NAMES IN THE NEWS : Ex-Nixon Aide Admits Mistake
The Rev. Jeb Stuart Magruder, a former aide to President Nixon who spent seven years in prison for the Watergate scandal, said his life bottomed out when he started treating Nixon like God.
Magruder, executive minister of the First Community Church of Columbus, Ohio, was a special assistant to Nixon and deputy campaign director for the Committee for the Reelection of the President in 1972.
He helped cover up the Watergate scandal.
“After I left Washington, my life was a shambles. My marriage fell apart. There was so much pain,” Magruder, 54, told 100 worshipers Monday at Westminster College.
Watergate came about because “we started to treat Nixon not as President but as God,” he said.
Magruder said it’s possible to come back after a crisis, but it’s not easy.
“I am reminded of one of the shortest speeches Winston Churchill ever gave,” he said. “When Churchill was asked how England would survive the German threat, he told them in six words, ‘Never, never, never, never give up.’ That is a philosophy I live by and it works.”
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