“Stay Free”

May 10, 2010 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under In Memoriam, Nixon Administration, Nixon Administration figures | Leave a Comment 

Alaska Lt. Governor candidate and Chair of the U.S. Arctic Commission Mead Treadwell on Walter Hickel:

Gov. Wally Hickel, who invited me in to his world when I was a high school grad visiting Alaska in 1974, and in the 36 years I worked with him, here in Alaska and around the world, helped me learn a million things — about Alaska, the world, business, ethics, and staying free –passed away 90 minutes ago.

“Stay Free.” I don’t know if it will be his epitaph, but he said many times that’s what it should be, and that’s what we should live by.

Historians will take many slices of Wally, but my take is this: Tonight Alaskans lost a leader who, again and again, showed us how to stand up for our potential and how to achieve it. He was most proud that he helped delay Alaska Statehood, unt il Congress guaranteed the 103 million acre land grant to the State (of Alaska’s 375 million acres) that came with our star on the flag. For Alaska, that made all the difference. We are a whole state instead of one split in half as the Eisenhower Administration suggested with a partition to make Arctic Alaska a defense reserve. The North Slope oil fields helped all of us build an economy, and our people live in one Alaska, not a state and a territory which would have disenfranchised Alaska’s North Slope residents.

In my last conversation with him of length, at breakfast in the Pantry of the Hotel Captain Cook, with Malcolm Roberts and Carole Chambers, he encouraged me to run for Lt. Governor this year. He could not have been more bullish about Alaska’s opportunities, and, speaking of them, told Malcolm in a later phone call, “Get the job done!” At breakfast that day, he had that totally amused smile on his face as he asked us to repeat back to him stories he’d told us over the years.

In the room with him at the hospital last weekend, I was reminded of something he did with his kids, and those of us on his staff from time to time, when things got tough. We’d grab both hands, hold them for a few seconds and say “battery chargers” to each other, eye to eye. His spark could start a lot of cold engines, and stir a lot of hearts.

Godspeed, Wally Hickel, and love to your family. He often asked that he be buried standing up — so he won’t have to get up to fight! And he often joked he hoped St. Peter would send him back, because there are just so many good things left to do.

Oil Spills And Federal Leadership

May 8, 2010 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Environmental issues, Nixon Administration, Nixon Administration figures, Richard Nixon, U.S. History | 1 Comment 

Walter Hickel’s death comes at a time when the nation is focused on the causes and consequences of offshore oil spills.  As the newly-minted Secretary of the Interior —literally newly-minted, having only been confirmed six days earlier— Wally Hickel had to deal with one of the worst such disasters.

On the afternoon of 29 January 1969, a Union Oil platform six miles off the Santa Barbara coast suffered a blowout.  Over the next eleven days, workers struggled to cap the rupture while hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil spread into an 800 square mile slick that killed wildlife and tarred beaches along 35 miles of pristine coast.

The Hickel Senate confirmation hearings at been bitterly controversial; they set new levels of political acrimony that, finally, even embarrassed some of the interlocutors.  When the vote was finally taken after RN’s inauguration —making Hickel the last confirmed Cabinet member— the new President called and suggested that the new Secretary relax for a weekend at Camp David.

In a wide-ranging and fascinating conversation in 2003 with Charles Wilkinson and Patricia Limerick —co-founders of the Center of the American West— Wally Hickel recalled those events:

So I was confirmed and the president called and said, “Wally, go to Camp David. You’ve been through a terrible thing.” So I went up to Camp David, I left my chief of staff in Washington. I was up there one day and he called me. He said, “Mr. Secretary, they’ve had a terrible oil spill down in Santa Barbara.” He said, “It’s really bad.” And I said, “Well, get me a plane, let’s get out there.” And I hadn’t even been in my office yet. I got down there and we flew out to California and the Coast Guard met me and God, the people. It was rough.

They flew me out to see that. There’s pictures of that. I saw this tremendous flood of oil. And the people were saying, who was in office, and they were saying, “Take that Union Oil thing. Do this. Do that.” I was at the Biltmore Hotel in Santa Barbara that night. It was 1:30 in the morning. Fred Hartley was there, Union Oil. I didn’t know what authority he had. It didn’t make any difference. I said, “Fred, I’m going to shut you down.” And he said, “Mr. Secretary, you don’t have the authority to shut me down.” That stopped me for about a second and a half. I walked over and looked him right in the eye and said, “Fred, I just gave myself the authority.”

I walked out of there. I got on the phone and called the attorney general’s office and got the answering service. It was very early in the morning there in Washington, about 5:30 or so. I said, “You find me a way that I can shut them down, I just did that.”

I got on a plane and went back to Washington and got back there about ten o’clock the next morning. The Attorney General called me and said, “Mr. Secretary, we think we have something that will really please you. We found a regulation that was put in in 1834 that says that the Secretary of Interior is responsible that our natural resources not be wasted.” I held on that and won the case.

The problem with that was I got the regulations sent to me the first day down there in their office and the previous administration had given them [Union Oil] the right to drill offshore, and I didn’t mind that. But the regulations they used were the same as on land. So in reality, Union Oil didn’t break any regulations.

So I go back out to Santa Barbara and it was really wild. We had a meeting in a convention hall; there were two to three hundred people. They were saying, “Get Union Oil. Do this.” I said, “Wait a minute. They didn’t break any laws. We didn’t have the right regulations.” And they calmed down. I said, “That is not Union’s oil. It belongs to us. It’s the commons.”

I closed them down and we had hearings later. But those hearings were tough. I had no animosity. I sat there. God must have caused that spill in Santa Barbara because it brought the commons in to me.

Alaska was the commons. I had had that battle since 1951 when I took it to Washington. It started the environmentalist thinking. It started that thinking and it became a busy two years. But that was part of the hearing. Long story, but I don’t know how to make it shorter.

New York Times Obituary of Walter Hickel

May 8, 2010 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Environmental issues, In Memoriam, Nixon Administration figures | Leave a Comment 

The New York Times has just put up a lengthy obituary of Walter J. Hickel, two-time Alaskan Governor and President Nixon’s first Secretary of the Interior who died last night in Anchorage.

With Governor Hickel’s passing, George P. Shultz (Secretary of Labor, 1969-1970) and Melvin R. Laird (Secretary of Defense, 1969-1973) are now the last living members of the Cabinet that entered office with RN.

Walter J. Hickel   1919-2010

May 8, 2010 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Environmental issues, In Memoriam, Nixon Administration, Nixon Administration figures, U.S. History | Leave a Comment 

“The conservationists cheered me when we fought against pollution or when we preserved park lands; they attacked me when we advanced the Alaska Pipeline and the North America energy grid. My friends and associates in business were equally perplexed. I was not their guy. I was not anyone’s guy.”

PJB – C-SPAN – 5.2.10 – NOON EST

May 1, 2010 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under American Politics, Ideas, Media, Nixon Administration, Nixon Administration figures, Politics, Richard Nixon, U.S. History | Leave a Comment 

Pat Buchanan will be the guest tomorrow on C-SPAN’s monthly three hour interview and call in show In Depth.

Back in the day: PJB in his EOB office.  RN recruited the youngster —his first hire for his new presidential campaign— in 1967 from the editorial page of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat.  He served on the White House staff until 1975.

RN’s Environmental Record

April 22, 2010 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Domestic issues, Environmental issues, Nixon Administration, Nixon Administration figures, Richard Nixon, U.S. History | Leave a Comment 

In the Winter 1996 issue of the Presidential Studies Quarterly, Russell Train, the distinguished environmentalist and Chairman Emeritus of the World Wildlife Fund, wrote a long and thoughtful summary of “The Environmental Record of the Nixon Administration.”

In 1968, Mr. Train, an attorney with a long record of public service and environmental pioneering, was asked by President-Elect Nixon to serve as Chairman of a Task Force on the Environment.  During the early years of the Nixon administration, Mr. Train was Undersecretary of the Interior (1969-70) and Chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality (1970-73).

In September 1973, RN appointed him second administrator of the new Environmental Protection Agency (replacing William Ruckelshaus).  He served in that capacity under RN and Gerald Ford until January 1977, when he joined the World Wildlife Fund — first as President of WWF-US and then as the organization’s Chairman, until 1994.

Among his many worldwide honors are the US Medal of Freedom for his work in the field of conservation (1991) and the Heinz Awards Chairman’s Medal (2006).

Mr. Train opened his article with a general survey:

In his State of the Union Address of January 22, 1970, President Nixon declared: “The great question of the seventies is, shall we surrender to our surroundings, or shall we make our peace with nature and begin to make reparations for the damage we have done to our air, our land and our water? …. Clean air, clean water, open spaces — these should once again be the birthright of every American. If we act now they can be.” Expansive rhetoric to be sure, but the rhetoric was matched by a remarkable record of achievement.

Environmental protection represented without doubt in my mind the single most significant area of domestic policy accomplishment of the Nixon administration. The extraordinary number of legislative, administrative, and institutional initiatives dealing with environmental matters far exceed those in any other area of domestic policy. Moreover, the initiatives in this one field were remarkable not only for their sheer quantity but also for their scope and innovativeness.

The Nixon environmental program dealt with both domestic and international policy, institutional reform, pollution control, tax policy, wildlife protection, land use policy, parks and open space (particularly urban open space), historic preservation, and many other facets of the environmental equation. It was truly a comprehensive effort that stretched from 1969 through 1973, probably peaking in 1972, and later giving way to energy concerns that arose from the several Arab oil embargoes. In large part, the results of the Nixon initiatives remain in place today and form the foundation for the country’s ongoing environmental programs.

While environmental initiatives by President Nixon on the international front tended to be obscured by other more dramatic foreign policy accomplishments, during his administration the United States provided the principal leadership for both bilateral and multilateral international efforts in the field of environmental cooperation.

He concluded by noting that:

Whatever the president’s personal predilections in the area, the Nixon administration not only recognized and responded to the ground swell of public concern over the environment, but it was out front on the issue, the essence of political leadership. Indeed, in some aspects of its environmental initiatives, such as land use policy, the administration was well ahead of its time. In the international arena, the United States under the Nixon administration cajoled and prodded the nations of the world to cooperate in addressing critical environmental It has been a hard act to follow.

The entire article may be obtained here.

Larry Higby Honored With Horatio Alger Award

April 13, 2010 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Nixon Administration, Nixon Administration figures, White House | Leave a Comment 

Nixon Foundation board member and former RN Assistant Chief-of-Staff Larry Higby is among 2010’s recipients of the Horatio Alger Award. The award is given every year to “dedicated community leaders who demonstrate individual initiative and a commitment to excellence; as exemplified by remarkable achievements accomplished through honesty, hard work, self-reliance and perseverance over adversity.”

After serving in the White House, Higby served as Vice President at Unocal 76 and Times Mirror Company. He recently retired from his position as CEO of Apria Health Care Group.

Higby was featured in the latest Nixon Legacy Forum, The Effective Use of the President’s Time, along with Nixon Foundation President Ron Walker, Dwight Chapin, and Steve Bull (watch the forum here) on Presidents’ Day.

Also on Presidents’ Day, Higby was interviewed by RN Special Assistant Frank Gannon on his role in the Nixon White House and the management style of Chief-of-Staff H.R. Haldeman:

Hope For All C Students

April 13, 2010 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, National Security, News media, Nixon Administration, Nixon Administration figures, Presidents, Richard Nixon, U.S. History | Leave a Comment 

The FBI file of Pulitzer-winning columnist and Nixon White House speechwriter, the late William Safire, has become public. The Associated Press’s Jessica Gresko describes the contents:

Some of the earliest material dates from 1969, when investigators did a background check on Safire, who was joining the Nixon White House as a speech writer. The FBI’s investigators learned that Safire, then 39, had been an “honor senior” at the Bronx High School of Science and served as circulation manager of the newspaper. As a student at Syracuse University between 1947 and 1949, he had an average “just short of a B” before quitting the school. Later, while running his own public relations firm, he had clients such as The Good Humor Corporation and Ex-Lax Inc. in Brooklyn.

The bulk of the file is only partly related to Safire, however, and includes an investigation into the wiretapping, which lasted from 1969 into 1971 and was apparently started because of leaks surrounding Strategic Arms Limitation Talks. The talks between the U.S. and Soviet Union were on the subject of arms control. The documents show Safire was among more than a dozen people, including some at the White House and four journalists, whose phones were tapped. The wiretap on Safire lasted four months and found nothing.

“I have a thing about wiretapping,” Safire said on “Meet The Press” in 2006, describing what had happened to him and referencing wiretapping during the Bush administration. “I didn’t like that … it told me how easy it was to just take somebody who was not really suspected of anything for any good reason and listen to every conversation in his home.”

Anatoly F. Dobrynin, RIP

April 9, 2010 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under Cold War, Cuba, International Affairs, National Security, Nixon Administration, Nixon Administration figures, Presidents, Richard Nixon, Russia, UN | Leave a Comment 

Yesterday, the death of Anatoly Fyodorovich Dobrynin, the Soviet Union’s ambassador to the United States from 1962 to 1986, was announced in Moscow. He was 90.

Few diplomats served as long in Washington as Dobrynin. (One who served longer was Ernest Jaakson, who was the representative of the Estonian government-in-exile in Washington, then of the revived nation of Estonia, from 1965 until 1993, and who replaced Dobrynin as dean of the capital’s diplomatic corps in 1986, rather to the latter’s irritation.) During those three-plus decades, he served five Soviet leaders (Khruschchev, Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko and Gorbachev) during six Administrations (Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Reagan).

The two most significant achievements of Dobrynin’s tenure in Washington came in 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and ten years later, when he played a central role on the Soviet side in negotiating the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty. The Cuban crisis came six months after his arrival in DC, following a period serving as United Nations Undersecretary-General under Dag Hammarskjold. During the months before President Kennedy learned of Soviet missiles on Cuban territory, Dobrynin managed to establish contacts with Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy that proved to be the basis of the back-channel negotiations that ultimately defused what, to date, has been the most dangerous military situation the world has faced since 1945. None of Dobrynin’s predecessors as Soviet Ambassador had shown anything approaching his diplomatic poise and skill; had he not been on the scene, events might have taken a tragic turn.

A decade later, Dobrynin, negotiating with National Security Advisor Dr. Henry Kissinger, helped to assemble the ABM treaty, which, for nearly forty years, has been the cornerstone on which the disarmament agreements between the US and USSR (and later Russia) have been built. He also considerably facilitated the process which led to the SALT I agreement of 1972, and helped further the meetings between Richard Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev which resulted in full-scale detente between the superpowers.

It should be emphasized that Dobrynin, despite his willingness to steep himself in American culture and his genial persona, was always a loyal representative of the Soviet regime and its ideology. When faced with the human-rights stance of President Carter, he gave no ground, and, in the years before Mikhail Gorbachev gained power, took many a hard-line position where Soviet actions abroad were concerned, especially in Afghanistan and Nicaragua. In his 1995 autobiography, In Confidence, he made it clear that he was unhappy to see the Soviet Union disintegrate. But it should be remembered that as a diplomat, he was committed to dialogue over confrontation, wherever and whenever he thought it possible, and that commitment helped the process which ultimately decreased and finally ended the dangerous tensions of the Cold War.

The Russian site RT.com offers these tributes from Dr. Kissinger, who so many times faced the Ambassador across a negotiating table, and Donald Kendall, a close friend of President Nixon’s:

Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger remembers Dobrynin when, during the Cold War, he was working in Washington DC, heading the Russian Embassy there. “First he was my professional partner,” says Kissinger, “and then gradually, he became my friend.” Even though, he says, the Soviet politics of those times which the ambassador was standing by, often went against the US policies, “he was always trying to achieve peace, to reduce tensions and to stand by a more peaceful life on the planet,” says the former US Secretary of State. “I think of him with respect and warm-hearted feelings,” concludes Kissinger.

“I hope Dobrynin will get the memorial that he deserves,” said Donald Kendall, former head of the PepsiCo in an interview to ITAR-TASS news agency. He suggested that both Russia and the United States should put a monument to Dobrynin, as a sign of honor and respect for his achievements.

Kendall is convinced that Dobrynin’s “fantastic diplomatic skills” have several times “saved the relationships” between Moscow and Washington. “I have stressed this many times, that if in those times there would have been a different ambassador in Washington, then there could have been a real war between the two countries.”

Bruce Herschensohn’s New Book

March 31, 2010 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under International Affairs, Nixon Administration figures, Nixon Library events, Nixon in the News, Presidents, Richard Nixon, U.S. History, Vietnam | 9 Comments 

On April 19, political commentator, former assistant to President Nixon, and 1992 Republican senatorial candidate Bruce Herschensohn comes to the Nixon Library to discuss his new book American Amnesia, which presents his thesis that had Congress been prepared to support Presidents Nixon and Ford when they asked for military aid to South Vietnam after North Vietnamese violations of the 1973 peace accords, then Hanoi’s forces would not have been able to defeat that nation in 1975. The theme of his book has particular relevance as American forces prepare to depart from Iraq, a nation whose future may be determined by the whims of its eastern neighbor Iran unless the United States is ready to ensure otherwise. In today’s Victorville (California) Daily Press, Herschensohn discusses his book:

On January 27, 1973, the Paris Peace Accords were signed by the United States, North Vietnam, South Vietnam and the Viet Cong. North Vietnam agreed to an immediate cease fire, and South Vietnam was promised the same sort of freedoms guaranteed Americans under the First Amendment.

Officially, the war was over.

But, Herschensohn says, the U.S. wasn’t so naive as to believe there would be no more hostilities by North Vietnam after American troops went home. So, the accords promised piece-for-piece replacement of any military assets South Vietnam used to defend itself after the Americans left.

“We didn’t do it,” Herschensohn said flatly. “Congress saw a way that we could lose (the war) by not appropriating funds in the piece-for-piece provision.”

Editors note: Bruce Herschensohn will be at the Nixon Library on Monday, April 19, to discuss and sign copies of American Amnesia. For more information click here.

3.12.70

March 12, 2010 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Nixon Administration, Nixon Administration figures, Richard Nixon, U.S. History | Leave a Comment 

In 1968 RN appointed Roy Ash Chairman of the President’s Council on Executive Organization.  The Ash Council’s 1969 Report recommended the creation of a Domestic Council and an Office of Management and Budget.  Ash became OMB’s Director in 1972.

Forty years ago today, after fourteen months of study and refinement, RN unveiled his Reorganization Plan 2 of 1970, including  the Domestic Council and the Office of Management and Budget.

The Nixon Administration’s innovations regarding executive office management and efficiency and government reorganization have been among its most enduring legacies.  As the Nixon Foundation and the Nixon Presidential Library examine the administration’s domestic legacy each month in the Nixon Legacy Forums, this March 12th Transmittal Message is the Ur-document outlining the organizational and operational structure that would help effect and enable President Nixon’s New American Revolution.

In his Transmittal Message to Congress,  RN described the problem before presenting his solution.

The past 30 years have seen enormous changes in the size, structure and functions of the Federal Government. The budget has grown from less than $10 bib lion to $200 billion. The number of civilian employees has risen from one million to more than two and a half million. Four new Cabinet departments have been created, along with more than a score of independent agencies. Domestic policy issues have become increasingly complex. The interrelationships among Government programs have become more intricate. Yet the organization of the President’s policy and management arms has not kept pace.

Over three decades, the Executive Office of the President has mushroomed but not by conscious design. In many areas it does not provide the kind of staff assistance and support the President needs in order to deal with the problems of Government in the 1970’s. We confront the 1970’s with a staff organization geared in large measure to the tasks of the 1940’s and 1950’s.

The lessons learned from Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s 1969 Urban Affairs Council, and the Cabinet Committee on the Environment and the Council for Rural Affairs,  were applied to the structuring of the more comprehensive Domestic Council:

Among the specific policy functions in which I intend the Domestic Council to take the lead are these:

• Assessing national needs, collecting information and developing forecasts, for the purpose of defining national goals and objectives.
• Identifying alternative ways of achieving these objectives, and recommending consistent, integrated sets of policy choices.
• Providing rapid response to Presidential needs for policy advice on pressing domestic issues.
• Coordinating the establishment of national priorities for the allocation of available resources.

RN and  Domestic Council Executive Director John Ehrlichman at the Western White House in San Clemente in February 1973.

The creation of the Office of Management and Budget represented the wrenching of the old Bureau of the Budget into the seventh decade of the twentieth century:

However, creation of the Office of Management and Budget represents far more than a mere change of name for the Bureau of the Budget. It represents a basic change in concept and emphasis, reflecting the broader management needs of the Office of the President.

The new Office will still perform the key function of assisting the President in the preparation of the annual Federal budget and overseeing its execution. It will draw upon the skills and experience of the extraordinarily able and dedicated career staff developed by the Bureau of the Budget. But preparation of the budget as such will no longer be its dominant, overriding concern.

While the budget function remains a vital tool of management, it will be strengthened by the greater emphasis the new office will place on fiscal analysis. The budget function is only one of several important management tools that the President must now have. He must also have a substantially enhanced institutional staff capability in other areas of executive management-particularly in program evaluation and coordination, improvement of Executive Branch organization, information and management systems, and development of executive talent. Under this plan, strengthened capability in these areas will be provided partly through internal reorganization, and it will also require additional staff resources.

The new Office of Management and Budget will place much greater emphasis on the evaluation of program performance: on assessing the extent to which programs are actually achieving their intended results, and delivering the intended services to the intended recipients. This is needed on a continuing basis, not as a one-time effort. Program evaluation will remain a function of the individual agencies as it is today. However, a single agency cannot fairly be expected to judge overall effectiveness in programs that cross agency lines–and the difference between agency and Presidential perspectives requires a capacity in the Executive Office to evaluate program performance whenever appropriate.

The President’s Daily News Summary — Part IV

March 11, 2010 by Jon Hoornstra | Filed Under Nixon Administration, Nixon Administration figures, White House | Leave a Comment 

The ‘Best’ Part of a News Summary

Newspaper readers have their favorite sections. Everyone sees the headlines, but readers scatter after that: some to the comics, others to sports and still others straight to the obituaries and the weather.

RN’s news summaries, however, offered a section unlike any other publication. It was the stand-alone page at the back that listed each story broadcast by the television networks and the amount of time allocated — to the minute and second. That time log served both as an “index” of stories as well as a measure of the importance the networks attached to each story. It was important for the White House to know what the networks thought was important because that was a key to public perception. The time log also compensated for a difference between print journalism and broadcast. Newspaper readers immediately see the importance assigned to a story by placement, headlines, and column inches. By contrast, the currency for broadcasters is time and story order. Time allocated to stories was also an indirect indicator of potential bias, though hardly conclusive by itself. Future researchers might find a number of uses for those time sheets. At a minimum they are quick reference to the stories of each day.

A complaint sometimes heard from journalists about news summaries was how the truncated style made them difficult to read, i.e., extensive use of abbreviations and a conscious decision to never tell the president what he already knew (e.g., “RN gave a speech on the economy today … “) or to repeat each newspaper or broadcaster’s introduction to each story. What was included was whatever was unique to each broadcast or print publication, i.e., how each characterized RN’s speech, from both anchors and reporters. Reactions from major political stakeholders were always included. The format and writing style would treat a hypothetical RN speech on the economy like this:

RN speech on the economy led
nets and front pages of most dailies.
ABC anchor Smith led into Jarriel’s
report from the WH by calling it
“a bold move.” NBC’s Chancellor called it
“a plan sure to invite criticism from Democrats”
as he went to Brokaw at the WH. At CBS,
Cronkite said it could be “an exercise in
futility,” an opinion promptly shared by Rather
in a standup from the North Lawn.

A primary goal was to make sure we got the quotes and attributions right.

Another characteristic new readers noticed was how senior administration officials were identified only by initials. The President was always RN, of course, Haldeman was HRH, Ehrlichman was JDE, Buchanan was PJB and Henry Kissinger was HAK. The most prominent person in the White House who was never initialized was the First Lady. Other significant White House personnel were usually referred by last name.

Building a House

News summaries were constructed like a new house, from the ground up. The foundation and “framing” were made up of AP and UPI wire copy put on an oversized work table, sorted by topic. In the late afternoon, editor Mort Allin took the stacks and sorted them into a sequence that he expected the television networks would follow (he was usually right). He stapled AP and UPI wire copy to sheets of yellow legal size paper, while striking out repetitive lines and words. Arrows indicated where the network summaries would be inserted. To confirm accuracy, the White House Communications Agency replayed requested reports over one of two closed-circuit television channels. As writers finished network summaries, Allin’s black pen (sometimes helped by scissors) integrated all the copy. The end result was a scary stack of marked up wire copy and TV summaries, patched together with staples, scotch tape and lots of marker pen arrows to lead the typists to the right place. From an artistic perspective, it was ugly. When someone once told Allin that artist Jackson Pollock would be right at home, Allin continued to work as he said, “I hear he’s a revered artist.”

A squad of typists worked late into the night and miraculously converted all of it into sensible typewritten copy. A game score might be added at the last minute to serve RN’s strong interest in sports. Once corrections were made, RN’s copy was placed in a blue binder sometime after midnight and delivered to a security guard in the West Wing.

The 1972 Reelection – then Watergate

Around sunset on election night Marine One landed on the South Lawn. RN had arrived a few hours before polls would close in the East. I was part of a group of staffers who formed a greeting line at the entrance to the Diplomatic Reception Room. To say we were excited would be an understatement.  We were about to witness a landslide reelection. As RN came under the canopy I said, “We’ve got it, sir.” With a measured smile he said, “We’ll see.” I’m sure there was a trace of doubt in his voice.

But it was a landslide. RN captured more than 47 million votes to George McGovern’s 29.1 million, a difference of nearly 18 million. Morale soared and all hands were ready to pursue second term goals.

That was 38 years ago. Then Watergate became more prominent, sometimes dominant in the news; it seemed to have no end. When researchers read news summaries from that time they will find that we faithfully recorded all the Watergate news and harsh editorial criticisms aimed at RN, including special reviews of headlines and editorials from newspapers across the U.S. As I watched and listened to colleagues, staff morale seemed to erode in slow motion. The purpose and energy I found at the White House in January 1972 was dissipating against a backdrop of investigations, firings and resignations.

One morning in 1973 I learned that Pat Buchanan didn’t get along well with machinery. He came into the office carrying a sheet of paper, turned upside down. He quietly handed it to me and asked if I would copy it for him. “Don’t read it, just bring it back to me,” he added. I have wondered from time to time if I would not have read it if he’d never told me not to read it. But the truth is I couldn’t determine if the copy was readable if I didn’t look at it. So I looked. It was a memo to Ehrlichman that was so short that I grasped the 3 or 4 lines in one glance. Buchanan wrote that he wouldn’t join a group to plan a Watergate strategy. “I believe this would be a waste of my time,” he wrote. I was amazed. “Wow,” I said aloud. It was “wow” because not many people could get away with a blunt “no” to Ehrlichman – and keep their job. Buchanan kept his job, but doesn’t recall it as a memo to Ehrlichman, but Haldeman.

Presumably the memo is in Buchanan’s papers scheduled to arrived in Yorba Linda this year.

Haldeman and Ehrlichman resigned in April 1973. Archibald Cox was appointed a special prosecutor in May. And the Senate created a select committee on May 17 to investigate Watergate, the committee chaired by the colorful (and late) Sen. Sam Ervin (D.NC.). I made very few diary entries in those days, but that day was also my 30th birthday. My only entry was, “How long will this go on?”

Summers in Washington are hot and humid. The intensity of the Watergate stories grew during the summers of ’73 and ’74, often making those summers as miserable indoors as out. The mounting tension and emergence of Watergate as the dominant news week after week took a toll. One morning in May our secretary and I were alone when she suddenly slumped down into her chair and quietly wept. I put the AP wire down and sat next to her.

“Why are they doing this to him?” she asked. “When will this ever stop?”

I had no good answer. She pulled herself together and struggled through the day. A few minutes later I walked into Buchanan’s office with pretty much the same question.

“Is there no end to this, Pat?” He was as frustrated as anyone else. “What would you have me do?” he asked rhetorically. No one had answers.

The Last Days

The Senate Watergate Committee issued its final report in June 1974. The House Judiciary Committee voted three Articles of Impeachment in July and RN announced his resignation in a television broadcast on the night of August 8, 1974. Mort Allin, arguably one of the most dedicated and loyal members of RN’s staff, strode out of our offices and into the West Wing where he tracked down a gaggle of reporters (Peter Lisagor among them) clustered in a rear area of the press briefing room. Allin flipped a #2 pencil end-over-end at them, yelling, “Okay you bastards you finally got what you wanted. I hope you’re happy.” Allin returned to the office, grabbed a few things, then drove through the night to his family home in Wisconsin. He never returned to work at the White House, but had a great career at USIA including diplomatic posts in Lagos, Nigeria and Moscow.

With Allin gone, there would be no news summary the next morning, so I made the 20 minute walk to my Q St. apartment, fell into bed exhausted and numb from the trauma of witnessing the fall of a president. But there would be little sleep. At 2:00 a.m. the phone rang with the unmistakable voice of Diane Sawyer [now ABC News anchor], then an assistant to Press Secretary Ron Ziegler. Could I return to the office and prepare “just one more news summary for the President to take on the flight to San Clemente?” she asked. Of course I could. It’s amazing where energy comes from when asked to do something for the president. It was like magic, but I was definitely puzzled that RN would even want a news summary, given all that he had been endured. Perhaps it was just Sawyer who wanted to have a touch of normalcy for RN. I reminded her that the news summary was now a one-man office, but I would do as much as I could. The task was complicated because the networks dropped normal broadcast schedules for live news coverage virtually all day. There would be no obvious starting point. I’ve long forgotten what went into that last summary. I believe my review was limited to ABC and NBC (no CBS). I had to stop by 7:00 a.m. to allow time for the typists to prepare it and get it to the West Wing.

Later that morning, I sat in a chair in the East Room where the staff assembled to hear RN’s farewell. The emotional distress was palpable. I think I saw a tear or two on RN’s face; we all cried inside. It’s a memory I cannot forget. I was too exhausted to go the South Lawn to see RN and family board Marine 1 for the last time. I should have made myself do it.

A unexpected touch of irony came that morning from The Washington Post, one of two papers RN always read for himself. The irony was that the paper’s main account of the resignation was not written by Woodward or Bernstein, but by Carroll Kilpatrick with this lead:

“After two years of bitter public debate over the Watergate scandals, President Nixon bowed to pressures from the public and leaders of his party to become the first President in American history to resign.” Caroll Kilpatrick in the Washington Post, Aug. 9, 1974

A Warrior And A Statesman Laid To Rest

March 4, 2010 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under In Memoriam, Military, Nixon Administration figures, Presidents, Richard Nixon, U.S. History | Leave a Comment 

On Tuesday morning at the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, on the campus of Catholic University in Washington, about 800 mourners attended a funeral Mass for Gen. Alexander Haig. Among the priests conducting the liturgy was his brother, Father Francis Haig. The mourners included two of Gen. Haig’s fellow former Secretaries of State, Dr. Henry A. Kissinger and Gen. Colin Powell; Secretary of Defense Robert Gates; Sen. Joseph Lieberman; former National Security Advisor Robert “Bud” McFarlane; former US Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton; former HEW Secretary Joseph Califano; comedian Mort Sahl; and many who have served or are serving in America’s armed forces.

During the Mass, Dr. Kissinger (as reported by Richard Szczepanowski of Catholic News Service) spoke about the service Gen. Haig rendered to the nation in helping to arrange the transition from one Presidency to another at a time of national tumult:

“He served as chief of staff in a diseased presidency,” Kissinger said. “He did not want the job, but he did not turn it down out of the reverence he had for the institution of the presidency.”

“At the end, Al was essential in helping this country through its greatest crisis since the Civil War,” Kissinger said. “Americans will remember Al with a special gratitude.”

Following the Mass, Gen. Haig was interred at Arlington National Cemetary, where his brother gave a blessing as his remains were lowered into the soil where so many fellow patriots and heroes rest. Here is a short article about the burial, accompanied by a two-minute video of the burial service. The American Spectator’s Quin Hillyer has written this account of the Basilica service. And here is the U.S. Army News Service’s press release about the burial.

Bob Brown Remembers

February 28, 2010 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Civil rights, Nixon Administration figures, Presidents, Richard Nixon, U.S. History, White House | Leave a Comment 

Today concludes Black History Month 2010, and the Greensboro (North Carolina) News & Record marks it with an interview with Bob Brown, who was the White House aide in charge of minority affairs in President Nixon’s first term. He recalls:

When Brown [after Election Day 1968] entered the room where Nixon was holding court, the president-elect introduced him to everyone as, “One of my new assistants.”

When the others left, Nixon got down to business.

“He said, ‘I know you weren’t looking for a job. I need you. There will be no impediments to our relationship … you will have access and in Washington everything is built around access.’ He said if you want to get anything done, you’ve got to go to Washington. He said if you want to get done all those notes you sent me, you’ve got to come to Washington with me.”

And from his office in the White House complex — with four secretaries and three assistants — Brown went about fulfilling some of those promises, and other needs he saw firsthand, such as finding a funding tap for financially struggling black colleges trying to educate future leaders[...]

Nixon, who Brown said got little recognition for efforts to improve race relations, always backed him up.

“He trusted my judgment,” Brown said.

Brown wouldn’t change a thing about his time on staff with Nixon.

“It was four years and two months of incredible,” he said.

Al Haig In Conversation

February 27, 2010 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Cold War, International Affairs, Middle East, Military, News media, Nixon Administration figures, Presidents, Richard Nixon, U.S. History, Vietnam, Watergate | Leave a Comment 

In 2000, James Rosen of Fox News interviewed Gen. Alexander Haig for his biography of John Mitchell. That book, The Strong Man, was published eight years later. But it turns out that, in the course of the three-hour conversation, the General talked of many other things besides Watergate, with his customary verve and forcefulness, and in tomorrow’s Washington Post, there’s an article by Rosen in which Gen. Haig ranges from Vietnam to America’s policy toward Lebanon to the first Gulf War. Also worth reading is the comment on the article by Ken Hughes of the Miller Presidential Center at the University of Virginia.

Dr. Kissinger’s Tribute to General Haig

February 25, 2010 by admin | Filed Under In Memoriam, Nixon Administration figures, U.S. History, Vietnam | 2 Comments 

At Time’s site today, Dr. Henry A. Kissinger writes about Gen. Alexander Haig’s passing:

Societies become rich through ingenuity and hard work. But they become great because they produce men and women who lift them beyond the moment. Alexander Haig, who served his country during turbulent times, was such a person. I recruited him for the National Security Council staff as my deputy. One of his principal tasks was to help end a war that President Richard Nixon had inherited and in which Al had fought. It proved a heartrending journey, especially for a soldier. But with typical skill and dedication, Al carried out the many vital missions entrusted to him, including the dual tasks of extricating America from war while preserving the nation’s honor.

Diane Sawyer Speaks About Richard Nixon

February 25, 2010 by admin | Filed Under News media, Nixon Administration figures, Presidents, Richard Nixon, U.S. History | 1 Comment 

As many of TNN’s readers know, Diane Sawyer, the veteran newswoman who now anchors ABC’s World News Tonight, spent the 1970s working in Richard Nixon’s White House, then, after his resignation from the Presidency, in San Clemente as his assistant for his Memoirs.

In her thirty years on network television, Ms. Sawyer’s occasionally been asked, on the air and in newspaper and magazine interviews, about her years with RN. But I don’t recall any interview that’s focused completely on her work for him – until now.

Today, Parade magazine published a somewhat short but still highly interesting Q-and-A in which Ms. Sawyer speaks about her impressions of RN, and especially how he viewed journalists. Here’s a representative quote:

“I think he thought that, institutionally, journalists – and I think you can argue with some cause – were not going to be on his side, for a number of reasons, not just political ones. He just didn’t have the easily accessed charm that journalists love so. If you read his diaries, he writes at one point about John Kennedy and what it must have been like to be John Kennedy and walk into a room and take it over. He was much more of an interior person who had to will himself in some ways to be a public person. I don’t think it was about my having gone to join the dark side or the enemy. I think it was more than anything I was someone he knew and understood who could bring him word back about this other craft was like.”

China Mourns The Passing Of Al Haig

February 23, 2010 by admin | Filed Under China, Nixon Administration, Nixon Administration figures, Richard Nixon | 1 Comment 

Just one day before the thirty-eight anniversary of RN’s historic trip to China, Gen. Alexander Haig passed away. Today the Chinese are remembering him for his work in strengthening Sino-American relations:

BEIJING: China on Monday expressed “deep condolence” over the death of former US Secretary of State Alexander Haig for his “positive contribution” to the China-US relationship.

“We deeply mourn over General Haig’s death and express sincere condolences to his family,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said Monday.

“General Haig has always endeavored to promote the China-US friendship, and has made positive contribution for the development of the bilateral relations,” Qin said.

The veteran politician passed away at 85 on February 20 at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, from complications associated with an infection.

Haig, who was born in December, 1924, is a retired Army four-star general and served as the State Secretary under President Ronald Reagan form January 22, 1981 to July 5, 1982. He also has served as a top adviser to former presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.

On January 1972, Haig paid his first China visit to make preparation for Nixon’s historic visit to China.

In 2009 when China and the United States commemorated the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations, Haig reportedly said he had visited China for more than 50 times since 1972 and would like to be a supporter of the development of China-US relations.

Your World On General Haig

February 22, 2010 by admin | Filed Under Nixon Administration, Nixon Administration figures, Richard Nixon | 4 Comments 

Neil Cavuto on his Common Sense segment:

By now, you’ve no doubt heard the news that America lost a hero this past weekend. Alexander Haig has died.

You’ve heard how this four-star general and former NATO commander served three presidents. How he shepherded Richard Nixon and us through that resignation. And prematurely told the world he was in charge right after Ronald Reagan’s near assassination.

All the stuff of history. For me, Haig was the stuff of fun interviews: engaging, humorous and unabashedly frank. And over the years, they just got better – they don’t get much better than that.

A shout-out this day to all interviewees – try to top that

The general leaves a high mark.

Watch Nixon Legacy Forum Live on C-SPAN.org

February 21, 2010 by admin | Filed Under Nixon Administration, Nixon Administration figures, Richard Nixon | 1 Comment 

Update (2/22/2010, 7:28am PST): The Effective Use of the President’s Time is now available on demand:

The second Nixon Legacy forum, The Effective Use of the President’s Time is now streaming live on C-SPAN.org.Watch as four West Wing staff discuss how they scheduled, briefed and moved President Nixon in the White House and around the world.

Their work in the Executive office of the President was groundbreaking in the development of the modern Presidency.

It will air again today at 4pm and 10pm PST and again on Monday morning at 1am PST.

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