The President’s Man

That summer my mother’s best friend Kathleen Hite, a woman who had gone to Wichita State with her then moved west to co-create the radio and then television western, Gunsmoke, arranged for me to work for CBS News at the Democratic Convention in Los Angeles. My job was to clip the stories that were printed by the teletype machines, go into the studio while the correspondents were on the air, crawl under the desk on my hands and knees to avoid the cameras and deliver them to the producers. It was an exhilarating experience. Rotating in and out of the studio were the giants of early news broadcasting, Edward R. Murrow, Charles Collingwood, Eric Sevareid, Douglas Edwards and Walter Cronkite.

I became infatuated with the hubbub of it all, the importance of being in the middle of the excitement. I was there when Kennedy came to the convention hall to accept the nomination. I was 19-years old, witnessing this, feeling this extraordinary euphoria in the hall. There is an expression usually applied to relatives of politicians, politics is in his (or her) blood; for me, this was where I got my transfusion.

When I think back to that day I find myself smiling. Only Bob Haldeman could make the lesser of two offers sound more appealing. And I couldn’t turn down the long shot prospect of working for Nixon in a Presidential campaign. As I prepared to leave Los Angeles in September, 1965, I wrote to him, “I am very much aware of how fortunate I have been to have begun my career under your watchful eyes… I admire so many of your qualities and through my association with you…it seems my mind has improved and my ability to reason is keener…”

In response, he wrote, “I told you that there would be a place for you in anything I do and anyplace I go. I meant that literally…I felt that you and I complement each other to a remarkable degree – and the two of us as a team were considerably stronger than that of each of us separately.”

Haldeman and I were 3,000 miles apart, but in so many ways closer than ever. I never questioned why he had taken such an interest in my life. There was no reason to. But as anyone who has ever had a powerful mentor would understand, knowing he was there provided a real sense of security.

More and more Mr. Nixon's life became Susie's and my life. It was far more difficult on her than on me. I was in the middle of this exciting, wonderful experience while she was living vicariously at home, taking care of our two little girls. She had many friends, but missed my presence. It was an abnormal situation for us, because for years we were never away from each other for days at a time. Plus, as anyone with tiny kids knows, even two little girls can be a hand full.

Mr. Nixon and I traveled during the week and also campaigned every weekend, usually with Mrs. Nixon and their two daughters. David Eisenhower, grandson of President Eisenhower, who was dating Julie joined us on most weekends too. It was truly a 24/7 job. Everything centered around Mr. Nixon. I was so focused on what I was doing I didn’t worry about Susie. While we were together and she was my wife, this was my job. Since ninth grade it had been "Dwight and Susie", "Susie and Dwight". That was my identity. It was her identity. I think we knew, if only intuitively, the campaign and what we were experiencing was a once in a life-time opportunity. The uniqueness of our lives at that time, fueled our ability as a couple to work our way through it.

The actual VP selection supposedly took place in Miami just before the convention opened. I say “supposedly" because I believe it had probably been decided the previous week. We’d spent that week in Montauk, New York at the eastern end of Long Island. While he was there, Nixon relaxed, worked on his acceptance speech and taped several television segments for possible use in campaign commercials.

That Montauk week was important. He was resting, getting his acceptance speech honed, and meeting with top advisors on how the post-Convention campaign launch would unfold. Also, he was thinking of how the Convention itself would position him as “Presidential”, with the millions who would watch on television. He was thinking all this through in Montauk.

It was fascinating to watch Nixon shift effortlessly from tireless campaigner to tireless executive. He was in his element. He ran things incredibly smoothly and had mastered the art of making all the necessary decisions. He worked in the suite at the Pierre Hotel during the day and in the evening at his apartment, attending only those events that were politically necessary while exercising complete control over the transition. It was a lesson in disciplined leadership.

The most important decisions he had to make during this period involved putting together his Cabinet. He knew who he wanted and he went out to get them. We were in California, at the Century Plaza Hotel in early December 1968. I was sent downstairs to the lobby to find this professor from the University of Chicago, who few had heard of. His name was George Shultz. I escorted Mr. Shultz upstairs to the suite for his first ever meeting with Mr. Nixon. Shultz wasn’t a politician. He was an academic. It was Richard Nixon who brought him into the public domain where he distinguished himself many times over, first as Secretary of Labor and then Director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Nixon Administration.

Meanwhile, I was continuing to figure out my job. Throughout the campaign Nixon had settled into a pattern. I knew what to expect from him and how to best facilitate his needs. In contrast to his style during the campaign, the President was inconsistent about the way he wanted his time allotted in the White House. He gave me a set of rules to follow, and within a day or two he would be breaking his own rules – and complaining about it. Keeping up with him was frustrating. In truth, he was feeling out, and testing, the most optimum way to manage his own time. As Vice President he had watched President Eisenhower up close. There were areas of governing that he enjoyed, as well as duties he didn’t enjoy but was obligated to administer. He was looking for that right formula between handling official Presidential ceremonial obligations vs. dealing with the more substantive issues, such as the Vietnam War, domestic and foreign Intelligence, foreign policy, congressional relations, the economy and a whole range of other matters.

Some colleagues thought the operations were becoming too bureaucratic, structured to the point of isolating the President, which they felt wasn’t conducive to the exchange of ideas. Compared to where folks may have previously worked, or the level of management they had experienced, their criticism could be understood. But, bottom line, Haldeman was putting in place the system the President wanted. Actual, Bob was putting in place not what Nixon wanted, he did that, but what Nixon needed.

The only people who had immediate access to the President at any time were his family. No matter what the President was doing, when Mrs. Nixon or the girls came down, they had priority. It happened rarely, but when it did, the schedule stopped. I was the gatekeeper, until Steve Bull took over. Steve and I both understood the President’s feelings about that. I always wished people could see Nixon with his daughters, if only for a minute. Politically there was the ‘old Nixon’ and the ‘new Nixon,’ but personally there was a constant version of Nixon, the very present and attentive father. The Nixon daughters, Tricia and Julie, were young adults. They weren’t the ages of the young Kennedy kids, who would be photographed crawling around the Oval Office floor in the John F Kennedy days. We didn’t have the opportunity for those very appealing kinds of pictures. But Nixon allowed that sensitive, emotional side of him, the part he kept so deeply hidden inside, to sneak out with his daughters.

The minute Nixon entered office he was confronted with a national crisis, the War in Vietnam. President Kennedy, followed by President Johnson, had committed the nation to the winning of the Vietnam war. On January 20, 1969 when Nixon was inaugurated, 510,000 United States troops were in Vietnam. Nixon came into office despised by many ultra-left Americans because of his political history in fighting communism. His flat refusal to end the war instantly gave those same people a cause to rally around. As the months of the Nixon Administration unfolded, nothing, no other issue, no problems, nothing sucked up as much air in the White House as the Vietnam War. It was there in the background of everything we did. While the left refused to believe it, rather than using the war for political gain, Richard Nixon did everything possible to end it as quickly and as honorably as possible. As a World War II veteran and as a student of American history, he was determined he was not going to be the first American President to let our country lose a war. I know he felt he was acting in the best future interests of our country and was frustrated by the viciousness and anti-patriotic demonstrations of the opposition.

In my expanded role I became more involved in our efforts to sway public opinion about the Administration’s Vietnam policy. The War was tearing the country apart. Without question it was getting worse, not better. The nation was exhausted and wanted it to end. Initially the protestors had been mostly young people but gradually their parents were joining the movement. The left, for political gain, had been using the war as a sledgehammer to bludgeon the Administration. We fought back. An important part of my new job was to help develop strategies to get out our message of how we were working diligently to end the War. Many of the White House staff were submitting and articulating communication strategies for the President’s consideration. Now I had been invited to weigh in too. It had been only a couple of years earlier, i.e. in March of 1967, that I had begun as Nixon's Personal Aide at the law firm. Now, two and a half years later, I had been given the opportunity to weigh in on sensitive public perception issues at the White House.

It was mid-morning when Haldeman told Ziegler to contact the news networks to inform them that the President intended to make an important foreign policy announcement to the nation at 6 o’clock (9 PM EDT). Meanwhile, most of the staff still didn't know what was transpiring. Late in the afternoon we boarded helicopters and flew to NBC’s Burbank studio to be present for the President’s announcement. He went on-air with a written statement telling the nation of Henry's secret trip and that he, as President, had accepted an invitation from Chairman Mao Zedong to visit the People’s Republic of China. At precisely the same time Chairman Mao was making a similar announcement to the Chinese people. In terms of foreign policy, the impact of that announcement was seismic. The entire world was stunned by the news.

I was in a meeting early that first afternoon when one of our Secret Service agents found me, saying that Han Hsu had arrived and wanted to see me. As I walked to the front entrance, I found Premier Chou standing with him. Han said, "We are going to see “the Chairman,” meaning Chairman Mao Tse-Tung. “Please get the President." This meeting request was completely unexpected, and a very big deal. The President was about to meet Chairman Mao. Apparently, before seeing me, Chou and Han had also told Henry that Chairman Mao wanted to meet with the President immediately – but that he only wanted to meet the President; no additional advisors.

We had all been briefed by the Secret Service on what to expect. They warned us that our hotel rooms undoubtedly would be bugged and secretly monitored. They went so far as to suggest that the women traveling with us, in order to ensure their privacy, might want to change clothes under a sheet. We were all given little soundboxes that played a recording of people talking with loud music in the background. When we had to have any type of important conversation, we were advised to put this device between us and turn it on, then lean close and speak softly to each other, in order that the Russians couldn’t hear what we were discussing.

For starters, I was the first person to go to trial in the aftermath of the Watergate break-in. I was also the first person to go to prison following my trial. However, I had nothing at all to do with the break-in or cover up. As already explained, I had hired my good friend, Don Segretti, to implement Dick Tuck campaign work. Don’s work attracted the attention of the press. Once the press learned of Segretti’s work, they tied him to me. Given that I was working in the West Wing, the press had successfully “entered the White House” and were then steps away from the President, who was the man they had set out to get.

Jaworski expanded the investigation. His team needed a "public hanging" so to speak, a "we're taking action" statement, so they went after the most obvious target available: me. Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time! I used to joke that I was never closer to the President than during this period. Woodward and Bernstein mentioned the fact in their book that when they were reporting about me, one of their editors began adding material about my closeness to the President in every story.

I do have one regret. I wish I had gone to prison before I had worked in the White House. It was one of the most valuable learning experiences of my life. Being in prison, even just for several months (although there is no ‘just’ when talking about being in prison) changed me. It exposed me to situations and people that otherwise would never have been part of my life. There are people who tell you they vowed this or that before going to prison. That wasn’t me. The only objective I had when I walked through the gates was to walk out as soon as possible. I didn’t expect to be a different or a better person.

It was fascinating to me to watch Richard Nixon transitioning from the flesh-and-blood man I knew and had worked for, with all of his quirks, into an authentic historical figure. Understanding Richard Nixon became its own industry. After leaving the White House, the former President first moved back to San Clemente; then to Manhattan for awhile; and from there to Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. His was a rehabilitation process where he had to recover from both health issues and public perceptions. But the former President was no longer a political threat, so the magnetic nature of his personality, wisdom and political acumen drew people of influence, as well as the general public, back to him. It was, and even continues to be, an amazing process to watch the continual reevaluation and understanding of our complex former President.

Once Dean had falsely reassured the president that no one in the White House was involved in the break-in, the president, Haldeman, and Ehrlichman viewed it as a Mitchell and Magruder campaign- management problem. It was embarrassing and needed containment… Until writing this book, I had not spent much time really focusing on the details of John Dean’s involvement in Watergate. I knew he was critical to the story and what happened to the president. I also knew the role he had played in my situation with Segretti, but not the full story of his involvement… Evidence incriminating John Dean is contained in the March 13– March 21, 1973, tapes. (Author’s note: The reader is directed to how he can easily listen to the actual White House tapes, while simultaneously reading a transcript of what he is listening to.)

Tell the story of Richard Nixon’s life. Our mission statement read in part:

President Nixon was unique among presidents. The story of his life is one of inspiration, challenges, and persistence. He influenced American and world affairs for a half century. President Nixon was one of the most intelligent, insightful, and visionary presidents in the history of the nation. He also is the only president to ever resign. His story and that of his administration are of historic importance to future generations and it is the foundation’s responsibility to tell that story— honestly, completely, and unequivocally!