The Plumbers' Plain

Not long after President Nixon created his special investigations unit in June 1971 to plug "leaks" of classified information, one of the group's members, in a wry acknowledgement of his assignment, tacked up a sign on his door: PLUMBER. Thus the appellation "plumbers" came into being, and eventually such nefarious activities as tapping telephones, burglarizing offices and fabricating State Department cables came to be known as the work of the "plumbers."

Genuine plumbers are not amused. Last summer a Washington-based local of the 325,000-member United Association of Plumbers and Pipefitters fired off an indignant letter to the Washington Star-News complaining that "we cannot accept the discourteous connotation that is derived by the use of our appellation to describe unscrupulous and venal men." Last week a longtime plumber (since 1915) named George Meany declared: "Plumbers are craftsmen, proud of helping build America. The so-called White House 'plumbers' are felons and that's what they ought to be called." A Seattle master plumber named Reginald G. Anderson, 35, felt so strongly about the shadow cast on his trade that he had carried the protest straight to President Nixon, urging him in a letter to explain publicly that "you never employed real plumbers to carry out your dirty tricks and/or burglaries." Why did Anderson, who has not yet received a reply, feel compelled to write? "Plumbers were being misrepresented," he says. The White House group "didn't call themselves attorneys."

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