The Last of the President's Men
Page 19
Butterfield flew immediately to the remote outpost to care for his mother, then phoned to get assistance from a general in the Alaskan Air Command. Years earlier, as lieutenant colonels, they had been friends in the Pentagon. “I don’t want to talk to him,” Butterfield could hear the general speaking to an assistant. “Tell him I’m not in.”
He was sure it was because of his role in the demise of Nixon. “Military friends were the last to understand,” he told me. “They could not possibly know what I knew about Nixon and various facets of his personality and White House operation. There is the commander-in-chief thing. They can’t easily rationalize his taking a hit, much less a major blow from a former member of the club.”
Over the decades Butterfield wondered why he had to be the one to disclose the tapes. “Why me? Why did fate play this dirty trick on me?
“It never did make me doubt that I had made the right decisions once put in that situation,” he said again. “But it would have been nice if more people had understood what was really going on.”
To get rid of the FAA administrator generally requires an airplane crash. On December 1, 1974, a TWA 727 jet went down some 40 miles west of Dulles Airport, killing 92. It was pilot error, but as always the FAA had a role to play as some investigators faulted an air controller.
Claude Brinegar, the secretary of transportation and Butterfield’s nominal boss, was not pleased when Butterfield had been selected to run his department’s largest organization. Throughout Butterfield’s tenure the two had been at each other’s throat. And at one point Butterfield had a minor run-in with Gerald Ford before he became vice president, and now Ford was president. “Alex,” White House chief of staff Donald Rumsfeld called in early 1975, “the president wants you to go now.”
Butterfield submitted his resignation and his last day at the FAA was March 31, 1975. He stayed on as a paid consultant to the new secretary of transportation, William Coleman, for 60 days and then went on a one-year speaking tour. He recalls that he received $2,500 for each of 13 speeches, mostly on government ethics.
In July 1975, Fletcher Prouty, a retired Air Force colonel and discredited JFK assassination conspiracy theorist, went on television to allege that Butterfield had been working as the CIA “contact man” in the Nixon White House.
“It’s Watergate all over again,” Charlotte reported to her husband over the phone. “The lawn is full of journalists.”
CBS 60 Minutes correspondent Mike Wallace put Butterfield on the air to categorically deny the charges. “Not a shred of truth,” Butterfield said of the charge. “Absolutely false.”
“I talked tough on that program,” Butterfield recalled, “or tried to.” No evidence to support the claim was ever provided. Prouty said the source was Howard Hunt, who denied that he had made such a charge.
Charles B. Seib, the ombudsman for The Washington Post, investigated and wrote in a column July 22, 1975, that the charge had “fizzled” and the leaders of the congressional investigations found zero support for the charges.
Because of the tapes disclosure, Butterfield was radioactive. He sent out résumés to 88 firms, and finally got a job as chief operating officer of International Air Service Company in San Francisco. The firm was one of the largest flight-crew leasing and pilot-training agencies in the world. The company paid him $65,000 a year, and in addition provided the use of a beautiful home outside San Francisco and a new Jaguar sedan.
“I had this little spot in the drive I took from where I lived up to work where I could go 100 mph safely.”
In 1979 he moved to Los Angeles as president and chief operating officer of California Life Corporation, a financial holding company, at $150,000 a year. He joined the Bel-Air Country Club and felt financially secure for the first time since leaving government.
In 1980 George Herbert Walker Bush, after being elected Ronald Reagan’s vice president, fought hard to get Butterfield appointed ambassador to NATO. But Haig, who had been selected as Reagan’s secretary of state, blocked the appointment. “Haig wouldn’t even see me,” Butterfield said.
From 1984 to 1994 Butterfield started and ran Armistead & Alexander, an international consulting company that specialized in improving productivity in businesses. He and Charlotte were divorced in 1985. In 1988–89 he returned to Washington briefly as a volunteer on the Inaugural Committee of President-elect Bush. He wrote a 100-page paper on White House administration and served for seven weeks running the volunteer desk at Inaugural Committee headquarters.
Butterfield effectively retired by 2000, when he started taking Italian courses at the University of California, San Diego. He earned a master’s degree in American history and even now is working on a PhD dissertation on the president’s pardoning power. He lectures once a year at Oxford University in England and serves on several boards, including Dr. Seuss Enterprises.
• • •
On several of my visits to his penthouse in California, I walked along a hallway 20 feet long where he had hung 30 framed photographs. To my surprise they were almost exclusively from his Nixon White House days—Nixon with his family; Butterfield with Nixon outside on the White House grounds; Butterfield’s family with Nixon; Butterfield in numerous Nixon White House meetings, large and small; Butterfield with Nixon in the Oval Office; Nixon with Sammy Davis Jr.; Butterfield testifying and disclosing the secret taping system to the Senate Watergate Committee; Nixon’s resignation-day farewell address when he was sweating and overwrought with emotion.
Another was a cartoon of Nixon waking up in bed with a smile telling Pat, “I just had the most beautiful dream—that Alexander Butterfield didn’t reveal that conversations in the Oval Office were taped!”
One photograph was inscribed, “To Alex Butterfield, With deep gratitude for your outstanding contribution to the success of the 1972 Republican National Convention.” Signed in Richard Nixon’s autopen.
I asked him why put all the photographs up? Why such a large gallery?
Well, I have them, he said, and I thought I ought to put them up.
We lingered over them.
Here was the paradox on the wall. On one hand, the photographs were there to remind visitors, and perhaps himself, that he had been there at the center of things and been an intimate witness to it all. On the other hand, they were there to show he was the one who testified about the secret taping system, and lit a fuse that helped bring it all down.
The last photograph shows a formal receiving line. Butterfield is shaking hands with Nixon’s successor, Gerald Ford. They are staring wordlessly into each other’s eyes.
• • •
In 2015, Butterfield told me of his 40 years since Nixon, “it wasn’t really a happy time. However, I don’t think I did any moping.
“I thought at times what could have been, had I remained in the Air Force and become a general officer.
“No regrets. If I had to do it over again, I figure I’d do the very same thing.” Life in California is so different from Washington, he said. He found contentment on the West Coast, and says he is at peace with himself. If he had not disclosed the tapes, he said, it is likely he would have fit eventually into the California Republican business world and been welcomed into its upper echelons. He likely would have gone to the Bohemian Grove, a private men’s club that meets in the summer for a three-week encampment with some of the most powerful political and business figures in the world. “In another life, I probably would’ve been going to those things.” Instead he found anonymity, and basked in it.
“Nobody knew, you know, my name. Back East a waiter in a New York restaurant might know from a credit card. But out here, no way. You could spell it out, and you could even tell them you had a key role in Watergate. They’d say, Water-what?”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Special and enduring thanks to Alex Butterfield for putting up with the 11 months I haunted him for information, recollections and documents. He relinquished editorial control to me with grace and understanding, a
greeing to let me tell his story. At the same time he was always the gentleman host, welcoming numerous visits from Evelyn Duffy and me.
This is my eighteenth book over 43 years with my Simon & Schuster editor Alice Mayhew. Her energy and wisdom guided me as she instantly recognized the importance of continuing to report the Nixon story. She is a book idea machine like no one else and devoted many days to reading, editing, rereading and reediting the manuscript.
More than thanks to Jonathan Karp, the publisher, who provided countless ideas, editing and substantive suggestions. He is a master of the craft of publishing with a depth and range found nowhere else. The CEO at Simon & Schuster is Carolyn K. Reidy who over the decades has given me the full support of her empire. I am indebted to her once again.
At Simon & Schuster I am grateful for the work, attention and professional support of Elisa Rivlin, the counsel; Jackie Seow, Executive Art Director; Joy O’Meara, Design Director; Lisa Healy, Senior Production Editor; Stuart Roberts, Assistant Editor; Julia Prosser, Deputy Director of Publicity; Stephen Bedford, Marketing Specialist; Lisa Erwin, Senior Production Manager; Richard Rhorer, Associate Publisher; Irene Kheradi, Executive Managing Editor.
My thanks to Fred Chase, the terrific copy editor and counselor. He spent a week in Washington working with Evelyn and myself. He knows the business of words like no other. I thank him for his special, near-round-the-clock efforts and guidance.
As always, many thanks to former colleagues at The Washington Post, especially Carl Bernstein, Don Graham, Sally Quinn, David Maraniss, Rick Atkinson, Christian Williams, Paul Richard, Patrick Tyler, Tom Wilkinson, Marcus Brauchli, Katharine Weymouth, and John Feinstein for direct and indirect assistance—and life-long insights and friendships.
Editors and colleagues at the Post have always given me the support and flexibility to pursue such in-depth projects. My sincere gratitude to Marty Baron, the executive editor; Kevin Merida, the managing editor; Cameron Barr, the national editor; Jeff Leen, the investigations editor; and Steve Luxenberg, Carlos Lozada, Steven Ginsberg, Fred Hiatt, and the new publisher Fred Ryan.
I hope all these book and newspaper people know how much I am thankful for the role they have played in my life. Special appreciation to Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder and CEO who is now owner of The Washington Post. May he and his paper—our paper—have every success.
Archivists have helped immensely, especially Michael Ellzey, director of the Nixon Library and Museum, and experts at the Nixon Library, especially Pamla Eisenberg, Ryan Pettigrew, and Jon Fletcher.
Also many thanks to Thomas S. Blanton, director, National Security Archive at George Washington University, for his extra efforts.
Deep appreciation to David Killian, research librarian at the George Washington University, for locating the Vietnam bombing statistics cited in this book.
Many thanks to Potomac Indexing LLC for the indexing.
Now to another essence of modern publishing—selling the book. Robert B. Barnett is my lawyer, counselor and friend extraordinaire. Invaluable, informed and energetic, he got behind this book and deployed all his talents and knowledge. Simply put, there is no one like him in Washington or publishing. And no one looks out for the interests of his client with equivalent skill and devotion.
Evelyn and I thank Rosa Criollo and Jackie Crowe for all the care and kindnesses they have provided around Q Street and elsewhere.
Tali Woodward, my elder daughter and director of the Master of Arts program at Columbia Journalism School, helped edit this book, offering many suggestions for improved clarity and context. She, her husband, Gabe Roth, and their two children, Zadie and Theo, are in our lives more and more, making everything better.
My daughter Diana Woodward is off to Yale for her freshman year. Her love of learning is palpable, and we miss her around the house. As she says, “Happy to go, sad to leave.” She has been the spark and a joy.
Most relevant to a sensible life is my wife Elsa Walsh. This is the fifteenth of my books in the 34 years we have been together. I am blessed. She is author and former reporter for The Washington Post and The New Yorker. Elsa is editor, leader, chief enforcement officer, and the indispensable partner and love of my life. Human kindness is her virtue. She frequently quotes Henry James, “There are only three things important in life. The first is to be kind. The second it to be kind and the third is to be kind.” She is the foremost believer and practitioner of kindness.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
© RICHARD HOWARD
Bob Woodward is an associate editor at The Washington Post, where he has worked for 44 years. He has shared in two Pulitzer Prizes, first for the Post’s coverage of the Watergate scandal with Carl Bernstein, and later for coverage of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He has authored or coauthored 17 national nonfiction bestsellers, 12 of which have been #1 national bestsellers.
Woodward has two daughters, Tali and Diana, and lives in Washington, D.C., wtih his wife, writer Elsa Walsh.
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Shadow: Five Presidents and the Legacy of Watergate
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SOURCE NOTES
I conducted the following taped interviews with Alexander Butterfield that totaled more than 46 hours:
Date
Location
Duration
2011
July 18
Edgewater, MD
5 hours
2014
June 22
Washington, DC
2 hours, 25 minutes
June 23
Washington, DC
5 hours, 5 minutes
July 22
La Jolla, CA
7 hours, 3 minutes
July 23
La Jolla, CA
2 hours, 21 minutes
December 5
La Jolla, CA
2 hours, 17 minutes
December 6
La Jolla, CA
3 hours, 37 minutes
December 7
La Jolla, CA
4 hours, 9 minutes
December 8
Coronado, CA
1 hour, 21 minutes
2015
January 20
La Jolla, CA
6 hours, 2 minutes
January 21–22
La Jolla, CA
7 hours, 6 minutes of videotaped interviews over two days
April 15
Phone interview
1 hour, 32 minutes
May 4
La Jolla, CA
27 minutes
On September 10, 2014, my assistant, Evelyn Duffy, interviewed Butterfield on tape in La Jolla for 2 hours and 15 minutes.
I have quoted throughout the book from Butterfield’s book proposal and his unpublished book draft, bearing the working
title “Fellow Countrymen.” Several chapters are missing.
PROLOGUE
“I had believed”: Richard Nixon, RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1978), p. 900.
CHAPTER 1
“He was drop-dead handsome”: Interview with Charlotte and Alexander Butterfield, December 8, 2014.
Butterfield would later write: Alexander Butterfield, Unpublished book draft.
CHAPTER 2
“He was a golden boy”: Interview with Charlotte and Alexander Butterfield, December 8, 2014.
White House aide Egil “Bud” Krogh would later call it: Egil “Bud” Krogh with Matthew Krogh, Integrity: Good People, Bad Choices and Life Lessons from the White House (New York: PublicAffairs, 2007), p. 41.
CHAPTER 3
“If they are away after midnight”: Richard Nixon, “Remarks at the Swearing In of New Members of the White House Staff,” January 21, 1969. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Wooley, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2163.
During these early days: President Nixon’s Daily Diary suggests this dinner took place on January 30, 1969, http://www.nixonlibrary.gov/virtuallibrary/documents/dailydiary.php.
CHAPTER 4
One subject was Nixon’s bedside table: Alexander Butterfield, Unpublished book draft.
On February 18, Haldeman came racing in: See H.R. Haldeman, The Ends of Power (New York: Times Books, 1978), p. xix. In his memoir, Haldeman says he went back for his 20th wedding anniversary, which was the 19th of February, and he was going to celebrate with Jo and a few close friends.