Picture of G. Gordon Liddy
George Gordon Battle Liddy (born
November 30,
1929) was the chief operative for President
Richard Nixon's
White House Plumbers unit that broke into the
Watergate complex in 1972 and led to Nixon's resignation in 1974. Liddy later became an
American radio talk show host, actor, and political strategist. Liddy's
radio talk show is
syndicated in 160 markets and he is perhaps the second-best known
conservative talk show host, behind
Rush Limbaugh.
He was born in Hoboken, New Jersey and educated at Fordham University.
Liddy graduated in 1952 and joined the US Army, serving for two years as an artillery officer during the Korean War. He returned home in 1954 to study law at Fordham. Graduating in 1957, he went to work for the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover. That same year he married Frances Ann Purcell.
He left the FBI in 1962 and worked as a lawyer in New York City and 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 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.
In 1971, after serving unsuccessfully 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 as CREEP, in order to extend the scope and reach of the White House Plumbers unit. At CRP, Liddy concocted several far-fetched plots intended to embarrass the Democratic opposition. Most were rejected, but one caught the eye of Nixon operatives in the White House, and Liddy organized the ill-conceived break-in of the Democratic National Campaign headquarters in the Watergate complex. Liddy and E. Howard Hunt also broke into Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office. Ellsberg had leaked the Pentagon Papers and the Plumbers were hoping to find information they could use to discredit him.
For his roles in the Watergate scandal, which he coordinated with Hunt, Liddy was convicted of conspiracy, burglary, and illegal wiretapping and served four and a half years in prison before having his 20 year sentence commuted by President Jimmy Carter.
In 1982, Liddy published an autobiography, titled Will, which sold more than a million copies and was made into a television movie.
He joined the talk circuit, eventually landing a syndicated radio program that espouses extremely conservative views and is characterized by Liddy's provocative style.
He first appeared as an actor on a made-for-TV movie called The Highwayman. He also appeared on the TV series Miami Vice and in the movies When Nature Calls (1985), Super Force (1990), Street Asylum (1990) and Adventures in Spying (1992).
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