Will: The Autobiography of G. Gordon Liddy

I am sure as I write this in December of 2016 that few will read this after me. I like many Americans feel I wasted valuable years of my life not investigating just what the top end of our Government likely works like. It's a sad narrative about a American Patriot in the case of Gordon who has morals yet also has taken a vow to protect and serve our President and his friends. I salute Libby for having the strength to stand up against the Media and the Government ad giving 14 years of his life to cover the back of a terribly corrupt President and his staff. This book should be a must read in High School Government classes

I purchased this book and the copy I received was signed by Liddy on the inside cover. Yes, it is in pen. :)

Wonderful book!

This is my second copy - not to mention the VHS tape, LOL. Starts off a little slow but it's thorough and appropriately sets the background to help you see into the mind of this amazing man. After reading this you may never feel like a real man again. :)

Outstanding.

He is on the political right, but so honest and loyal.

The career that this man has had is outstanding. A true Patriot. this is his life story. I miss him on the radio. Anyone who wants to know the real G-man, needs to read this book.

"Will" written by G.Gordon liddy is a tell alot but don't bore me story of the life of G.Gordon Liddy. I didn't really know who he was...until now. Mr. Liddy is definitely someone I want on my "friendlies" list...

G. Gordon Liddy is a very interesting and inspiring man and the book is just as interesting and inspiring read. I didn't want to put it down. This book should be printed again, along with a Kindle (as well as other e-book formatted) release. In addition, I'd like to see it in audio format so it can be listened to while driving, etc. G. Gordon does not disappoint in anything he does and it's evident by what he's accomplished and overcome so far.

The book was in near perfect condition and arrived in three days. It was a very good product for a very good price.

I am sure as I write this in December of 2016 that few will read this after me. I like many Americans feel I wasted valuable years of my life not investigating just what the top end of our Government likely works like. It's a sad narrative about a American Patriot in the case of Gordon who has morals yet also has taken a vow to protect and serve our President and his friends. I salute Libby for having the strength to stand up against the Media and the Government ad giving 14 years of his life to cover the back of a terribly corrupt President and his staff. This book should be a must read in High School Government classes

I purchased this book and the copy I received was signed by Liddy on the inside cover. Yes, it is in pen. :)

Wonderful book!

This is my second copy - not to mention the VHS tape, LOL. Starts off a little slow but it's thorough and appropriately sets the background to help you see into the mind of this amazing man. After reading this you may never feel like a real man again. :)

Outstanding.

He is on the political right, but so honest and loyal.

The career that this man has had is outstanding. A true Patriot. this is his life story. I miss him on the radio. Anyone who wants to know the real G-man, needs to read this book.

"Will" written by G.Gordon liddy is a tell alot but don't bore me story of the life of G.Gordon Liddy. I didn't really know who he was...until now. Mr. Liddy is definitely someone I want on my "friendlies" list...

G. Gordon Liddy is a very interesting and inspiring man and the book is just as interesting and inspiring read. I didn't want to put it down. This book should be printed again, along with a Kindle (as well as other e-book formatted) release. In addition, I'd like to see it in audio format so it can be listened to while driving, etc. G. Gordon does not disappoint in anything he does and it's evident by what he's accomplished and overcome so far.

The book was in near perfect condition and arrived in three days. It was a very good product for a very good price.

always wanted my own copy of this book. i'm taking it a page at a time and not skipping around this time. its not thelibraries, mine mine mine thank U

Thank you.

An excellent and very credible recount of how our government has worked in the past and what is continuing to go on now behind the scenes under the noses of our "intellectual" media.

I am surprised at the number of people still reading Liddy’s book. Surely the younger generations do not know him. Liddy writes well, his book “Will” is readable. I ask myself, what do I think of G. Gordon Liddy.? I know that my opinion is meaningful only to me. Anyway, I think he is brilliant, he also thinks he is brilliant. In his book he says his IQ is 145, which is genius, and I do not doubt this fact. But do I think he is truthful?????…..I don’t know. He seems to have a wonderful imagination and he comes out the hero in every memory. He tells us that as a child he was fearful of everything. He paints a pitiful picture of himself, and writes pages of his thoughts and feelings and reactions at age 7 and 8. I cannot write a paragraph about myself at age 7, can you? He tells incredible stories of his desire to mold himself into a brave person. When he was remorseful over killing a bird (or squirrel) he got a job chopping the heads off of chickens, and draining their blood, …therefore he trained himself not to fear killing. This does not sound like any child I ever knew. His fear of storms was conquered by climbing a tree and riding out a storm high in the branches. Amazing. Picking a wife was unbelievable! He loved a girl who was delicate and therefore eliminated as a life mate. He wanted tall, big bones and intelligence to enhance his gene pool. He found such a woman and then proceeded to fall in love with her. Evidently he chose well. He and Fran had a strong and long marriage with 5 children. G. Gordon Liddy has to be the best at everything, the best marksman in the FBI, the best in every endeavor. I wonder what makes him tick? He finally found his nitche….Washington DC. He was involved in political espionage, which was his true calling. He excelled in planning the dirty tricks, break-ins, wire tapping, surveillance. If it could be done Liddy would do it and do it well. Maybe these are the type of things done routinely in our capitol,,,,Lord I hope not. He was eventually caught, and as you would expect he was cool over the event. He came in late that night and told his wife,”I may go to jail” and both went to sleep. He did go to jail but took it in stride, nobody messed with this tough guy, or so he writes. He met all obstacles face on, he did not believe in backing down——or so we are told. We hear about the victories surely there were failures. He eventually comes out of prison and at this time he owned a fortune to the government. He has written several books and been sought after as a speaker. I should think he has paid his bills and banked a hefty amount. Was Liddy, likable, probably not but he didn’t care. That isn’t necessary to give the book 5 stars. I judge the book for writing, readability, organization, interest. This book has met all of my criterion therefore 5 stars.

Book review: “Will: the remarkable autobiography of G. Gordon Liddy”. My version: Sphere Books Limited, London, U.K. Paperback 1981. 486 pages. There is much to Liddy that calls to mind a comic book character or two. Think ‘Captain America’, perhaps ‘The Green Hornet’ without the sidekick. An image of ‘The men in black’ is also conjured. To say that Liddy is an “original” barely adds enough color and texture to a portrait of a true crazy man. The first thing that I note is that Liddy impresses us as being a man of strictest principles, even when being on both sides of the law. One of those principles is to not lie; for me the book has the impression of being truthful. I say this because his colleagues in the Watergate fiasco, especially Jeb Magruder and John Dean, do not project the same sense of being completely straight about themselves. I would also add Howard Hunt (as someone not comfortable with the truth) but it is a given that a life long spy will never tell the truth, mostly because it is too dangerous for him or her to do so. I accept that. Liddy had everything to lose when he was caught. His decision to sacrifice his own self, a theme repeated throughout his life, to protect a higher power, in this case the Presidency of Richard Nixon, is unique among all the Watergate actors. He would not speak or testify to anyone at any time. Contempt is another facet of his personality, which I will examine. Liddy was gifted with several personality traits, one of them being prone to obsessive behavior. How so? As a child, finding himself filled with many fears, he determined that there was no room in his life for fears and either they took control of him or he did. So, with that bold and impressive attitude, he set out at a young age to slay all his fears. It would appear from the book that he succeeded in accomplishing his goals. Other people seek wisdom, wealth, honor, and acknowledgment. Liddy wanted more than anything to be free of fear. You have to admire him for this because it was all self-motivated and self-directed. You could argue that some of his ventures into gaining self-control were reckless and dangerous if not outright foolish. Forcing himself to stay up in a tree during a fierce thunderstorm purged him of the fear of lightning and thunder; it also could have killed him if the tree had been struck. His self-corrective agendas tended to be extreme. If he had a fear of rats, he forced himself to eat of their flesh. Very few people ever confront their fears in such a combative, imaginative and heroic manner. If he strove to live a life that was informed by German folklore and mythologies, it helps give a partial explanation for his behavior and actions. Regardless of how wacky, silly or revolting, most people thought him a dangerous operator. Mr. Liddy is certainly an intelligent person, maybe even very much so. But, that is a factor of the powers of mind as directed by ones will, attitudes and values. They don’t always align neatly. Desperate to get into the army and being too young to be of service as canon fodder in either the European or Pacific battles, not willing to let go of his desire to see himself serve his country, to protect his country, he entered military training and completed it after the war ended. Having his sights then set on being a real G. I. Joe in the Korean war and not being able to go and get blown up there, he was at least given a consolation prize of manning the batteries that protected Coney Island, New York. Here he learned how to operate rather large guns and it was here that he showed his first fearless courage in dealing with other soldiers, some of who were planning to desert and go ‘awol’. Quite prepared to shoot and kill the soldier who refused to get into a vehicle that he was to be taken away in, convincing the errant soldier that he was not kidding, Liddy exercised his ferocious killer instincts without having to kill anyone. It was the will to kill, the readiness to do it that people picked up on. One of the creepiest aspects to his character was his very deep admiration for Teutonic or Aryan people. Someone who must have admired the proponents of eugenics, he was guided by these principles to look for a wife with whom he would produce superior and immaculate children. The idea of marrying someone for love would have been about the last thing on his list of priorities. (Why marry a cute but dim witted wife? What type of children would come of that union? ) He wanted his children to arrive with the genes of strong bodies, long limbs, bright minds and ambitious souls. Well, the soul stuff you can never do much about. He did choose a very bright wife and patient one too. How she put up with him all these years we can only guess at. In very close proximity to his love of Germanic people is his equally troubling admiration for the Gestapo and S.S. Throughout his book he makes constant references to the power of the ‘dark forces’ (this is my emphasis) of Nazi Germany. In the same breath we do not see any anti-Semitism in him. He viewed integrated schooling as a disaster that only brought down the high standards of all white schools to where they eventually leveled off very close to the bottom of the registers. His wife Frances was of Irish and Dutch descent, so that was all right. Liddy’s own background was Italian, Irish, and Scottish; pretty typical. He practiced law and for a time worked as a clerk in his fathers law office. Then we read something that just about jumps off the page. “I had transferred to the Judge Advocate General’s Corps in keeping with my legal training, and during one of those two-week tours a curious thing happened; I was given training in clandestine activities. I hadn’t requested such training, and no explanation was offered for it. The subject was fascinating, and I didn’t object or indicate (as I believed) that there had been a mistake. I enjoyed the course and didn’t want to risk removal from the class. Part of the course consisted on the techniques of surreptitious entry. It was given at an army base in New England where there was also a heavily-guarded, barbed-wire-surrounded installation of the ASA (Army Security Agency, a subsidiary of the National Security Agency). When I had been trained in chemical, bacteriological, and radiological warfare, I was issued a certificate of completion, but not for this course. And I would not be surprised to learn that there was no record of my attendance. Indeed, we were told not to mention the class to anyone. In later years that training came in very handy.” [Emphasis added. Found on pages 72-73] You have to laugh. Life itself was molding him into the superior being he knew himself to be. “Before graduating from law school, I applied for the position of Special Agent in the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I was a standard applicant – scrutiny went forward while I took my final examinations, graduated, and threw myself into cramming for the New York bar examinations. I passed the bar exam in July 1957, and in September I was sworn in as an FBI agent.” [Pages 75-76]. So, he was both a G-man and a lawyer. It does not take Gordon too long in his book to express his admiration for the Nazi’s. “As Adolf Hitler was referred to throughout the Third Reich as simply der Fuhrer, so J. Edgar Hoover was referred to throughout the FBI as the Director. There were only a few of us, six thousand out of 180 million, to stand between our country and those who would destroy it. I was truly convinced we were an elite corps, America’s protective echelon, its Schutzstaffel.” [Page 78]. The caped crusader, the man of the hour, the sheriff, the protector of widows and orphans has emerged. Not too sure how many of his colleagues would have admired the SS quite so strongly or openly. When he graduated from the FBI, he was quite an expert with various types of guns. He loved them, their potential and actual powers. He learned even more about guns and ammo lessons from an older agent, working out of the Indianapolis offices. Later on he dipped his toes into political office, putting in a tepid effort to run for office. The results were that he didn’t win but obtained a plumb position at the Treasury Department in Washington. Liddy was on the move and it was all up from here. So he thought. There is the famous story one should read here about how Liddy and his team made a middle of the night bust at Dr. Timothy Leary’s mansion. One of the craziest stories and funny enough, Leary and Liddy became friends and toured the lecture circuit many years later. A stranger bunch, those two, you’d be hard pressed to find. From Treasury our hero has but one last big jump forward and this time it is to work for the Committee to Re-elect the President, also known by its acronym, CREEP. Indeed, a fitting name. Working with Bud Krogh and David Young, Liddy was quickly asked to participate in a program that was already at the earliest stages one layer removed from most activities. In fact it was taking on the outer shapes of clandestine actions, the dirty tricks. Liddy could not have failed to notice this and would have responded in kind. A happy hero, finally being able to do what he had been training for. The task of this sub-group was to find sources within the administration where important leaks of documents had been surfacing. None of the leaks was more impressive and challenging than documents leaked by Daniel Ellsberg, known as the Pentagon Papers. This was a classified report that was undertaken in the Johnson administration by then Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara. It had no focus on the Nixon handling of the wars in Southeast Asia. However, Henry Kissinger felt threatened by the release and henceforth he became increasingly hysterical, throwing more fits in the Oval Office and putting extreme psychological pressure on the President to find the leaks and to shut them down. Yesterday, if possible. Nixon was vulnerable to being prodded and persuaded by Kissinger, often because Kissinger’s arguments were grounded in facts that were hard to ignore. He and the President were trying to negotiate their way out of the war in secret talks with the North Vietnamese, talks being held in secret, in Paris, France. Were more leaks of this type to come to light, Kissinger felt that his role as the strong arm of foreign policy, a policy that he crafted with his President, would be put at risk, that it all might unravel and come to a disastrous conclusion. At least he felt that it would be bad for the United States. Both he and Nixon had little regard for the welfare of the South Vietnamese. What was at stake was the end of the war (that they inherited) and with honor. Peace with honor. So much of their own careers had been placed upon the edifice of such a hollow and meaningless notion. How Kissinger, a brilliant student of European history, could have allowed himself to believe such fantasy, that he could craft the first honorable peace treaty in history; it is beyond reckoning. However, this is more about Nixon and Kissinger and we need to return to Liddy. It is apparent that both Nixon and Kissinger combined their growing rage and frustration and intimidation about future leaks into urging their teams to do whatever it took to find the source and to eliminate it. Nixon exhorted his facilitators, namely Haldeman and Ehrlichman to make it happen. There is a quote that is worth reading because it once again reveals how much of Liddy’s sense of order, self-discipline and loyalty to the ruler (whether a president or a Fuhrer is indistinguishable in Liddy’s mind) is conceived along German pathways. Nazi German pathways. “Our organization had been directed to eliminate subversion of the secrets of the administration, so I created an acronym using the initial letters of those descriptive words. It appealed to me because when I organize, I am inclined to think in German terms and the acronym was also used by a World War II German veterans organization belonged to by some acquaintances of mine, Organisation Der Emerlingen Schutz Staffel Angehorigen: ODESSA”. [Page 194]. The more you read of these glowing Nazi sentiments, the more you sense that the only fitting way he would like to be buried would be in the full battle dress of a Waffen SS Officer. I did say he was a crazy man. It is at this time that he is introduced to E. Howard Hunt, who is brought in through the efforts of his benefactor and long time friend, Charles Colson. So, at this point, you have Liddy, who is ex-military, a bright lawyer, and an FBI agent. Hunt was a long term CIA heavy lifter whose reach goes back to the tail ends of the OSS and more importantly to the training and leadership of the Cuban fighters who failed miserably at the Bay of Pigs. That was the same Hunt who also was involved, many would say and on his death bed he apparently confessed to some involvement with the JFK assassination. He lost a very costly libel case he brought against Liberty Lobby and in which the late attorney Mark Lane demolished Hunt and his claims to have not been in Dallas on the fateful day in November 1963. Hunt also had deep ties to Nixon going back to 1952 and more than likely assisted from the shadows in Nixon’s covert actions and plans to assassinate Castro, all while he was V.P. under Eisenhower. Quite a connective nest that Liddy was brought into. Out of this group, lead by Liddy, would emerge the illegal and clandestine breaking and entering of Ellsberg’s psychiatrists office in California. The other major program that the whole world knows about was to be known as the Watergate break-in. In both cases, Hunt provided Cuban agents that he had lead in the Bay of Pigs days. Only James McCord, a career CIA electronics technical expert, was, like Liddy, not part of the Cuban group. It appears, if I have this right, that Ehrlichman took the lead from the Oval Office and started the balls rolling through Jeb Magruder, who had joined the CREEP team as a prime organizer. From Magruder the encouragements, approval and funding would funnel over to Liddy. However, the original meeting was through Krogh who then turned it over to John Dean who spelled out some of the thinking and a budget of about $500,000 was discussed. Liddy chose to answer Dean’s offer by defining the context in which he was employed and what his ambitions were. ““I am willing”, I said, choosing my words carefully, “to serve the President in any way I can, but there are a number if different ways I can serve him. I’m here because of John Mitchell, and I work for John Ehrlichman. I want to be sure that this is how they feel I can best serve the President. So before I decide, I’d like you, Bud, to run this past Ehrlichman and you, John, to check with John Mitchell. If they both agree, then I’m your man.” (Pages 239-240). Someone fond of writing memorandums, some of which deeply impressed the President, as the de facto head of the Odessa group, he was given the task of drawing up a plan that could be reviewed by those in the upper spheres. He did so only to find out that they had misunderstood how someone with Liddy’s imagination and macho inclinations would take the plans. In meetings with John Mitchell and John Dean the big plans with a budget of about a million dollars was turned down. He was sent back to create something on a smaller scale. He did and this time it was about half a million dollars and less moving parts. It was turned down again and the third iteration which involved among several scenarios, a break-in to the DNC at the Watergate, budgeting coming in at around $250,000. In a meeting held at John Mitchell’s office and attended to by him and Dean, Liddy outlined the first iteration of the big plans. He gave the plans the overall name of GEMSTONE. Each individual program was named after a gem or semi precious stone. At this meeting Liddy couldn’t resist and included a reference to the German version of the English phrase “Special Action Group”. “Given the history involved, it was gross exaggeration, but it made my point. ‘An Einsatzgruppe, General’, I said, inadvertently using a hard g for the word General and turning it, too, into German. ‘These men include professional killers who have accounted between them for twenty-two dead so far, including two hanged from a beam in a garage.” (Page 259). To see the dark humor in this, he is pitching a plan to the former Attorney General and to a top Presidential aid and said plan will be using the services of known killers. You can say that Liddy was incredibly naïve and unfamiliar with what a guy like Mitchell would sanction. But, it is all part of the Liddy psyche where the ends justify the means. Remember that when you read the book. It is that mentality which he used when he went from a law enforcement officer to a criminal. Liddy hated Magruder and Magruder eventually came to fear Liddy. In the course of transmitting directions to Liddy, Magruder would use imprecise words or words that taken on face value, which Liddy did as a matter of course, would end up with dead bodies and front-page news. Such was the case when Magruder seemed to instruct Liddy to go and kill Washington author Jack Anderson. Luckily for Anderson, enough people got wind of what Liddy thought was an order and a calamity was averted. Such was not the case for the Watergate adventure. There are many remarkable things about the second Watergate infiltration. One of them is the instructions that Liddy got to move on to the McGovern campaign headquarters and bust in there, if possible on the same night as the Watergate site! If not that night then the next night was to be attempted. Hunt was incredulous but Liddy insisted, mostly because his handlers were pushing him. Just before this was a meeting that Liddy took with Mitchell and others. In that meeting Liddy explained his plans to upset a McGovern campaign speech. Liddy thought that the best thing was to have some very dirty hippie types paid to show up at the meeting and just when the cameras where close by, they would pull out their privates and urinate all over the place. Liddy and others laughed. Mitchell did not. “He knew something I didn’t. I knew of course, that by this time the Republican convention had been moved from San Diego to Miami. I knew, too, that McGovern’s suite was the best in the hotel. What I didn’t know was that after the Democrats moved out and the Republicans moved in, John Mitchell would be staying in the suite just vacated by George McGovern. Mitchell didn’t laugh, he roared: ‘Goddamn it Liddy; that’s where I’m staying. You better not have any hippies pissing all over my rug!” (Page 314). At which point Liddy just loses it and starts to laugh, which set everyone else laughing. You can’t make this stuff up. Eventually, as we all know, Hunt and Liddy watched helplessly as plainclothes police officers busted the burglars. There are lots of theories about how that happened and Jim Hougan’s version is by far the most interesting but also conspiratorial. Liddy gets back home at 3 am and explains to his wife, who asked if things were ok, that he would probably be going to jail. And then he promptly fell asleep. The next day, at the request of John Mitchell through Jeb Magruder, Liddy is instructed to go speak personally with Attorney General Richard Kleindienst. The purpose was to placate Mitchell who wanted Kleindienst to do him a personal favor and get McCord out of prison before people figured out who he was. This is a very interesting part of the story and again authors have puzzled about what was so dangerous about McCord. Part of that of course was his life long work for the CIA and also the FBI. Kleindienst was outraged that he would be asked such a favor, even two people removed from Mitchell. He told Liddy that he would do no such thing. Next Liddy takes a meeting with John Dean. At this meeting Liddy admits the folly of having McCord on board and that it was his own fault for bringing him on. At this meeting Liddy tells Dean that the people who got caught, except for McCord, were the same people who broke into Ellsberg’s psychiatrists office. Dean had not known this and was shocked. At this same meeting, though outside on the streets, Liddy makes his famous offer to Dean that if the President thinks that Liddy should be assassinated in order to protect the President that he just needed to be told what street corner to stand on and he’d be there. Dean was again shocked but told Liddy that “I don’t think we’ve gotten there yet, Gordon.” (Page 338). Generally speaking, most of the Nixonians did not talk like or act like Gordon Liddy. When he said things it was entirely out of some other mind set, really quite foreign to the average person. From here on until the end of the book, the strongest element of Liddy’s personality on display is contempt. We see him next in courtroom of Judge John Sirica. Liddy’s depiction of Sirica is completely disrespectful and contemptuous. As much as he held Sirica in the lowest possible consideration, it actually worked out that Sirica made few errors with the very long Watergate trial. It didn’t much matter from his perspective whether he threw the book at the defendants, knowing full well that they had every right to appeal his decisions. In the end, Sirica actually did a marvelous job and ended his career on a high note. That Liddy thought him a poorly educated incompetent was part of his overall contempt for anyone who would try to pass judgment on him. The nerve of the person who would call Gordon Liddy to account for his actions! And of course, Liddy’s contempt was married to his self-immolation plans. Which meant that he would not testify and would go to jail rather than answer any questions. Even when it became obvious to him that had he cooperated and given testimony that his jail sentence would have been lightened; the great Teutonic warrior would hear nothing of it. He would show them all what material he was made of. His stay in the Washington, D. C. jail makes for remarkable, almost jaw-dropping reading. In fact, I would suggest that the rest of the book, which details his ordeal in several jails, makes for the most fascinating reading. Liddy stood tough against the dangers inherent in prisons. He knew full well that only someone who was willing to knock peoples teeth out or break their knees or spines would be treated with respect. Prison respect was all about violence and Liddy was at home in this arena. In fact, there was a great deal about the prisons that made it seem to him that he was like a warrior in the Roman theater, having to defend himself day and night against any and all threats, most of which were quite lethal. In that respect, he is probably depicting things exactly as they were. In jail, at an early stage, he was in the same cells as Howard Hunt. Eventually and for reasons that I am not certain of (and which I suppose I would have to read Hunt himself), Hunt told Liddy that he was going to cooperate with the officials and testify. Liddy was disgusted and revolted. He immediately got up from his chair and as he wrote of it, he never spoke to Hunt again. He was now his enemy. Hunt and Liddy had been quite socially close, with their wives being quite friendly as well. All that went up in smoke as soon as Hunt turned government witness. Liddy would soldier on alone. He considered whether he should kill Hunt, just like he considered whether he should kill Dean. This is a man with a dark violent streak and who would be perfectly calm and at ease if it came to murdering someone. Two days before the trial in Sirica’s courtroom, Dean called Liddy at home. In this conversation, Dean (apparently) repeated promises that people would be taken care of, all of them; this referred to all who got caught. That original conversation happened about six months earlier. In this current conversation Dean promised that Liddy would be provided with living expenses of about $30,000 per year, and a pardon within 2 years. That his prison time would be served at Danbury Prison, which was nearer to where his wife and he had lived and finally that his legal fees would be covered. I do believe that of these promises, only the Danbury prison location was done for him. Whether or not it was because Dean ran afoul of the courts or because those who had made the promises to Dean were themselves sidelined, out of action or because people had decided to cut their losses (a much more likely reason, if you know Nixon), at the end of the day, Liddy was tossed into the prison system with a very long possible sentence. My last comments will be about how Liddy transformed himself from a defender of the law into someone whose contempt for those who were against Nixon’s presidency, which meant all Democrats, all the hippies and anti-war demonstrators and draft dodgers, a big collection to hate. How did he slip from one gear and into another without spending so much as maybe two moments to process the choices that opened up for him? Coming from the FBI into Treasury and then given the task of planning the dirty tricks of the CREEP committee, was over a short period of time. When people rationalize their own actions and decide that the means of change fit the ends to be obtained, at all costs in some cases, then doing illegal acts, whether on a small scale or a large scale was not a problem. Such was the case with Gordon Liddy. He held so many in contempt that putting his wide ranging training into defending Nixon’s White House and all those troubling agendas, was as natural as putting on a fresh suit. In this, he would end up mirroring exactly the same types of contemptuous acts that Richard Nixon, the President, carried out. Nixon was lucky in that his escape parachuted him right out of the fires of the Oval Office into a comfortable but totally isolated exile in California or among his cronies in Miami. Liddy didn’t want to be saved from his fate. He wanted the whole world to see that he was a man of principles and that if he got caught then, brave soldier, a man who had sharpened his will against pain and all fears, he would smolder on in prison for as long as it would take. No one could break him. The book ends with Liddy finally having his very long sentence reduced by Presidential pardon. Meeting him at the door of the prison was his long-suffering wife. They left in her Ford Pinto and were followed by hoards of media in their cars. Liddy loses his patience and insists on taking over the driving of the car into his own hands. He ends up putting himself and his wife at great risk, roaring around town and eventually losing the press. The Pinto was known as one of the poorest quality cars ever built in America. He reduced his wife to tears as he terrified her with his wild escape act. Was it an act? I think that he was crazy enough to even have contempt for his wife’s life, never mind his own. Were they to die in a car crash, on the day he was released, then so be it. Gordon Liddy was never going to be conquered. I pity his wife and children. His admiration for the S.S. was bad enough. His contempt for life was inexcusable and unforgivable. An amazing book that has the ring of truth to his version of events, however ironic that might be.

Who would have thought that G. Gordon Liddy would write one of the best books on Watergate? This book is impossible to put down. It covers so many things, primarily Liddy's own perception of himself and his belief in will as the best and highest expression of self. Early in the book he describes holding his hand over a lit candle and letting it get burnt, as an expression of this philosophy. The book bursts with unforgettable insights, from Liddy's phone call to Howard Hunt, offering to stand at a particular street corner at a particular time, so he could be "bumped off" in the interests of covering up what at the time was considered America's worst political scandal (which in retrospect seems a little tame), to Liddy's first day in the Washington DC jail (about 90% Black) when he was classified as almost deaf since he kept asking "what?" to questions because they were expressed in Black English ("which I perforce became fluent in"). That first night in jail, realizing he was going to be a target of the other prisoners, he stood at the door to his cell after lights-out and sang "Deutschland Uber Alles" as loud as he could to show his disdain for any future threats. (It worked: the other prisoners thought he was crazy and left him alone.) He offers a unique perspective on Watergate, due to his position as second-in-command of the Plumbers. This book is definitely worth reading, no matter what your political perspective may be.

G. Gordon Liddy drives the liberals as batty as Rush, because he was an official Republican "bad guy," the man behind Watergate. So what does he do? He drives a fancy sports car with the license plates, "H20GATE." Liddy, like Oliver North, makes no effort to hide behind his official actions, and was elevated to high status by the opinion of millions of American citizens that what he did was actually good. In Liddy's case, people view Watergate as something Kennedy and Johnson had done, and in light if the "civil war" atmosphere in the streets, and the desire not to let the Kennedys steal another election, the break-in was almost justified. Liddy plays to highly macho sensibilities, is extremely sexual, loves guns, has a Pattonesque view of warfare, and takes on a conspiratorial, partisan view of the Clintons. He is nobody's fool, speaking several languages, and his education is first rate. He also has his pet peeves, such as "prison guards," who he has low regard for because they were his overseers when he served time.

When I first picked-up a copy of Liddy's biography I wasn't entirely sure what to expect. I had seen him several times on t.v. and I had seen him in person while he was debating Timothy Leary at Arizona State University. By the time I was ten pages in to his life story, however, I was hooked. This is the only book I can honestly say "changed my life." From Liddy's struggle to overcome pain and fear as a child to his tenacity and unflinching loyalty as a member of the Nixon administration, his life story prompted me to instill newfound discipline and courage in my life. While I do not agree with all of Mr. Liddy's political views, I wholeheartedly recommend this book to anybody wishing to overcome obstacles and challenges in their lives. Quite simply, this is the best book I have ever read.

If you enjoy books like Co. Aytch or Brazen Chariots you will appreciate this autobiography. I first came across Liddy while watching an episode of Miami Vice as a kid and his persona intrigued me. Something besides money, power or fame propel people into notoriety and Liddy is one of those people. I purchased a used copy recently and once I began reading it I couldn't put it down. The collection of stories he tells are so interesting and hilarious at times that you couldn't wait for the next chapter to see what twist and turn his life would take. Some of the stories do play into some of the stereotypes of Republicans a little but it was all very believable. The chapters about his time in prison confirm the credibility of his narrative. It also confirmed my belief that this man is hardcore. Hardcore in his beliefs, hardcore in his actions and the type of American (right or wrong, love him or hate him)man that is fast disappearing in this country. This autobiography will stand the test of time and as the meaning of America and its identity changes it provides an excellent snapshot of an American life on the frontlines of political and cultural warfare in the late twentieth century.

This is a book that merits multiple readings. Depending on where you are in your life, you will find different things to learn from this book. I think that the most fascinating section of the book is Mr. Liddy's prison experience: he did hard time (facing 20 years without parole) in some of the nation's worst prisons, and he did so with his head held high and emerged with his honor intact. The way he triumphed in that savage environment is inspiring.

good book

This is without a doubt one of the most fascinating books I've read in years. At times funny and at other times rather disturbing, this is a real page-turner. Many people will find his politics and his "the end justifies the means" attitude to be somewhat repellent, not to mention his oft-stated willingless to kill someone. But in an era when almost anyone can be bought and sold, it is refreshing to see an individual who will not "sell out" his principles. This book shares one of the same central tenets as the movie "Scent of a Woman": if you do something that you know is immoral or illegal, you should be willing to pay the price without turning on your friends and comrades to save yourself.

This book should be required reading for anyone in a 20th-Century American History course. Not only does Gordon chronicle his own personal (and at times rather disturbing) history, but, he puts it in the context of the America in which he grew up, the America in which he came of age, the America in which he worked, and the America in which he became (in)famous. Somewhere along the line, he reminds each of us of the America in which we came to be. I'm 42, so, for the longest time, "Watergate" wasn't much more than a lot of old guys on TV having long, boring conversations. The latter chapters of "Will" flesh out the incident quite well. As a companion-piece, I also recommend "When I Was a Kid, This Was a Free Country", also by GGL.