One of our last heroes....read and remember

[MichiganVote]

Silent witness writes history
Sunday, January 15, 2006
By Pat Shellenbarger
The Grand Rapids Press
GRAND RAPIDS -- In another time and place, William Merrill stared down some of the most ruthlessly powerful men in America.

Outside a Washington courtroom, he was surprised when one he just dissected on the stand approached and stuck out his hand.

"Mr. Merrill, I want to congratulate you on a very thorough but fair cross-examination," said John Ehrlichman, a top adviser to President Richard Nixon.

Years later, Merrill would write: "I was embarrassed, thinking of what I had done to him in front of his wife and children. ... As I shook his hand, I mumbled something about being sorry that our meeting had been under such circumstances."

Merrill doesn't talk about it anymore. He can't. A stroke robbed him of his voice, his money, his livelihood and his marriage, but not his dignity.

As a key member of the Watergate Special Prosecutor's team, Merrill put away Nixon's crew-cut men of steel: Ehrlichman, Charles Colson, G. Gordon Liddy.

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http://www.mlive.com/news/grpress/index.ssf?/base/news-27/1137324351119560.xml&coll=6