On December 6, 1996, G. Gordon Liddy gave a sworn deposition in Washington, D.C. in which he described the origins of the Watergate scandal. The deposition was given in the following styled lawsuit:
In the United States District Court for the District of Columbia
Maureen K. Dean and John W. Dean, Plaintiffs
v.
No. 92-1807
St. Martin’s Press, Inc., (HHG)(AK)
Len Colodny, Robert Gettlin,
G. Gordon Liddy, and
Phillip Mackin Bailley,
Defendants
The 148 page deposition presents an encompassing summary from the viewpoint of Mr. Liddy.
There are many highlights in the deposition. Attention is called especially to:
Pages 86 to 96: Planning and carrying out the first break-in on May 26, 27 and 28, 1972
Page 98: Planning the June 17, 1972 break-in upon instructions from Jeb Magruder.
These are Liddy’s words:
And that’s what he [Magruder] wanted. So that when I went back to Hunt and Hunt was upset. He said, “My God,” he said, “Do you know how much trouble it took us to get in there in the first place? All those three entries,” and this, that and the other thing, “And now this? With all the camera and all this film and all this exposure, I mean, the longer you are in there the more vulnerable you are.”
I said, “Howard, that’s what wanted, so we have to do it.” So we set up to do that.
Page 103: Describing the June 17, 1972 break-in
Page 105: Liddy’s words again:
But in any event, we held a council of war, so to speak. And the Cubans, they said, “Look, whatever the decision is, we are up to it.”
Question: Where was this council of war occurring?
Answer: This was in that – the room that Mr. Hunt and I had been in, the one with all the equipment that Mr. McCord had. And McCord, he was for doing it. Hunt was very, very loathe at first, but at any rate the decision was left up to me, because I was the operational chief. And I said, “Okay, we will go again.” And they went again. And the – they got in.
The two links below both lead to the 148 page transcript of the Liddy deposition. If one link does not work, try the other. If you have trouble making a link work, copy it and place it in your browser.
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:x3l4K...clnk&cd=164
http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cache:x3l4K...clnk&cd=165
