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10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/G. Gordon Liddy.md
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@ -66,7 +66,7 @@ relations:
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created: 2026-10-01
updated: 2026-10-01
updated: 2026-10-09
---
George Gordon Battle Liddy (November 30, 1930 to March 30, 2021) was a former agent of the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]], a prosecutor in [[Dutchess County, New York]], an official of the [[Department of the Treasury]] and a member of the [[White House]] "[[White House Plumbers|Plumbers]]" unit. As general counsel and then finance committee counsel of the [[Committee to Re-elect the President]] he presented the intelligence plan known as Gemstone, and on January 30, 1973 he was convicted of conspiracy, burglary and wiretapping offenses arising from the [[Watergate]] break-in; in 1974 he was also convicted for the 1971 burglary of the office of the psychiatrist of [[Daniel Ellsberg]]. [[Jimmy Carter]] commuted his sentence on April 12, 1977.[^1][^2][^3] He died on March 30, 2021.[^4]
@ -77,7 +77,7 @@ Edward Jay Epstein wrote in 1977 that Liddy graduated from [[Fordham University
Epstein wrote that Liddy sought the Republican nomination for district attorney of Dutchess County in June 1968 and lost a party caucus, 25 to 4, then challenged Representative [[Hamilton Fish Jr.]] for the Republican congressional nomination and lost the primary by a few thousand votes, took the [[Conservative Party of New York State|New York Conservative Party]] line, and withdrew after [[Gerald R. Ford]], then House Republican leader, came to Poughkeepsie and arranged for Liddy to endorse Fish in return for a promise of a position in the Nixon administration. Epstein gave this account without attribution to a named participant.[^5] In 1969, Epstein wrote, Liddy became a special assistant to the Secretary of the Treasury under [[Eugene Rossides|Eugene T. Rossides]], who supervised the department's law enforcement bureaus, and Liddy was assigned to Task Force Number One, a joint [[Department of Justice|Justice Department]] and Treasury task force on narcotics smuggling. Epstein wrote that Rossides feared Attorney General [[John Mitchell]] would use the task force to enlarge the Justice Department's domain at the expense of the [[United States Customs Service|Customs Bureau]] and that Liddy was assigned to protect Treasury's interests.[^5]
A [[Central Intelligence Agency]] record, prepared in answer to the question whether the agency had any other dealings with Liddy while he was in Treasury or at the White House, states that in December 1969 security action was initiated to grant Liddy a number of agency clearances in connection with his Treasury employment, at which time he was listed as a member of the Presidential Task Force reporting on narcotics, marijuana and dangerous drugs; that in August 1971 he was briefed on several additional sensitive programs in connection with his assignment to the White House staff; that memoranda prepared in 1971 (the catalog text is partly illegible) indicated he was working with [[David R. Young]] on the investigation of leaks of classified information to the news media; and that he was debriefed from these special clearances on February 22, 1972. The record concludes that "Mr. Liddy held Agency clearances because of his White House duties, but he was not utilized by CIA."[^7]
A [[Central Intelligence Agency]] record, prepared in answer to the question whether the agency had any other dealings with Liddy while he was in Treasury or at the White House, states that in December 1969 security action was initiated to grant Liddy a number of agency clearances in connection with his Treasury employment, at which time he was listed as a member of the Presidential Task Force reporting on narcotics, marijuana and dangerous drugs; that in August 1971 he was briefed on several additional sensitive programs in connection with his assignment to the White House staff; that memoranda prepared in 1971 indicated he was working with [[David R. Young]] on the investigation of leaks of classified information to the news media; and that he was debriefed from these special clearances on February 22, 1972. The record concludes that "Mr. Liddy held Agency clearances because of his White House duties, but he was not utilized by CIA."[^7]
On July 26, 1973 Henry S. Ruth, Deputy Special Prosecutor of the [[Watergate Special Prosecution Force]], wrote to John S. Warner, the CIA's Acting General Counsel, about questions arising in the investigation of [[ITT Corporation|ITT]] and "the persons who were employed by Gordon Liddy, E. Howard Hunt, and Bernard Barker." The letter asked whether the CIA had employed or been associated with Felipe de Diego, Pablo Fernandez, Angelo Ferrer, Hiram Gonzalez, Humberto Lopez and [[Hal Hendrix]]; whether it knew of intelligence or undercover activities by ITT against the Chilean government in the [[United States]]; whether it knew of arrangements between ITT and the [[Robert R. Mullen Company|Mullen Company]]; whether it had any working relationship with the ITT Public Relations Office at 495 Biltmore Way, [[Coral Gables, Florida|Coral Gables]], Florida; and whether it was aware "of any intelligence or undercover activities performed by Howard Hunt and/or Gordon Liddy for ITT." Warner forwarded the letter on August 3, 1973 to Bill Nelson with a note that it should be cross-checked with the [[CIA Office of Security|Office of Security]]. The reply of the CIA's Cover and Commercial Staff dated August 7, 1973, which describes the letter as dated July 29, responds to the third and fourth questions only, stating that the staff had never discussed with the Mullen Company any association with ITT, that the Mullen file contained two brochures listing no ITT among its clients, and that the staff had no relationship with or information about the Coral Gables office; the released document does not address the fifth question.[^8][^9]
@ -135,6 +135,8 @@ The *New York Times* reported on April 14, 1980, summarizing excerpts from *Will
The New York *Daily News* reported on April 18, 1980 that Liddy said on two network television programs that Anderson was "a pain in the butt" to the Nixon White House and that assassinating him would have been "justifiable homicide," that he had made the recommendation at a White House meeting at which Hunt first suggested drugging Anderson with LSD, and that Anderson's columns had compromised an intelligence agent who was unmasked, tortured and killed. Anderson, meeting Liddy on the program, said that neither Liddy nor anyone else could name a CIA agent tortured or killed as a result of his columns: "It never happened." Liddy answered that he had not said CIA agent. Hunt declined to appear on the second program; the report stated that Hunt said he never discussed with Liddy a need to kill Anderson, that they considered how to discredit Anderson with LSD, and that they dropped the matter when a retired CIA doctor said attempts of that kind overseas had been unsuccessful.[^40]
In an interview recorded for [[Mark Feldstein]]'s 2010 book *Poisoning the Press*, Hunt said before his death that [[Charles Colson]] had ordered him and Liddy to examine Anderson's home from the outside for vulnerabilities, and that Liddy had an idea involving poison wiped on a man's wrist.[^41] Colson's spokeswoman told NBC that Colson "believes everyone has debunked this story a long time ago and he has nothing to add to it."[^41] Feldstein's book also describes a lunch in March 1972 at the [[Hay-Adams Hotel]] with a recently retired CIA poison specialist.[^41]
United Press International reported on October 31, 1986 that Liddy told *USA Today* that he would have killed Anderson and Hunt if ordered to do so, that the decision had to be taken "from a much higher level than I was," that he had been ordered to discuss the Anderson problem with "[[Edward Gunn|Dr. Edward Gunn]] of the CIA," whom he described as "the CIA's assassination expert," and that "it was not until an Anderson column caused the death of one of our intelligence people posted abroad that that thought was even entertained." The report added that published reports in 1975 had said that a senior official in the Nixon White House ordered Anderson killed and the death made to look accidental.[^38]
### Footnotes
@ -179,3 +181,4 @@ United Press International reported on October 31, 1986 that Liddy told *USA Tod
[^38]: "Liddy Says He Would Have Killed If Ordered," United Press International, October 31, 1986, in CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP90-00552R000403710003-5. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00552r000403710003-5
[^39]: Eddie Scarry, "G. Gordon Liddy Ends 20-year Radio Run," *Adweek*, September 20, 2012. https://www.adweek.com/performance-marketing/gordon-liddy-retirement-marsha-blackburn/
[^40]: Thomas Raftery and Donald Singleton, "Liddy: Murder Was Rx for Our Pain in Papers," *New York Daily News*, April 18, 1980, in CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP90-00552R000403710019-8. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00552r000403710019-8
[^41]: Michael Isikoff, "Nixon plot against newspaper columnist detailed," NBC News, September 13, 2010, reporting on Mark Feldstein, *Poisoning the Press* (2010), and on an interview with Howard Hunt provided to NBC. https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna39157420