Nixon ordered Watergate break-in, aide says now [Magruder]

Scripps Howard News Service ^ | July 26, 2003 | BILL STRAUB

[HAL9000]

President Richard Nixon personally ordered the "third-rate burglary" at the Watergate Hotel in June 1972, a trusted aide has now revealed, resurrecting the scandal that led to Nixon's political ruin and forced him from the nation's highest office.

Jeb Stuart Magruder, who was Nixon's assistant communications director before moving to the re-election committee, said he was privy to a telephone conversation between Nixon and John Mitchell, the campaign chairman, in which the president urged Mitchell to proceed with a break-in at the Democratic National Committee offices in the Watergate.

The revelation, if true, places the Watergate burglary in a new historical light. Though never concretely established, it generally was felt that Nixon was not involved in the break-in itself, only in the cover-up that occurred after the fact - an involvement that forced him to resign from office on Aug. 9, 1974.

Nixon subsequently was pardoned by his successor, Gerald Ford, on Sept. 8, 1974, and the complete story of Watergate never came to light.

Magruder, a minister now semi-retired and living in Columbus, Ohio, said in a telephone interview that he met with Mitchell in Key Biscayne, Fla., on the afternoon of March 30, 1972, along with another aide, Fred Larue, to review about 20 issues that required the campaign's attention.

Included on the agenda, Magruder said, was "the Liddy plan," a reference to former CIA agent G. Gordon Liddy, now a radio talk show host, who proposed the break-in to tap the phones of Democratic National Committee Chairman Larry O'Brien.

Liddy, Magruder said, had approached the campaign on several occasions with expensive covert schemes, all of which had been rejected by Mitchell. On this day, the Liddy plan, also known as "Gemstone," was the final item on the agenda.

"He (Mitchell) and I didn't think it was necessary," Magruder said. "He asked me to call (Chief of Staff Bob) Haldeman and I handed him the phone. He spoke with Bob first and then he talked to (domestic affairs adviser) John (Ehrlichman).

"And then the president got on the line," Magruder said. "I could hear him. His voice was very distinctive. The gist of it was we needed to get the information on O'Brien. The only way, or the best way, was Liddy's plan."

Mitchell hung up the phone, Magruder said, and instructed him to tell Maurice Stans, the campaign's chief fundraiser, to send Liddy a check for $250,000.

Although he was a key participant, eventually serving seven months in prison for conspiracy to obstruct justice, Magruder said he still isn't sure why Nixon was obsessed with tapping O'Brien's phone.

One story that made the rounds, not original to him, Magruder said, and unproven, had it that industrialist Howard Hughes made a $100,000 contribution to the Committee to Re-Elect the President through Nixon's close personal friend Bebe Rebozo. Instead of depositing the check in his campaign coffers, the story goes, Nixon used the money to meet personal needs.

O'Brien was a consultant to Hughes, the reclusive billionaire, and there was some concern he knew Nixon stuck the money in his pocket and might blow the whistle. Nothing was ever proved.

Magruder said it's just as likely that Nixon okayed the operation because that's the way he played the game.

"The president, as we found out later, desired just to gather intelligence and gather the goods on anyone who was against him," Magruder said. "That led to Larry O'Brien.

"He was a person who did not want his opponents to survive," Magruder said. "Obviously, he was willing to do anything to achieve that goal."

At the time, Nixon called the break-in "a third-rate burglary."

It would be difficult to corroborate Magruder's story. All of the major participants - Nixon, Mitchell, Haldeman, Ehrlichman and O'Brien - are dead. Fred Larue, who may or may not have been in earshot of the conversation, could not be reached. If Larue overhead Nixon give Mitchell the go-ahead, he has never divulged the information.

In fact, in an interview with a documentary filmmaker a few years ago, Larue chided himself for failing to intercede and hinted that Mitchell was behind the ultimate decision.

"Had I gone to Mitchell and said, 'John, this is crazy, let's put a stop to it,' had I done that, and done it forcefully, John would have listened to me," Larue said. "And this whole mess could have been avoided."

John Dean, Nixon's White House counsel who is credited with blowing the lid off the Watergate scandal, said via e-mail that he was unaware of the Nixon-Mitchell conversation until Magruder advised him about it a few weeks ago.

"I have never seen or heard a scintilla of evidence that Nixon was aware of these plans at the re-election committee," Dean said. "As best I know, based on both what I was told at the time, and subsequent information, Nixon learned of the break-in after the arrests at the Watergate. I have never had any evidence, either at the time or since, that anyone at the White House had advance knowledge of the Watergate break-in."

At the same time, Dean said, he can't dispute Magruder's characterization of the Nixon-Mitchell conversation because he wasn't present.

"I cannot imagine Jeb would lie about it," Dean said. "Nonetheless, I am very surprised he never provided this information when it could have been more critically tested. And I am also surprised that there is absolutely nothing on any of the Nixon tapes that might corroborate his statement."

Dean said that Mitchell told him personally in March 1973 that he, Mitchell, was the one who approved the plan.

Magruder said his three-decade delay in stepping forward is attributable to several factors. Originally, he didn't want to divulge too much information about Nixon because he was depending on the president to provide him with a pardon in the face of criminal charges. That fell through after Nixon resigned.

Thereafter, none of the investigators asked him what he knew about Nixon's participation. Later on, after becoming a minister, the 68-year-old Magruder chose to remain silent to save the congregations he was serving from unwanted publicity.

He is revealing the information now only because he was approached by the makers of a new documentary on the scandal, "Watergate Plus 30: Shadow of History," scheduled to air on many PBS stations Wednesday, July 30 at 8 p.m.

Magruder said he was contacted by the people making the documentary last spring and determined that "they had done a good job talking about things." So he decided to cooperate.

[CyberAnt]

I forgot one thing - does anybody know who was part of the legal counsel for the dems - NONE OTHER THAN HILLARY CLINTON.

This is the reason I don't believe this stuff about Nixon!

[Eva]

At this point, I regard any "new" information on the Watergate scandal with skepticism. It would seem that any change of heart regarding the "truth" would be more likely a play for press coverage and a ploy for money.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

Breaking news: Marcus Aurelius may have had conspiratorial discussions with Cleopatra

[Mo1]

It would be difficult to corroborate Magruder's story. All of the major participants - Nixon, Mitchell, Haldeman, Ehrlichman and O'Brien - are dead.

He should have made these claims years ago ..

[onyx]

Thankfully, I read your post before I posted the same thing!

Nice timing, Magruder. Wanna bet a book is the making? Maybe not, PBS just needs to trash Nixon and hope the overflow reaches all Republicans.

G. Gordon Liddy will have plenty to say about this! I can hardly conntain my excitement!

[TiaS]

The truth here is, no one in the press will ever touch Hughes -- there's your answer. They lack either the courage or the imagination to connect those dots.

[Political Junkie Too]

I guess this means that once Clinton passes, people can make all sorts of claims about what he ordered or knew.

-PJ

[Clinging Bitterly]

Yeah whatever. I guess as these guys get old they go senile and forget how it all went down. I was a kid then but I remember it being talked about quite a bit and the details of the break-in and Nixon's involvement have been settled for a good while. The great offense has always been the "coverup", not the break-in itself.

Our family was, I guess, what you'd call a "Nixon" family. I wore my NIXON-AGNEW button to school, and I still have it. And he made some history during his administration, the China trip, various arms agreements with the USSR, his part in the cold war paved the way for Reagan, no doubt. But I am troubled by some of his official doings on the domestic side, the "wage and price freeze" a glaring example. With hindsight, and with Humphrey & McGovern as the alternatives, it would have been tough to be voting age, holding my current values, and knowing what he was going to do. The authoritarian fringe of the political spectrum, from the left or the right, is something that bothers me (and I'll be perfectly honest, it bothers me about Bush too). With all of this to think about, the Watergate ordeal just doesn't matter. He was a man of priciple, right or wrong, and was dedicated to those principles to the very end.

But Nixon is dead, and that's probably too bad. Shortly before his death, he was beginning to come out of disgrace, and he had some interesting things to say and I think the world would be in hetter shape had it heard more. Now he is long gone and here comes Magruder or whomever with a partial rewrite of the history of his time. I should be used to it, this sort of thing happens all the time, but it chaps my hide just a bit to read an article or book about the history of a time that I have lived and it is saying things that just didn't happen.

What purpose is being served by issuing this "new" information (which I, for one, do not believe for a minute)? If I had bothered to read downthread before posting I might have seen some theories, but suffice it to say, I smell a rat.

Dave in Eugene

[cricket]

"And then the president got on the line," Magruder said. "I could hear him. His voice was very distinctive. The gist of it was we needed to get the information on O'Brien. The only way, or the best way, was Liddy's plan."

So the 'fact is'. . .that Magruder's conclusions, taken and now reported, as fact. . .are based on Magruder's overhearing a conversation in which he is sure the voice on the other end was Nixon's. . .

a 'fact'; in fact, that he can not really know, unequivocally.

[cricket]

"What purpose is being served by issuing this "new" information (which I, for one, do not believe for a minute)?"

Agree. . .save for the Dems, who consumed with Nixon hate, are still determined to remove any redemptive nails from the historical image of Richard Nixon. . .

[cricket]

"In 1998, as scandals swirled around the Xlintoons, the networks decided to throw a Watergate 25th anniversary bash. To my way of thinking it was just another example of "defending" the serial rapist!"

. . .there are probably several motovations for this by PBS et al. . .so maybe they are trying to clean up the Clinton image, so Hillary can campaign a little easier.

Of course, they can only 'clean up' Clinton and his history, by making Nixon and any other Republican look worse. . .<P

[cricket]

"I guess it beats the other story going around, that Dean's wife was a hooker and..."

. . .for sure. . .

[Vaduz]

Liddy stated once that the break-in was to find proof of the DNC was receiving off shore money(china)

[novacation]

Exactly.It is much easier to slander a man after he is dead.Just looking for some fame and easy cash.

[Bluntpoint]

It's too bad our local talk radio station dropped G. Gordon Liddy's show awhile back, because I'd love to hear his take on this.

Yeah, I miss Liddy too.

Especially the way he always corrected his callers' grammar.

And how he would brag about how big his member was.

I loved how he would rationalize about cheating on his wife because he was a "real man" and it would be a crime to not spread his "seed."

Class act!!!

[fightu4it]

I've never heard Liddy say his job was to wire the place. However that would seem to make the most sense.

Why has Magruder taken this long to go public with this? That certainly makes his motives questionable.

[wingnuts'nbolts]

Nixon certainly surrounded himself with a group of very questionable characters. Including John Mitchell, husband of poor dying of cancer Martha Mitchell who kept trying to tell us what the hell was going on but this group of thugs kept shoving her into a padded cell, 'cause poor Martha is crazy, y'kno! Finally, Martha quietly died and the boys could be boys again.

Frankly the DNC had been bugging the RNC regularly over the years, this sort to thing was fair game to the players. Still is! We hear about political espionage all the time, called something else, of course, like a "leak", or a "lost, or found, tape". Papers that mysteriously appear in compromising places, and aides who have mouths hinged in the middle and move at both ends, otherwise known as "reliable scoures".

Nixon was not a crook! But oh boy, how he played into the jaws of the beast with his coverup. He may have not been too bright, or common sense wasn't something he practiced. But he was not a crook!

[Wallaby]

Let's see. Magruder hands the phone to Mitchell. Mitchell talks to Haldeman, then Ehrlichman, and finally, supposedly, Nixon. Magruder says he could hear Nixon because his voice was "very distinctive." Since the receiver was next to Mitchell's ear, how could Magruder hear anything? Was he keeping his ear next to Mitchell's? Was Mitchell holding out the receiver so both could hear? Was Nixon shouting? The story is ridiculous on its face.

[Uncle Hal]

Magruder wrote a book about his involement in Watergate. In the book he remembered when the break in happened. He was in LA and when he heard about it on the news he knew immediately who had done it and why. He said he was scared to death and immediately knew there was going to be trouble. He said he was so scared he could hardly breath. For some reason I remember that part and I thought he explained his situation very well.

[bmwcyle]

What does it matter today. Nixon is dead and Watergate it only history. While Hillary licks here chops.