In the context of the Watergate scandal, Operation Gemstone was a proposed series of clandestine or illegal acts, first outlined by G. Gordon Liddy in two separate meetings with three other individuals: then-Attorney General of the United States, John N. Mitchell, then-White House Counsel John Dean, and Jeb Magruder, an ally and former aide to H.R.
[2] Operation Ruby involved planting spies in the campaigns of the Democratic primary contenders and then the eventual winner's, while Operation Coal was the clandestine funding of the candidacy of black woman Shirley Chisholm, which would help her campaign and in turn force the other candidates to pay more attention to Chisholm and criticize her.
According to all four participants of the January 27 meeting, Attorney General Mitchell declared, with some evident sarcasm, "Gordon, that's not quite what I had in mind."
John Dean described his recollections of this meeting to President Nixon on March 21, 1973, during the "Cancer on the Presidency" conversation: "So I came over and Liddy laid out a million dollar plan that was the most incredible thing I have ever laid my eyes on: all in codes, and involved black bag operations, kidnapping, providing prostitutes, uh, to weaken the opposition, bugging, uh, mugging teams.
[5][6][7] Beginning in April 1973, as the Watergate scandal began to unravel, Magruder and Dean both gave public and private testimony that was very damaging to John Mitchell.