THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, April 26, 1995 TAG: 9504260041
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ROBERT LITTLE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: MOUNT VERNON LENGTH: Long : 169 lines
The trouble started in the local school. My three sons wore crew cuts and Nixon buttons. That led to some offensive remarks by some of the bigger boys, which led to the bigger boys' being beaten up by my two older sons, Jim and Tom. The schoolyard soon became generally respectful of my sons (and, if the truth be told, of my daughter, Alexandra, who is fearless and could hold her own in those days in a fight with her brothers).
- Former Nixon aide G. Gordon Liddy, in his autobiography ``Will,'' describing his family's early days in Washington, D.C., in 1970.
ALL MORNING, she was poised. Maybe even a little chipper. But at the mention of that letter from the Democrats, Sandy Liddy Bourne slowly started to boil.
Sent by the state party chairman to the Democratic faithful, the letter made a quick, one-paragraph mention of Bourne's Republican bid for the House of Delegates. A bit stinging maybe, though not unanticipated.
It called Bourne's challenge a formidable one. Tough race, it said. She could be ``relentless.'' Has a frightening potential to raise cash.
And all because of her father, of course. G. Gordon Liddy. The letter didn't take issue with Bourne, her principles or her politics. Only that her father is G. Gordon Liddy.
``How can they do that?'' Bourne huffed, clenching her fists and pursing her lips, then looking embarrassed for doing so.
``I mean, what about a woman's independence?'' she asked more calmly. ``What about a woman running on her own merits?''
Well, Democrats say they aren't yet concerned with Bourne's merits, only that she is challenging Del. Linda T. ``Toddy'' Puller for one of Northern Virginia's seats in the legislature. And that a campaign for the House of Delegates - typically low in stature among races for state office - has taken form as a battle of the celebrity namesakes.
Puller's late husband, Lewis B. Puller Jr., gained fame as the disabled Vietnam veteran who wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiography before killing himself last May.
And Bourne is the daughter of former Nixon aide G. Gordon Liddy. Talk radio's G-man. He of Watergate-burgling, conspiring-with-Cubans, flesh-in-the-fire fame.
``Virginia does some pretty bizarre things, doesn't it?'' laughed Suzie Wrenn, chairperson of the Fairfax County Democratic Party.
``Can't we just have a quiet, simple race for a change?''
It's probably too soon to tell.
Both candidates promise their issues, not their identities, will steal the show. Bourne touts an agenda similar to Gov. George F. Allen's. Puller will preach the moderate mantra of Virginia Democrats.
But handlers in both parties practically salivate pondering the dynamics of a race in which Liddy can come into play.
Throughout the 1970s, the country cultivated an image of him as a kook, a crook and the mastermind of Nixon's Watergate disgrace. And now he's a wildly successful radio talk show host. A sort of poster boy for the pop culture of conservatism.
``Clearly, Liddy can excite passionate responses - but both pro and con,'' said Mark Warner, state Democratic Party chairman. ``However the race develops, that can't be underestimated.''
Liddy already has used his radio show to read Warner's letter, which warns Democrats that Liddy will likely use his ``access to the airwaves and taste for partisan battle'' to affect the campaign.
Liddy called it a clear attempt to use his name against his daughter, then asked listeners to send contributions to Bourne's campaign. Cash came in from across the country.
Beyond that, however, he said he won't likely get involved.
``There's a two-edged sword there,'' said Liddy, reached by phone Monday after his syndicated talk radio program. ``I certainly support her in it and regard her very highly, but I'm not going to go into Virginia and campaign for her.
``I don't know whether that would end up being a net plus or a net minus for her.''
Democrats say Bourne's lineage won't be an issue, unless she makes it one. But privately, a few of them gloat.
After all, Liddy once planned a $1 million smear campaign against the Democrats. He enlisted Cuban operatives to bug the Democratic National Committee.
Sure, that wasn't the Republican candidate, just her father. But use your imagination.
Just so rumors don't spread, Liddy says he doesn't advise Bourne on campaign strategy. Besides, ``I don't think my daughter knows any Cubans, operatives or otherwise,'' he chortled. ``They're all down in Miami. And they're getting a little long in the tooth now.''
Puller wasn't among the Democrats who tried to plant a little off-the-record ordnance, saying only that the fall campaign stretch is too far off to estimate how close the race will be. But she acknowledged the universal presumption, saying, ``I assume she'll be able to raise quite a bit of money.''
The oldest of five children, Alexandra ``Sandy'' Liddy was born in 1958 in Gary, Ind., where her father worked as an FBI field agent. For years, her family moved around the country, as Liddy took various jobs with the bureau, as an attorney and as an assistant prosecutor.
Bourne got her first whiff of politics in New York in the late 1960s, stuffing envelopes to help her father's failed bid for a seat in Congress. That race ultimately earned Liddy a position coordinating Richard Nixon's 1968 presidential campaign in New York, which led to his posting in Washington, as special assistant to the Treasury secretary.
The rest of the story, of course, has long since screamed from the headlines: Liddy goes to work for Nixon, becomes a type of campaign spy, plans a break-in at the Democratic headquarters in the Watergate Hotel. He goes to prison, refusing to say a word about any of it.
Usually wide-eyed, Bourne wilts a bit when asked about Watergate.
``I was certainly going through things that a lot of other kids never had to go through,'' she said during an interview at an Annandale consulting firm. She has yet to open a campaign headquarters.
``All my adolescence, my father was gone. We tried to keep him an active part of the family all the time, but it wasn't always easy.''
During Liddy's 52-month incarceration for nine Watergate felonies, she was a bit too young and ill-informed to understand Watergate's complexities, she said. But she believed in her father.
``I remember going to the public library and looking through law books, trying to find something to help him. But what could a 13-year-old girl do?'' she said. ``I was honoring my father and his choices, because I loved him and always wanted him home.''
The 1970s became her period of political rebellion - when she fancied herself an independent - and not until she was about 22 and out of school, did her conservative Republican ideals mature.
If anything, her Watergate exposure planted a strong distrust for the government and the media.
``But I believe in the system,'' she said.
Mostly the Republican side of the system.
She is a volunteer veteran of several GOP campaigns, including Allen's bid for governor. Allen appointed her to the state Board of Nursing last year.
She also entered and won a race for a seat on the Northern Virginia Soil and Water Conservation District, a post she sought because of an annoying mound of construction dirt left near her home.
She was the top vote-getter on the ballot. The mound of dirt is gone.
Now 36, Bourne says it was the recent carjacking murder of a family friend that ultimately prodded her to run for office. That and her conviction that criminals need fewer breaks and harsher punishment. She also, much like her father, strongly supports gun rights. She won't say if she owns any guns herself.
Will the Liddy name on her campaign buttons make her tough-on-crime argument a little more hollow?
``I used that name when it was unpopular; I'm not going to stop now,'' she said.
In his autobiography, ``Will,'' Liddy mentions Bourne three or four times. Most references speak to her toughness. Or her ``fearlessness'' when confronted.
In the epilogue, he introduces Bourne as the daughter who paid for college by driving a diesel bus at night, armed with a baseball bat. When asked about her this week, Liddy told that story first.
``Oh, it was the campus bus. The shuttle. That's all it was,'' Bourne said. ``I only did it a while.''
And the baseball bat?
``Yes, I had it maybe a few times. Just on the long runs across campus,'' Bourne said, rolling her eyes.
``I had a lot of jobs more noteworthy than that one, believe me. My father just likes to talk that story. Maybe after this he'll tell the story about me running for the House of Delegates.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
KARIN ANDERSON
At a campaign kickoff party in March, Sandy Liddy Bourne was joined
by her father, G. Gordon Liddy, and mother, Frances.
Bourne greets an old neighbor, Arthur Blaser, who donated money to
her campaign.
KEYWORDS: PROFILE BIOGRAPHY by CNB