Ehrlichman, John D. (John Daniel), 1925-1999

John Daniel Ehrlichman (/ˈɜːrlɪkmən/;[1] March 20, 1925 – February 14, 1999) was counsel and Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs under President Richard Nixon. Ehrlichman was an important influence on Nixon's domestic policy, coaching him on issues and enlisting his support for environmental initiatives.[2]

Ehrlichman was a key figure in events leading to the Watergate break-in and the ensuing Watergate scandal, for which he was convicted of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and perjury and served a year and a half in prison.

John Daniel Ehrlichman (1925-1999) was a lawyer, author, company executive and former government official. He was director of convention activities and tour director for the Nixon for President campaign in 1968. In 1969 he served as Counsel to President Nixon, and from 1969 to 1973 he was Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs and executive director of the staff on the Domestic Council.

<p>John D. Ehrlichman, who served as President Richard M. Nixon's pugnacious defender and domestic policy chief and went to prison for his role in the Watergate scandals, died on Sunday at his home in Atlanta. He was 73. Mr. Ehrlichman had been suffering from diabetes for about a year, his son Tom of Seattle said today.</p>

<p>After serving time in prison for a conviction on conspiracy and other charges, Mr. Ehrlichman made a new life for himself, first as a writer living in Santa Fe, N.M., and for the past several years as a senior vice president of Law Environmental, an engineering company in Atlanta engaged in hazardous-waste handling, his son said.</p>

<p>The younger Mr. Ehrlichman said that in his later years, his father continued to feel ''remorse for the impact on his family'' that his wrongdoing had caused, along with the hope that history would recall the accomplishments of the Nixon Administration, as well as its crimes.</p>

<p>From the start of the Nixon Presidency in 1969, John Daniel Ehrlichman was a central figure, first as domestic policy chieftain in the White House and later as a participant in the Watergate cover-up.</p>

<p>When five men were caught during a burglary at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in Washington's Watergate complex on June 17, 1972, the incident was at first airily dismissed by Nixon aides as a ''third-rate burglary,'' with no connection to the White House.</p>

<p>But as investigations unfolded, it was revealed that the burglars had links either to the White House or the Nixon campaign's Committee to Re-Elect the President, and were trying to fix a faulty listening device installed during an earlier break-in.</p>

<p>The investigations and the President's own tape-recordings would also disclose that Nixon and some of his top aides had begun an effort to cover up White House involvement in the break-in almost from the start. Nixon resigned on Aug. 9, 1974, rather than face all but certain impeachment and removal from office.</p>

<p>Dozens of Nixon aides were implicated in Watergate and related crimes, some for relatively peripheral roles. The most important case involved Mr. Ehrlichman and three other high-ranking officials: former Attorney General John N. Mitchell, who died in 1988; Nixon's chief of staff, H. R. Haldeman, who died in 1993, and Robert C. Mardian, a former Assistant Attorney General.</p>

<p>All were convicted on Jan. 1, 1975, of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and perjury. They were sentenced to two and a half to eight years in prison, though Mr. Mardian's conviction was overturned on appeal.</p>

<p>Mr. Ehrlichman's sentence was made concurrent with a term of 20 months to five years imposed on him for his role in the September 1971 break-in at the office of Dr. Lewis Fielding in Beverly Hills, Calif.</p>

<p>Dr. Fielding was a psychiatrist who had been treating Dr. Daniel J. Ellsberg, a former National Security Council aide who had given journalists a secret Government study of United States involvement in the Vietnam War. A covert White House unit, known as ''the plumbers'' and answerable to Mr. Ehrlichman, was assigned to find and plug such ''leaks.''</p>

<p>The plumbers' break-in at the psychiatrist's office, apparently in vquest of material damaging to Dr. Ellsberg, did not become public until some two and a half years after it was committed, and it added to the White House embarrassment over the burgeoning Watergate scandal. Indeed, Mr. Ehrlichman later referred to the Fielding break-in as ''the seminal Watergate episode,'' one that set the tone for all the cover-ups to follow.</p>

<p>By the time Mr. Ehrlichman entered prison in the fall of 1976, deciding not to wait until his appeals were exhausted, Nixon had been pardoned by President Gerald R. Ford and was trying to rehabilitate his reputation for history.</p>

<p>Mr. Ehrlichman had already undergone a major life change after his conviction. He had left his first wife, Jeanne, and their Seattle home and moved to Santa Fe, where he began to write and grew a beard.</p>

<p>Released in 1978 from the Federal prison camp at Stafford, Ariz., Mr. Ehrlichman returned to New Mexico to resume his writing career and to give occasional lectures. In his 1982 book ''Witness to Power'' (Simon and Schuster), he reflected on his relationship with the former President. ''I don't miss Richard Nixon very much,'' he wrote. ''Richard Nixon probably doesn't much miss me either.''</p>

<p>His association with Richard Nixon began because he had known H. R. Haldeman while both were attending the University of California at Los Angeles. After graduating from Stanford University Law School, he joined a Los Angeles firm before starting his own law firm in Seattle.</p>

<p>Mr. Ehrlichman specialized in zoning and land-use law and made many acquaintances in politics. Mr. Haldeman recruited him to help out in Nixon's 1960 campaign for the Presidency and again for Nixon's unsuccessful run for governor of California in 1962.</p>

<p>Mr. Ehrlichman went back to practicing law in Seattle, then became a strategist in Nixon's 1968 campaign for President. In his role as White House counsel and later as chief domestic-policy adviser, Mr. Ehrlichman became known as the ''White House fireman,'' extinguishing political and bureaucratic brushfires before they became public.</p>

<p>Detractors referred to Mr. Ehrlichman and Mr. Haldeman together as ''the Berlin wall,'' because they were said to shield the reclusive, occasionally paranoid President from unpleasant news and unpalatable choices.</p>

<p>But another perspective was offered by Theodore H. White in ''The Making of the President 1972.'' Writing before the Watergate scandal began, Mr. White said of Mr. Ehrlichman: ''His shop was one of the few at the White House where ideas were seriously entertained -- good ideas, too, on energy, on land-use policy, on urbanization, on preservation of the American environment.''</p>

<p>Dismayed by the excesses of the plumbers, Mr. Ehrlichman eventually ordered the unit disbanded. But by then, the Watergate scandal had taken on a life of its own. Though later accounts suggested that Mr. Ehrlichman favored an admission of wrongdoing before it was too late, he became caught up in the all-out effort to cover up.</p>

<p>When L. Patrick Gray 3d, the acting director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was peripherally linked to the Watergate defendants, Mr. Ehrlichman famously advised Nixon to leave Mr. Gray ''twisting slowly, slowly in the wind.''</p>

<p>Nixon eventually sacrificed Mr. Ehrlichman and Mr. Haldeman to the cover-up: they resigned at the President's request on April 30, 1973, weeks before the Senate hearings in which John Dean, Nixon's former counsel, would begin to reveal the depth of the President's complicity.</p>

<p>Mr. Ehrlichman later said he had brought his troubles on himself. ''I abdicated my moral judgments and turned them over to somebody else,'' he said in 1977. ''And if I had any advice for my kids, it would be never -- to never, ever -- defer your moral judgments to anybody: your parents, your wife, anybody.''</p>

<p>John Ehrlichman was born in Tacoma, Wash., on March 20, 1925. He was an Eagle Scout and after his freshman year at U.C.L.A. he enlisted in the Army Air Forces in 1943. He flew 26 missions over Germany as a navigator in a B-24 bomber and was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross.</p>

<p>Mr. Ehrlichman's first two marriages, to Jeanne Fisher and Christine McLaurine, ended in divorce. He is survived by his mother, Lillian Ehrlichman, who is 97; his third wife, Karen; three sons and two daughters from his first marriage: Peter and Tom of Seattle and Rob of San Francisco; Jan Ehrlichman of Sante Fe and Jody Pineda of Santa Fe; a son from his second marriage, Michael of Princeton, N.J., and 13 grandchildren.</p>

<p>Mr. Ehrlichman called the characters in his 1976 novel ''The Company'' (Simon & Schuster) ''wholly fictional,'' but the disclaimer was unconvincing to anyone at all familiar with Watergate. In the novel, a White House operative is caught burglarizing the office of a Democratic candidate in San Francisco. Hearing of this, a high Government official (not the President) worries to his wife: ''I have a feeling someone has just lit a very long fuse that leads right to me, sweetheart. Just pray to God I'm wrong.''</p>

<p>Correction: Feb. 17, 1999
An obituary of John D. Ehrlichman yesterday misstated the Government background of Daniel Ellsberg and rendered his name incorrectly. Both errors have also appeared in other past articles. Dr. Ellsberg, who has said he gave journalists the secret study of the Vietnam War known as the Pentagon Papers, worked for the State and Defense Departments, not the National Security Council. He has no middle initial.</p>

<p>Correction: Feb. 24, 1999
An obituary of John D. Ehrlichman on Feb. 16 referred incorrectly to the prosecution of Robert C. Mardian, a former Assistant Attorney General, in connection with the Watergate scandal. On Jan. 1, 1975, Mr. Mardian was convicted on a single count of conspiring to obstruct justice and sentenced to 10 months to three years in prison, but his conviction was overturned on appeal. He was never charged with perjury or obstruction of justice.</p>