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Liddy died Tuesday morning at Mt. Vernon, Virginia, and although he suffers from a “variety of ailments,” his death was unrelated to Covid-19, his son, Thomas Liddy, told CNN in a phone call. He had received the coronavirus vaccine three weeks ago.
Liddy then hosted a radio show and pursued an acting career.
He is survived by his sister Margaret McDermott and his five adult children: Thomas, Alexandra Liddy Bourne, Grace Liddy, James Liddy and Raymond Liddy.
The Watergate robbery became the apparent reason for Nixon’s political downfall, and in the days following the arrests, Nixon was said to be the architect of a series of ploys aimed at isolating the White House from responsibility for the plot. political espionage failed.
At the end of 1971, Attorney General John Mitchell, soon to be head of the re-election committee, and White House chief of staff for HR “Bob” Haldeman decided that Liddy should be hired to lead a spy program against the Democrats. Liddy had been involved in the harassment of Daniel Ellsberg, who published the Pentagon Papers in 1971.
Liddy has repeatedly insisted that the heist was not about campaign material, saying it was a call girl that would involve top Democrats.
“What we were doing there was trying to put sexual dirt on the Democrats,” Liddy said after the fact, saying, “I was told we were going to fix an inoperative room bug.”
Liddy supervised closely but did not enter with the five burglars who were caught red-handed. When the Watergate operation collapsed, it compromised Liddy and others, opening up the possibility that Nixon’s hand in corrupting the White House could be revealed.
A former FBI agent, Liddy had a reputation among his colleagues for recklessness. He once said he put his hand in a candle flame to impress a new recruit, showing the resulting alleged mark on his hand on television.
“I wish I had a dollar for every successful burglary when I was in the FBI, it was called black bag work, standard procedure,” he said in an interview.
As the White House got more and more heat, Liddy was often discussed by Nixon and his key aides, with Nixon saying in the tapes that “Liddy is tough enough.”
Liddy – along with Bernard Barker, Virgilio Gonzales, E. Howard Hunt, Eugenio Martinez, James McCord and Frank Sturgis – was indicted in 1972 by a grand jury for involvement in the heist at DNC headquarters. In 1973, Liddy and former CIA employee James McCord, director of security for the President’s Re-Election Committee, were convicted of conspiracy, burglary and wiretapping at DNC headquarters.
“It was primarily a professional risk,” he said after the fact. “Second, it was my job to go to jail at the time, I don’t feel any bitterness.”
Unlike some of his co-conspirators, Liddy never spoke before or during his 52 months in prison.
“It doesn’t take any talent to keep your mouth shut,” Liddy said after his release. “I was the cut, so I took the blow. I was protecting my president and doing my best. It would have worked too, you know, if those other turkeys could have kept their mouths shut.”
After jail, Liddy capitalized on his notoriety, hosting a radio talk show, invited to star in TV shows – he once said: “I prefer all villain roles, I really like those guys. “- and speeches to conservative groups.
Liddy once said that Watergate was a storm in a teapot. His actions, meanwhile, helped blow the lid off an American presidency.
“When I did Watergate I probably had more fun doing that than doing anything else,” he said. “I do, I act and I live like most men only dream.”
This story has been updated with additional details.
CNN’s Tim Naftali and Carl Bernstein contributed to this report.
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