20 Questions: G. Gordon Liddy

In the past, G. Gordon Liddy might have been known as the ''Darth Vader of the Nixon administration,'' the man who spent almost five years in prison for his participation in Watergate. But today he is the ''G Man'' as host of a conservative talk radio show carried on more than 260 stations nationwide. He is also a frequent and highly paid speaker on the college lecture circuit and has done a stint or two as an actor-- most memorably in a recurring role as a villain on ''Miami Vice.'' In all of his dealings, he is someone who provokes strong reactions.

When the National Association of Radio Talk Show Hosts recently gave him its Freedom of Speech award, House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt tried to derail the presentation ceremony in Houston by offering free Astros tickets to those planning to attend Liddy's event.

Although Liddy can easily summon up his strongly held beliefs, he allows even his most ardent foes to have their say on his radio show. He never denigrates or cuts off a disgruntled caller and he never raises his voice.

We sent writer Brian Karem to interview Liddy. Karem reports: ''It took nearly two months to persuade Liddy to talk with us, but when he did, he was very open. He is disarmingly gracious and good-natured. He seems to hold malice toward no one--with the possible exception of John Dean. And he may be the only person in America who listens recreationally to the soundtrack of 'Victory at Sea' in his car.''

1.

Playboy: The media seem to be your favorite whipping boys. Yet, you're part of it. When you rail against them, who specifically are you talking about?

Liddy: The socalled establish-ment media: ABC, NBC, CBS, The New York Times, Time, the Los Angeles Times and The Washington ''Bleep.'' I say ''Bleep'' because, as I'm sure you and your readers are aware, the Federal Communications Commission has ruled that as a matter of regulatory law, the use of the word Post in association with the word Washington is obscene.

2.

Playboy: Assess the three main network television anchors.

Liddy: Tom Brokaw is the smartest and also the most physically fit. He has the graciousness to admit he is liberal and not unbiased. The prettiest is Peter Jennings. He proves that to be a network anchor you must have a superb head of hair, but there doesn't necessarily have to be anything underneath it. And then there's poor old Dan Rather. The only people who still watch Rather are those who always sit at the first turn of the Indianapolis Raceway because they want to see a car crash.

3.

Playboy: Would you please give us your working definition of liberal and conservative?

Liddy: A liberal is someone who wants to do good for other people with your money, not his. A conservative believes the best thing you can do for most people is to leave them the hell alone.

4.

Playboy: Did any of your five children turn out to be more liberal than you would have liked?

Liddy: The only thing liberal I can think about those five concerns my daughter Sandy Liddy-Bourne's position on abortion. She is an officeholder in the Commonwealth of Virginia. She's pro-choice and I'm pro-life. However, she opposes any government funding of abortion. I disagree with her, but she's 37 years old, married, has three kids and is entitled to her own opinions. She has a strong independent streak, anyway.

5.

Playboy: Give us the eulogy for Richard Nixon that you were unable to give at the time.

Liddy: I wasn't asked to give one, but the Richard Nixon I knew was quite contrary to the popular perception of him: an aloof, cold guy. He wasn't like that at all. When Nixon spoke to you, he really spoke to you. He'd look you right in the eye. He was warm, and he was interested in you as a person. And he looked terrific. Tan, trim, fit. However, he was the kind of guy who looks great in person but looks terrible, just terrible, on the television screen.

6.

Playboy: In your writings you come across as a family man who is deeply in love with his wife. And yet on your radio show, you flirt openly with female callers. Explain this apparent contradiction.

Liddy: It really isn't a contradiction. I've been flirting with girls ever since I can remember. And I will probably continue as long as ray testosterone keeps flowing--until the unhappy day when I'm shot to death by a jealous husband.

7.

Playboy: Give us Gordon Liddy's marital tips--the condensed version.

Liddy: Never settle or compromise when choosing someone to marry. Don't marry unless you're absolutely sure you cannot live without that person. Be faithful to that person because you want to be.

8.

Playboy: What's the worst advice you have given to your children?

Liddy: Listen to your father, and don't pay attention to your mother.

9.

Playboy: You gave up acting to be a radio talk-show host. Is that a step up or down?

Liddy: It's a step toward a more secure income. Before I fell into radio, I had the best of all worlds. I traveled through the country and gave lectures for which I was well paid, and I wrote books and magazine articles. It was great. If a movie or television role came along, that was great, too. But it was feast or famine. A paycheck would come in and Mrs. Liddy wouldn't know whether to spend a nickel or not. So now I have this pitiful radio job, but at least I bring home a miserably small check every two weeks. And Mrs. Liddy doesn't so much mind that it's small as long as it is steady.

10.

Playboy: Was your move to radio a major loss for the acting world?

Liddy: A major loss for the villain world. I played only villains, and that way, as Mrs. Liddy says, I didn't have to act. I just (continued on page 156) G. Gordon Liddy (continued from page 121) go there and play myself. It worked very well for me. I had a lot of fun playing villains. The secret is, there's a lot of work for villains, because on every episodic show they kill a villain a week. For the ugly bastard like me, there's a lot of work. I've been killed. I've committed suicide by shooting myself in the head. I've dived out of buildings. I've gone overboard on boats. I had a recurring role on Miami Vice, and because the show was canceled, I was the only villain Don Johnson never caught.

11.

Playboy: What's the strangest question you've been asked?

Liddy: I lectured at a college right after Jimmy Carter's Iranian hostage rescue attempt, and I got question after question on that subject. All of a sudden, a freshman girl stood up and said, ''Mr. Liddy, I'd like your opinion on group sex.'' My mind was not in that gear and I was kind of taken aback. I didn't know what to say, so I said, ''How big a group do you have in mind?'' She stamped her foot and said, ''You're not taking me seriously,'' and I said, ''You're right, I'm not. Send me your mama and I'll take her seriously.'' She was furious, and she stormed out of the auditorium and slammed the door.

12.

Playboy: So, what do you think of group sex?

Liddy: I like it.

13.

Playboy: When you left prison you quoted Nietzsche's saying ''Was mich nicht umbringt, macht mich stärker'' (''What does not kill me makes me stronger''). What other fun German phrases might you enjoy a fan sending you on a needlepoint pillow?

Liddy: Well, if she were attractive enough, ''Ich liebe dich'' (''I love you'') would do.

14.

Playboy: Share with us the special event that is showering in prison.

Liddy: A lot of it depends on which prison you're in. I was an ugly old guy in my 40s when I went to prison. No one was much interested in me. Different prisons have different conventions. In the old District of Columbia Asylum and Jail, I was practically the only white prisoner, and I didn't realize what the conventions were. As a guy who had been in a lot of locker rooms, I just threw my towel over my shoulder and headed off to the showers. It got everybody agitated because the convention was you always wrapped the towel around your waist. It was a great sign of disrespect for me to show my lily-white ass to those guys. They were all saying I didn't have no respect for the brothers. I really didn't mean anything by it. I just had no idea of jail etiquette.

15.

Playboy: What is a fighting ring and how did you use it in jail?

Liddy: That same jail was the only place where I served time that allowed prisoners to wear jewelry. Within days after I arrived, I got into a fight with a guy who was about my size and weight, a little younger. But it was a fair fight. We both ended up in the hospital, and to my surprise I had a deep cut across the bridge of my nose and my ear was sliced. I didn't understand that because I didn't think the guy had a blade. Someone later told me, ''Man, he didn't have a blade, he had a fighting ring.'' And I said, ''What's that?'' He told me about a guy in the plumbing shop who would cut steel pipes into sections and design different kinds of rings. They all had sharp edges and points, and you could do a lot of damage with them. I asked how much they cost, and he said two boxes, meaning two cartons of cigarettes. So, as soon as I could I bought the one I thought was the most attractive and the most lethal. I fought with it for 13 months in that place. When I shipped out I couldn't take it with me, so I gave it to my wife. At the time she was teaching in an inner-city D.C. high school and she had a particularly unruly class. She thought she needed an edge, so she walked into the classroom wearing it one day. Everyone in that room had a father or a brother or an uncle or knew somebody in the D.C. joint, and they all recognized a D.C. fighting ring. It calmed the classroom down.

16.

Playboy: For someone who has a reputation as a potentially violent man, you never seem to lose your calm on your radio show, even when faced with hostile callers. What will immediately fry your eggs?

Liddy: What gets me angry very rapidly is to see someone in a superior social position degrade someone of a lesser social standing who cannot defend himself. For example, someone who abuses a waiter.

17.

Playboy: What's wrong with today's high school curriculum?

Liddy: It's not designed to educate. It is designed to boost self-esteem. In contrast, my father's, which was superior even to mine, included--in the course of one year--Latin, German, Greek, ancient history, modern European history and trigonometry.

18.

Playboy: Of the current candidates for high political office, for whom would you happily take a bullet?

Liddy: I would rather kill the son of a bitch who's trying to kill the president and let him take the bullet.

19.

Playboy: The exigencies of talk radio require that you dwell on those policies and values about which you and the president disagree. But, just between us and our readers, what do you like most about Bill Clinton?

Liddy: Well, Mama always told me that if you can't say something nice about someone, then don't say anything at all. [Smiles] The best we can determine is that he's heterosexual.

20.

Playboy: Tell us what is it about a girl in uniform?

Liddy: It's not every girl in uniform. It's only Israeli girls in uniform. They all carry automatic weapons, and they have this way of slinging them over their shoulders so the magazines rub against their butts, right against the cheeks, and it rubs holes in their uniforms down there and, damn, they're cute.

bill Clinton's least favorite radio personality sounds off on nixon, showering in prison and which girls look best in uniform