and Then he wrote a Dozen MORE Books and Gave Many Lectures... ALL WORTHY... I Especially Love "Still Here" because I'm 67 Years Old and The Question of My Own Death is Important To Me... Now...
and Then After Listening to The Saturday Night Alive for the Global Peace Tribe Show...
I Had a Dream: We were walking towards the Entrance of the Los Gatos Library and there was a Thin Old Man dressed in a Small Bathing Suit ahead of Us. He pulled on the entrance to the Children's room and It was Locked... Disappointed, he turned around and I asked: "Are You Looking for the Man Who Works There?" He Said: "NO" and I Motioned towards the Main Entrance. We all Entered. He seemed lost so I asked: "Do you Need Help?" as I would ask any Lost Old Man... He Said: "NO" and then I asked again: "Can I Help You?" He said: "No. I'm Fine." and then we went on Our Own Ways. By That time it was Obvious to Me That he was Ram Dass and That it was a Rather "Heavy" encounter to Ask Ram Dass If I Could Help Him... a Meaningful Event... and I was Shaking... So we went downstairs and I went searching for a Book that I Has Started reading before (about Philosophy) - and on the same shelf was a large picture book of the Grateful Dead's Fare Ye Well Tour with four CDs (that were missing) and My friend asked me why I would want to check out that book and I said: "Too Look for Pictures of Myself." and then I woke up and Typed this Document... It's Best to Type it Up before I forget it... For Certain, I would have tried to help any Lost Old Man but It seems Important that I Offered Ram Dass Help in my dream. That's One Of His Main Teachings...
~~~~~~ (~);-} ~~~~~~
and then... Someone Posted in the Ram Dass Facebook Group:
~~~~~~ (~);-} ~~~~~~
Hello everyone, curious to know where you came across Ram Dass, I found him on Gaia...
and I Replied: TV News was Talking about Dr. Timothy Leary and He was a Part of that scene... Dr. Richard Alpert... and then Later he Wrote The Book: Remember, Be Here Now... and THAT Got My Attention because of the ART! Here are Two of about a Hundred Drawings in that book...
In the Ram Dass Facebook Group SD Posted: Philosophically speaking... Does life fundamentally suck?
SC Said: That’s what the Buddha says! But the good news is that we can rest deeply in that eternal place in our being where it doesn’t suck. The way out is in!
I Replied: MY Life Does Not Suck... Actually, I've always been confused by the Buddhist Teaching that all life is suffering... For Example: Eat a Hamburger with French Fries and a Beer and Tell me THAT'S Suffering... NO, It's Not! Maybe IN INDIA "all life is suffering" but here in the USA... Things are Pretty Great... Hey, I ate LSD and Danced at a Grateful Dead Concert... Does THAT Suck? No... That's Excellent Entertainment! BIG FUN!
Environments Record Album Human "BE IN" In Central Park NYC
Here is Another Basically False Belief... In Buddhism, desire lies at the root of suffering. By desire, Buddhists refer to craving pleasure, material goods... all of which are wants that can never be satisfied. As a result, desiring them can only bring suffering. I Disagree... UNSATISFIED DESIRE Causes Suffering But Completely Satisfied Desire is GREAT! For Example: I Desired a Hamburger, and then I Ate That Hamburger with French Fries and a Beer... WONDERFUL! Maybe What the Buddha was Referring to is The QUALITY OF LIFE IN INDIA where things Generally SUCK... After All... If Prayer and Meditation ACTUALLY WORKED They Wouldn't Be Dying of Coronavirus... BUT In REALITY... VACCINES WORK.
Q: Why do so many people avoid silence?
I love Silence... Especially Outdoors in the Garden... Because Then I Can Hear all those REALLY QUIET Sounds... Little Birdies Chirping, Bees Buzzing, Th Sound of a Harley Davidson Driving away in the Distance...
Light Pink Rose in the Garden - Central Valley California - gvan42
A Housemate of Mine was Watching the TV Show "Coach" - Where People were Arguing and Arguing and Arguing... Why Would Anyone Voluntarily Watch That? We Have a Hundred Channels... Many Have ZERO Arguments... and Then There were Many "Jokes" about Athletes being Stupid... I Don't Find THAT Funny... Those Jokes are Just a Variation on Racist Stereotypes... The Underlying Basis is that Anyone Who Plays Football Has to Be an Idiot because of All The Pain... and a Lifetime of Painful Back Problems... Sure, I Played Football for 3 Days Before I Quit the Team... It HURT! But That's NOT a Funny Joke...
Same Grape Plant as The One Over the Gate above.
Now It's Creeping up a Tree
Intentionally Seek Beauty... I Walk Around with my Camera/Phone and Search for Wonderful Things to Photograph... It's The SEARCHING FOR BEAUTY that is Really Fun... That Practice Makes Me More Observant...
Don't let other people ruin your life by filling your head with absurd concepts that benefit Them, not You... I Wrote this Because I Spent Many Hours Listening to Christians Complain about Their Religion in Alcoholics Anonymous Meetings... SAD... Trapped in a Make Believe Cannibal/Vampire Cult... Yep, Those People Pretend to Drink the Blood of Christ and Eat His Body... OOOH! CREEPY! ESCAPE NOW!
~~~~~~ (~);-} ~~~~~~
and NOW, Here are some Blog Posts
~~~~~~ (~);-} ~~~~~~ Contact Your California State Representative and Tell 'em to DECRIMINALIZE PSYCHEDELICS... If signed into law, possession of LSD, psilocybin mushrooms, DMT and MDMA would be decriminalized. .
My Experience: I took LSD and Visited the National Art Gallery in Washington DC... Surprisingly, Picasso "The Tragedy" was My Favorite Painting... I FELT COLD in my Body just looking at the Painting...
Warhol and Lichtenstein all seemed silly and trivial! That Night we all went to the Tangerine Dream Concert... at the Elegant Warner Theater... I was Concerned During the Show About the CO2 Fog that Spilled off the Stage and out into the Audience... Seemed Dangerous to Me... But We All Survived...
Evil Lawmakers Made LSD Illegal. (Donald L. Grunsky & Edmund G "Pat" Brown) Bribed Politicians. Puppets of Big Pharma. However, There is an Unstoppable Movement of Citizen Patriots In Favor of Magic Mushroom Legalization. and Then ALL The Other Psychedelics...
Throw all the Corrupt Weasels OUT of Office...
Be Sure to Contact Your Elected Representatives and Tell them to LEGALIZE MEDICINAL PSYCHEDELICS... Let Doctors and Patients Decide for themselves What the Best Medicine is... Get The "Nanny State" OUT of the Doctor's Office...
HEADLINE: Brown Signs LSD Bill To Head Off Threat' - 30 May 1966
SACRAMENTO (UPI)- Gov. Edmund G. Brown today signed Into law a bill making it a crime to manufacture, sell, possess or use the dream drug LSD. Brown said the new law would head off "a growing threat to society, particularly to young thrill-seekers unaware of the damage it (LSD) can do.” The bill, by Sen, Donald L. Grunsky, R-Watsonville, outlaws the promiscuous use of the drug which backers of the legislation say is reaching epidemic proportions on college campuses. But it permits LSD to be used in research projects conducted by recognized hospitals and clinics.
The Man Who Made LSD Illegal... Thankfully He is Dead... and CANNOT DO any more Evil. Donald L. Grunsky; Longtime State Legislator... https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2000-jan-18-mn-55108-story.html The Convention on Psychotropic Substances of 1971 is a United Nations treaty designed to control psychoactive drugs such as amphetamine-type stimulants, barbiturates, benzodiazepines, and psychedelics signed in Vienna, Austria on 21 February 1971. The Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961 did not ban the many newly discovered psychotropics,[1] since its scope was limited to drugs with cannabis, coca, and opium-like effects.
During the 1960s such drugs became widely available, and government authorities opposed this for numerous reasons, arguing that along with negative health effects, drug use led to lowered moral standards. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_Psychotropic_Substances
In 1961, a conference of plenipotentiaries (Definition: a person, especially a diplomat, invested with the full power of independent action on behalf of their government, typically in a foreign country.) in New York adopted the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, which consolidated the existing drug control treaties into one document and added Cannabis to the list of prohibited plants. In order to appease the pharmaceutical interests, the Single Convention's scope was sharply limited to the list of drugs enumerated in the Schedules annexed to the treaty and to those drugs determined to have similar effects. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Convention_on_Narcotic_Drugs
Psilocybin prohibition, however, wasn’t seriously enforced until the passage of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) in 1971, which marked the beginning of America’s disastrous War on Drugs. Under the CSA, psilocybin and psilocin are listed alongside heroin as Schedule I drugs, meaning that they have a high potential for abuse and no accepted medical use—at least, according to the federal government. https://thehill.com/changing-america/opinion/476968-why-the-war-on-drugs-must-end Plato's Story "The Cave" is so very Meaningful to me... When I Heard it on the FM Radio in the Late sixties I Said: Hey, That's What Happened to ME! https://gvan42.blogspot.com/2020/07/platos-story-cave-is-so-very-meaningful.html
A Friend Just Announced that She's Going to Disney World!
Excellent! I spent 5 Days at EPCOT and Still Didn't See It All. The First Day I Took LSD and Rode Space Mountain! Hint: Go Early in the Morning, Go Back to the Motel Room and Take a Nap During the Heat of the Day, then Go Back at Night...
Remember when Vice President Pence Held a Prayer Meeting in the White House to "Cure" Covid-19? A Total Failure... He Did That Instead of ACTUALLY TAKING ACTION... and Half a Million People Died...
Prayer is a Way of Fooling Yourself... It's a Really Handy Excuse for NOT TAKING ACTION... For Example: After ANOTHER Gun Massacre People Send Thoughts and Prayers INSTEAD OF OUTLAWING GUNS.
~~~~~~ (~);-} ~~~~~~
Before Columbus "Discovered" America... The People Who Lived here Had a Massive Civilization. Pottery Cups found in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico have Chocolate in them... and Chocolate Was Grown a Thousand Miles South by the Mayans... But... They LOVED That Chocolate! and Were Willing to Pay Someone to Import It! So there were Roads that Ran Over a Thousand Miles! https://nhmu.utah.edu/blog/2016/08/04/cacao-chaco-canyon and The South American Roads Built by the Incas are Still there Today and Still Work!
A clown, a guru, and a doctor walk into a cabin. The clown says, “What I have in mind is eye care for 400,000.” The guru says “See here now.” The doctor says, “Brilliant. We can do that.” What actually transpired in 1978 was the start of Seva led by Dr. Brilliant with an eclectic group including Ram Dass, Wavy Gravy, Dr. "V", and Dr. Nicole Grasset. What came next was the landmark Nepal Blindness Survey using an Apple 2+ computer donated by Steve Jobs and a helicopter funded by a Grateful Dead concert. The story of Seva’s beginning is colorful and quirky, but the results are miraculous. Science, art, and spirituality are a potent blend that can transform lives! Witness for yourself the promise of ending avoidable blindness in Nepal and around the world.
Will the Corrupt Supreme Court Rule that CRIME IS LEGAL for Trump? Question: Would Total Presidential Immunity Allow Biden to Murder Trump LEGALLY?
Remember: The Reason Ford Pardoned Nixon was to Prevent Nixon's Arrest for Crimes Committed While President.
Ram Dass Writes: "Wow! I've Finally Met a Guy Who is Going to Know! He Will Definitely Know What LSD IS. I'll Have to Ask Him."
Then Maharaji swallows 3 White Lightning Pills (305 Micrograms each).
"All Day Long I'm There, and Every Now and Then he Twinkles at Me and Nothing - Nothing Happens. That was His Answer to My Question. Now You Have All the Data I Have."
SO... What Really Happened? I figure they had 12 Hours Together... and all that happened was Occasional Twinkling? No Conversation? No Questions? Did Ram Dass Really Sit there and NOT ASK... "What's Happening? Do You Feel any Effects?"
If You Know any More... Please Email Me: gregvan[at]yahoo[dot]com or Comment below.
Shirley is a communicator. Her words have taken us along on a journey that has circled the globe and allowed us to follow her discovery of self, Higher Self, and spirituality. A longtime outspoken advocate for civil rights and liberties, women’s rights, and spiritual understanding, Shirley MacLaine has sold more than 20,000,000 copies of her ten international bestsellers.
https://www.amazon.com/Out-Limb-Shirley-Maclaine/dp/0553273701 Her most controversial book is one you will never forget. An outspoken thinker, a celebrated actress, a truly independent woman, Shirley MacLaine goes beyond her previous two bestsellers to take us on an intimate yet powerful journey into her personal life and inner self. An intense, clandestine love affair with a prominent politician sparks Shirley MacLaine's quest of self-discovery. From Stockholm to Hawaii to the mountain vastness of Peru, from disbelief to radiant affirmation, she at last discovers the roots of her very existence. . . and the infinite possibilities of life. Shirley MacLaine opens her heart to explore the meaning of a great and enduring passion with her lover Gerry; the mystery of her soul's connection with her best friend David; the tantalizing secrets behind a great actor's inspiration with the late Peter Sellers. And through it all, Shirley MacLaine's courage and candor new doors, new insights, new revelations-and a luminous new world she invites us all to share.
https://www.amazon.com/Dancing-LIght-Shirley-MacLaine/dp/0553256971 Now, at a turning point in her life, comes her most revealing and exciting book yet. Outspoken, controversial, talented, and perceptive Shirley MacLaine now takes us on an intimate and fascinating personal odyssey. In 1984 she won an Oscar, starred on Broadway, wrote the best-selling Out on a Limb -- and turned fifty years old. At this special time, in this special year, she was now ready to resume the spiritual journey she had begun in her early forties. In Dancing in the Light, Shirley MacLaine bares her innermost self and explores the lives, both past and present, which touched and affected her own. She sheds new light on her loves, her losses, her childhood, her passions, and her inner drives and ambitions. She asks poignant questions and finds surprising answers. She asks poignant questions and finds surprising answers. She challenges her beliefs and confronts her conflicts. Ultimately, she takes us with her through a life-altering experience that provides a stunning new vision of herself, her future... and the fate of our world.
~~~~~~ (~);-} ~~~~~~
Who WAS Ram Dass? In the Sixties, He was a Psychedelics Researcher and Promoter at Harvard with Dr. Timothy Leary. Then He went to India Looking for Enlightenment and Met a Guru. Changed His Name and Published a Great Book... "Remember: Be Here Now" - It Has His Autobiography and then Many ART Drawings Explaining Eastern Religion. Real Name: Dr. Richard Alpert...
A Question asked in the Ram Dass Facebook Group...
and Then After Listening to The Saturday Night Alive for the Global Peace Tribe Show...
I Had a Dream: We were walking towards the Entrance of the Los Gatos Library and there was a Thin Old Man dressed in a Small Bathing Suit ahead of Us. He pulled on the entrance to the Children's room and It was Locked... Disappointed, he turned around and I asked: "Are You Looking for the Man Who Works There?" He Said: "NO" and I Motioned towards the Main Entrance. We all Entered. He seemed lost so I asked: "Do you Need Help?" as I would ask any Lost Old Man... He Said: "NO" and then I asked again: "Can I Help You?" He said: "No. I'm Fine." and then we went on Our Own Ways. By That time it was Obvious to Me That he was Ram Dass and That it was a Rather "Heavy" encounter to Ask Ram Dass If I Could Help Him... a Meaningful Event... and I was Shaking... So we went downstairs and I went searching for a Book that I Has Started reading before (about Philosophy) - and on the same shelf was a large picture book of the Grateful Dead's Fare Ye Well Tour with four CDs (that were missing) and My friend asked me why I would want to check out that book and I said: "Too Look for Pictures of Myself." and then I woke up and Typed this Document... It's Best to Type it Up before I forget it... For Certain, I would have tried to help any Lost Old Man but It seems Important that I Offered Ram Dass Help in my dream. That's One Of His Main Teachings...
~~~~~~ (~);-} ~~~~~~
and then... Someone Posted in the Ram Dass Facebook Group:
~~~~~~ (~);-} ~~~~~~
Hello everyone, curious to know where you came across Ram Dass, I found him on Gaia...
and I Replied: TV News was Talking about Dr. Timothy Leary and He was a Part of that scene... Dr. Richard Alpert... and then Later he Wrote The Book: Remember, Be Here Now... and THAT Got My Attention because of the ART! Here are Two of about a Hundred Drawings in that book...
In the Ram Dass Facebook Group SD Posted: Philosophically speaking... Does life fundamentally suck?
SC Said: That’s what the Buddha says! But the good news is that we can rest deeply in that eternal place in our being where it doesn’t suck. The way out is in!
I Replied: MY Life Does Not Suck... Actually, I've always been confused by the Buddhist Teaching that all life is suffering... For Example: Eat a Hamburger with French Fries and a Beer and Tell me THAT'S Suffering... NO, It's Not! Maybe IN INDIA "all life is suffering" but here in the USA... Things are Pretty Great... Hey, I ate LSD and Danced at a Grateful Dead Concert... Does THAT Suck? No... That's Excellent Entertainment! BIG FUN!
Environments Record Album Human "BE IN" In Central Park NYC
Here is Another Basically False Belief... In Buddhism, desire lies at the root of suffering. By desire, Buddhists refer to craving pleasure, material goods... all of which are wants that can never be satisfied. As a result, desiring them can only bring suffering. I Disagree... UNSATISFIED DESIRE Causes Suffering But Completely Satisfied Desire is GREAT! For Example: I Desired a Hamburger, and then I Ate That Hamburger with French Fries and a Beer... WONDERFUL! Maybe What the Buddha was Referring to is The QUALITY OF LIFE IN INDIA where things Generally SUCK... After All... If Prayer and Meditation ACTUALLY WORKED They Wouldn't Be Dying of Coronavirus... BUT In REALITY... VACCINES WORK.
Q: Why do so many people avoid silence?
I love Silence... Especially Outdoors in the Garden... Because Then I Can Hear all those REALLY QUIET Sounds... Little Birdies Chirping, Bees Buzzing, Th Sound of a Harley Davidson Driving away in the Distance...
Light Pink Rose in the Garden - Central Valley California - gvan42
He used to Live in my Neighborhood in Oxon Hill, Maryland...
G Gordon Liddy and Timothy Leary - on a Debate Tour - people would buy a ticket to hear them speak.
Once I was Delivering Pizza for Domino's on a snowy day near Washington DC. I was driving a Front Wheel Drive car called a Dodge Omni... As I cruised easily up a hill, I watched a Mercedes Benz slide off the road and into a ditch... It's a rear wheel car and a total failure... I was grateful that I owned a HIGH QUALITY CAR. Some people are fooled by the Status Display of owning a Mercedes and they forget the ACTUAL GOAL OF A CAR... To get you from here to there... I was delivering a Pizza to the Neighborhood that G Gordon Liddy lived in and it's quite possible that G Gordon was the Driver who had to walk home in the snow... Many People have Forgotten the Name G Gordon Liddy but he went to Prison for the Watergate Affair... He had the Opportunity to testify that Nixon was the Mastermind of that Crime but G Gordon refused to Tell Congress what he knew... and then he went to Prison for "Contempt of Congress"... Liddy states in his book that he had "Contempt FOR Congress"... Not OF but FOR... I really enjoyed his book called "WILL" and one time I wanted to buy a copy for the Humboldt County Public Library but sadly it is out of print... They will order any book that is currently in print if you pay for it... Liddy also had a Talk Show on the Radio where he would tell callers his words of wisdom... and give other free advice... Sadly, he has been forgotten while John Dean, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward are frequent Talking Heads on TV NEWS... CNN and MSNBC have them dispense THEIR wisdom while Liddy's Ideas are ignored... Liddy also lead an FBI Raid on Timothy Leary's Commune in Upstate New York...
Liddy was also the Subject of a Conspiracy Theory called "The Skeleton Key to The Gemstone File..." Long Before the Internet, People used to Make Mimeograph Copies of this Underground Text File... His plan for Watergate Had Many Facets... each named for a Gem... the Diamond Plan, The Ruby Plan, the Emerald Plan... REALLY!
George Gordon Battle Liddy (born November 30, 1930), known as G. Gordon Liddy, is a former FBI agent, lawyer, talk show host, actor, and figure in the Watergate scandal as the chief operative in the White House Plumbers unit during the Nixon Administration. Liddy was convicted of conspiracy, burglary, and illegal wiretapping for his role in the scandal.[1]
Working alongside E. Howard Hunt, Liddy organized and directed the burglary of the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate building in May and June 1972. After five of Liddy's operatives were arrested inside the DNC offices on June 17, 1972, subsequent investigations of the Watergate scandal led to Nixon's resignation in 1974. Liddy was convicted of burglary, conspiracy and refusing to testify to the Senate committee investigating Watergate. He served nearly fifty-two months in federal prisons.[2]
He later joined with Timothy Leary for a series of popular debates on various college campuses, and similarly worked with Al Franken in the late 1990s. Liddy served as a radio talk show host from 1992 until his retirement on July 27, 2012.[3] His radio show as of 2009 was syndicated in 160 markets by Radio America and on both Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio stations in the United States.[4] He has been a guest panelist for Fox News Channel in addition to appearing in a cameo role or as a guest celebrity talent in several television shows.
The story of Operation Gemstone, his totally bonkers, Nazi-themed dirty tricks wish list.
If you had to choose one moment when the whole Watergate scandal was set into motion — that first, singular fatal crack in the foundation — you might as well pick G. Gordon Liddy’s hunt for an easel.
Even now, 50 years later, it’s hard to identify the moment when the burglary and arrests at the Democratic National Committee offices at the Watergate on June 17, 1972, tipped from an odd sideshow to the main event. As inevitable and foregone as President Richard Nixon’s fall might seem in hindsight, what’s remarkable looking back at the events of 1972 to 1974 is how close he came to getting away with the whole thing — how well the cover-up held for so long and how narrowly he came to barreling right past the embarrassment of what his press secretary called a “third-rate burglary.” Months later, after all, he was reelected by the largest presidential landslide in American history.
Ultimately, multiple Cabinet officials would face criminal charges related to the scandal, an FBI director would resign and face prosecution, a congressman would die by suicide and a CIA director would plead guilty to misleading Congress. All told, 69 people would be indicted on charges stemming from the related investigations.
Lost in our memory of Watergate is that the DNC burglary — itself one of the most bizarre moments in American politics — was actually the least zany (and illegal) plan the Nixon campaign had contemplated. The written record is replete with forgotten primary and secondary sources, from which this account is drawn, that reveal how the break-in wasn’t some rogue operation but part of a much larger playbook. Liddy, a reelection campaign operative, started out with a series of proposals, from which the plan that would lead to the Watergate was selected; those plans involved specially equipped surveillance planes, kidnappings, illegal, laundered campaign donations, sex workers sent to lure Democratic powerbrokers back to a king-sized bed on a houseboat and wiretaps and spies galore — not just at the Watergate but inside the Democratic presidential campaign’s headquarters as well.
But first, to present the plans, Liddy had prepared a series of professional graphics outlining the options — and for that, he needed an easel.
George Gordon Battle Liddy, who died last year at age 90 after having reinvented himself as a syndicated radio host — helping to launch in the 1990s the soon-to-be-archetypal right-wing talk show that wrapped him in patriotic motifs and positioned him as one of last bulwarks standing athwart a nation gone soft — had no business being anywhere close to the American presidency.
Journalist Fred Emery would later describe Liddy as “an exceptionally articulate man with rambunctious right-wing views.” A self-styled tough guy, Liddy’s recollections of his childhood in Hoboken emphasized the bad — from beatings by his grandmother by day to fears of ravenous giant moths out to get him while he slept by night — but he was hardly a hard-luck case; he came from a wealthy family who even amid the Depression employed a maid and grew up with fencing lessons. He had long sought to prove himself tough and worthy on life’s fields of honor. Fourteen-year-old George, as he was known then, had been disconsolate for a month following Japan’s surrender in 1945 because World War II came to an end before he was old enough to fight. He later found his dreams of combat glory similarly frustrated by a Korean War assignment to an Army anti-aircraft gun unit in New York City, where action came in the form of ogling passing women using the high-powered gun sights meant to track incoming Soviet bombers.
He eventually pursued law school and followed into the FBI his uncle, a distinguished federal agent who according to family lore was present at the shooting of John Dillinger (there’s no sign in FBI records that he actually was). Liddy loved the work, but not the pay, which stretched his large family — he and his wife had five children under the age of five before they reconsidered the rhythm method — and he left the bureau, eventually settling into work for a New York district attorney. Later, he tried politics, unsuccessfully running for Congress, and ended up at Nixon’s Treasury Department working on law enforcement issues after serving loyally on the presidential campaign.
That first chapter of his D.C. career demonstrated his unique willingness to fudge ethical lines: Upon starting as a political appointee, he used a special set of department badges — intended for use by CIA officers working undercover — to mock up his own “Treasury agent” credentials and grant himself permission to carry a gun.
With an outsized ego and sense of his own capabilities, he tried for numerous senior law enforcement roles before finally winning a transfer to the White House in the summer of 1971 to work on a portfolio the Nixon administration described as “narcotics, bombings and guns.” His timing proved fortuitous; he arrived at the White House the day after the Pentagon Papers broke in June 1971, and soon found himself assigned to work with the oddball team assembled to root out leaks and undermine the president’s enemies, men like RAND analyst Daniel Ellsberg, who was behind the Pentagon Papers revelations. “[Liddy] projected a warrior-type charisma and seemed to possess a great deal of physical courage,” recalled Egil “Bud” Krogh Jr., an aide who initially led what was known as the Special Investigations Unit. When they first met and shook hands, Liddy crushed Krogh’s hand with his vise-like grip, and it didn’t take long for outlandish stories about the new colleague to start circulating — like the time Liddy as a prosecutor fired a pistol in a courtroom to emphasize a point. He liked to boast to White House secretaries about how to kill someone with a pencil.
Krogh’s SIU introduced Liddy to E. Howard Hunt, a former CIA officer and pot-boiler espionage novelist who had also been assigned to the team. Hunt himself seemed an unlikely clandestine operator — a father of four with a large house in suburban Maryland, complete with horses and stables, he split his time between being vice president for Mullen & Company, a boutique D.C. PR agency, and consulting work with the White House, where he had a small office on the third floor of the Old Executive Office Building.
His agency career experienced the same middling success that his writing did; he never reached either the upper ranks of the agency nor held any major or high-profile postings. In fact, lost in the later shorthand biographies of Hunt was the crucial distinction that he’d never actually been a true covert operator for the CIA, only on the political side of the house — operating under State Department cover to work dissidents, assess political parties and spread propaganda.
But Hunt and Liddy hit it off immediately. Liddy appeared to have wandered right out of the pages of one of Hunt’s novels. “He seemed decisive and action-oriented, impatient with paperwork and the lucubrations of bureaucracy,” Hunt recalled. They lunched together in the White House cafeteria and drank together after work at one of Hunt’s two social clubs: the Army and Navy Club, just north of the White House, or the City Tavern Club in Georgetown. “They were narcissists in love with the romance of espionage,” one Watergate chronicler said. Hunt especially loved his new role and hardly tried to hide it; he updated his own entry in the 1972-73 edition of Who’s Who to list the White House as his office address.
Liddy later recalled the unit’s mission in grandiose terms for something where most of the staff were part-time: “Our organization had been directed to eliminate subversion of the secrets of the administration.” He nicknamed their team the “Organisation Der Emerlingen Schutz Staffel Angehörigen” — ODESSA, for short, a confounding moniker that pleased Liddy greatly despite (or perhaps because) it was the name of a long-rumored secret network of German SS officers after World War II. Even while Liddy marked the group’s papers with the ODESSA name, the group would be known to history by a label given off-hand by the grandmother of another aide, David Young: When she asked him what he was doing in the White House, Young explained, simply, he was helping the president stop some leaks. She replied, proudly, “Oh, you’re a plumber!”
The name stuck.
Through the summer and fall of 1971, Hunt and Liddy’s overeager imaginations ran wild in Room 16 of the Old Executive Office Building, across West Executive Avenue from the White House. There they schemed to target Ellsberg and even organized and executed a burglary of his psychiatrist’s office in California, hoping to find incriminating records they could use to undermine Ellsberg’s credibility in the media. At another point, they plotted how to firebomb the Brookings Institution as part of a plot to steal documents from the think tank’s safe.
Liddy’s antics worried some in the White House, but rather than shut him down or block his wildest schemes, he was instead foisted on the president’s reelection campaign as 1971 ended, to head up intelligence gathering efforts. There wasn’t a great deal of mystery to Liddy’s new secret mission on the campaign. A few days after he started on the reelection effort, Liddy stopped back at the White House to complain to White House counsel John Dean: The deputy campaign director, Jeb Stuart Magruder, was going around introducing Liddy as the “our man in charge of dirty tricks.” As Liddy said, “Magruder’s an asshole, John, and he’s going to blow my cover.” As Dean later recalled, he, annoyed, called Magruder: If you’ve hired someone to carry out your dirty tricks, it’s best if you don’t advertise that fact.
Over several weeks that winter of 1972, Hunt and Liddy criss-crossed the country trying to build a covert campaign dirty-tricks team. The two men treated themselves well on the road — traveling first-class, staying in the nicest rooms at the fanciest hotels and recruiting over meals at top restaurants, justifying the lavish expenses because, as Liddy would explain, “[Potential recruits] must believe that money is no object to their employers if they are to accept the risk of that kind of employment.” Beyond the money, though, Liddy wanted to signal that he would weather whatever was necessary to protect the identities of those who joined his team. At dinner in California with a woman he hoped to recruit as a potential plant in the Democratic campaign, he asked her to hold out her lit cigarette lighter, then placed his palm over the flame, locking eyes with her as his flesh blackened and smoked. Shaken by the demonstration of loyalty, the woman declined Liddy’s offer.