WATERGATE' S SPHINX SPEAKS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000403710017-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 16, 2010
• Sequence Number: 17
• Publication Date: April 21, 1980
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Watergate's Sphinx Speaks
WILL: The Autobiography of G. Gordon Liddy
he date was June 4,-1973, the'setting a closed session of
Senator Sam Ervin's Watergate Committee: G. Gordon
Liddy was scheduled to?xestify before newsmen and TV
cameras. But first he had. to be sworn in for preliminary.
quizzing, and Ervin drawled the routine question::`Do you sol-
emnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but
the truth, so help you God?" Liddy's-frank answer to the com-
mittee: "No.". - _ ~< .... ~,. .. _
It was Liddy's refusal to talk about his role in the Watergate
scandal that sent him to prison for a longer term than any other
Watergate figure: Convicted of nine felonies, he was sentenced
to 20 years in prison and served nearly five before President Car-
ter reduced his sentence. During this time, Liddy steadfastly re-
fused to speak, earning notoriety or, for some, admiration, as "the
Sphinx: 'Now the Sphinx has finally decided to talk. He does so
in an autobiography titled simply Will (St. Martin's Press; 384
pages; $13.95). The book,~out this week, was kept under tight
wraps; a first printing of some 100,000 copies was on its way to .
U.S. booksellers before they were even aware of its existence.
Why is-Liddy finally lifting his self-imposed lid? In a preface
he explains that the statute of limitations has run out on the Wa-
tergate crimes; thus his story cannot now cause his former col-
leagues any legal problems. He explains that he has been. per-
suaded that he "owes a debt to history." Besides, although he does
not mention it, he still has to finish paying off a $40,000 fine and
some $300,000 in debts to lawyers.
~.:. Liddy sticks with a lawyer's precision to those acts in which
he was a participant. He does not speculate about what Richard
Nixon knew and when he knew it. He describes the reasons be-
hind the Watergate break-ins, adds new detail to accounts of the
bungled burglaries and contradicts the testimony of some of the
other principal figures. He portrays the CIA as quite willing to in-
volve itself in domestic politics, even providing derogatory car-
toons of Ted Kennedy for use if the Senator had decided to seek
the 1972 Democratic presidential nomination.
What is most striking about Will is what it reveals about.
the kind of man who will do anything to stop those he sees as
his country's enemies. Liddy tells how he plotted to kill Col-
umnist Jack Anderson and drug Daniel Ellsberg for revealing
classified information. After Howard Hunt, his Watergate cro-
ny, cooperated with investigators, Liddy fully expected to get,
and made plans to carry out, an order to kill him. Liddy remains
unrepentant. He regrets only than so many others failed to keep
their silence. Perhaps more than any of the Watergate charac-
ters, Liddy embodied the principles underlying the scandal that
..destroyed a President. Some excerpts from his book follow:
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~?ats, Ligh#ning and Terrors of Childhood
Born on Nov. 30, 1930, Ceorge Cordon Battle Liddygrew trp in Ho-
boken, N.J., within afewblocksofthe Hudson Riverdocks. Hisfa-
ther was a successful 1Lfarr)tattan attorney. The elder of hvo chil-
dren, Gordon Liddy was a sickly, timid child.
My first memory: absolute, overvhelming fear.
Lying on the floor as my paternal grandmother lashed me
with a leather harness shouting, "Bad! Bad!" Fear. My mother in-
sisting Inot use my left hand as she forced me into right hand-
edness. More fear. Coming upon atruck-mounted vacuum, a
giant air hose snaking across the sidewalk, suction engine roar-
ing as it cleaned furnaces. Running from the certainty that I
would be sucked inside the monster bag. Fehr. Soon my every
waking moment was nrled by that overriding emotion: fear.
Even in the depths of the Depression, we had a maid. Her
name was Teresa. She was a German national. I loved her.
Teresa's country had been, she said, in deep trouble. Now,
however, a wonderful man had risen from the people and was
solving all their problems. One day Teresa was excited. He was
going to be on the radio. Eagerly, I joined her. We could tell when
/Te was about to speak. The crowd hailed him in huge swelling
ovations. ' Sieg!"someone would shout, and what seemed like all
the people in the world would answer with a roar, "Heil!"For he
was their leader, der Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler.
When I spoke of this man to my father,
he became angry. Adolf Hitler, he said, was
an evil man who would loose upon the
world all the destruction of war. I was to
stop listening to him. I continued to listen,
though less frequently. Teresa had said that
Adolf Hitler had raised her country from
the dead ...and delivered it from feud
For the first time in my life I felt hope.
Life need not be a constant secret agony of
fear and shame. If an entire nation could be
changed, certainly so could one person. I
knew what I had to do: To change myself
from a puny, fearful boy to a strong, fearless
man, I would have to face my fears, one by
one, and overcome them.
In 1941 my father bought us a beautiful
new house in West Caldwell, N.J. Almost as
soon as we arrived my sister acquired a cat
she named Tommy. One October day in
1941, Tommy left a dead rat on the kitchen
steps and I found it. The carcass was still
warm and remarkably undamaged. To
demonstrate to myself my lack of fear, in-
blue. The instantaneous thunderclap was an explosion of such
short duration and intensity it sounded like atwelve-gauge-shot-
gunblast six inches from my ear. I had been holding my breath. 1
let it out with a shout of pure joy. I was still alive: I shook my fist
at the wildly pitching sky. "Kill me!" I shouted. "Go ahead and
try! I don't care! I llON'T CARE! '
I
Liddy wept when World War II ended, for he had missed it. I
Eagerforcornbat during the Korean War, Liddy, fresh front Ford-
ham, was assigned instead as an Anny lieutenant to antiaircraft
batteries in New York City. After his discharge, lie met "the wom-
an Iwanted to bear my children, " Frmzces Ann Purcell.? "A Teu-
ton/Celt of high intelligence, a mathematical mind, physical size.
strength and beauty, she Izad it all. "Liddy finished Fordlram law
school, passed the New York bar exam in July 1957, and in Sep-
tember was sworn in as an FBI agent. "! submitted a memo on
Frances Ito the FB1J and had her checked, " he writes. "She was
clean. "The two were married on Nov. 9, 1957, as Liddy was fin-
ishing training at the FBI Academy. At the wedding ceremony,
Liddy wore a gruz under his morning coat.
I enjoyed two kinds of training the most; firearms and "de-
fensive tactics." I learned how to take a gun away from a man
aitd to tear off his trigger finger into the bargain. I learned to kill
a man with no more than a pencil; to maim; to blind.
But firearms training was my favorite. I wanted to be the best
gunfighter in the world. During lunch
break, I'd spend most of the time taking ad-
vantage of the unlimited supply of ammu-
nition. Soon the inside flesh of my trigger
finger was worn off, and I was wiping my
blood from the trigger when I cleaned my
revolver at the end of the day. I obtained a
product called Nu-Skin, a quick-drying
plastic coating that resembled clear glue,
and coated my trigger finger with it, then
fired until that, too, was worn off.
Onto Watergate
Finding it diffrcult on his FBt sa/nry to sup-
porthis wife artd a family that Irad grown to
three (arzd later to five) children, Liddy
joined hisfather's lawfirm in 1962. Liddy in
1968 campaigned hard for Richard Nizon's
election to the presidency, leading to an ap-
pointment as aspecial assistant in tl:e Trea-
sctry Department in 1969. In Jitne 1971, fie
shifted to the White Hoztse and was assigned
to a secret grortp that was to become known
as the "plumbers."Thegroup was headed by
Egil ("Bud') Krogh, deputy assistant to the
stead of using a stick I picked ii up with my hands. Then I got the
idea for a test to destroy forever any dread I might still harbor for
rats. For the next hour, I roasted the dead rat. With a scout knife
I skinned, then cut off and ate the roasted haunches of the rat.
The meat was tasteless and stringy. Finished, I buried the rest of
the carcass. As I stamped down the earth over the remnants of
my meal, I spotted the cat, Tommy. I smiled: from now on rats
could fear me as they feared cats; after all, I ate them too..
On a Saturday afternoon in September, the western sky
blackened and the wind rose. Thunder began far away. Soon I
could see the glow of lightning. I left the house quietly by the back
door. I brought with me a 4-ft. safety belt I'd fashioned with a
clothesline rope, a D-ring and a metal snap link.
The tree I had chosen was a pin oak about 75 ft. tall. Some 60
ft. up I lashed myself to the trunk with the belt. My eyes were
closed-against the stinging rain, I told myself, knowing it was a
lie. I didn't want to see the great blue flashes of lightning. Open
your eyes, I commanded myself, OPEN YOUR EYES! I did. It was
chaos. The earth danced as,the tree trunk swayed and snapped
back against the wind.
There was a short, enormous tearing sound that over-
whelmed the screaming of the wind, and the world turned strobe
President, and David Young, a former assistant to Henry Kissin-
ger. Howard Htrrzt, a former CL4 agent, was Liddy's co-worker.
Their priority was to discredit Daniel Ellsberg, whose release of the
Pentagon papers, a secret stztdy of U.S. involvement in Viet Nam,
to the New York Times, had enraged Nixon. Lr a nighttime raid,
they ransacked the files of Dr. Letivis Fielding, a Los Ar:geles psy-
chiatrist whom Ellsberg had consulted. Bttt theyfotrnd rrothirrg.
In September of 1971 Howard Hunt approached me on the
next Ellsberg neutralization proposal. Ellsberg was scheduled to
speak at afund-raising dinner in Washington, and Chuck Col-
son [special counsel to the President] thought it an opporttmity
to discredit him. Could we drug Ellsberg enough to befuddle him.
make him appear a near burnt-out drug case?
Hunt and I developed a plan to infiltrate enough waiters to
ensure that one of our people would serve Ellsberg. One of the
earliest dishes on the menu was soup, ideal for the rapid absorp-
tionand wide dispersal of a drug. Hunt was certain that he could
provide men from the Miami Cuban community; the drug.vould
be afast-acting psychedelic such as I.SD 25 he said he could get
from the CIA. The plan went through Colson. We waited and
waited for an answer, but when it finally came in the affirmative,
there was no~longer enough lead time.
r~~i`lI~U~',U
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R~'re~t;ac~~ ~o Poii~icaf ~p~r~ng
Irr the late fall of 1971, John Dean, corursel to the President, asked
Liddy to set up "an absolutely first-class intelligence operation "to
ensure R'ixon "s re-election irr 197?. Liddy said such arr effort would
cost SI million. "No problem, "he quotes Denn as replying. Liddy
curd Ilrurt set about recruiting people for the operation.
In California I attempted to recruit one woman, Sherry Ste-
vens, who was ideal as a plant. She was flashily good-lookutg,
young. had secretarial skills dad experience, and appeared able
to attract men sexually if she wished. At dinner Miss Stevens
seemed reluctant, and when I told her that her identity would be
revealed to no one, she pointed nut that I would know her iden-
tity. Itold her that no one could force me to disclose anything I
chose not to reveal. She didn't believe me. I told her to light her
cigarette lighter and hold it out. She did and I placed my hand,
palm down, over the flame. Presently the flesh turned black and
when she smelled the scent of burning meat, Sherry Stevens
pulled the lighter away from my hand. Pale, Miss Stevens said
she was sure I would never betray her, bttt excused herself as a
candidate, i evoking a just remembered plan to marry a Swiss air-
pIane pilot in September of 1972. She asked to be taken home.
At her apartment Miss Stevens appeared even more fearful,
saying she hoped "you won't go down in flames" if she didn't of-
fer to sleep with me.
"My God," I said, "is that what you thought all this was
about? Weren't you listening to what I was sayino?"
"Well, I wasn't sure."
"Be sure. I want you for the job. No strings attached."
Stevens turned the job down. No matter. Liddy, who had be-
come the counsel for Nixon's re-election committee as a front jor
his intelligence assignment, wus soon asked to lay oret his million-
dollaroperation. With handsome, 3-ft. by 4 ft. charts provided by
the CIA, he readied a Madison Avenue-style presentation for At-
torney General John Mitchell.
We met Mitchell in his small inner office. At my request
there was an easel set up. I greeted the Attorney General and, as
Magruder (Jeb StuarE Magruder, deputy director of the Commit-
tee to Re-Elect the President] seated himself in front of the desk
with Dean, I set up my charts.
The plan was given the overall name of GEMSTONE, and al-.
though most components bore the names of a precious or semi-
preciousstone, some were named for minerals. I started with op-
eration DIAMOND.
DIAMOND was our counteidemonstration plan. At the time,
we still expected the (Republican) convention to be held in San
Diego. I proposed to identify protest leaders, kidnap them, drug
them, and hold them in Mexico until after the convention was
over, then release them unharmed. The sudden disappearances,
which I labeled on the chart in the original German, Nacht and
Nebel (Night 'r.nd Fog), would strike fear into the hearts of the
Leftist guerrillas (as wouldl the team slated to carry out the plan
as a "Special Action Group." When John Mitchell asked "What's
that?" I knew that Mitchell, a naval of1