Egil "Bud" Krogh (1939-2020) was a promising young lawyer when he joined the White House in 1968. Within three years, he was in charge of the Special Investigation Unit, known internally as the Plumbers for its job sealing press leaks within the Nixon White House. Three years after that, Krogh was in prison for approving the burglary of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office. When the Watergate scandal revealed Krogh's involvement in the SIU, he cooperated with prosecutors and ultimately served less than five months on a six-year sentence for civil rights violations. Krogh eventually resumed law practice and spent many years lecturing and teaching about legal ethics.
In 2007, Bud and his son Matthew published Integrity: Good People, Bad Choices, and Life Lessons from the White House, which sold about 2,500 copies and was never released in paperback. Through circuitous circumstances, the book ended up in the hands of TV producer David Bernad, and will be adapted as the miniseries White House Plumbers, airing March 2023 on HBO (see the trailer here). The show stars Woody Harrelson as E. Howard Hunt, Justin Theroux as G. Gordon Liddy, Domhnall Gleeson as John Dean, Lena Headey as Dorothy Hunt, Kiernan Shipka as Kevan Hunt and Rich Sommer as Bud Krogh. On December 27, St. Martin's Griffin released a paperback edition of Integrity titled The White House Plumbers: The Seven Weeks That Led to Watergate and Doomed Nixon's Presidency ($17.99). --Tobias Mutter
