Biography

John Ehrlichman was born on March 20, 1925 in Tacoma, Washington, USA. He was a writer and actor, known for Washington: Behind Closed Doors (1977), The Silence of Cricket Coogler (2000) and Our World (1986). He was married to Karen Hilliard, Christy McLaurine and Jeanne Fisher. He died on February 14, 1999 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

Biography in: "American National Biography." Supplement 1, pp. 180-182. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Served 18 months in prison due to his involvement with the Watergate scandal. He was incarcerated at the prison camp on Mt. Lemmon in the Santa Catalina Mountains near Tucson, AZ.

Is portrayed by J.T. Walsh in Nixon (1995).

Graduated from UCLA.

White House Counsel and Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs (1969-1973). He served under Richard Nixon administration.

Regarding beginning the war on drugs, "You want to know what this was really all about?", "The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."