Known and Unknown_ A Memoir - Donald Rumsfeld [70]
Members of Nixon’s cabinet had their own personal experiences with young people expressing opposition to the war and wanting to be part of the so-called youth movement, which was characterized by wearing long hair, beads, and tie-dyed shirts. This provided a challenge for some parents in the cabinet, since most Sundays Nixon invited our families to the White House for a church service, and parents had to work overtime to make sure their children looked presentable enough to read scripture or shake hands with the President. Our own children were friends with some of the antiwar demonstrators, and it was not exactly easy for them to reveal that their dad worked for Richard Nixon in the White House. Valerie once told me that she was thinking of joining one of the demonstrations. “Okay, do it,” I said bluntly, “if you believe in what you are saying.” But I told her I didn’t want her to join a protest simply because she wanted to be part of her crowd. She decided not to go.
Now that I was at the White House full-time, there was speculation in the press and elsewhere that I had moved into President Nixon’s inner circle. That was an outsider’s perspective. Inside the White House the situation was more complex. Nixon had more than one so-called inner circle—and he would swing back and forth among them, depending on his interests and moods. He also used the various circles for quite different purposes.
There was, of course, the well-publicized duo in the Nixon White House, consisting of Bob Haldeman and John Ehrlichman. They appealed to Nixon’s political bent, his toughness, and his long-held resentment of those he called the Washington elites. Haldeman and Ehrlichman’s German surnames led the press to dub them the Berlin Wall for their reputation as a united front protecting the President and, it was implied, keeping others out. My experience was that Haldeman and Ehrlichman had quite different personalities and working methods.
As chief of staff, Haldeman was the aide closest to the President. He was a trim man with a crew cut, brisk and methodical, but rarely unpleasant. I liked his meetings, because they tended to be substantive and efficient. I also had a reasonable certainty when I dealt with him that he was providing an accurate version of President Nixon’s wishes and views, which made me comfortable with the guidance he offered. Because of his closeness to Nixon, Haldeman might have been the one person who could have stepped in and stopped Nixon’s decisions regarding the management of the Watergate scandal. Nixon sometimes said things he hadn’t thought through. What he needed was someone to talk him out of those thoughts. I suspect Haldeman’s fault might have been in not insisting to his boss that he was wrong.
Ehrlichman was less pleasant to deal with. He seemed to have a high degree of certainty about his views that bordered on arrogance, a trait that did him no favors as he gathered more influence in the White House. Certainty without power can be interesting, and even amusing. Certainty with power can be dangerous. It was never clear to me whether Ehrlichman was basing his guidance to others on the President’s views or his own. I did not follow his guidance without checking his suggestions out with others, and then only if I agreed with them.
One person who made his way through the Berlin Wall was Chuck Colson. He served as Nixon’s special counsel and seemed to become increasingly close to him as the 1972 election approached. A former Marine, a troubleshooter, and a self-described hatchet man, Colson was bright and tough. The President boasted that Colson would do anything for him, including walk “right through doors.”3 Nixon no doubt valued