Richard Kleindienst. [Source: public domain]
Hours after the Watergate burglary (see 2:30 a.m.June 17, 1972), Attorney General Richard Kleindienst is contacted by burglar G. Gordon Liddy. Liddy, who is accompanied by Nixon campaign press spokesman Powell Moore, tells Kleindienst that campaign chairman John Mitchell wants Liddy to discuss the break-in with Kleindienst. Liddy tells the attorney general that some campaign and/or White House employees might be involved in the break-in, and asks if he can help facilitate their release. Kleindienst refuses, replying that he has a relationship with Mitchell, and therefore does not believe that Mitchell would have sent someone like Liddy to tell him anything. Kleindienst does not tell the FBI about the contact, and therefore the FBI has no early warning of any possible contacts between the burglary and the Nixon administration. In 1974, an internal review of the FBI’s Watergate investigation will be highly critical of Kleindienst’s decision to conceal Liddy’s information, noting: “It is difficult not to find fault with the failure of Kleindienst to immediately advise the Bureau of Liddy’s contact with him.… Had he done so, there is no doubt that our investigative direction at CRP [the Nixon campaign, often given the acronym CREEP] would have been vastly different. First, we would have not have had to conduct an exhaustive investigation to identify Liddy as we had to do. Secondly, it is easy to speculate that the successful cover up would have never gotten off the ground since we would have had reason to zero in on Mitchell and Liddy rather than to waste our time checking into [fellow burglar James] McCord’s security set-up and security co-workers at CRP.” [O.T. Jacobson, 7/5/1974 ]