Hoboken Native Gordon Liddy, Watergate Conspirator, Passes Away

HOBOKEN, NJ — G. Gordon Liddy, the convicted Watergate conspirator who grew up in Hoboken, passed away Wednesday at age 90.

Liddy, a lawyer and former FBI agent, went to prison for his role in planning the break-in and bugging of Democratic headquarters during President Richard Nixon's re-election campaign. He also helped devise plots against Nixon's enemies, some extreme. The scandal was revealed only because the FBI associate director spoke out anonymously to the media.

Eventually, Liddy became an author, college speaker, and radio host.

Regarding Hoboken, Liddy wrote in his autobiography, according to a Hudson County website, "The section of Hoboken in which we lived had a large ethnic German and German national population. Families from all over Germany had been recruited by Nord Deutscher Lloyd and Hamburg Amerika to come to Hoboken to serve the swift German ocean liners ..."

He wrote that as a young boy, he heard the ill-fated Hindenburg's engines from his listening point at the Stevens Institute of Technology, a place he'd gone to nursery school.

According to the New York Times, "George Gordon Battle Liddy ... grew up in Hoboken, N.J., a fearful boy with respiratory problems who learned to steel himself with tests of will power. He lifted weights, ran and, as he recalled, held his hand over a flame as an act of self-discipline. He said he once ate a rat to overcome a repulsion, and decapitated chickens for a neighbor until he could kill like a soldier."

He took an Army commission, graduated from law school, got married, and had five children.

The Times quoted a family member as saying he died after a battle with Parkinson's disease.

Liddy never apologized for his role in Watergate, and became a conservative radio host. The show can still be streamed.

A movie is currently being filmed in the Hudson Valley about Watergate, in which Justin Theroux will star as Liddy.

Don't miss Hoboken breaking news alerts when they are announced, or get a free daily morning newsletter with Hoboken news. Sign up with your preferences here.

Got news? Email caren.lissner@patch.com. To be the first to get news alerts with breaking stories in your town, or to get a free local newsletter each morning, sign up for Patch breaking news alerts or daily newsletters.