May 17th 1973, the Senate Watergate Committee opened its hearings.
On May 17, 1973, most Americans first heard the names E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy—the men behind the Democratic National Committee headquarters break-in that would topple a presidency.
Those names meant something different to me; they weren’t just headlines, but men I actually encountered in the same prison.
Arrested in 1971, I moved through The Tombs and several transfers, arriving at Danbury in 1972—before Watergate gripped the nation. When Hunt and Liddy were convicted in early 1973 and already federal inmates, they entered my world.
I played chess with E. Howard Hunt, the former CIA man, whose calm, almost courtly manner made him a polite opponent. That year, G. Gordon Liddy and I were both in solitary, not for the same reasons or in the same cell, but in the same block.
And here’s the strange truth:
Liddy and I shared one thing — an absolute refusal to cooperate with the authorities.
His refusal came from ideology and bravado; mine, from conscience. But to the Bureau of Prisons, defiance is defiance, and it lands you in the same concrete box.
It was surreal: America watched Watergate on TV while I shared a prison with the men who set it in motion. History unfolded in Washington, but some of them sat across from me at chess or were locked in solitary confinement down the tier.
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