Writing in the Chicago Tribune recently, columnist Steve Chapman suggested that Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential candidate, could have a friend problem.
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In McCain’s case, the friend is G. Gordon Liddy, the conservative radio talk-show house and convicted mastermind of the Watergate break-in.
Liddy, 77, contributed several thousand dollars to McCain’s senatorial campaigns, and this year he gave $1,000 to the presidential campaign.
McCain has appeared on Liddy’s show. And in November he praised Liddy for his adherence “to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great,” Chapman reports.
The McCain-Liddy connection would seem to be much stronger that the link between Sen. Barack Obama, McCain’s possible Democratic opponent for president, and William Ayers, the former member of the Weather Underground. The radical group formed in the late 1960s was involved in several bombings.
Ayers contributed $200 to Obama when he was running for the state Senate in Illinois. And the two served on the board of the Woods Fund of Chicago.
Obama condemned the actions of the Weather Underground. But he also noted that he was “an 8-year-old child” when they took place.
McCain criticized the Obama-Ayers connection when it became a campaign issue between Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
“I think not only a repudiation but an apology for even having anything to do with an unrepentant terrorist is due the American people,” McCain said. Chapman suggests that McCain should do a little repudiating and apologizing of his own for his relationship with Liddy.
An Army veteran of the Korean War era, Liddy graduated from Fordham Law School and became an FBI special agent. Later he served as a prosecutor in New York’s Dutchess County.
His effort to convict counterculture Dr. Timothy Leary on drugs charges then was unsuccessful. Years later, Leary and Liddy teamed up on the speakers circuit.
Liddy joined the White House Staff during Richard Nixon’s first term in office and eventually became part of the White House Special Investigations Unit. The covert group of so-called plumbers tracked down leaks of information and spied on perceived opponents of the administration.
Liddy and E. Howard Hunt Jr., a former CIA agent, put together the 1972 plan to break into and bug the Watergate offices of the Democratic National Committee. Along with the five men caught on the scene, they were eventually convicted on charges of burglary, conspiracy and wiretapping.
Liddy refused to cooperate with prosecutors. He received a 20-year sentence that was commuted by President Jimmy Carter after more than four years of time served.
He emerged from prison in September 1977 penniless and unrepentant and remained silent on his role in Watergate until the 1980 publication of his memoir, Will.
In the book, he acknowledged that he once volunteered to kill columnist Jack Anderson, an offer that was not accepted. And he wrote that, after the Watergate break-in went bad, he volunteered to be assassinated.
“‘If someone wants to shoot me, just tell me what corner to stand on and I’ll be there,’” Liddy remembered telling John Dean, the White House counsel.
Liddy has written several more books and become wealthy through his talk show and his speaking appearances. He has also been in films and television shows, including a stint as a competitor on “Celebrity Fear Factor.”
At times, his statements have gotten him in trouble, as when he said, “If the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms insists upon a firefight, give them a firefight. Just remember, they’re wearing flak jackets and you’re better off shooting for the head.”