Will; The Autobiography of G. Gordon Liddy

New York: St. Martin's Press, 1980. Presumed First Edition, first printing. Hardcover. Good/Good. [10], 374 pages. Footnotes. Illustrations. Index. DJ somewhat soiled and small edge chips, top and bottom edges of dust jacket somewhat discolored. George Gordon Battle Liddy (born November 30, 1930) 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. 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. Gordon Liddy was Counsel to the Committee to Re-elect the President; after Watergate, he was sentenced to twenty years in prison. He served nearly fifty-two months in federal prisons before President Carter commuted his sentence. He later joined with Timothy Leary for a series of popular debates on college campuses, and worked with Al Franken in the late 1990s. Liddy served as a radio talk show host from 1992 until his retirement in 2012. His radio show was syndicated in 160 markets by Radio America and on Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio stations. He has been a guest panelist for Fox News Channel in addition to appearing on several television shows. From soldier to Washington insider; from a prisoner who preferred the walls of a prison rather than the betrayal of his principles; to a writer and top radio personality, G. Gordon Liddy is a hero to some, a villain to others, but always an enigma. In 1980, G. Gordon Liddy shocked, surprised, and, ultimately, delighted the world with his vivid, brutally honest, and controversial autobiography, Will. A number one national bestseller in both hardcover and paperback, Will has stood the test of time like few other books. With over 1,000,000 copies in print, it is nothing less than a quintessential American biography-a classic story of a life interestingly led. Now available in hardcover for the first time in over fifteen years, and updated to bring his amazing story to the present day, G. Gordon Liddy's Will is sure to remain a necessary volume for generations to come. Bob Woodward described this book in a review found on-line as: Will, which someone (probably Liddy himself) insisted on calling an autobiography, is far superior to the man. As history and as a study in psychopathology the book is very good. It is the self-portrait of a zealot. Liddy's account of Watergate is not only believable, but some of what he reveals is front-page news. He suggests, for instance, that Richard Helms, John Mitchell and Richard Kleindienst knew more about his covert operations than previously had been known. There is almost an embarrassment of riches in the book that grows out of his blustery conceit and his freedom from any kind of guilt about what he did. So when he gets down to the accounts of crucial meetings, planning sessions and the actual illegal operations themselves -- the Watergate break-in of June 17, 1972, or the "entry" at the office of the psychiatrist of Pentagon Papers defendant Daniel Ellsberg, or the planned assassination of columnist Jack Anderson -- Liddy is meticulous. His story rings true, and balanced against the other evidence and testimony of the many Watergate investigations, it is credible. A hundred little facts and inferences convince me that he has been as honest as he could be. And he is no longer subject to prosecution for anything in the book that incriminates him, because the statute of limitations has run out.