Man at centre of Watergate scandal dies
Ziegler died on Monday at his home in Coronado, a suburb of San Diego, his wife, Nancy, said.
Ziegler spoke for the White House on such historic events as the opening of relations with China and the Vietnam war, but his name is most commonly associated with the Watergate scandal.
He was a strident Nixon defender until the public release of tapes that made it clear the president and his top aides had engaged in a vast cover-up. He would later say he had not been told about their efforts to hide the truth.
Ziegler was often combative with the media, and he routinely dismissed the reports of Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein as they tied the scandal to top officials in the Nixon administration.
“Certain elements may try to stretch this beyond what it is,” Ziegler said two days after the June 17, 1972, burglary of the Democratic National Committee headquarters that would eventually lead to Nixon’s resignation.
Veteran GOP consultant Ken Khachigian, who served as a Nixon speech writer, called Ziegler an exceptionally capable press secretary who spoke for an administration during extremely volatile times.
Former White House counsel John Dean, who helped expose the scandal, said in an ebook published last year on Salon.com that Ziegler, despite his complaints about Woodward and Bernstein’s reporting, was one of the people who may have been Deep Throat, the mysterious, chain-smoking source who gave Woodward crucial information in secret late-night meetings.
Woodward has said he will not reveal Deep Throat’s identity until that person’s death. As recently as last year, he said Deep Throat was still alive.
Ziegler said he believed Deep Throat was a composite of several sources, which Woodward has denied.
In All the President’s Men, Woodward and Bernstein said Deep Throat did a mean imitation of Ziegler. Zieglerretired in 1998 and divided his time between Alexandria, Vancouver and Coronado, where he owned a condominium overlooking the ocean.
