Page 49 - John Ehrlichman News Today

They are called the plumbers because they are tracking down leaks. >> the key figures in the plumbers were g. gordon liddy, howard hunt, bud krogh, chuck colson and david young. but the two most dangerous were g. gordon liddy and e. howard hunt. g. gordon liddy, a special agent of the fbi and e. howard hunt had been with the cia. >> in order to protect the lives of our people abroad, we would be justified in a homicide. >> g. gordon liddy used the symbol of the ss when he signed memos so he is n...

>> he develops weapons of mass destruction. >> i just want 11,780 votes. >> and thats really when you reach a tipping point in a democracy. thats how dictators come to power. within hours of the arrests at the watergate, the nixon white house started covering up. i was the desk officer of the cover-up. i get the information and gather it, and then i share it with haldeman, ehrlichman, mitchell, and they were making decisions based on it as to how they can contain this problem. >> after the bre...

>> i was in a meeting in ehrlichmans office and colson wanted to alert everybody to the fact that howard hunt had an office in the executive office building, and that there was stuff in his safe that we should get our hands on. ehrlichman called another staffer and told him to get the contents of his safe and bring them down to my office. my deputy started to go through them. and when i came in, he said listen, we dont want to leave fingerprints on all this. why dont i go over to the doctors off...

Justice together. he knows not only everything the fbi knows, he knows everything the grand jury and the u.s. attorneys know. i was keeping an eye generally on where the investigation was going, sharing with haldeman, ehrlichman, and sending it up to the president. we learned very quickly the secret service had a report from metropolitan police. howard hunts name was in the address book they found in the possession of the burglar. howard hunt was involved with the plumbers, the private investiga...

United States: Accountability for Capitol riots must not be buried

June 17 will mark the 50th anniversary of the Watergate break-in. Yes, a full half-century has passed.

Drama. the justice department wants to handle the case as a routine burglary and bugging. >> they were paying money for individuals to shut up about what they knew. >> but theres a problem. hunts wife dies in a plane crash in december of 1972. and hunts position on what he needs to stay silent changes. >> a panicked colson called me one day. colson wants to know what he should do because hunt clearly wants clemency and some assurances. when hunt lost his wife, it put his family in a terrible sit...

Chuck colson says what you gonna do is start a little fire. fire alarms go off and the plumbers were going to rent a fire truck and answer the fire while liddy and others would gun, go to the safe, break it and pull out all the classified material. >> i said this is insane. this is declaring war on a think tank because they have papers the president thinks that he wants. i called john ehrlichman. he was in california with the presidential party, so i made arrangements to get on the next flight t...

World. so i went to georgetown and briefly went into a law firm and all the time im in the law firm, im looking for a job on capitol hill and found an opening at the house judiciary committee and got hired there. >> shortly after the inauguration of nixon, i went to work at the department of justice. i was the associate deputy attorney general. my bosses discovered i was a fast study so they started sending me to go to the white house to do background briefers for the media where programs were e...

He was telling me, i said something to the effect, gordon, i dont think were at that stage yet. when i got back to the white house, i went immediately to ehrlichmans office to tell him of my conversation with liddy. and ehrlichman, who is a good poker face, didnt even blink. john, i said, i have no background in the criminal law. i dont have anybody on my staff. i dont know anybody on the white house staff who has criminal defense background. i need somebody in my office so we dont make mistakes...