Egil Krogh
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Egil "Bud" Krogh, Jr. (born 1939) was an official in the Nixon administration who went to prison for his role in the what would be known as the Watergate scandals.
Krogh was born and raised in Washington. After his service in the U.S. Navy, he went to law school in 1968. He went to work at Hullin, Ehrlichman, Roberts and Hodge, the Seattle law firm of family friend John Ehrlichman, and joined Ehrlichman in the counsel's office of Nixon's 1968 presidential campaign. After Nixon was elected, Krogh helped with the arrangements for the inauguration. Krogh joined the Nixon White House as an advisor on the District of Columbia and later served as liaison to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. It was there he met G. Gordon Liddy.
Because of his work with drugs, he handled the visit of Elvis Presley to the White House on December 21, 1970. Elvis had shown up at the gate with a letter for President Nixon requesting a personal meeting about how he could help the government fight the drug trade. The meeting took place and Nixon gave Presley an honorary narcotics agent badge. Krogh wrote a book about these events The Day Elvis met Nixon (Pejama Press, 1994) ISBN 0964025108.
The Nixon Administration was obsessed with leaks to the press and Ehrlichman made Krogh head of the "Special Investigation Unit" in the White House; Krogh and his associates were familiarly known as the "Plumbers." It was an unlikely choice. Krogh had a reputation as a "Mr. Clean," so much on the straight-and-narrow his friends nicknamed him "Evil Krogh." Theodore White would write "to put Egil Krogh in charge of a secret police operation was equivalent to making Frank Merriwell chief executive of a KGB squad." Krogh brought Liddy into his new office.
When the administration decided to pursue the Pentagon Papers leakers, it was Krogh who approved the September 1971 burglary of the office of Lewis Fielding, the psychiatrist seeing Daniel Ellsberg. Liddy and E. Howard Hunt would commit the actual break-in. Ironically, Ehrlichman, who himself went to prison for his own crimes, wrote in his memoirs this was an example of "such doubtful personal judgement . . . that it has to be said [Krogh] materially contributed to the demise of the Nixon administration."
Krogh's employment with the plumbers was terminated when he refused to authorize a wiretap. On November 30, 1973, Krogh pled guilty to federal charges of conspiring to violate Fielding's civil rights and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. He was sentenced to six months in prison, and released June 21, 1974.
Krogh was disbarred by the Washington State Supreme Court in 1975[1]. He successfully petitioned to be readmitted to the practice of law, based on his recognition and acceptance of his wrongdoing, in 1980[2]. He is a partner at Krogh & Leonard in Seattle and, using his personal experience as a warning, is a frequent lecturer on legal ethics. His book on the subject, Integrity Lessons of a Nixon White House Lawyer, is due out soon.
[edit] Notes
- ^ In the Matter of the Disciplinary Proceeding Against EGIL KROGH, JR., an Attorney at Law, 85 Wn.2d 462, June 6, 1975
- ^ In the Matter of the Disciplinary Proceeding Agaist Egil,, Krogh, Jr., an Attorney at Law.", 93 Wn.2d 504, 610 P.2d 1319, May 15, 1980
