THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, September 17, 1994 TAG: 9409170380
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KEITH MONROE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines
A crowd of nearly a thousand gathered at Chrysler Hall on Friday night to hear G. Gordon Liddy - the Watergate plotter who wouldn't talk and who now does little but.
Liddy's Washington radio talk show is carried four hours a day on WTAR in Hampton Roads, and he's much in demand as a speaker around the country.
Where other political commentators and radio gadflies specialize in red meat, demagogy and scabrous insults, Liddy's road show persona is remarkably good-humored and surprisingly low-key.
It's a minimalist show he puts on. His contract calls for no equipment other than a hand-held wireless mike and an adequate sound system. Not even a chair, podium or stool is required; he prefers to prowl the stage as he works.
He arrived backstage at a minute before 8, wiry and dapper. He posed for photos, autographed books and went onstage to a standing ovation. Expressing his appreciation, he said, ``For years, they introduced me by saying `Will the defendant please rise?' ''
For the next hour, he spoke in his clipped, efficient style. Instead of kicking around the events of the day, he held forth on the attributes of the superior human, enlivening his message with anecdotes drawn largely from his prison experiences. As he said, ``I went from the White House to the Big House. Do not pass `Go.' ''
Liddy argued that it's no compliment to be called a survivor. The people who matter are those who prevail, who overcome, who triumph. And they do so, he said, by using reason to overmaster emotion and instinct, by using their brains to subdue their fears, especially the fear of failure that paralyzes others into not even trying.
The mostly male audience, ranging from young military men with hair shaved as close as Liddy's to senior citizens in sportswear, sat in rapt attention.
According to Liddy, the people who prevail don't follow the manual, they write it. They don't worry about reputation, which is only what other people think and therefore is beyond their control. Instead, they focus on character, ``over which they have 100 percent control.''
``What you think about, you will do. What you do, you will become,'' Liddy said.
To illustrate the point, he contrasted a well-to-do young man and a poor young woman. He works in a bank and thinks about embezzling until he becomes a thief. She thinks about how she can help others in similar distress until she becomes Mother Teresa.
After his iconoclastic conservative monologue - part Ralph Waldo Emerson's self-reliance, part Ayn Rand's elitism - he took questions.
On Colin Powell's chances for president in '96. (He should sit on corporate boards, make money, work for other candidates, collect political IOUs and run in 2000.)
On how to get into politics and become the next Ollie North. (Start at the bottom, stuff envelopes.)
On whether the Secret Service can really protect presidents. (Not from a knowledgeable, dedicated assassin prepared to die.)
More interesting than the questions themselves was the tone in which they were put. Some fans shyly said it was an honor to talk to Liddy. Others acted as if Liddy, familiar from daily chats on the radio, was already a friend. And one young soldier said he looked up to Liddy as a father figure.
In the minds of his fans, at least, Liddy hasn't just survived. He has prevailed. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
G. Gordon Liddy, a Washington talk show host, spoke Friday night at
Chrysler Hall.
by CNB