John Ehrlichman

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John D. Ehrlichman as Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs, May 13, 1969.

"The Berlin Wall" of Ehrlichman and Haldeman on April 27, 1973, three days before they would be asked to resign.

John Daniel Ehrlichman (March 20, 1925 – February 14, 1999) was counsel and Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs under President Richard Nixon and a key figure in events leading to the Watergate first break-in and in the ensuing Watergate scandal for which he was convicted of criminal activities. He served 18 months in prison for his crimes. Born in Tacoma, Washington, Ehrlichman won the Distinguished Flying Cross as a lead navigator in the Eighth Air Force in World War II. After the war, he enrolled in UCLA, graduating in 1948. After graduating from Stanford Law School in 1951, he joined a Seattle law firm, becoming a partner, where he remained until 1968 when he entered politics full-time. He was a devout Christian Scientist. Ehrlichman was an Eagle Scout and recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award.

1 Political life
2 Post political life
3 Attendance at Bohemian Grove
4 See also
5 External link
6 Sources

[edit] Political life

Ehrlichman worked on Nixon's 1960 presidential campaign, 1962 California gubernatorial campaign and was an advance man for Nixon's 1968 presidential campaign.

Following Nixon's victory, Ehrlichman became the White House Counsel (later replaced by John Dean). He held this post for about a year before he became the Chief Domestic Advisor for Nixon. It was then that he became a member of the inner circle of Nixon's closest advisors. He and close friend, H. R. Haldeman, whom he met at UCLA, were referred to jointly as "The Berlin Wall" by White House staffers for their penchant to isolate Nixon from other advisors. Ehrlichman created "The Plumbers", the group at the center of the Watergate scandal, and appointed his assistant Egil Krogh to oversee its covert operations, focusing on stopping leaks of confidential information after the release of The Pentagon Papers in 1971.

After the start of the Watergate investigations in 1972, Ehrlichman lobbied for an intentional delay in the embattled confirmation of L. Patrick Gray as Director of the F.B.I.. He argued that the confirmation hearings were deflecting media attention from Watergate and that it would be better for Gray to be left "twisting, slowly, slowly in the wind." The quote served as the embodiment of one of Ehrlichman's main functions during his years in the White House, to seek and destroy Nixon's enemies at virtually any cost, a function that would overshadow his domestic efforts in a White House consumed with foreign policy.

White House Counsel John Dean cited the "Berlin Wall" of Erlichman and Haldeman as one of the reasons for his growing sense of alienation in the White House. This alienation led him to believe he was to become the Watergate scapegoat and then to eventually cooperate with Watergate prosecutors. After Dean's testimony before the Senate Watergate Committee Nixon fired Dean and demanded the resignations of both Ehrlichman and Haldeman on April 30, 1973. Both men complied.

Ehrlichman was convicted of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, perjury and other charges on January 1, 1975 (along with John N. Mitchell and Haldeman). All three men were initially sentenced to between two and a half and eight years in prison. In 1977, the sentences were commuted to one to four years. Unlike his co-defendants, Ehrlichman voluntarily entered prison before his appeals were exhausted. He was released from a Stafford, Arizona prison in 1978 after serving a total of 18 months.

[edit] Post political life

Following his release from prison, Ehrlichman held a number of jobs, first for a quality control firm, then writer, artist and commentator. Ehrlichman wrote several novels and served as the executive vice president of an Atlanta hazardous materials firm. In a 1981 interview, Ehrlichman referred to Nixon as "a very pathetic figure in American history." His experiences in the Nixon administration were published in his 1982 book, Witness To Power. The book portrays Nixon in a very negative light and is considered to be the culmination of his frustration at not being pardoned by Nixon prior to his own resignation. Shortly before his death, Ehrlichman teamed with novelist Tom Clancy to write, produce, and co-host a three hour Watergate documentary, “John Ehrlichman: In the Eye of the Storm.”

Ehrlichman died of complications from diabetes in Atlanta in 1999 after discontinuing dialysis treatments.

In 2005 a personal friend said that Ehrlichman had believed Henry Kissinger to be Deep Throat.

[edit] Attendance at Bohemian Grove

According to the San Francisco Examiner, Ehrlichman once told a reporter regarding his attendance at the exclusive Bohemian Grove, "Once you've spent three days with someone in an informal situation, you have a relationship -- a relationship that opens doors and makes it easier to pick up the phone."