Talk:White House Plumbers

Who paid the plumbers?

This article lacks one big basic element. Where the Plumbers on the government payroll or not. Can anyone cite evidence to that. Thank you. Nobs01 1 July 2005 17:43 (UTC)

I believe they were paid out of a secret fund, kept in the form of cash in a safe. Only a few people, among them Haldeman, had access to the money. I forget exactly where the money came from, but I think it may have been some off the record campaign funds. I'll try to look into it some more. -R. fiend 1 July 2005 18:17 (UTC)

I beleive that is correct; they were never employees of the government. This may have to be clarified in a series of articles that speak of CREEP and the White House as one entity. I believe there should be separation between the two, seeing there apparently was no misappropriation of funds to carry these people on the government payroll to commit criminal acts. thx. Nobs01 1 July 2005 18:42 (UTC)

Well, Howard Hunt had an office in the White House at one time, if I recall. And others were government employees (CIA or FBI, for instance). -R. fiend 1 July 2005 20:58 (UTC)

Yes, several were at one time in the employ of the federal government; likewise, those who approved payments from the Re-election Committee had dual roles, both as White House employees and being in authority to authorized expenditures from the private, independent re-election committee. But language like this, [1] for example, from the Richard_Nixon#Watergate bio page

"a series of scandals involving the Committee to Re-Elect the President (known as CRP but referred to by outsiders as CREEP), which also included the enemies list and assorted "dirty tricks."

makes it sound like CREEP held the enemies list and the White House was responsible (i.e. the government paid money) for dirty tricks. I'd like to clarify this. Thank you. Nobs01 1 July 2005 21:36 (UTC)

Good point about the enemies list. Go ahead and fix it (if you haven't already). It is easy to sort of lump everyone into one category, paying no mind to the sometimes subtle differences between the groups and roles. An encyclopedia, however, should be able to differentiate. As for the White House being responsible for dirty tricks, well, that's tricky (no pun intended). Usually the "White House" refers to the Preisdent and his staff (obviously the building isn't incriminated here), and I think they can be linked to "dirty tricks", depending on what you want to count as a dirty trick. -R. fiend 1 July 2005 21:45 (UTC)

Yes, that's all true, the employees of the White House did authorize private money for payment to dirty tricksters. That's what I wanna clarify, but it may be in several articles (CREEP, Plumbers, Watergate, Nixon, etc.) No sense piling on b.s charges like using gubmint money for private purposes, that only discredits the validity of the story as its told. Thanks again. Nobs01 1 July 2005 21:53 (UTC)

Follow the money: Important in uncovering the conspiracy what the fact that small campaign donation cheques sent by mail to CREEP ended up in hands of the plumbers. These were never added to CREEP accounts but used as a black fund. (Don't ask for sources, I read this somewhere in web 30 years ago. :-) -- Petri Krohn (talk) 12:04, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Hockey?

Do we want to make a brief mention on the page that the White House Plumbers led to the naming of the "Plumbers Line" that played for the Washington Capitals in the mid to late 1980s? The line consisted of Alan Haworth, Craig Laughlin, and Greg Adams and they were fairly popular with Washington fans due to their work ethic and productivity... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.232.182.71 (talk) 13:12, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Nixon's sabotage of Vietnam peace talks

Was the Plumbers unit already established in 1968? Columnist George Will seems to think so:

• Bob Fitrakis, Harvey Wasserman (August 12, 2014). "George Will Confirms Nixon's Vietnam Treason". Common Dreams.

  Published as the 40th Anniversary of Nixon's resignation approaches, Will's column confirms that Nixon feared public disclosure of his role in sabotaging the 1968 Vietnam peace talks. Will says Nixon established a "plumbers unit" to stop potential leaks of information that might damage him, including documentation that he believed was held by the Brookings Institute, a liberal think tank. The Plumbers' later break-in at the Democratic National Committee led to the Watergate scandal that brought Nixon down.

-- Petri Krohn (talk) 12:13, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

ODESSA mention

I feel like the section about the ODESSA nickname should mention the name was in the public consciousness at the time, Liddy didn't just randomly decide to call it "Organization of Former SS Members" for no reason, and the current wording makes it sound like he was some crypto nazi or something. From the ODESSA wikipedia article:

"In the realm of fiction, Frederick Forsyth's best-selling thriller The Odessa File (1972) brought the organisation to popular attention. (The novel was turned into a film starring Jon Voight.) In the novel, Forsyth's ODESSA smuggled war criminals to South America, but also attempted to protect those SS members who remained behind in Germany, and plotted to influence political decisions in West Germany. Many of the novel's readers assumed that ODESSA really existed." Electron.rotoscope (talk) 00:54, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Is there a quotable source? For example, I am wondering about timing here:

This article currently states that "ODESSA or more officially, the White House Special Investigations Unit, was a covert White House Special Investigations Unit, established within a week of the publication of the Pentagon Papers in June 1971 (...)".

However, Forsyth's novel was only published later, according to Wikipedia's own article on the book: "The Odessa File is a thriller by English writer Frederick Forsyth, first published in 1972 (...)".

I am concerned that assumptions about ODESSA being in the public consciousness, as you put it, could be mere speculation. Even if the term was well known, was that the reason for choosing it, and what was the timeline here? TheRealRalph (talk) 03:31, 1 October 2024 (UTC)