President Richard Nixon kept what he called an Enemies List; a record of political foes, some of whom found themselves audited by the IRS and badgered by other government agencies. The name atop that list was Jack Anderson.
The mutual animosity between Nixon and Anderson dated back to the 1950s when Nixon was Vice President under Eisenhower, and their Washington careers rose in tandem.
Anderson began as a reporter for Drew Pearson who wrote the popular column Washington Merry-Go-Round. Pearson and Anderson hounded Nixon during his years in Congress.
Anderson was a Mormon, and he led a squeaky clean life. His left-leaning reporting was based on his desire to rid Washington of corruption. But Anderson was given to sensationalism, and he used scurrilous methods to acquire stories. He rifled through people's garbage and bugged people's offices - the same methods that Nixon's Plumbers Unit used during Watergate.
Nixon blamed Anderson in part for his loss to JFK in the 1960 Presidential Campaign. Anderson reported on an incident in 1956 while Nixonwas Vice President. Billionaire Howard Hughes, who had been a major contributor to Nixon's political runs, forked over nearly a quarter of a million dollars to Nixon's brother Donald. The money was used to create a fast-food chain called Nixon Burger, which was a flop. Anderson reported that shortly after the money was transferred, Howard Hughes’ shady business enterprises mysteriously received tax-exempt status. For years afterward, Nixon believed that story led to his narrow defeat to Kennedy.
Anderson's investigations broke many controversial news stories. He uncovered a CIA plot to assassinate Fidel Castro. He reported on the hunt for ex-Nazi war criminals in Brazil. Anderson became the heir apparent to Drew Pearson and later acquired the Washington Merry-Go-Round column when Pearson died in 1969.
By then, Nixon was president. The FBI kept Anderson under surveillance. J. Edgar Hoover despised him and ordered agents to watch his house. In a bit of fun, Anderson deployed his nine kids to sneak up on the FBI vehicles and let the air out of their tires.
In 1972, Anderson won the Pulitzer Prize for his report on how the United States had secretly sided with Pakistan during its war with India. Anderson's star never shone brighter.
It drove Richard Nixon mad. Especially when Anderson repeatedly wrote that some of his information came from leaks within the Nixon White House.
In March, 1972, E. Howard Hunt met with Charles Colson, aide to President Nixon. Although the President's name was never mentioned in the meeting, Hunt presumed that Colson was acting under orders from Nixon. Something had to be done about Jack Anderson. All attempts to smear him in the press had backfired. They could find no dirt on the reporter. It was time for an alternative solution. Hunt said there was only one thing to do: kill him.
Hunt contacted G. Gordon Liddy to discuss ways of assassinating Anderson. They initially conceived two plans. The first was what they called aspirin roulette. Someone would break into Anderson's home and place a single poison tablet in a bottle of aspirin. Eventually, the poison would do the trick. Then they planned to place LSD on the steering wheel of Anderson's car. The drug would supposedly be absorbed through his skin, causing him to hallucinate, and potentially leading to a fatal car crash. Neither plan seemed feasible. They finally settled on killing Anderson in a fake robbery attempt.
But the plan never materialized. That was because E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy were instead called on to break into the offices of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate Hotel. Had Watergate not happened, Jack Anderson might have eventually been killed.
Although Charles Colson has always denied the assassination plot, G. GordonLiddy wrote about it in his memoir. He also said so to Jack Anderson's face when they appeared jointly on a radio program. Liddy said he always assumed the assassination order came directly from Richard Nixon.
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