  4. ^ http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE5D8163CF931A25752C1A96E948260
  5. ^ [1]

Liddy also played evil race car owner Carl Stickland in an episode entitled "Collision Course" in the hugely successful 1980's television series MacGyver.

Wikiquote has quotations related to G. Gordon Liddy.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=G._Gordon_Liddy&oldid=193375372"