Watergate conspirator who became pastor

Jeb Magruder, who has died aged 79, was a former high-level aide to President Richard Nixon who went to jail for his part in the Watergate affair and years later made the startling assertion that the president himself had ordered the break-in.

Magruder was one of a small collection of White House officials and minor fixers – John Mitchell, HR Haldeman, John Deane, G Gordon Liddy, John Ehrlichman and E Howard Hunt were others – whose names would no doubt have remained unknown to the public had they not been broadcast endlessly across the airwaves during the period of intense political crisis which began with the police discovery of a burglary at the Democratic National Committe headquarters in June 1972 and ended with the first ever resignation of an American president, when Nixon was forced out in August 1974.

To most Americans, Magruder was a little-known White House communications adviser and deputy director of Nixon’s re-election campaign when, in January 1973, his name came up during the trial of five men accused of breaking into the Democratic party offices in the Watergate building in Washington. Two other White House aides, G Gordon Liddy and E Howard Hunt, were also being tried, accused of organising the break-in. Hugh W Sloan Jr, who had been campaign treasurer, testified that Magruder had told him to disburse $199,000 to Liddy for “intelligence gathering”. Convicted of perjury In later testimony, Magruder denied giving the burglars any assignment concerning the Democratic headquarters. When that was shown to be a lie, he was convicted of perjury and given a 10-month to four-year prison term. The suggestion that a top campaign official had directly ordered the break-in gave momentum to the investigations in Congress that would finally force Nixon to resign on August 9th, 1974. In return for a lighter sentence, Magruder co-operated with investigations into others.

It was not until 2003, in interviews with PBS and the Associated Press, that Magruder dropped his bombshell, claiming that he had heard Nixon personally authorise the break-in. The Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace Foundation in California has pointed out that this allegation flatly contradicts Magruder's previous assertion in his memoir An American Life: One Man's Road to Watergate, published in 1974. There he wrote: "I know nothing to indicate that Nixon was aware in advance of the plan to break into the Democratic headquarters."

However Carl Bernstein, who led the way in Watergate coverage at the Washington Post with colleague Bob Woodward, said in an interview with CNN in 2003 that Magruder's assertion had credibility. "I find it compelling," Bernstein said. "I find it more than plausible."

Jeb Stuart Magruder was born in Staten Island, New York. His father, who owned a print shop and was an American Civil War buff, named him after the Confederate general JEB Stuart. Magruder majored in political science at Williams College in Massachusetts, interrupting his studies after two years to serve in the army in Korea. After returning to Williams, he studied ethics with the Rev William Sloan Coffin, who was later chaplain at Yale. He was a notable sportsman, excelling at swimming and tennis. Sold cosmetics Interested in sales, he spent a college summer promoting cough medicine and also sold cosmetics to help pay for his studies. After graduating, he worked in sales and marketing in San Francisco before moving to Kansas City, where he drove a truck delivering groceries. From there he went to Chicago, where he worked in consultancy and earned an MBA from the University of Chicago.

Magruder had become a Republican in college and worked in various campaigns, including Donald Rumsfeld’s successful bid for the House of Representatives in 1962 and Barry Goldwater’s losing presidential race in 1964. He joined the Nixon White House in 1969 and was later assigned to the president’s re-election campaign, where he assumed management duties.

After gaining a theological degree, Magruder was ordained a Presbyterian minister in 1984. He was a church pastor in San Mateo, California, Columbus, Ohio and Lexington, Kentucky. In Columbus, the mayor appointed him chairman of a commission on values and ethics. Magruder said that reflecting on Watergate had changed his values for the better. “If they haven’t changed,” he said, “then it has been a real waste of time, hasn’t it?”

His marriages to Gail Barnes Nicholas and Patti Newton Filipski ended in divorce. He is survived by his sons Whitney, Justin and Stuart, his daughter, Tracy Sennett, and nine grandchildren.