Overview

Egil "Bud" Krogh Jr. (1939-2020) was a Nixon White House aide who served as co-director of the Special Investigations Unit, known as the "Plumbers," which was established in July 1971 ostensibly to prevent national security leaks following the publication of the Pentagon Papers. The Plumbers unit became the direct precursor to the Watergate break-in and one of the most consequential illegal operations in American presidential history. Krogh, working under domestic policy adviser John Ehrlichman, supervised the Plumbers together with David Young. The unit's first major operation was the September 3, 1971, burglary of the office of Dr. Lewis Fielding, the psychiatrist of Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg. Krogh authorized the break-in, which was carried out by G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt along with the same team of Cuban exiles who would later be arrested at Watergate: Bernard Barker, Eugenio Martinez, and Felipe De Diego. The Ellsberg psychiatrist burglary was one of the first crimes of the Watergate era and established the pattern of illegal covert operations that would culminate in the Watergate break-in. When the burglary was exposed during the Watergate investigation, it led to the dismissal of all charges against Ellsberg in the Pentagon Papers case. In November 1973, Krogh pleaded guilty to conspiring to violate the civil rights of Dr. Fielding. He was sentenced to two to six years in prison, with all but six months suspended. He served four and a half months at the Allenwood Federal Prison Camp. After his release, Krogh returned to law practice and spent decades speaking publicly about ethics and the dangers of following illegal orders. He was readmitted to the Washington State Bar in 1980. Krogh died in 2020.

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Sources & Documentation

3 documented sources from official records, investigations, and reports