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.”

Article On Ron Walker In Orange County Register

February 13, 2010 by admin | Filed Under American Politics, China, Foundation News, Nixon Administration, Nixon Administration figures, Nixon Foundation, Nixon Library, Orange County, Presidents, Richard Nixon, U.S. History, White House, Yorba Linda | 1 Comment 

During the Nixon Administration, Ron Walker headed the White House’s advance team, working on projects ranging in scale from the thirty-seventh President’s 1972 visit to the People’s Republic of China to his visits to Washington-area schools. The concepts developed by the team Ron headed form the basis for all the subsequent advance work of American presidencies.

Today, Ron Walker is president of the Richard Nixon Foundation, and the Orange County Register has just published an article about him by Jessica Terrell. who often covers Nixon-related personalities and events for the newspaper. It contains some remarkable facts: it turns out that Ron, at the time he joined the Nixon campaign in 1968, was a registered Democrat. He also describes his ambitious plans for the Foundation, which include doubling the size of its endowment, and organizing more events to make the public aware of the accomplishments of the Nixon era in both domestic and foreign affairs.

Richard Norton Smith On The Nixon Funeral

February 9, 2010 by admin | Filed Under American Politics, Nixon Library, Nixon Library events, Pat Nixon, Presidents, Republican Party, Richard Nixon, U.S. History, Yorba Linda | 3 Comments 

This week Public Affairs Press has reissued Who’s Buried In Grant’s Tomb?, a book edited by Brian Lamb and originally published in 2000 as a companion volume to the “American Presidents” series of programs that were, at that time, being first broadcast on C-SPAN. (In the decade since they’ve frequently been rerun, most often on C-SPAN3.)

The book, as you might guess from the title, concerns Presidential gravesites. Did you know that George Washington had such an intense fear of being buried alive that his will stipulated that he not be interred until at least three days after his death? Well, I didn’t either until I read this article about the book by Paul Bedard, the “Washington Whispers” columnist of US News magazine.

Bedard includes a lengthy excerpt from the new editions introduction by that pre-eminent Presidential historian Richard Norton Smith, who describes his work on the address delivered by then-Senator Bob Dole at President Nixon’s funeral at the Nixon Library in 1994:

“As one who had a hand in drafting Robert Dole’s eulogy for Nixon, delivered on April 27, 1994, I will go to my grave convinced that Richard Nixon hoped to influence the 1996 presidential race from his. In point of fact, Dole had been among the eulogists at Pat Nixon’s funeral the previous June, as was California governor Pete Wilson. Approximately 33 million Americans watched Nixon’s late afternoon burial in the lengthening shadow of his boyhood home. They saw a side of Bob Dole few would have predicted—except Nixon himself. For he knew that Dole’s feelings lay just below the surface, much closer than his hardboiled public image suggested. In designating him one of his Yorba Linda eulogists, Nixon anticipated the sob in Dole’s voice as he struggled to complete his tribute to the central figure in what the senator that day called the Age of Nixon. So authentic a display of grief was touching to all but the Nixon-haters in the vast audience. Moreover, by exhibiting his feelings so openly, Dole was, in effect, humanized in ways no other speech could have done. Which is exactly what Nixon intended, I believe, as he made his own funeral a showcase for his political heirs. Nixon was always a better campaign manager than candidate.”

Indeed, Dole’s eulogy was likely an important factor in reinforcing his status as a frontrunner in the 1996 election.

The Statue In Yorba Linda

October 1, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under China, Cold War, Nixon Library, Nixon in the News, Presidents, Richard Nixon, U.S. History, Yorba Linda | 6 Comments 

“Leader’s Exhibit:” A statue of Mao ZeDong is featured with the bronze likenesses of nine other world leaders during RN’s presidency at the Nixon Library.

Today, as is noted elsewhere at TNN, the People’s Republic of China celebrates its sixtieth anniversary. The day is being marked with celebrations throughout that nation and in Chinese communities around the world. But there are also a considerable Chinese with a profound distrust and dislike of Communism who are, here and there, registering their protests of the PRC’s policies.

Probably the largest number of active protesters are associated with the Falun Gong movement, but there are also some whose animosity toward the PRC’s institutions is very personal and heartfelt. One of these people is Kai Chen. Chen is a 56-year-old resident of Los Angeles in the real-estate business. He was born in the People’s Republic, into a family associated to some degree with the Kuomintang party of Chiang Kai-shek, who had, in 1949, been forced to leave the mainland for Taiwan. This status meant that Chen’s family suffered considerably in the Cultural Revolution, and that he was, as a teenager, denied a university education and sent to work in the countryside.

However, it happened that by the age of fifteen, Chen had reached the height of six-foot-seven, quite unusual for a Chinese, and, around the same time, discovered the game of basketball. By this time the Cultural Revolution was moving toward its final stages and the PRC’s premier, Zhou Enlai, envisioned basketball as one of the sports that might enable his country to end its twenty years of comparative isolation and reach out to the world.

Of course, the big breakthrough in this area came when the PRC’s ping-pong team, after playing against its US counterpart in Japan, invited the Americans to China, which dovetailed with behind-the-scenes diplomatic overtures and helped make possible President Nixon’s historic trip to China in February 1972. But although it would take a few more decades before players like Yao Ming became NBA superstars, the Chinese basketball team, on which Chen played for a time, played a significant part in the 1970s and 1980s in building friendly relations between the PRC and the West.

In 1981, Chen moved to Los Angeles to further his education. After obtaining his degree from UCLA, he went into business in California, found success in his field, and raised a family. But his memories of his mistreatment in the China of Mao Zedong have remained, and, as such interviews as this one (and his 2007 autobiography One In A Billion) show, he feels that not only was he exploited as an athlete for the political purposes of a regime he has long detested, but that Beijing has continued to use sports in the same way to the present, most spectacularly in the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Last year, Chen visited the Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace in Yorba Linda, and entered the room which features one of its most prominent and written-about exhibits. What he found there upset him, and led to the protest which he made, with several others at the Library today.

When the original staff of the Library was planning the building’s permanent exhibits two decades ago, they decided to devote one of the rooms to a set of life-size bronze statues of nine men and one woman, from around the world, whose leadership qualities had formed the subject of individual chapters in Leaders, one of RN’s most readable and fascinating books. The ten statespersons selected for the Hall of World Leaders were, alphabetically, Konrad Adenauer, Leonid Brezhnev, Winston Churchill, Charles De Gaulle, Nikita Khruschchev, Mao Zedong, Golda Meir, Anwar al-Sadat, and Shigeru Yoshida, and Zhou Enlai. In the exhibit Mao and Zhou are depicted sitting on couches, much in the way that they had talked with Nixon during his trip in 1972; the others are standing. Near the statues is this quote from the President: “They are leaders who have made a difference. Not because they wished it, but because they have willed it.”

When Chen came to the Library, he was angry that Mao, a person he regards as a mass murderer comparable to Hitler and Stalin, was featured among the other leaders, and he wrote about this to Timothy Naftali, the current director of the Nixon Library. Chen’s letter and Naftali’s response can be found here.

For a while, word of Chen’s dismay with Mao’s presence in the Hall was limited to his own website and to a handful of blogs. But yesterday the Los Angeles Times published Mike Anton’s article describing the controvery and Chen’s plan to stage a protest. In it, Chen is quoted as saying: “Mao was the biggest mass murderer in human history. His hands were dipped in the blood of American soldiers who fought in Korea and Vietnam. … How can that image be put alongside world leaders like Winston Churchill and De Gaulle? It’s a perversion of American freedom. You don’t put an anti-American symbol in a U.S. museum.” Naftali wrote to Chen that he personally was less comfortable with having a statue of Mao in the room than was the case with the other leaders, and his view of the issue, as reported in the Times article, is much the same:

“I think having a statue of a person in a museum can imply respect,” he said. “I thought there might very well be confusion among visitors. With Churchill, Meir and Sadat all in the same room, there is an equivalency there and the implication that they’re all alike. They were not all alike. Mao was a mass murderer.

“It seemed to me out of place in a publicly funded museum,” Naftali added. “I don’t think it’s the best way to teach history.”

Naftali’s remarks have met with some puzzlement and criticism from those who worked, full-time or on a volunteer basis, at the Nixon Library during the decade and a half that it was operated by the Richard Nixon Foundation before becoming a part of the National Archives group of presidential libraries a few years ago. In all that time, Foundation assistant director Sandy Quinn told Jessica Terrell of the Orange County Register yesterday, no visitor made a complaint about Mao’s being featured in the Hall. Since Chen’s correspondence with Naftali a notice has been put in the Hall saying that the presence of these ten figures in the room does not constitute an endorsement of all of their policies.

The questions that Chen’s protests raise are not that easy to dismiss. The website of the NBC station in Los Angeles played the controversy for laughs today with an article titled “Pinko, Commie Statues Shock, Offend At Nixon Library.” The piece is credited to Olsen Ebright and Joseph McCarthy (presumably not that one, returned to earth at age 101) and is illustrated with the familiar photo of RN flashing the double V at the entrance to the helicopter on August 9, 1974 – but tinted as pink as, presumably, the late Helen Gahagan Douglas’s underwear.

However, Chen is deeply serious about his complaint, and his years of trauma in the turbulent China of the 1950s and 1960s make his anger at Mao’s presence in the Hall understandable. But I don’t think the founder of modern China should be removed from his couch. Mao is in the Hall because, although he wrested power violently from the Kuomintang regime in a civil war that killed tens of millions; although his misguided ideas of a “Great Leap Forward” and a Cultural Revolution brought about the deaths of millions more; and although his troops bitterly fought United States and United Nations forces for two and a half bloody years in Korea, in his last seven years he sought, with Zhou, to set aside violence and extend the hand of friendship to the United States. President Nixon reached out as well, and, with substantial help from Dr. Henry Kissinger, Winston Lord, Dwight Chapin and Foundation president Ron Walker, and many others, the stage was set for the handshake at the Shanghai tarmac between Nixon and Zhou, and the meeting with Mao, which ended almost a quarter-century of suspicion and hostility, helped prevent the possibility of a third world war between the superpowers, and made possible ties which have been truly beneficial to both countries.

As former Library director, TNN’s John Taylor, points out here, Nixon was a lifelong anti-Communist. He spent more time face-to-face with Chiang Kai-shek than with Mao. But in his years as Vice President, he was ready to have a dialogue with the Soviet Union, in the years after it emerged from Stalin’s shadow, and so met Khruschchev and then, as President, Brezhnev. Both of those men had been part of Stalin’s savage world for decades in their early careers, but when they came to power, they proved able to move beyond that awful legacy.

And so, too, did Mao and Zhou, in the years after 1969, make their efforts to move beyond the chaos, misery and isolation of the Cultural Revolution. That’s why these four men are in the Hall of Leaders – because they met that ultimate test of leadership, to try to make a more peaceful world for coming generations.

George McGovern Speaks At The Nixon Library

August 28, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Democratic Party, Nixon Administration figures, Nixon Foundation, Nixon Library, Nixon Library events, Presidential libraries, Presidents, Richard Nixon, U.S. History, Yorba Linda | 5 Comments 

On Wednesday night, a crowd of over 700 gathered in Yorba Linda to see former Senator George McGovern talk about his new book, a short biography of Abraham Lincoln. The event, co-sponsored by the Richard Nixon Library and Museum and the Richard Nixon Foundation (and held in the Library’s replica of the White House’s East Room) would have been remarkable enough for the appearance of President Nixon’s Democratic opponent in the 1972 election – but, in a surprise appearance, the Senator was introduced by none other than 83-year-old Gore Vidal, almost the last major American writer of the “Greatest Generation” still living, who has written about RN on many occasions (including the 1972 play An Evening With Richard Nixon). Both men received standing ovations.

Though Vidal has sometimes expressed a degree of admiration for the thirty-seventh President’s resilience and achievements in the field of foreign affairs, in recent years his remarks about Nixon have been much more negative, and he seems to blame RN for instigating the careers of former Vice President Cheney and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, both of whom worked in the Nixon Administration and have been the targets of Vidal’s angriest barbs in articles and interviews since 2000. The late Senator Edward Kennedy has also been the object of Vidal’s bile from time to time, unsurprisingly given the writer’s mercurial relationship with the Kennedy clan, and his preference for Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s brand of populist radicalism. But in his introduction in Yorba Linda, Vidal spoke instead of Lincoln, the subject of one of his best-known and most acclaimed novels.

Sen. McGovern then took the podium and discussed his biography. He stressed that Lincoln’s greatest achievement was preserving the Union, and spoke at length about the difficulties the sixteenth President had to overcome – his limited formal education, and his struggle with depression (which McGovern knows from experience, as he movingly describes in Terry, his book about his late daughter’s tragic battle with alcoholism and bipolar illness).

Though Ted Kennedy went unmentioned in the main part of McGovern’s talk, one of the questions asked after it referred to him, and the reply was:

“Ted was a great senator,” McGovern said. “He hardly missed a day [of work] . . . I admired him and, on a personal basis, if any senator suffered a loss like a child or a spouse, he was the first person who called. When our daughter Terry died, he came to see Eleanor and me. He was there at 9 a.m. the next morning with his wife. He was a person who respected tragedy because of his family. He was very thoughtful. I thought a lot of him.”

McGovern also spoke at Chapman University earlier in the day.

Dinner of the Century Revisited

July 19, 2009 by David Emig | Filed Under Nixon Library, Nixon Library events, Nixon in the News, Richard Nixon, Yorba Linda | 3 Comments 

Author’s Note:  Nineteen years ago tonight marks the anniversary of the dinner honoring the Library’s dedication.  The following article appeared in the Checkers newsletter in the August 1990 issue.

As a bit of background, Checkers was a newsletter started by Chris Crain, a prolific collector of Richard Nixon political memorabilia.  Checkers was published four times a year between 1975 to 1994.

I was Assistant Editor of the newsletter from 1986 to 1991.  In those days, we complied the newsletter should I say, manually.  There was a deadline to submit articles.  The illustrations were photocopied and placed on the page.  Chris would then type around the illustrations.  What we could have done with modern technology of desktop publishing…

I will always be grateful to Chris Crain for giving me my first opportunity to write about Richard Nixon.

So here are my thoughts after the dinner at the Century Plaza Hotel.  I would be most interested to hear from anyone else who was there that night.

There are no second tables here; only first tables   You are all our friends—RN

The evening festivities took place in Los Angeles with a ‘celebration gala’ at the Century Plaza Hotel.  The black tie dinner honoring President and Mrs. Nixon and their family followed the morning’s dedication of the Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace in Yorba Linda.

When our party arrived at the hotel, our cab was greeted by protesters.  We weren’t sure exactly what they were protesting, but the following day’s newspaper said it appeared to be about 30 different causes.

The formal reception began at 7:00pm in California Lounge.  Inside was a virtual treasure trove for autograph seekers.  Several former Nixon administration officials and other celebrities were making the rounds outside the banquet room.  Notables such as Henry Kissinger, Alexander Haig, George Romney, H.R. Haldeman, William Simon, Richard Allen, Pat Buchanan, Ken Khachigian and Herb Klein.  Celebrities included Foster Brooks, George Allen, Tom Landry and Cesar Romero.  There were some people that fit both categories, like Benjamin Stein.  Stein, a former speechwriter for the Nixon administration, presently appears on “The Wonder Years,” a top-rated television series.

About 8:00pm, people began entering the Los Angeles Ballroom for dinner.  A program greeted each place at the table.  Featured in each program was a 5” x 7” color photograph of the entire Nixon family.  The photograph had been taken on the occasion of the Nixons’ 50^th Wedding Anniversary at their home in Saddle River, New Jersey.  This photograph made the program a very special one indeed.

Seated at our table were the Crains, Eldon Almquist, Bob Fuhr, Harry Jeffery, Jim Carskadon, Jack and Darlene Cook and myself.  Seated at the other NPIC table, on the other side of the ballroom, were Les and Susan Spreen, Phil and Jean Baldwin, Lu Paletta, Lloyd and Mabel Johnson and Donna and Bill Hickman.

After a welcome by Bruce Herschenson, the Master of Ceremonies, and the invocation by Billy Graham, the appetizer, salad and entrée were served.  According to the wishes of Mrs. Nixon, the dinner featured a low sodium meal.  While dinner was being served, the All-American Boys Chorus sang to the guests.  It was at this point that the most personally event almost occurred.

The area where the Boys Chorus was singing was directly across from the head table.  Between dinner and dessert, former President Nixon appeared on the stage, briefly leading the chorus in song.  It quickly became apparent that RN might attempt to greet each table.  Maybe I would get to meet him.

Many thoughts crossed my mind.  What would I say?  Perhaps tell him what his legacy meant to younger Americans like myself.  Maybe just a “how about those Mets?”  There probably wouldn’t be enough time.  I would have a few moments at the very most.

My inner excitement grew as the former President approached.  A crowd of people, with RN in the middle, moved toward our table.  It was a different feeling seeing the former President in this setting.  Slightly larger than life, but also one of us.  A bodyguard walked ahead, clearing the way.  People were getting up and greeting RN.  This, unfortunately, made passage a little difficult.  I had no desire to push my way into the crowd.  RN looked taller than I thought he would be.  As he passed by our table he shook Chris’ hand.  He then reached over and shook Candy Crain’s hand.  By the time I extended my hand the group had moved on.  I guess that’s what one would call a near brush with history.

After dessert the program continued.  Norman Vincent Peale recounted his visit to Vietnam, as well as personal memories of the Nixon family.  Bob Hope provided some comic entertainment.  Hope quipped that the library dedication was an opportunity to see Mount Rushmore live.  He also noticed that Yorba Linda was the only place in which Nixon T-shirts were outselling the Simpsons.  Hope’s remarks were followed by two toasts to the Nixons.  Maurice Stans gave a toast to Pat Nixon and Ambassador Walter Annenberg gave a toast to President Nixon.  President Nixon was then introduced by William Simon.

At the beginning of his remarks, President Nixon recognized all of the people who had spoken on his behalf.  He remembered that he probably knew Les Brown the longest.  Brown and his band had played at Duke Law School while RN attended there in the 1930s.  RN recalled Mrs. Billy Graham’s show of support during the time of his brush with death in a Long Beach hospital in 1975.  He thanked Norman Vincent Peale for the support given his family over the years.  He recognized Bob Hope’s contribution to the USO and his frequent visits to American servicemen overseas.  In total, RN expressed his deep appreciation for friends who stuck by in the darkest of times.  While RNs evening remarks carried the theme of his dedication speech, the tone was much more personal.  In a highlight to the evening, Mrs. Nixon said a few words after the program.

Finally, it was over.  It had been a most memorable day.  All of the planning and anticipation were reality.  It truly was the event of a lifetime!

John Dean And The Tapes

July 10, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under John Dean At The Nixon Library, News media, Nixon Administration figures, Nixon Library events, Nixon in the News, TV News Personalities, The New Nixon, U.S. History, Watergate, Yorba Linda | 5 Comments 

No, not those tapes.

A little over two weeks ago I posted about one of the webpages of the groundbreaking and very informative nixontapes.org site run by Luke Nichter, an assistant professor of history at Tarleton State University in Texas. This page, at the time I posted, included links to two audio files in which John W. Dean III, White House counsel during the Nixon administration, was featured.

In one file, from a recording of a telephone conversation made in 1989, Dean could be heard explaining that when writing his book about Watergate, Blind Ambition, “I never actually went back and re-read my [Senate Watergate Committee] testimony.” This was by way of explaining why some passages in the book described events in a way somewhat different from what Dean told the Committee two years earlier. A second audio file was an excerpt from a recording made of Dean’s appearance last month at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda, to promote the reissue (with a lengthy new afterword) of Blind Ambition.

However, if anyone goes to that part of nixontapes.org now, he or she will find a notice from Professor Nichter stating that these sound files have been removed as a result of a notice from Dean threatening legal action if they remained on the site. (However, the 1989 conversation can still be heard at watergate.com, the site founded by Silent Coup co-author Len Colodny.)

An article at FoxNews.com by Joseph Abrams delineates the situation further. “I merely wanted to bring these contradictions to light and thought I was doing a service, but Dean was absolutely mortified when he found out that I had these materials,” Professor Nichter explains, and notes that his modestly funded site does not have the resources to contest Dean in court.

Indeed, Dean’s previous legal actions against the authors and publisher of Silent Coup and Watergate figure-turned-radio host G. Gordon Liddy have made some journalists nervous. Jim Hougan, whose 1984 book Secret Agenda was the first work to raise substantial questions about Dean’s role in Watergate, refused to comment to Abrams at all about Dean.

But Fox News Washington correspondent James Rosen, author of the 2008 biography of John Mitchell The Strong Man, which contains the most meticulously documented and groundbreaking research into Dean’s role in Watergate to see print thus far, has not been cowed. He told Abrams:

“My book speaks for itself, and I think it’s noteworthy that Dean has entirely avoided engaging its substance. Dean himself is well aware that his historical reputation has suffered enormously in the last two decades, and so he resorts to frivolous litigation and bullying tactics to rehabilitate himself. Not since Albert Speer [Hitler's architectural and technological mastermind] has a historical figure so assiduously used his post-prison writings to muddy and distort the historical record of the events in which he was culpable.”

Although Dean was one of the younger figures to be involved in the Watergate scandal, he is 70 now, so one wonders for how much longer his story of what happened will continue to go unchallenged by many journalists and historians.

Luke Nichter On Dean’s Nixon Library Appearance

June 24, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under John Dean At The Nixon Library, Nixon Administration figures, Nixon Library, Nixon in the News, U.S. History, Watergate, Yorba Linda | 1 Comment 

At www.nixontapes.org, Luke Nichter of Tarleton State University (who was extensively quoted in the AP article Frank Gannon discusses below) takes a look at John Dean’s appearance at the Nixon Presidential Library last week. (This post also appears at History News Network, where it is accompanied by a comment by Maarja Krusten, whose thoughtful remarks have so often appeared at TNN.)

When Seventies Phenomena Collide

June 17, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, John Dean At The Nixon Library, Nixon Administration figures, Nixon Foundation, Nixon Library, Nixon Library events, Nixon in the News, Presidential libraries, Presidents, Richard Nixon, U.S. History, Watergate, Yorba Linda | 1 Comment 

Tonight, former Nixon White House counsel Luke W. – I mean, John W. Dean III appeared at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda. Speaking before an audience of close to 300, according to Melody Chiu of the Orange County Register, he contended that the Richard Nixon Foundation, by criticizing his appearance, “is reviving the dark side of Richard Nixon,” and asserted that the controversy surrounding his remarks was “petty.”

Nixon Library director Timothy Naftali called the appearance “an important milestone,” adding: “All we care about is that [our speakers]are serious and that our community will learn from them. We want to create a forum for serious discussion, debate and education.”

Earlier in the day, Naftali told Rebecca Cathcart of the New York Times’s “The Caucus” blog that Dean’s appearance formed part of an “initiative” to “provide a nonpartisan presentation of the facts of Watergate,” adding that another element of this would be the renovated Watergate exhibit, to be unveiled at the museum in August.

John Dean At Yorba Linda, or Who’s Deep Throat Now?

June 16, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, John Dean At The Nixon Library, National Archives, News media, Nixon Administration, Nixon Administration figures, Nixon Foundation, Nixon Library, Nixon Library events, Nixon in the News, Orange County, Presidential libraries, Presidents, Richard Nixon, U.S. History, Watergate, Yorba Linda | 1 Comment 

Tomorrow, June 17, is the thirty-seventh anniversary of the Watergate break-in. At the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, it will be marked by a lecture and book-signing by John W. Dean III, counsel to the President from 1970 until 1973, convicted felon (for obstruction of justice, to which he pled guilty on November 30 of the latter year), and one of the central figures in the Watergate scandal.

Several months ago, when discussing a post Dean made on the site The Daily Beast in which he defended historian Stanley I. Kutler from criticism of the latter’s transcriptions of the Nixon tapes, I noted that in it he said he planned to reissue his first book Blind Ambition, his own account of Watergate, with new material. That book will be republished tomorrow, with a new afterword which, according to a press release promoting the reissue, “truly closes the case on Watergate.”

It would seem a sure bet that one or another of our major conglomerate publishing imprints would be keen to acquire Blind Ambition, given such a promise, but the book is not being reprinted by any of them – not even Simon & Schuster, which originally published it. Instead, the book, according to Al Kamen in the Washington Post, is being “privately published” by Polimedia, the author’s PR firm. The event at the Nixon Library is described as the reissue’s “launch” at the firm’s site.

Dean’s appearance in Yorba Linda is not being greeted with universal hosannas, as Michael Isikoff of Newsweek makes clear in this article. Robert Odle, who worked in the communications office of the Nixon White House (and was later administration director of the Committee to Re-Elect The President) says in it that inviting Dean to the Library is “like having Monica Lewinsky speak at the Clinton library on the anniversary of President Clinton’s impeachment.” (As it happens, Isikoff is the journalist who broke the Lewinsky story.)

And at the Washington Times, Susan Naulty, who was the Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace’s archivist from the institution’s dedication in 1990 until 2003, explains why she believes Dean’s appearance is not appropriate. She says, in part:

[T]hanks to Mr. Nixon’s voluminous archives, scholars with a better understanding of the man and his career-long struggle to advance freedom over tyranny on the one hand, and with considerably more data regarding the congressional investigations directed against him on the other, may well begin to wonder who was the real Machiavelli in Watergate – the president or his accusers. If the latter, the lessons of that crisis have enormous relevance for us today – and for freedom-loving people everywhere and at all times.

One drawback of Ms. Naulty’s article is that it does not precisely explain how Dean will come to be in Yorba Linda tomorrow. He was invited to speak by the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, which is part of the federal National Archives and Records Administration, and which now operates the museum facility in Yorba Linda and will be transferring the Nixon presidential documents to the library facility next year from Maryland. The Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace Foundation (sponsor of TNN), which was in charge of the Library when it was a private institution, not part of the NARA presidential libraries system, from 1990 until 2007, was not consulted about Dean’s appearance and, as Isikoff points out, has expressed its disapproval of the invitation.

Ms. Naulty’s article has attracted several comments at the Times’s site. A rather interesting one, from “anonymous222,” refers to Dean’s involvement in the quest for the true identity of “Deep Throat,” the Watergate informant.

In 1975, Dean suggested DT was Earl Silbert, who was the prosecutor of the Watergate defendants in the early stages of the scandal. Then, in his 1982 book Lost Honor, Dean devoted a number of pages to arguing, rather unconvincingly, that Gen. Alexander Haig was DT.

Twenty years later, Dean wrote an e-book published by Salon.com, Unmasking Deep Throat. Several articles, before the book was published, claimed that Dean would identify Washington lawyer Jonathan Rose as DT, which reportedly prompted Rose to inform Salon that he would sue for defamation in such an event. But when the book finally came off the cyberpress (or whatever one would call it), Dean instead suggested DT was a composite of more than one of Bob Woodward’s sources. (After Mark Felt “confessed” to being DT in 2005, Dean told Keith Olbermann of MSNBC he still held to the composite theory.)

And then there are the still-murky events of 2003. In that year, a group of student journalists at the University of Illinois came to the much-publicized conclusion that Fred Fielding, White House counsel for two presidents (and Dean’s deputy in the Nixon years), was DT. At the time it was reported that Dean had gone to the trouble of personally contacting some of the students to explain to them why Fielding could not be DT.

But some questions remain. As Olbermann observed in 2005, according to All The President’s Men, DT talked to Woodward about the famous 18 1/2 minute gap in the tapes before it became public knowledge. Felt, who had left the FBI, would have been unlikely to know about the gap. Fielding, who was still White House deputy counsel at the time, would have known. (Rather intriguingly, Fielding’s Wikipedia entry incorrectly states that his work in the Nixon Administration ended in 1972.)

So, were I in Yorba Linda tomorrow, one question I’d like to pose to Dean would be: Why did you try to steer the Illini journalists-to-be from the conclusion Fielding was Deep Throat? There are some other questions that come to mind, and tomorrow I hope to discuss them here.

In Memoriam: Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg

November 28, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Faith, Yorba Linda | Leave a Comment 

The Holtzbergs

News comes this morning of the deaths in a house of God of Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg and his wife, Rivka, and three other innocents at the hands of the Mumbai terrorists. Gavriel and Rivka ran Mumbai’s Chabad House, part of the worldwide Chabad-Lubavitch movement. Their two-year-old son Moshe and his nanny had escaped earlier in the siege.

TNN’s deepest condolences to our Yorba Linda neighbors the North County Chabad Center.

No Room At the Inn

November 23, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Yorba Linda | 3 Comments 

A nativity scene rescued from a home destroyed by fire in Yorba Linda. Photo by Mike Boster, LA Times.

Meanwhile, the Orange County Register reports:

Five to six Yorba Linda homes that burned to the ground by a quick-moving brush fire last weekend could have been saved if only firefighters had the water they needed, Orange County Fire Authority Chief Chip Prather said. The revelation comes as residents and city officials continue to demand answers for why the city’s water district had insufficient water pressure and dry hydrants during the 30,000-acre firestorm that destroyed 118 homes in Yorba Linda.

“Close Encounters”? Nope — Yorba Linda

November 21, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Yorba Linda | 1 Comment 

A street in Yorba Linda, California as the firestorm raged last Saturday afternoon. Hat tip to my friend Bob Mosier, who got this image of a living nightmare from a co-worker of the photographer. I’d like to credit him or her if I can.

Residents are still asking questions about poor water pressure in the east end of town, especially in the Hidden Hills neighborhood. Volunteers are at work from 8 a.m.-8 p.m. seven days a week at the city’s disaster relief center at 22744 Eastpark Drive. If you’re nearby, please call any of these numbers and ask what they need to help those who have lost their homes: (714) 380-0535, (714) 403-3127, and (714) 403-3124.

The Waters Ebbed As The Fires Raged

November 18, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Yorba Linda | Leave a Comment 

Residents of a Yorba Linda neighborhood called Hidden Hills are telling the City Council tonight that on Saturday afternoon, as the “Freeway Complex” fire raged through the city, firefighters stood helplessly watching homes burn because there was little or no water pressure in fire hydrants. KTLA, a local TV station, previewed the meeting:

A water pump broke Saturday afternoon and a replacement was found in Laguna Beach.  As a result, Yorba Linda officials have advised residents to boil their water or mix it with a few drops of bleach to purify it.

Homeowners want to know why the system wasn’t built to handle such an emergency — especially in an area at risk for brushfires.

When KTLA asked about that issue, a public relations executive hired by the water district decided to stop the interview.

“It’s just sad, it’s just so sad that the city is not taking care of the property and whoever designed it… I’m just too upset,” homeowner Todd Purdue said.

Some residents claim they’ve received letters in the past notifying them of water pressure problems in the area.  They feel the issue was long-standing and should have been fixed before such a disaster occurred.

One resident wondered why the Yorba Linda Water District had built a new headquarters instead of a once-planned water tower near Hidden Hills. The District has called a special meeting at which public comments will be welcomed on Wednesday, November 19 at 4 p.m. at 1717 E. Miraloma Avenue, Placentia. The District’s office number is (714) 701-3020.