“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.

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.”

Jerald F. terHorst and Eugene Allen, RIP

April 2, 2010 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, In Memoriam, News media, Nixon Administration, Presidents, Richard Nixon, U.S. History, White House | Leave a Comment 

Wednesday marked the passing of two men who, in their respective ways, were part of memorable moments in White House history. In Takoma Park, Maryland, Eugene Allen died at age 90. He joined the White House pantry staff in the last months of the Truman presidency, and rose through the ranks for the next 34 years, retiring in 1986 after five years as the White House maitre d’.

Allen traveled with President Nixon on the historic visit to Romania in 1969, the first time a President had visited the Communist world in peacetime, and shortly before his retirement he, along with his wife, had the honor of attending a state dinner for German Chancellor Helmut Kohl as Ronald and Nancy Reagan’s guests. After two decades of quiet retirement, Allen gained national prominence in November 2008 when he was the subject of a fascinating and moving article in the Washington Post by Wil Haygood.

And, in North Carolina, Jerald F. terHorst died at age 87. He was the head of the Detroit News’ Washington bureau in the 1960s and early 1970s, and in that capacity was a member of the media delegation accompanying President Nixon to China in 1972. But he came to national notice just after Nixon’s resignation, when he was President Ford’s first major appointee as press secretary.

Thirty days later, he became the only major figure in the Ford Administration to leave office over the 38th President’s decision to grant a pardon to his predecessor. Several years later, terHorst co-authored The Flying White House: The Story of Air Force One with longtime AF1 pilot Ralph J. Albertazzie, which contains a lengthy opening chapter describing RN’s flight on the plane from the White House to San Clemente on August 9, 1974. It’s a fascinating account of that trip and the rest of the book is just as worthwhile.

3.24.70

March 24, 2010 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Civil rights, Domestic issues, Nixon Administration, Richard Nixon, Supreme Court, U.S. History | 1 Comment 

Forty years ago today, RN issued a Statement About Desegregation of Elementary and Secondary Schools.

The almost 17,000-word document surveyed the the issue beginning with the first Brown decision in 1954.  Clearly, and in very plain language, the President surveyed the history and set out his Administration’s position:

This issue is not partisan. It is not sectional. It is an American issue, of direct and immediate concern to every citizen.

I hope that this statement will reduce the prevailing confusion and will help place public discussion of the issue on a more rational and realistic level in all parts of the Nation. It is time to strip away the hypocrisy, the prejudice, and the ignorance that too long have characterized discussion of this issue.’

He described his underlying approach:

We are dealing fundamentally with inalienable human rights, some of them constitutionally protected. The final arbiter of constitutional questions is the United States Supreme Court.

And he set out his specific objectives:

–To reaffirm my personal belief that the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education was right in both constitutional and human terms.

–To assess our progress in the 16 years since Brown and to point the way to
continuing progress.

–To clarify the present state of the law, as developed by the courts and the Congress, and the administration policies guided by it.

–To discuss some of the difficulties encountered by courts and communities as desegregation has accelerated in recent years, and to suggest approaches that can mitigate such problems as we complete the process of compliance with Brown.

–To place the question of school desegregation in its larger context, as part of America’s historic commitment to the achievement of a free and open society.

RN was obviously aware of the widespread criticism regarding what conventional wisdom had decided was his “Southern strategy” regarding race relations.  He addressed this with some home truths:

We should bear very carefully in mind, therefore, the distinction between educational difficulty as a result of race, and educational difficulty as a result of social or economic levels, of family background, of cultural patterns, or simply of bad schools. Providing better education for the disadvantaged requires a more sophisticated approach than mere racial mathematics.

In this same connection, we should recognize that a smug paternalism has characterized the attitudes of many white Americans toward school questions. There has been an implicit assumption that blacks or others of minority races would be improved by association with whites. The notion that an all-black or predominantly-black school is automatically inferior to one which is all- or predominantly-white—even though not a product of a dual system inescapably carries racist overtones. And, of course, we know of hypocrisy: not a few of those in the North most stridently demanding racial integration of public schools in the South at the same time send their children to private schools to avoid the assumed inferiority of mixed public schools.

It is unquestionably true that most black schools–though by no means all–are in fact inferior to most white schools. This is due in part to past neglect or shortchanging of the black schools; and in part to long-term patterns of racial discrimination which caused a greater proportion of Negroes to be left behind educationally, left out culturally, and trapped in low paying jobs. It is not really because they serve black children that most of these schools are inferior, but rather because they serve poor children who often lack the home environment that encourages learning.

This comprehensive, thoughtful, and vital document deserves attention.  It can be read in full here.  The Nixon administration’s pivotal role in the desegregation of America’s schools will be the subject of the Nixon Legacy Forum in September.

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

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.

A Moment In History

February 20, 2010 by admin | Filed Under History, National Security, News media, Nixon Administration, Nixon Administration figures, Richard Nixon, Vietnam | 4 Comments 

On 13 June 1971, General Alexander Haig, then Deputy Assistant to the President for Military Affairs, was the first to discuss with RN The New York Times‘ publication —that Sunday morning— of the first installment of the study that became known as the Pentagon Papers.

RN refers to Mel Laird, who was Secretary of Defense, and General Haig refers to the McGovern-Hatfield Amendment that required complete withdrawal of all American troops from Vietnam by 31 December 1971.  Although it had been defeated in the Senate in October 1970, it remained the subject of discussion and controversy through 1971.  He also mentions Clark Clifford, the ubiquitous Democrat who was one of the legendary Wise Men as well as one of Wasington’s most famous  fixers.  He  had succeeded Robert McNamara as LBJ’s Secretary of Defense.  After initially  deciding to support Johnson’s policies in Vietnam, he turned against the war.

The Third Paragraph

February 20, 2010 by admin | Filed Under Barack Obama, In Memoriam, Military, News media, Nixon Administration, Nixon Administration figures, Presidents, Richard Nixon, U.S. History, Watergate | Leave a Comment 

In 2003, Gerald S. Strober and Deborah Hart Strober published an oral history of the Ronald Reagan presidency, the third in a series of such books. (The others concerned the presidencies of John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, and the reign of Elizabeth II.) One section of the book concerned John Hinckley’s attempted assassination of the fortieth President in 1981, and the press briefing held shortly after it in which Gen. Alexander M. Haig, the Secretary of State, said: “I am in control here at the White House, pending the return of the vice-president.”

Referring to Gen. Haig’s briefing, veteran Republican strategist Lyn Nofziger told the Strobers: “That will be the third paragraph of his obituary.”

Nofziger died in 2006, so this morning, when Gen. Haig passed away, he was not around to see his prediction be fulfilled on a number of websites. The New York Times was first – or tried to be first. The initial version of Tim Weiner’s obituary there mentioned Nofziger’s statement and said he had predicted the third graf (to use the old-time newspaper lingo) “would detail” the briefing – which he doesn’t say, at least in the Strober book. The obit’s third paragraph then mentioned the briefing, and the fourth described it in detail. Some wag at the paper pointed out this discrepancy and within an hour or so the article was reformatted so that the details were given in the third paragraph.

During the rest of the day, one obit after another told the story of the 1981 briefing in the third paragraph. Some of these, like the obits at Politics Daily, the BBC website and the Associated Press, didn’t refer to Nofziger’s prediction. Others, such as the one in the Times of London, did.

But several newspapers bucked the trend. The London Telegraph devoted the third paragraph of its obit to Gen. Haig’s effort to mediate the dispute between the UK and Argentina over the Falkland Islands – probably a lesser chapter of his career, but obviously of interest to British readers.

And James Hohmann’s obit at the Washington Post also did not get on the briefing bandwagon. Instead, the third paragraph in the first online version discussed Gen. Haig’s efforts to keep the Nixon Administration on an even keel in the darkest days of Watergate. And, happily, this was replaced by what I think Gen. Haig would truly have been delighted to read as the third paragraph of his obituary:

In a statement, President Obama said Gen. Haig “exemplified our finest warrior-diplomat tradition of those who dedicate their lives to public service.”

That said, the General had a prodigious sense of humor – it was no accident that he counted iconoclastic comedian Mort Sahl among his friends – so he probably would have been amused at the striving of so many media outlets to fulfil Nofziger’s prophecy.

(Another article worth reading is the AP’s account of reactions to Gen. Haig’s death, including a quote from the Post’s Bob Woodward in which he points out that the General was almost the only individual whom he made a point of ruling out as being “Deep Throat” before he identified Mark Felt as DT in 2005.)

Alexander Haig, RIP

February 20, 2010 by admin | Filed Under Nixon Administration, Nixon Administration figures, Richard Nixon | 3 Comments 

Alexander Haig, who served as RN’s chief of staff and later as Ronald Reagan’s secretary of state, has passed away at the age of 85.  Fox has more.

Follow The Money–It’s Going To China

February 19, 2010 by admin | Filed Under Asia, Barack Obama, China, Cold War, Economic issues, George W. Bush, History, International Affairs, Middle East, Money, National Security, Nixon Administration, Obama administration, Presidents, Richard Nixon, U.S. History | 1 Comment 

The other day, President Barack Obama met with the Tibetan Dali Lama in the White House—doing so in the Map Room as opposed to the Oval Office in an apparent attempt to mute any “official” aura for the meeting. It was sort of like trying to kowtow to one audience while powwowing with another. Likely the nuance was lost on the government in Beijing. Of course, past presidents have received the Tibetan leader—a man who has become a symbol for freedom and a persistent reminder of the oppression of his people at the hands of the Chinese regime.

It was 38 years ago this week that President Richard Nixon played the historic China Card—a geopolitical masterstroke during the Cold War. It was all part of a strategic view of the world and effectuated from a position of strength. We were powerful; they were backward—technologically, culturally, and with obvious political deficiencies. That moment remains a high water mark in Nixon’s presidency—a moment in time that even the most determined critics concede positively to his legacy.

But what would Mr. Nixon think now?

These days, admittedly, the whole issue of U.S.-China relations is a sticky one for our current President. It is one of many examples of how different things are when you are governing as opposed to campaigning for office—although it is hard to tell which is which in Washington these days. Mario Cuomo famously talked years ago about politics being “poetry” and governing “prose.”

Dealing with potential adversaries—and even some friends—is always best when you do so from a position of strength. It’s true in military and national defense (“peace through strength”) and it’s true in economics, as well. The scriptures remind us, “The borrower is servant to the lender.” And when one party is deep in financial debt to another a certain measure of leverage is ceded to the lender.

How this dynamic will play out in the immediate future is anyone’s guess, but owing nearly $800 billion to the Chinese should raise a flag—a red one. And it should come as no surprise if and when those to whom we owe such copious amounts of money begin to squeeze us on the international stage.

President Obama has been making great pains to try to change our image before the world, one that he believes George W. Bush perpetuated and that has led to our virtual “blackball” by many nations. But in fact, what he really should be concerned about is not “blackball,” but rather “blackmail.” The Chinese dumped $45 billion of T-bills a couple of months ago—wave of the future? And why shouldn’t one nation operating out of its own interests use such leverage? We would.

In fact, we have.

In 1956, there were two hot spots with the potential of blowing up into World War III, a revolution in Hungary—and a crisis in the Middle East involving the Suez Canal. Seen now in hindsight against the backdrop of the Cold War and as the moment when the last vestiges of old world colonialism gave wave to complete bi-polar hegemony pitting the United States against the Soviets, the Suez Crisis was as much about the exercise of economic clout as it was a diplomatic-military affair.

Gamal Abdel Nassar had emerged as a leader in Egypt as part of a 1952 coup overthrowing King Farouk and by 1954 he was firmly in place as that nation’s maximum leader. He immediately undertook a complete transformation of his country with massive public works and the progressive nationalization of industry. He was enamored of the Soviet system and soon it became clear that his nation would be taking that side in the Cold War. One project near and dear to his heart was the building of the Aswan Dam, which America at first agreed to help fund. But when Nassar sold arms to Soviet satellite Czechoslovakia and then recognized the People’s Republic of China, U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles withdrew our dam dollars.

In reaction to this, Nassar announced on July 26, 1956 a Nationalization Law freezing all the assets of the Suez Canal—in effect, a seizure of that vital passageway.

Opened in 1869, this 119-mile long man-made waterway connects the Mediterranean and Red Seas. Originally financed by the Egyptians and French, Britain became a major stakeholder and stockholder in 1875, and eventually the canal became part of the United Kingdom’s imperial portfolio in the region. Following World War II, and with the decline of the U.K.’s empire, the canal gradually became a diplomatic football—not to mention thorn. And the creation of the nation of Israel in 1948 caused tensions about the vital waterway to further increase.

In the aftermath of Nassar’s July 26 speech, Britain—led by Prime Minister Anthony Eden—and France, represented by Eden’s counterpart, Guy Mollet, began to plot how to ensure their access to the Suez Canal. Eventually, and in an alliance with Israel (a nation with the most to lose if the canal was closed to them), military action was planned and initiated.

Follow the money.

Meanwhile, the American President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, in the midst of a reelection bid, had already had a rough year in 1956—physically and politically. And shortly following election to a second term in the White House, he played some power politics of his own. Now, I should state here that I am not of the number in agreement with what he did in the Suez matter, anymore than I am about how we abandoned the freedom fighters in Budapest earlier that summer. I am simply using this story to describe a reality in all of life and politics—like it or not.

There is a golden rule in geo-politics: He who has the gold makes the rule.

Mr. Eisenhower did not want Britain, France, and Israel—all stated allies of the United States—creating a situation that might not play well with the Soviets and that had the potential to instigate a larger war. Here was the hero of Normandy putting the pressure on British Prime Minister Eden—a man who had worked closely with Ike while serving in Churchill’s War Cabinet.

“The borrower is servant to the lender.”

To apply pressure on Eden’s government to cease and desist, Eisenhower instructed U.S. Treasury Secretary, George M. Humphrey, to begin to sell off some of our government’s British bonds. Some of these bonds were holdovers from the U.K.’s World War II debt; others had been sold to us to help that nation’s economy rebound after the war. Eden’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, future P.M. Harold Macmillan, told him that the results would be devastating to the British economy.

Checkmate.

Anthony Eden was a broken man. He fled to a vacation-exile in Jamaica, spending time at Ian Fleming’s (of James Bond literary fame) estate there, but his health quickly deteriorated. He was taking amphetamines—had been for years under doctor’s orders after a botched gall bladder operation—and the drugs magnified his problems with insomnia and unraveling mental health. Soon, Mr. Macmillan took over at 10 Downing Street, but by then the Suez episode had hastened the sunset on the British Empire—and the Cold War morphed from a multi-national tag-team match into a virtual two-nation standoff.

Follow the money.

We are potentially in big trouble as a nation. Our security is threatened not only by Islamist terrorism—but also by some who have a lien on our title deed. Certainly, throughout our history we have dealt with nations and regimes in pragmatic and realpolitik ways, even having to hold our collective noses because of the stench of tyranny and oppression on the part of some of our momentary allies in a larger cause. But we have managed, for the most part, to deal with it—ugliness and all—because of the ability to approach everything from a position of strength: morally, militarily, and economically.

Now though, we not only depend on others for much of our energy, but we also owe an astronomical amount of money (the interest alone is unfathomable) to powerful entities. We should not be surprised that other nations no longer dance on cue—nor should we ever be surprised if and when some big bills come due with humiliating strings attached.

Or worse.

Managing The Nixon Oval Office

February 19, 2010 by admin | Filed Under Nixon Administration, Nixon Administration figures, Nixon Foundation, Nixon Library, Nixon Library events, Nixon family, Nixon in the News, Pat Nixon, Presidential libraries, Richard Nixon, Yorba Linda | 6 Comments 

On Presidents’ Day 2010, more than five thousand packed the Nixon Library and were welcomed with cherry pie and appearances by Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt. Then at 1:30 pm, RN’s Oval Office Team presented the second Nixon Legacy Forum, The Effective Use Of the President’s Time, a look at RN Chief of Staff H.R. “Bob” Haldeman, how the Office of the President operated and why it became the model for successive administrations.

Twenty-two members of the Haldeman family were in the audience including widow Jo Haldeman, their son Hank, daughters Anne and Susan, and their grandchildren. Dwight Chapin, former Deputy Assistant to President Nixon, moderated the panel of key staff including Larry Higby (Special Assistant to the President and Assistant White House Chief of Staff), Steve Bull (Special Assistant to the President) and Ron Walker (Special Assistant to the President and Director of the Office of Presidential Advance). Chapin’s service to RN started as a young field man in the 1962 California gubernatorial race. After the former Vice President’s defeat, he went to work for Haldeman at the J. Walter Thompson advertising company. It was during this time that Haldeman – who served as Campaign Manager in 1962 and Director of Advance in the 1960 Presidential campaign – spearheaded the organization of RN’s comeback.

“These weren’t the wilderness years.” Chapin explained. “These were the strategic planning years.”

As an example, Chapin pointed to a memo that illustrated a new and innovative strategy for winning in 1968. Outlining the need for more effective time management, Haldeman told RN that he could reach more voters through the use of television in one or two key events with substantive messages, buying much needed time for him to rest, reflect and write.

This was a radical concept that totally changed the way campaigns went thereafter.” Larry Higby added. “It became the style for how we started to communicate as a White House.”

Higby, the youngest of the staff, also began his career working for Haldeman on the 1968 campaign while in graduate school at UCLA. At twenty-three years old, he became Assistant White House Chief of Staff.

“My first job was to find a book on how the presidency worked.” We had just ninety days to build a corporation from scratch.”

The Nixon organizational model would be groundbreaking. Previous White Houses implemented the cabinet form of government where decision-making was delegated to cabinet officials. John F. Kennedy, Higby explained, worked freestyle, forming coalitions and committees for the most important policy issues. While President Johnson managed like a legislator and focused heavily on his domestic agenda, a reflection on his over 20 years on Capitol Hill.

By contrast, RN managed like an executive.   “H.R. Haldeman was his Chief Operating Officer,” explained Steve Bull. “While Dr. Kissinger was the Vice President of International Affairs and John Erlichman was the President of Domestic Affairs.” It was the Cabinet officers’ job to ultimately execute the positions from the White House.

A retired Marine, Bull’s path to White House was trailed after returning from Vietnam in 1966. He hardly recognized his country as rising crime, social upheaval, and protests against the war were dividing the country. He saw RN as the leader who could bring the country together.

After working on the successful 1968 campaign, Bull joined the White House team as the President’s Special Assistant, managing his day-to-day schedule and moving officials in and out of meetings.

“I was not a confidant.” Bull said.  “It was a senior to subordinate position. My job was to run the Oval Office. I was kept around because I was trustworthy. Trust was important.”

Managing RN’s work environment was also important. Bull explained that RN was a private person. He didn’t like meeting with large groups or numerous advisers. He was a contemplative man whose best course was to rely on his own instincts. He needed time to shape his agenda and map out the long term.

He essentially “shaved two days into one,” Chapin said.  RN started his day early by reading the daily news summary and meeting with Kissinger, Haldeman, and other White House senior advisers and cabinet officials.  During the afternoon, RN would take a short 40 minute “power” nap, change and retreat to his private study in the Executive Office Building, where he would “write out long thoughts, shape his agenda, and constantly be looking ahead,” Higby explained.

As Director of the first Office of Presidential Advance, it was Ron Walker’s job to constantly look ahead. Now the President of the Richard Nixon Foundation, Walker prepared hundreds of foreign and domestic trips for RN including the historic trips to China and Russia in 1972.

After working as a volunteer advanceman during the 1968 Campaign, Walker worked on the transition and the first inaugural. Following inauguration, Chapin invited him to construct the first Office of Presidential Advance.

Not only did Walker create the office, but he also perfected the art first pioneered by Haldeman.

“We wanted to be the mantel of the Presidency,” Walker explained. “When I went into the White House to work for Dwight and Bob, the first thing I thought was important was that I write an advance manual.”

The manual took six months and amounted to 397 pages, constituting what Haldeman initially developed for political campaigns and refining it to advance the President of the United States.

The Nixon White House had “all of those elements necessary to move the President of the United States outside the White House,” Walker said. “We had advance men who knew how to run airport arrivals, how to put motorcades together, how to do press conferences, how to handle the press,” and who were able to effectively “work with Secret Service,” and “the White House Communications Agency.”

On the last day of the 1972 campaign, Walker advanced President Nixon to Greensboro and Spartanburg, South Carolina at midday, flew to a sunset rally in Albuquerque, New Mexico and landed in Ontario, California for a torch light parade of fifty thousand with appearances by John Wayne and the Carpenters.

The next morning at the White House, the President thanked the advance team for their hard work and told them if it not for what they had accomplished he wouldn’t have earned a second term.

To give a sense of their efficiency, RN later told Walker that his team could have took the beaches at Normandy.

Nearly forty years later at the President’s Library in Yorba Linda, the Oval Office Team also performed with masterful efficiency, finishing two minutes ahead of schedule. “The program was to run from 1:30 to 3:30, this program ended at 3:28,” Walker concluded, “that’s called a good advance.”

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