pocket for fun

------------------ Liddy's suggestion had been dismissed out of hand on grounds that he was either crazy or kidding. ----  [excerpt, All The Pres. Men -- Bernstein, Woodward] ----
> > The Watergate story had stalled, maybe even died.  The reporters could not understand why.  Bernstein's administration contact, the former official, was also unable to get any useful information and joked -- or so Bernstein thought -- that the White House had "gone underground."

Bernstein, protesting, was shipped back to Virginia politics.  Woodward decided to take a vacation.

On July 22, the day Woodward left for Lake Michigan, the Long Island afternoon paper Newsday reported that a former White House aide named G. Gordon Liddy, who had been working as a lawyer for the campaign committee, had been fired by Mitchell in June for refusing to answer FBI questions about Watergate.

> > [[ notes typed on a typewriter by Woodward while Bernstein reads them, with a Rachmaninoff piano concerto playing, because Woodward's source says his place may be bugged -- it's information being given in a "conversation" on a manual typewriter...]]

::  Mitchell started doing covert national and international things early and then involved everyone else.  The list is longer than anyone could imagine. ::

:: Caulfield threatened McCord and said "your life is no good in this country if you don't cooperate. . . . " ::

:: The documents that Dean has are much more than anyone has imagined and they are quite detailed. ::

:: Liddy told Dean that they could shoot him and / or that he would shoot himself, but that he would never talk and always be a good soldier. ::

:: Hunt was key to much of the crazy stuff and he used the Watergate arrests to get money . . . first [$100,000 and then kept going back for more. . . .  :: [[end the Typed Notes]]

> > "Are you kidding?  Lang's so dumb that the Monday after the bugging he called everybody in finance together to say that we had nothing to do with it.  And then he asked Gordon to say a few words to the kids.  At which point Gordon Liddy got up and made a speech about how this one bad apple, McCord, shouldn't be allowed to spoil the whole barrel."

Bernstein asked the sister for another cup of coffee and tried another name.

"Never.  The White House got him out because he didn't like to do all the crazy things they wanted."

Who?

"Right under Mitchell," the Bookkeeper suggested.

Bernstein tried LaRue and Porter.  She didn't respond.  He tried again.
Silence.
What evidence did she have that Mitchell's assistants were involved?
"I had the evidence, but all the records were destroyed. . . . I don't know who destroyed them, but I'm sure Gordon did some shredding."

> > "What obviously makes this a Mitchell-Colson operation is the hiring of Liddy and Hunt.  That's the key.  Mitchell and Colson were their sponsors.  And if you check you'll find that Liddy and Hunt had reputations that are the lowest.  The absolute lowest.  Hiring these two was immoral.  They got exactly what they wanted.  Liddy wanted to tap the New York Times and everybody knew it.*  And not everybody was laughing about it.  Mitchell, among others, liked the idea."

* The Los Angeles Times had reported earlier that Liddy had suggested to White House colleagues that the New York Times be wiretapped to learn how it obtained the Pentagon Papers.  According to the L.A. Times account, Liddy's suggestion had been dismissed out of hand on grounds that he was either crazy or kidding. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ He's got a custom Continental; He's got an Eldorado too; He got a 32 gun in his pocket for fun, He's got a razor in his shoe

ba-domp ba-DOM
and he's bad, bad....

=======================
{book excerpt:  All The President's Men, written by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward.  Copyright, 1974.  Simon & Schuster.  New York, New York}
{song excerpt:  "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" written and recorded by Jim Croce.  ABC Records.  Number One pop hit.  1973 Life and Times album.  Included on Photographs & Memories - His Greatest Hits, 1974 compilation album, ABC Records, released after Jim Croce's death in an airplane crash]

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