GORDON LIDDY SPILL HIS GUTS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000403710016-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 16, 2010
• Sequence Number: 16
• Publication Date: May 18, 1980
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT_
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/16: CIA-RDP90-00552R000403710016-1
LF TICLE AF?
0:: PAGb
THE WASHINGTON POST
BOOK WORLD
18 May 1980
Gordon Liddy
,Spills His::
Guts
WILL: The Autobiography of G. Gordon Liddy. St,
Martin's. 374 pp. $13.95
By BOB.WOODWARD
'HOIST G* GORDON LIDDY, the Watergate
scandal would never have happened. He
dreamed up. and managed the most adventurous, ille?
gal and bungled schemes of the Nixon Administra-
tion's covert domestic operations. It would not be too
much to say that he was both the Rodgers and the
Hammerstein of Watergate: music and lyrics by Gor-
don Liddy. Dozens of higher-ranking officials in the
administration-including Nixon himself-were will.
ing, if not anxious, to go along. But Liddy did more
than that; he was both the planner and the com-
mander on the scene. He was a possessed, daffy and
very dangerous man.
W111, which someone (probably Liddy himself) in._]
sisted on calling an autobiography, is far superior to
the man. As history and as a study in psychopathol-
ogy the book is very good. It is.the self-portrait of a
zealot.
Liddy's account of Watergate is not only believable,
but some of what he reveals is front-page news. He
suggests, for instance, that Richard Helms, John
Itilitchell and Richard Kleindienst knew more about
his covert operations than previously had been
known. There is almost an embarrassment of riches
in the book that grows out of his blustery conceit and
his freedom from any kind of guilt about what he
did. So when he gets down to the accounts of crucial
meetings, planning sessions and the actual illegal
operations themselves-the Watergate break-in of
June 17, 1r12, or the "entry" at the office of the psy
chiatrist of Pentagon Papers defendant Daniel'
Ellsberg, or the planned assassination of colum-i
nist Jack Anderson-Liddy: is- meticulous. His'.
story rings. true, and balanced against the other
-evidence and testimony?of the many Watergate
investigations, it is credible. A hundred little facts
.and inferences convince me that he has been as,
honest as he could be:-And he is no longer-subject:
t&prosecution for- anything in the book that in'
criminates him, because the statute of limitations
has run out:-, Among the important new information ia: this;
=--
Liddy-offers his explanation of why the Nixon.
White House wanted to break into the Democratic,
National Headquarters in the first place. The June{
:.17,1972, Watergate break-in,* for which- the five
burglars were arrested;:was "to find out.-what
[Democratic National.'; Chairman.. -Lawrence}
O'Brien-had of a derogatory. nature about us, not:
for us to get something on him or the Democrats:',
Liddy offers a detailed account of how and why
:deputy -Nixon- campaign- director- Jell -Stuart
Magruder ordered- the illegal entry.
s The CIA made the expensive charts used to
brief Attorney General John Mitchell in early 1972
on. the planned illegal GEMSTONE break-in and;
bugging operations. For. me, this suggests morel
than anything available to date that top CIA offi
;;dais must have-known in advance about Liddy'si
Illegal. operatios:-In my_opinion, CIA Director
Bicnard Helms-must. have been given some ink-1
s=ling from the men over- in the CIA graphics de-
partment,but Helms has denied it.
:: a Mitchell was willing as-attorney general to pay,
.tNixonc ampaign,funds,to-members