The Last of the President's Men
Page 3
Eight years, invisibility, strict orders not to talk to the press, to-do lists apparently down to how many paper clips they might need? Did Haldeman think of everything? Butterfield wondered. It was as if Nixon, and his presidency, was being wrapped in an impenetrable cocoon.
3
* * *
Butterfield was assigned a cozy, low-ceilinged office in the West Wing basement, across from the one-chair barbershop and next door to the photo studio.
He strolled down the hall to the Situation Room and found Colonel Al Haig, the new military assistant to Kissinger. The two laughed about all the times they had been in the West Wing during the Johnson years. That was their secret, they joked, and agreed that it was better not to advertise or even let it be known they had served in a Democratic administration.
At 1 p.m., Butterfield was standing with Haldeman and other White House staffers in the East Room. He had not seen Nixon since mid-December in the lobby of the Pierre Hotel.
“Ladies and gentleman,” a voice boomed, “the president of the United States and the chief justice of the United States.”
Soon the president was directly in front of Butterfield—four feet away on a slightly raised platform. The expression on Nixon’s face signaled apprehension. He had a way of smiling with his mouth but not his eyes, Butterfield noticed. He knew how expressive the eyes could be. A genuine smile tended to move to the eyes. But Nixon’s eyes looked hollow. How strange, Butterfield thought. Nixon had been high visibility for decades, had spoken to countless people in every imaginable setting. Why couldn’t he be at ease surrounded by his own people and in what was now his own house? Maybe he was just not feeling well.
Nixon spoke for five minutes. He made several awkward jokes telling the wives that the men on his staff would be working nights. “If they are away after midnight,” he added, “don’t blame me, blame them.”
“I’m right there by the platform,” Butterfield remembered. “I’m the first guy. And Nixon’s standing there. And I see he’s looking at me funny, like he doesn’t want to stare at me, but he has never seen me before.” Butterfield laughed, recalling the moment. “I couldn’t say, ‘Hey, don’t you remember me in the Pierre lobby!’ And I wondered if I’m the guy making him uncomfortable.”
After the ceremony, Haldeman invited Butterfield to his office, which adjoined the Oval Office on the west side. It was large with windows and a fireplace. He wanted to talk about an important topic: paper flow. How paper would move to and from Nixon, how to manage and control it, somehow get their arms around the vast amount of business in the largest of enterprises: the American presidency, and the procedures for making decisions large and small.
I want you to work right here in my office for most of each day, Haldeman said, so you can see how both Nixon and I think, our style, our every mode of operating. “I want you to take notes like I do when you’re in with the president. You know, to use the same format.” Format was important. “Even to act and react as I would.”
“I couldn’t believe he was saying that,” Butterfield recalled. He asked, Why?
“Because it will be easier on the president.” Presidential ease was critical. “He’s a funny guy. It’s hard for him to deal with people he doesn’t know well.”
“I wanted to say, ‘Now you’re telling me,’ ” Butterfield recalled. “I’m just in from Australia.” He thought he might have asked: How about people he has not even met?
“The chemistry has to be there,” Haldeman went on. “So, until he gets used to your company, to your presence, to the extent that you can be a carbon copy of me, or a near carbon copy, you will put the president increasingly at ease. It isn’t going to happen overnight. I know that; but I’ll tutor you. Every time I come out of the Oval Office, I’ll review with you what went on, how I responded, and how I plan to follow up on items that require staff action.”
“That scared me to death,” Butterfield said later. Haldeman had intimated on the phone that Nixon was a bit odd and Butterfield had read that in news reports. But this was extraordinary. Was it really necessary? He knew about the importance and subtlety of personal chemistry. But this exercise, apparently designed to create a staff clone, sounded not only weird but ridiculous.
“So,” Haldeman told him, “I’m going to have to work you in rather slowly. If you don’t do things exactly as I do, it could upset him.”
It wasn’t over. “When I go in there, I always sit to the left of the president. We always use yellow pads around here. He uses yellow pads. Don’t use a white pad.”
Unbelievable, thought Butterfield. He didn’t want to hear any more. “It was a strange world I was entering. I wondered if it was as strange as it sounded. I thought, Do I have to get a crew cut too? What have I got myself into? I’m wondering if I can really be a carbon copy of Haldeman.” He thought of asking, “ ‘Do you want me to leave now, Bob? Do you want me to pack my bag and leave?’ It was hard to respond. I just had to nod. I couldn’t get up and walk out, although I thought about it.
“I can hardly believe this little briefing I’m getting here. It’s incredible to me. Where else could this be happening? I can’t imagine.”
The Air Force could be buttoned down, but this was another dimension entirely.
Shortly after 5 p.m., Haldeman was called into the Oval Office. Butterfield assumed he would be out in a short time to give him his first coaching session in “How to Be a Carbon Copy.” At 6:30 Ken Cole, the designated staff secretary who would handle presidential paperwork, came in. He outlined how they would be working together on administrative matters.
Bob is in with the president, Butterfield said, and I’m waiting for him to come out.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” Cole said. “Bob is across the street with the president. They’re taking a sort of tour of the Executive Office Building”—the main staff building next to the West Wing end of the White House.
After 7:30 Haldeman returned to his office, where Butterfield had waited two and one half hours.
Haldeman apologized.
“I didn’t mind,” Butterfield said. He had met Ken Cole and they had discussed paper flow. “I liked him a lot.”
Haldeman apologized a second time for not alerting Butterfield that he and the president had gone on a tour. He had thought of leaving the president for a moment to go back to his office and explain. But, he said, if he had done that he was afraid he might somehow unnerve Nixon—“You know, make him uncomfortable knowing you were in here.”
No, Butterfield didn’t know. And he didn’t understand. Not just his presence but the knowledge that he was in Haldeman’s office would somehow stoke the president’s worry? This made Butterfield think that the discomfort was about him. Yet he felt it was best to get back to a discussion of paper flow, note taking and carbon-copying Haldeman.
Haldeman was not going to let it go. “He knows we’ve brought you in as my deputy. In fact, he saw you this afternoon at the swearing-in.”
That was not surprising to Butterfield, who had been four feet away from the president for the ceremony.
“He asked if you were the one standing next to me by the podium. So I can tell, he’s just a little edgy.”
Edgy? Why? How was that possible?
“He knows of the plan—in fact, he’s approved the plan—to bring you into the Oval Office operation, but he’s apprehensive about our getting started.”
Apprehensive? The man has just taken over the leadership of the free world, and he is apprehensive about meeting a midlevel functionary? What was going on?
“That’s why I want to wait for just the right time to take you in and introduce you.”
“Bob, please,” Butterfield lied. “That’s fine. I understand perfectly.” He did not understand at all.
Haldeman continued to express concern about the coming introduction. Butterfield could remember Haldeman’s words 42 years later: “He’s such a funny guy,” Haldeman said. “I’ve got to play his moods. And if it happe
ns to be the wrong time, you’re dead in the water before you get started.
“I’ve brought you all the way in here. I have told him about you, but you know, I don’t even know if he was paying attention.”
Butterfield did not know whether to shriek, cry or walk out. What a thing to say—“I don’t even know if he was paying attention”—even if it was true. What an utter put-down, cold, cruel and demeaning.
Given the circumstances, Butterfield smiled and assured Haldeman he would follow his lead. “What do you think it’ll take, Bob, a couple of days?”
“Oh, yeah, about that. We’ll do it this week for sure—probably late in the day as he’s leaving the office. He’ll be more relaxed then.”
Was this happening? Was it believable? How could the president of the United States need to be relaxed to meet him?
• • •
During these early days, Nixon held a private dinner for the Apollo 8 astronauts, the second human spaceflight mission and the first to fly around the moon. Frank Borman, the commander of Apollo 8, was a friend of Butterfield’s, an Air Force colonel of the same vintage. The two went for a drink at the Hilton.
“God, Alex, you’ve got a great job,” Borman said, indicating that this was going to be a wonderful presidency. “I mean, working for the president. You’re really lucky. You’re an integral part of this man’s team, the inner sanctum.”
“Jesus, Frank, you already know the president better than I do,” Butterfield replied. “Believe it or not, I’ve never even met the man. The truth is I’m supposed to stay out of sight for fear that I’ll upset him if he sees me. My orders are to hide out in Haldeman’s office.”
Butterfield later congratulated Haldeman for shunning the title chief of staff. Haldeman also had been an Eagle Scout, and the Scouts liked a clear hierarchy. And he’d spent all those years at J. Walter Thompson advertising agency, where there was also a defined pecking order. Butterfield liked organizational charts. In the military they always had one on the wall. “Why don’t you call yourself executive assistant? That makes your position clear to everyone.”
“We don’t want to make anything clear,” Haldeman replied.
Later the business magazines Forbes and BusinessWeek inquired about White House organizational arrangements and titles. Haldeman told Butterfield not to answer. “Let them keep fucking guessing,” he said.
4
* * *
Five days into the administration, Saturday, January 25, Haldeman was sitting in his office with Butterfield, going through a manila folder filled with memos that Nixon had dictated to Rose Mary Woods, his personal secretary for 18 years.
One memo began: “To: Mrs. Nixon . . . From: The President.”
“Imagine yourself writing this to Charlotte,” Haldeman said smiling. He read on. One subject was Nixon’s bedside table: “RN needs a table that is larger, something that will allow him to get his knees under it.” Nixon kept referring to himself in the third person and with initials. Butterfield had trouble believing what he was seeing as he read on. “RN . . . RN . . . RN.” It was as if Nixon were discussing another person.
“I had never seen anything like it,” Butterfield recalled. “I could hardly believe it. In the real world it’s a funny memo.” He was more fascinated than amused. What was this marriage? And who was Nixon?
• • •
In those first days he got to know many of the senior and more junior people working in the West Wing. They seemed friendly, welcoming and savvy. They showed reverence toward Nixon, a devotion and almost worshipfulness when he would pass through. Mention of him was “THE PRESIDENT.” Butterfield had seen some of this in the Johnson White House but the intensity was new.
On January 31, Haldeman returned to the touchy subject of the president’s marriage. “It was never easy,” he explained to Butterfield, “never harmonious.” Dick and Pat often saw things differently, and neither gave in easily to the wishes, or demands, of the other. Nixon wanted to eliminate the friction, Haldeman said.
“He went through a long explanation of how he wants us to work with her staff,” Butterfield recalled, “and it boils down to our carefully reviewing everything they recommend—all the social function scenarios.” Chiefly about receptions, dinners and parties.
“When we can, we’ll return the scenarios ‘approved as submitted,’ ” Haldeman said. “But when we can’t, when we feel that changes must be made, we’ll make those changes and they’ll have to accept them without protest.”
It hardly sounded like a plan to avoid friction. “Isn’t that really a matter for the president to take up with the first lady?” Butterfield asked.
Haldeman chuckled. It was uncharacteristic of him. “You don’t understand, Alex,” he said. “The president doesn’t discuss these kinds of things with Pat. We do.
“And that brings up another subject,” he continued. He personally had served as the intermediary between the Nixons over the years. “She hates me,” Haldeman said. He usually reflected the president’s view and was a pretty straight transmission belt for Nixon’s likes and dislikes. The relationship with Pat never took. “I failed.” Eventually during one of the campaigns, she refused to see him or talk to him on the phone.
“Finally,” Haldeman said, “we made Dwight Chapin the intermediary.” Chapin, 28, was currently the appointments secretary. He was also the ultimate choirboy. “Dwight, as you may have noticed already, has the world’s nicest manner. He is polite and considerate, and both the president and I thought he’d work out fine.”
Chapin lasted a couple of months. “But as soon as Pat felt that he had no personal interest in her view, that he was only seeing her to convey Dick’s view—you know, the president’s view—she shut him out too. To this day, she doesn’t really trust me because she’s convinced I will always represent the president’s position—she’s right, actually.”
No surprise, Butterfield thought. Of course she would realize the obvious that anyone in the employ of Nixon would be the advocate for his views.
Butterfield, however, did not see what was coming next.
“I think you could handle Pat perfectly,” Haldeman said. “You’re a lot older than Dwight. That’ll help a lot. And because you’re new on the staff, she won’t see you as she sees Dwight and me as longtime associates of the president.”
Oh, no, Butterfield thought, as the new man he would have to be more inflexible, reflect the president’s views unflinchingly to the first lady.
And then there is the Rose Mary Woods problem, Haldeman explained. Rose had been with Nixon since 1951.
“She’s almost like an aunt to the girls,” he said, referring to the Nixon daughters, Tricia and Julie. “But the fact is that she’s outlived much of her usefulness. She’s not sophisticated in the least and hasn’t grown much. The president likes her but he wants to keep her at a distance. If he doesn’t, she’ll be in his office every five minutes with some unimportant, irrelevant matter. So I’ve got to work that out.” He said the president was very aware of the Rose problem, and had told him, “I don’t want her coming in here every five minutes. She’s a pain in the ass.”
Butterfield wondered if he was also going to get the Rose account. But the news was almost worse.
“Incidentally,” Haldeman added, “you may want to be on the alert. She’s already resentful of you. She doesn’t like to see new people getting close to her man.”
The Nixon inner circle sounded like both snake pit and kindergarten. “I’d say she’s a bit premature in her resentment,” Butterfield said.
“No,” Haldeman said. “As I say, Alex, I don’t want to wait any longer.” He would take Butterfield to meet the president, he promised, today or tomorrow. “There’s too much to be done that depends on your working as closely with the president as I am.”
Haldeman added that Butterfield had to understand, “The president only works through me.” And the goal was to substitute Butterfield as the alternative Haldeman.
Butterfield recalled, “I’m hiding behind columns, or I’m ready to, you know? I’m sleuthing around the West Wing so I won’t spook the president when he sees this different face. It was an uncomfortable period.”
Haldeman had one more piece of business. The president was interested in preserving as much detail as possible of his Oval Office history. So the president wanted to start having someone senior on the staff sit in on every meeting and take notes of the highlights. “Not only the substantive things,” he explained, “but the mood of the meeting, as well. The president described them as sort of ‘anecdotal reports.’ And that is something I want you to get launched.” Butterfield would be one of the handful of people to sit in once Nixon got to know him. Kissinger, John Ehrlichman, the White House counsel and a longtime aide, and Haldeman himself would do these memos.
• • •
It was an agonizing two weeks for Butterfield as he stayed out of sight.
On February 18, Haldeman came racing in to find Butterfield.
“Goddamnit,” Haldeman said, “just what I did not want to happen. Jo called and I’ve got to get out to California.” Jo, his wife, had not yet come to Washington and there were papers Haldeman had to sign about the sale of their house in California. It had been almost a month, and Butterfield still had not yet met Nixon. “I’ve got to take you in to meet him. You have to fill in for me when I’m gone,” Haldeman said. He would be away about four days.
Butterfield recalled, “It was terrible. He grabbed me and said, ‘I’ve got a staff car waiting to take me out to Dulles. I’m going back to Los Angeles. This is just what I didn’t want to happen. I’ve got to take you in now to meet the president. Talk about not the right time.’ So we run down the hall . . . Haldeman’s almost frantic. We burst into the Oval Office breathless and unannounced. Of course, he could do that. I remember the president’s face. We startled him. What the hell was going on? It’s Haldeman and he’s got that mysterious man with him. Still at a trot we move toward the middle of the Oval Office. And the president can see two guys running in and stop in the middle. So he gets up and comes around from his desk.”