Integrity: Good People, Bad Choices & Life Lessons from the White House with Egil "Bud" Krogh

In 1971, Egil ‘Bud’ Krogh, a 31-year-old White House deputy counsel, was tasked with finding and stopping security leaks and became head of the Special Investigations Unit. Krogh and associates familiarly became known as the ‘White House Plumbers.’

Of the various White House-based conspirators, Krogh alone pled guilty and refused to trade inside information for a reduced sentence. He was disbarred and went to prison. In 1980, Krogh successfully petitioned to be readmitted to the bar and has been in practice since. In Integrity: Good People, Bad Choices and Life Lessons from the White House, Krogh tells his story from rising young presidential counsel, to his indictment and prison sentence, to redemption and the power of choosing to do what is right.

OUTLINE

Introduction

• The Day Elvis Met Nixon — Hidden ethical traps in personal loyalty

• The Integrity Zone model

The Fall

• White House career

• Hot dogs, crime in D.C. and Judge Harold Carswell

• Dr. Daniel Ellsberg and the White House Plumbers

• Pleading guilty to a felony: 18 USC 241 — Deprivation of Rights of Citizens

• Watergate — lawyers disciplined

• Groupthink, peer pressure, unquestioned obedience to authority, misplaced loyalties, vanity (hubris and pride), ignorance and other threats to integrity

• National security

• The Williamsburg epiphany

Paying the Price — Seven-year Attorney Discipline Case, In Re Krogh

• We Shall Prevail - William L. Dwyer, Esq.

• 60 Minutes: Mike Wallace and Krogh

• Challenges in jail: Feb. 5, 1974 - June 15, 1974. . . on to Disney World

Legal Representation and Redemption

• William L. Dwyer, Esq.

• In re Krogh, 85 Wn.2d 462 (1975) and In re Krogh, 95 Wn.2d 504, 610 P.2d 1319 (1980)

• Lessons from the reinstatement process and making amends

Lessons for Professionals Today

• Honoring professional oaths and integrity in action

• IPSE DIXIT — How the world looks to a federal judge