Frederick C . LaRue , a top Nixon campaign official who passed money from a secret White House fund to buy the silence of the Watergate burglars , died Saturday at a hotel in Biloxi , Miss .
passed
frederick c larue nixon campaign official pass money secret white house fund buy silence watergate burglar die saturday hotel biloxi miss
Frederick C . LaRue , a top Nixon campaign official who <m> passed </m> money from a secret White House fund to buy the silence of the Watergate burglars , died Saturday at a hotel in Biloxi , Miss .
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Fred LaRue , Watergate Figure , Dies at 75
Published : July 29 , 2004
Frederick C . LaRue , a top Nixon campaign official who <m> passed </m> money from a secret White House fund to buy the silence of the Watergate burglars , died Saturday at a hotel in Biloxi , Miss .
He was 75 .
His heart failed while he was reading a book , his son , Ike LaRue III , said .
He lived in Biloxi and Jackson , Miss .
Fred LaRue's career was intertwined with that of Richard M . Nixon from the time he transferred his considerable financial support to Nixon from the defeated presidential candidate Barry Goldwater in 1964 .
He was an architect of Nixon's successful strategy for capturing Southern votes and then a significant participant in the Watergate scandal .
Mr . LaRue pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice in July 1973 .
He served a reduced sentence of four and a half months in federal prison in return for cooperating with prosecutors investigating the break - in at the Watergate complex , which housed the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee , on June 17 , 1972 .
He was at the meeting in Key Biscayne , Fla . , on March 30 , 1972 , where John N . Mitchell , the former attorney general who became head of Nixon's re - election campaign committee , and Jeb Stuart Magruder , Mr . Mitchell's deputy , approved a "dirty tricks" campaign , including the Watergate break - in .
Mr . LaRue was also at the meeting after the break - in at which some of the same officials scurried to come up with money for the burglars .
Mr . LaRue personally delivered payments .
Nixon acknowledged his own involvement in the cover - up , but always denied advance knowledge of the break - in .
In a heated exchange with Mr . Magruder in 2003 , Mr . LaRue supported Nixon's claim of ignorance of the initial burglary .
Mr . LaRue's main argument was that he had been in charge of the phone at a Florida meeting of the top campaign staff where the break - in was planned and was monitoring all calls .
Nixon never called , he said in an interview with The Sun Herald , a Biloxi newspaper .
Also , he said his personal relationship with Mitchell was so close that Mitchell would certainly have told him .
Mr . LaRue denied suggestions that he was "Deep Throat , " the secret Watergate source used by Bob Woodward in his joint coverage of the scandal with Carl Bernstein for The Washington Post .
Mr . LaRue said he believed the secret informer was an amalgam of several people , but Mr . Woodward has said that it is one person and that he will reveal that person's identity after his death .
Mr . LaRue , whose family amassed a fortune in the oil business , played an important role with Nixon many years before Watergate .
After contributing heavily to Goldwater's losing presidential campaign in 1964 , he became a leading supporter of Nixon .
In particular , he helped develop a "Southern strategy" for the Republicans to recapture Southern states from the Democrats .
After Nixon's election in 1968 , Mr . LaRue worked in the White House without title or salary .
Partly through his friendship with Senator James O . Eastland , the Mississippi Democrat who was chairman of the Judiciary Committee , Mr . LaRue helped to win confirmation for Nixon's nominees to the federal bench .
"He was an elusive , anonymous , secret operator at the highest levels of the shattered Nixon power structure , " The New York Times reported in 1973 .
"He is a man of personal mystery , too - a latter - day character , it sometimes seemed , out of a Southern gothic novel . "
Frederick Cheney LaRue was born Oct . 11 , 1928 , in Athens , Tex .
His father , Ike Parsons LaRue Sr . , whom Fred LaRue shot and killed in a Canadian duck - hunting accident in 1957 , was a first cousin of Sid Richardson , the Texas oil and ranching tycoon .
The elder Mr . LaRue had gone to jail for banking violations and moved to Mississippi to look for oil .
His company discovered the giant Bolton field , which Fred's generation sold for $30 million in 1967 .
Fred LaRue spread money to local and national politicians , and , despite his shyness , acquired the nickname Bubba .
He became a Republican national committeeman .
In the end , Mr . LaRue was one of the first top Nixon aides to cooperate with prosecutors .
"LaRue had stressed that it was time for both of us to think about protecting ourselves and our families instead of continuing to worry about protecting Mitchell and the president , " Mr . Magruder wrote in his 1974 book , "An American Life : One Man's Road to Watergate . "
Mr . LaRue is survived by his wife , Joyce Burleson LaRue ; his sons Ike III , of Jackson , and Fred Jr . , of Brandon , Miss . ; his daughters Patricia LaRue of Arlington , Tex . , Leslie LaRue of Manhattan , Grace Burleson LaRue of Crystal Springs , Miss . ; his brother , Ike Jr . ; his sister , Ruthie LaRue Owen of Jackson ; and nine grandchildren .
In the interview with The Sun Herald , Mr . LaRue guessed that the healthy regimen of his months in prison added 10 years to his life .
"The warden let me make a badminton court out of the volleyball court , " he said .
"We had some of the best badminton players in the country . "