BALTIMORE — It was a floor plan of the Democratic Party headquarters that led G. Gordon Liddy to believe the 1972 Watergate break-in was really about sex, not politics.
Liddy, 70, testifying Monday about the break-in for the first time in 28 years, said he spent more than four years in prison thinking the burglary was an attempt to gather political intelligence for President Nixon's re-election campaign.
Years after his release, a Watergate author showed him the floor plan in 1972. The plan convinced Liddy the "third-rate burglary" was really about finding photos linking the fiancee of White House counsel John Dean to a call-girl ring.
"My eyes opened," Liddy testified in the third week of his defamation trial."
Since then, Liddy has given speeches saying the burglars were seeking photos of Dean's fiancee in a package of call-girl photos used to set up liaisons for visitors to the Democratic National Committee in nearby apartments.
Liddy said the photos were kept in the desk of Ida "Maxie" Wells, secretary to DNC official Spencer Oliver. Wells is suing Liddy in U.S. District Court for defamation for repeating that theory and is seeking $5.1 million in damages.
In his Monday testimony, Liddy said he had instructed the burglars to bug the offices of DNC Chairman Larry O'Brien. However, a wiretap was found on the phone of Oliver, who had an office on the other side of the building.
The floor plan showed Oliver's office faced the hotel across the street where an eavesdropper was monitoring phone calls. The wiretap could only transmit to a receiver in the line of sight, meaning O'Brien's office could not have been the real target, Liddy said.
Dean has called claims that he masterminded the break-in "baloney" and said there was no evidence of a call-girl ring.
Liddy testified he was a $19,000-a-year White House aide when he was recruited by Dean to work on Nixon's re-election committee.
Dean told him an "all-out offensive and defensive political operation" to be funded with a $1 million budget was needed for the 1972 presidential election, Liddy said.
The order to break-in to the DNC came from Nixon's deputy campaign director, Jeb Magruder, and was not part of Liddy's original espionage plan against the Democrats.
"I couldn't figure out for the life of me why they wanted to go in there," Liddy said. "The whole thing was stupid."
He later realized there could be another motive.
"This was a John Dean op," Liddy testified.
Liddy blamed himself for the bungled burglary on June 17, 1972. His "big mistake," he said, was telling his men to tape the lock on the entry to the Watergate for a second time. A guard noticed the taped lock and called police.
Liddy, sitting in the Watergate Hotel with a walkie-talkie, heard a lookout warning that other people had entered the building with flashlights.
Finally, Liddy said he heard someone say, "They got us."
Liddy said he went home, woke his wife and told her, "Some of our people got caught tonight, I'm probably going to jail."
The next day, Liddy said he went to his office and started "shredding stuff left and right."
Liddy refused to implicate his bosses at his Watergate trial, saying "my father didn't raise a rat and a snitch." He served a sentence longer than any of his fellow Watergate conspirators.