White House Plumbers

The White House Plumbers or simply The Plumbers is the popular name given to the covert Nixon White House Special Investigations Unit established July 24, 1971. Its job was to stop the leaking of confidential information (hence the "Plumbers" title) to the media during the Nixon administration. Its members branched into more nefarious projects working for the Committee to Re-elect the President (CRP, or the more derogatory CREEP) including the Watergate break-ins.

Operations

The Plumbers first task was the burglary of the office of Ellsberg's Los Angeles psychiatrist, Lewis J. Fielding, in an effort to uncover evidence to discredit Ellsberg. The operation was reportedly unsuccessful in finding Ellsberg's file and was so reported to the White House. However, Fielding himself stated the file was in his office, he found it on the floor on the morning after the burglary and quite clearly someone had gone through it.{{fn|6}} In a September 1971 conversation, Ehrlichman advised Nixon, ?We had one little operation. It?s been aborted out in Los Angeles which, I think, is better that you don?t know about." Eventually the case against Ellsberg was dismissed due to government misconduct.

Related Topics:
Los Angeles - Lewis J. Fielding

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Aside from the Fielding burglary there are scarce few other activities the Plumbers were engaged in. Hunt reportedly looked into Teddy Kennedy's Chappaquiddick affair and Liddy investigated reported Kennedy administration involvement in the assassination of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem.{{fn|7}}

Related Topics:
Teddy Kennedy's - Chappaquiddick affair - South Vietnamese - Ngo Dinh Diem

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After the California break-in Liddy was recruited by White House Counsel John Dean to perform an intelligence gathering operation for CRP. Liddy was transfered to CRP and involved Hunt in the operations which would later include the Watergate burglary.

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