Home > Jeb Stuart Magruder

Magruder's first major political job was managing the successful run of Donald Rumsfeld for the House of Representatives from Illinois in 1962. Magruder was appointed to the White House staff in 1969 as Special Assistant to the President. He worked for H.R. Haldeman and Herbert Klein , Nixon's Communications Director for the Executive Branch. Magruder served in the White House until 1971, when he left to manage the Committee to Re-elect the President (CREEP) as Deputy Director, and assistant to CREEP Director and former Attorney General John Mitchell. The campaign to re-elect the President was extraordinarily successful, winning 49 of 50 states and the District of Columbia, and Magruder went on to manage Nixon's inauguration in January 1973 as Inaugural Director.

In April 1973, Magruder began cooperating with federal prosecutors. In exchange, Magruder was allowed to plead guilty in August 1973 to a one-count indictment of conspiracy to obstruct justice, defraud the United States, and eavesdrop on the Democratic Party's national headquarters. On May 21May 21 is the 141st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (142nd in leap years). There are 224 days remaining. Events 996 Sixteen year old Otto III is crowned Holy Roman Emperor. 1674 John Sobieski is elected by the nobility to be the King of Poland., 19741974 is a common year starting on Tuesday (click on link for calendar). Events January-February January 5 Dungeons & Dragons officially released. February 4 Patricia Hearst, the 19 year old granddaughter of publisher William Randolph Hearst, is kidnapped, Magruder was sentenced by Judge John SiricaJudge John Joseph Sirica ( March 19, 1904 August 14, 1992) was the Chief Judge for the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. He was nicknamed Maximum John for his habit of giving defendants the maximum sentence guidelines allowed. to 4 months to 10 years for his role in the failed Watergate burglary and subsequent coverup; he served seven months of the sentence in a prison near Allenwood, Pennsylvania . After his sentencing, Magruder said, "I am confident that this country will survive its Watergates and its Jeb Magruders."

Magruder was the only direct participant in the scandal to confirm that President Nixon had specific foreknowledge of the Watergate break-in, and that Nixon actually directed Mitchell to proceed with the break-in, which was organized by G. Gordon LiddyGeorge Gordon Battle Liddy (born November 30, 1929) was the chief operative for President Richard Nixon's White House Plumbers unit that broke into the Watergate complex in 1972 and led to Nixon's resignation in 1974. Liddy later became an American radio and E. Howard HuntEdward Howard Hunt (born October 9, 1918) worked for the White House under President Richard Nixon, figured in the Watergate Scandal, and was convicted of burglary, conspiracy, and wiretapping, eventually serving 33 months in prison. Hunt, along with G.. Magruder also testified that he thought that he was helping establish what he perceived to be a legal intelligence-gathering operation. In May 1983Events January January 1 Beat Raaflaub became Basel Boys Choir's new conductor January 1 the ARPANET officially changes to use the Internet Protocol, creating the Internet. January 1 compulsory wearing of seat belts becomes law in the UK. January 2 The mu, President Ronald Reagan refused a request from Magruder for a pardon.

A former marketing executive, Magruder was 34 years old when he joined the White House staff. He was educated at Williams College, where he received his Bachelor of Arts and the University of Chicago, where he picked up a Master of Business Administration degree. Magruder also served in the U.S. Army and was stationed in Korea. After the Watergate scandal, he left politics and business, earned a Masters Degree in Divinity from the Princeton Theological Seminary in 1981, and was ordained as a Presbyterian minister. He served as associate minister at the First Presbyterian Church in Burlingame, California and First Community Church of Columbus, Ohio (where for a period of time Magruder chaired that city's Commission on Ethics and Values), and in 1990 became senior pastor at the First Presbyterian Church of Lexington, Kentucky. In 1995, Kentucky Governor Brereton Jones reinstated Magruder's right to run for public office in the state.

In 1974, Magruder wrote a book about his involvement in the Watergate scandal called An American Life: One Man's Road to Watergate.

In 2003, Magruder asserted in a PBS documentary called Watergate Plus 30: Shadow of History, and in an interview with the Associated Press, that Nixon knew about the Watergate burglary from the beginning, which contradicted his earlier insistence that the cover-up had gone no higher than Mitchell. Magruder said in the 2003 interviews that he attended a meeting with Mitchell on March 30, 1972, at which he heard Nixon tell Mitchell over the phone to go ahead with the Watergate plan.