George Gordon Battle Liddy (November 30, 1930 – March 30, 2021) was an American lawyer and FBI agent who was convicted of conspiracy, burglary, and illegal wiretapping for his role in the Watergate scandal during the Nixon administration.
Working alongside E. Howard Hunt, Liddy organized and directed the burglary of the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate building in May and June 1972. After five of Liddy's operatives were arrested inside the DNC offices on June 17, 1972, subsequent investigations of the Watergate scandal led to Nixon's resignation in 1974. Liddy was convicted of burglary, conspiracy, and refusing to testify to the Senate committee investigating Watergate. He served nearly 52 months in federal prisons.
Liddy later joined with Timothy Leary for a series of debates on multiple college campuses, and similarly worked with Al Franken in the late 1990s. Liddy served as a radio talk show host from 1992 until his retirement on July 27, 2012. His radio show was syndicated in 160 markets by Radio America and on both Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio stations in the United States. He was a guest panelist for Fox News Channel in addition to appearing in a cameo role or as a guest celebrity talent on several television shows.
Early life, family, education, military service
Liddy was born in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, on November 30, 1930. His father Sylvester James Liddy was a lawyer and mother was Maria (Abbaticchio) Liddy. His family was of Irish and Italian descent, and Liddy had a strict Catholic upbringing, stating that "the most frightening menace of all" was God. He was named for George Gordon Battle, a noted attorney and Tammany Hall leader.
He was raised in Hoboken and West Caldwell, New Jersey. He attended St. Benedict's Preparatory School, his father's alma mater, in Newark.
Liddy was educated at Fordham University, graduating in 1952. While at Fordham he was a member of the National Society of Pershing Rifles.
Following graduation, Liddy joined the US Army, serving for two years as an artillery officer during the Korean War era. Although he attained the rank of first lieutenant, he was not deployed overseas, having been assigned to an antiaircraft radar unit in Brooklyn for medical reasons.
In 1954, he was admitted to the Fordham University School of Law, earning a position on the Fordham Law Review. He graduated in 1957.
After graduation from law school, Liddy worked at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) under J. Edgar Hoover in 1957. Liddy was initially a field agent in Indiana and Denver, Colorado. While stationed in Denver, he made a significant arrest on September 10, 1960: Ernest Tait, a notable criminal who had twice appeared on the Ten Most Wanted.
At age 29, Liddy became the youngest bureau supervisor at FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. Under the mentorship of deputy director Cartha DeLoach, Liddy secured a position on director J. Edgar Hoover's personal staff, even acting as Hoover's ghostwriter. Despite his achievements, Liddy was also known for his reckless behavior among his fellow agents, highlighted by two particular incidents.
The first incident took place in Kansas City, Missouri, during a covert operation. He was arrested but was subsequently released after contacting Clarence M. Kelley, former FBI agent and the then-chief of the Kansas City Police. The second incident involved an FBI background check that Liddy conducted on his future wife before they married in 1957. Liddy later claimed this action was a routine precautionary measure.
Prior to his departure from the FBI in 1962, Liddy sought admission to various bars, leveraging his professional contacts. His application for admission to the United States Supreme Court was supported by Solicitor General Archibald Cox.
Liddy resigned from the FBI in 1962 and worked under his father as a patent attorney in New York City until 1966. He was then hired by District Attorney Raymond Baratta as a prosecutor in exurban Dutchess County, New York, after providing references from the FBI. In 1966, he led a drug raid on the Hitchcock Estate (then occupied by Timothy Leary) in Millbrook, New York, leading to an unsuccessful trial. Although the case generated much publicity, other lawyers complained that Liddy received credit for something in which he played a relatively small role. He was also reprimanded for firing a revolver at the ceiling in a courtroom. In 1969, a drug raid directed by Liddy at Bard College scooped up, among others, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, who later formed the band Steely Dan and wrote the song "My Old School" about the raid. Liddy is referred to in the lyrics as "Daddy Gee".
During that period, Liddy ran unsuccessfully for the post of District Attorney. In 1968, he continued to seek office by running in the Republican Party's primary election for New York's 28th congressional district. Employing the slogan "Gordon Liddy doesn't bail them out; he puts them in", he lost to Hamilton Fish IV in a close race. Liddy then accepted the nomination of the Conservative Party of New York State and ran in the general election against Fish and the Democratic candidate, Millbrook businessman John S. Dyson. Fearing that Liddy might tip the election to Dyson, Fish turned to the district's Republican leader, State Assemblyman Kenneth L. Wilson, to get Liddy out of the race. Wilson's office dispatched the matter to the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee in Washington, resulting in Liddy being offered a potential Richard Nixon administration political appointment at the United States Department of the Treasury; this prompted him to officially suspend his campaign.
After serving as county director of Nixon's successful presidential campaign, he began the aforementioned political role as a special assistant for narcotics and gun control at the Treasury Department's Washington, D.C. headquarters in early 1969. Shortly thereafter, he helped to establish the country's contemporary sky marshal program under the aegis of the United States Marshals Service.
Beginning in 1970, he served with Gordon Strachan and David Young as an aide to Domestic Affairs Advisor John D. Ehrlichman in the Executive Office of the President at the behest of Egil "Bud" Krogh, who had worked on initiatives with Liddy at the Treasury Department. He served as the nominal general counsel to the finance committee of the Committee to Re-elect the President (CRP) from 1971 to 1972. Subsequently, Krogh, Liddy, Young, and Erlichman were indicted for conspiracy to commit burglary in September 1973.
White House undercover operative