"Jeb Stuart Magruder, Watergate conspirator; at 79" by Andrew Welsh-Huggins | Associated Press May 17, 2014
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Jeb Stuart Magruder, a Watergate conspirator-turned-minister who claimed in later years to have heard President Richard Nixon order the infamous break-in, has died. He was 79....
Mr. Magruder, who moved to suburban Columbus in 2003, served as Nixon’s deputy campaign director, an aide to Nixon chief of staff H.R. Haldeman, and deputy communications director at the White House.
Mr. Magruder said in 2003 that he was meeting with John Mitchell, the former attorney general running the Nixon reelection campaign, when he heard the president tell Mitchell to go ahead with the plan to break into the Democratic Party headquarters.
Mr. Magruder had gone no further than saying that Mitchell approved the plan to get into the Democrats’ office and bug the phone of the party chairman, Larry O’Brien.
He made his claims on PBS.
He said he met with Mitchell on March 30, 1972, and discussed a break-in plan by G. Gordon Liddy, who was finance counsel for the reelection committee. Mitchell asked Mr. Magruder to call Haldeman to see ‘‘if this is really necessary.’’
Haldeman said it was, Mr. Magruder said, and then asked to speak to Mitchell. The two men talked, and then ‘‘the president gets on the line,’’ Mr. Magruder said.
Mr. Magruder said he could hear Nixon tell Mitchell, ‘‘John . . . we need to get the information on Larry O’Brien, and the only way we can do that is through Liddy’s plan. And you need to do that.’’
Historians dismiss the notion as unlikely, saying there was no evidence Nixon directly ordered the break-in. But Mr. Magruder stuck to his guns, saying historians had it wrong.
He became a born-again Christian, an experience he described in his 1978 biography, ‘‘From Power to Peace.’’
‘‘All the earthly supports I had ever known had given way, and when I saw how flimsy they were I understood why they had never been able to make me happy,’’ he wrote. ‘‘The missing ingredient in my life was Jesus Christ and a personal relationship with him.’’
But he could never fully leave the scandal behind....
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Related: Renting a Room at the Watergate
Just thought I would throw that at you.
