LOS ANGELES: US President Richard Nixon personally ordered the Watergate break-in of the Democratic party headquarters, according to a senior aide who was jailed for his part in the affair.

Hitherto it has been assumed that the president took part only in covering up the break-in organised by other members of his team in 1972.

Jeb Magruder, who was jailed for seven months for his part in the break-in, now claims, in a television documentary to be shown in the he US this week, that Nixon was involved from the beginning. Mr Magruder, now a Presbyterian minister, says he was with the attorney general, the late John Mitchell, on March 30 1972 and heard the president give instructions on the telephone to go ahead with the break-in. It took place on June 17 1972.

He says he heard Nixon’s voice say: “John ... we need to get the information on [the Democratic party chairman] Larry O’Brien, and the only way we can do that is through Liddy’s plan. And you need to do that.”

Mr Magruder says he could not hear every word but he “heard the import”.

The former White House counsel John Dean, who served four months for his part in the cover-up, said yesterday (JULY 27): “I have no reason to doubt that it happened as he describes it, but I have never seen a scintilla of evidence that Nixon knew about the plans for the Watergate break-in.”—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.