PLUMBERS ON THE WEEKEND

Last time out, in The Higher Calling of Public Office,  we explored the origins of the Plumbers, the secret police and intelligence force operating within the Nixon White House, the purpose of our look back being nothing more or less than an attempt to come to grips with how the truth is the first and last casualty in such affairs and how no one seems to know where it is buried. The relevance to current times will become clear, so stay with us. 

Bebe Rebozo and unidentified employee

    Jack Caufield, former private detective turned White House operative, proposed a covert operation to supervise the spies the Nixon administration had in the Democratic National Committee, conduct surveillance of opposing party primaries, have an illegal entry capability, and develop other assorted dirty tricks. Caufield called this plan Sandwedge. Plumber G. Gordon Liddy expanded the program into Gemstone.

Nixon: I want a study made that i want you to undertake, and don't write a memorandum on this. I think you'd better get ahold of Mort Allin or Pat Buchanan, or both. I want to pick the twenty most vicious Washington reporters and television people, and the title of this little memorandum would be "Things we'd like to forget they said." Now here's what I want. I don't want anything said about me so much, but I'm more interested in predictions they have made with regard to Nixon-McGovern. . . I want to write a piece here and just kill the sons of bitches. Now, who can you--can you please follow up on this?

Haldeman: Yes, sir!
    September 8, 1972


    In order to understand the scope of the treachery, it is important to grasp the often tenuous chain of command. Liddy, as counsel to the Committee to Reelect the President (CREEP), was subordinate to CREEP's deputy director, Jeb Stuart Magruder, who in turn reported to former Attorney General John Mitchell. By the time Gemstone was conceived, Liddy had hooked up with Howard Hunt. Hunt worked for Colson who in turn answered to Haldeman, as well as to Domestic Policy Advisor John Ehrlichman. 

H. R. "Bob" Haldeman

John Ehrlichman

Jeb Stuart Magruder

    One proposal within Liddy's Operation Gemstone was to kidnap student demonstration leaders, drug them, and transport them to Mexico until after the Republican Convention. Although Liddy never spelled out what would ultimately happen to the students, he did point out to Mitchell, Magruder, and Presidential Counsel John Dean that his proposed kidnappers were professional killers who had already murdered twenty-two people.

G. Gordon Liddy

    Liddy had other plans as well. In addition to planting spies in opposition camps, he recommended funneling money to Democratic candidate Shirley Chisholm, correctly perceived to be the weakest candidate. Any increase in her popularity would be at the expense of other Democrats. Next, Liddy argued in favor of a chase plane to pursue the Democratic nominees and bug their air radio communications. They should also, Liddy insisted, intercept microwave telephone calls.

E. Howard Hunt

    There were more fun and games to come, promised  Liddy, the former FBI man. He and E. Howard Hunt would procure prostitutes to lure lusty Democrats to a houseboat in Miami and elicit pillow talk. Liddy was prepared to organize outrageous demonstrations to support Democrats and thereby alienate the voters. They had a Cuban commando squad ready to sabotage the air conditioning system at the Democrats' Convention during the hottest summer in years. And Liddy urged four buggings, beginning with the DNC and ending with the Democrats' nominee. All this was in addition to ongoing disruptions such as hundreds of orders for pizza and liquor to Ed Muskie fundraisers  that the Muskie people knew nothing about.

Ed Muskie

    Hunt and Liddy also planned to murder columnist Jack Anderson. poisoned aspirin, car accidents, and homicidal muggings were all discussed, but ultimately these were dismissed as being too severe. 

    (To my personal knowledge, no one has ever bothered to explain the reason for wanting to kill Jack Anderson. But the subject does lend itself to interesting speculation. For instance, was The Washington Post, for whom Anderson worked, used by the CIA to destroy Nixon via Watergate? Anderson routinely misdirected attention into the JFK assassination toward gangsters. Bob Woodward, also of the Post, remains a devout right winger. Haynes Johnson, a mainstay of the same newspaper, steadfastly supported the erroneous conclusions of the Warren Report. In any event, consider a portion of a deposition taken by attorney Mark Lane of Gordon Liddy during a defamation suit brought by Howard Hunt. Liddy said: "We discussed Dr. Gunn's suggestion, which was the use of an automobile to hit Mr. Anderson's automobile when it was in a turn in the circle up near Chevy Chase. There is a way that apparently had been known by the Central Intelligence Agency that if you hit a car at just the right speed and angle, it will flip and burn and kill the occupant."

    Other aspects of Gemstone were endorsed. Thomas Gregory was assigned to spy on nominee George McGovern. Hunt's Cubans were used to cut wires to microphones at student demonstrations, punch out some protesters, and jeer at others. Hunt himself attempted to plant pro-McGovern literature in the apartment of Arthur Bremer, the man who shot and crippled George Wallace, but the FBI had already sealed off the would-be assassin's apartment.

Nixon: What the Christ was he looking for?

Haldeman: They were looking for stuff on two things. One, on financial. And the other stuff that they thought they had on what they were going to do at Miami to screw us up, because apparently--a Democratic plot. And they thought they had it uncovered. Colson was salivating with glee at the thought of what he mibght be able to do with it. And they were very reluctant to go in there. They were put under tremendous pressure that they had to get that stuff.

    January 3, 1973