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(Photo: AP)
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Ron Ziegler was the combative former press secretary to President Nixon who famously called the Watergate break-in a "third-rate burglary.
"Certain elements may try to stretch this beyond what it is," Ziegler said of the June 17, 1972, burglary of the Democratic National Committee headquarters that would eventually lead to Nixon's resignation.
As Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein tied the scandalto top officials in the Nixon administration, Ziegler routinely dismissed their reports as inaccurate.
He functioned as the point man for an administration under fire, the president's strident defender until the public release of the Watergate tapes made it clear that Nixon and his top aides had engaged in a vast cover-up.
In a Nov. 12, 1973, news conference, it was Ziegler who announced that Nixon would give up unsubpoenaed White House recordings and portions of his diary.
And the press secretary also publicly apologized to Woodward, Bernstein and their newspaper the day after the April 30, 1973, resignations of White House counsel John Dean and Nixon aides John Ehrlichman and H.R. Haldeman.
"I would apologize to the Post, and I would apologize to Mr. Woodward and Mr.Bernstein. ... We would all have to say that mistakes were made in terms of comments. I was overenthusiastic in my comments about the Post, particularly if you look at them in the context of developments that have taken place," he said at the time. "When we are wrong, we are wrong, as we were in that case."
In a 1981 interview with The Washington Post, Ziegler defended his use of the phrase "third-rate burglary," and said he hadn't known of the cover-up.
"I was right," he said. "It was a third-rate burglary. Who knew it was going to be anything more than that?"
As spokesman for a much-maligned administration, Ziegler was often unpopular with the public and the press in the early 1970s. His friends said he was tarnished unfairly because of his loyalty to Nixon.
Ziegler, who first worked with Nixon as a press aide on his unsuccessful campaign for California governor in 1962, stayed with the politician through fights with reporters - and even his boss.
Nixon bristled when he saw Ziegler helping the news media too much. During one visit to New Orleans, he shoved Ziegler and snapped, "I don't want any press with me, and you take care of it."
He stayed with the president even after Nixon's fall from grace.
"I was the only one on that plane to San Clemente with Nixon when power changed hands," he said. "I was there with Nixon in exile. ... I'm proud of what I did as press secretary. I don't feel the need to apologize. There are some things, however, I would have done differently."
Asked for examples, he said, "Well, I don't want to go into that."
When he joined Nixon's 1968 presidential campaign at 29, he became the youngest White House press secretary in history. He held that title until 1974, when he was named an assistant to the president.
After leaving government service, he held a number of positions in the private sector, He retired in 1998 and died of a heart attack Feb. 10, 2003, at the age of 63.
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