In My Time

by Dick Cheney

  Louie Nunn went through the roof, and Rumsfeld found himself in a meeting with Nixon’s domestic policy chief, John Ehrlichman, who had taken Nunn’s call. Ehrlichman conveyed the governor’s particular unhappiness that some interloper named Cheney had undercut his authority, and he suggested sending a White House team to investigate, a step Rumsfeld argued against. Because the basic question was whether the operation was illegal, Rumsfeld suggested sending the FBI. I was not surprised when I heard that the FBI reached the same conclusion I had, and the veto override stood.

  ON APRIL 30, 1970, President Nixon announced that he was sending troops into Cambodia, where the North Vietnamese had been stockpiling ammunition and staging troops for the war in South Vietnam.

  Meeting President Nixon for the first time with Don Rumsfeld in the Oval Office in 1970. I had seen President Johnson at his last address to a joint session of Congress in January 1969. I’d also seen President Kennedy when he visited the University of Wyoming in 1962, and President Harry Truman in 1948 when he’d done a whistle stop tour campaigning through Nebraska, but Nixon was the first president I’d ever met. (Official White House Photo)

  Shortly after that, on May 4, Ohio National Guardsmen, sent into Kent State University after protestors burned down the ROTC building, shot and killed four students and wounded others. A hundred thousand protestors, mostly students, descended on Washington, causing enough apprehension that the Secret Service arranged to ring the White House complex with D.C. Transit buses parked so closely together that no one could squeeze between them. Someone decided that it would be a good idea if some young White House staffers could be found to go out beyond the wall of buses, talk to some of the demonstrators, and judge their mood.

  And so it was on a mild May afternoon that Rumsfeld and I, our jackets and ties left in the West Wing, walked the few blocks to the National Mall. We had a few intense discussions with protestors along the way, but this was not a threatening crowd. As we got close to the long Reflecting Pool, we noticed a commotion, as though someone had fallen in. On closer inspection we could see that a few young women, naked from the waist up, were cavorting in the shallow water and being cheered on by a fast-growing audience.

  We soon realized that one of the cavorters worked for us at OEO. We had inherited her as a photographer in the press office, and she had made an impression as a free spirit even before the day she photographed the ceremony in which Rumsfeld awarded a grant to the Navajo Tribal Council. She arrived dressed head to toe as a Native American in a costume straight out of a thirties Hollywood western, complete with a fringed beaded dress and feathers in her hair.

  Now here she was, topless in the Reflecting Pool. In those days, there were free spirits everywhere, it seemed, even in a bureaucracy like the OEO.

  IN SEPTEMBER 1970 Gamal Abdel Nasser, the president of Egypt, died of a heart attack while hosting a summit of the Arab League. President Nixon appointed an official delegation to his funeral that included Rumsfeld, Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Elliot Richardson, veteran diplomat Robert Murphy, and the distinguished lawyer and banker John McCloy.

  Rumsfeld called and asked if I would like to accompany him as his staff member. I’d have to pack a bag and get out to Andrews Air Force Base, which was easy to do, but the fact that I didn’t have a passport was a bit of a problem. The solution was to get a letter on State Department letterhead signed by the country director for Egypt. Dated September 30, 1970, it certified that I was an employee of the U.S. government and that I’d been born in Lincoln, Nebraska. It also said I was “the bearer of Office of Economic Opportunity Identification card No. 6427, which bears a photograph.” I folded the letter neatly and tucked it inside my coat pocket, not sure it would work if put to the test, but more than willing to take the risk.

  This was my first time ever outside the United States. Stepping off a plane with “United States of America” written on the side at the Cairo airport and then driving into the crowded streets of this ancient city was unlike anything I had ever experienced. Teeming with people in normal times, Cairo was packed to overflowing with mourners who had arrived from all over the country for the funeral. We stayed in a top-floor suite at Shepheard’s Hotel on the banks of the Nile, and after the principals in our party left to participate in official ceremonies, the other staffers and I gathered on the balcony. A helicopter flew overhead, carrying Nasser’s body to the headquarters of his Revolutionary Command Council on Gezira Island in the middle of the river. As the helicopter passed there was a wave of noise, a wall of high-pitched trilling coming from the crowd such as I had never heard before. By the time the body was placed on a caisson and the funeral cortege started across the Qasr al Nil Bridge, the police had lost all control of the mourning crowd. We watched people surging toward the coffin, mad with grief. Later we learned that many had been killed.

  I also learned later that Rumsfeld had been down in the crowd. Ignoring all official warnings, he had followed the coffin carrying Nasser’s body across the bridge. He made it back to Shepheard’s, none the worse for wear, and the next evening our group drove out to the Mena House hotel. Rumsfeld, Elliot Richardson, and I rented camels, and wearing our dark business suits, rode out to the pyramids.

  The plane ride home turned out to be just as memorable as those few days in Egypt. I got a chance to spend several hours listening to Robert Murphy and John McCloy talk and reminisce, and I realized that I was hearing history. Murphy had been an ambassador in many key posts, and he had known Nasser well. His memories, his insights, and his thoughts about how this death would impact American relations across the Middle East were fascinating. McCloy, who had been assistant secretary of war during World War II, had helped shape the postwar world as president of the World Bank and U.S. high commissioner in Germany. He was one of the “Wise Men,” the storied handful of advisors whose counsel was sought by presidents from Truman through Nixon.

  Between the two of them, they had about a hundred years of diplomatic and military history and experience. Murphy described being in the room when General Omar Bradley called to fire General George Patton and relieve him of his command of the Third Army. McCloy talked about his time in the horse cavalry in the days before World War I. Listening to them was like having the history book you’re reading come to life and tell you its story.

  IN DECEMBER 1970 RUMSFELD turned over the reins to Frank Carlucci and left OEO. In his nineteen months there, he had imposed management criteria and intellectual standards, ending programs that were failing and encouraging those that showed promise with the idea of eventually spinning them off. He kept the agency going and succeeded in getting it reauthorized, while he and the team around him tried mightily to carry out the president’s charge “to ask new questions and find new answers.” One of the ideas the agency tried to nurture was for school vouchers that would introduce an element of competition into education. The fierce opposition from the teachers’ unions at the idea that we would even test such a program was instructive. People with entrenched interests often like the status quo. You can find good ideas but not necessarily be able to implement them.

  At OEO I also learned about the unintended consequences of government intervention in the marketplace. I remember, for example, one OEO proposal that promised to help migrant workers by moving them from Florida to South Carolina and teaching them to grow azaleas. It sounded great until someone asked how many azalea growers there already were in South Carolina and how many azalea growers South Carolina could realistically support. The answer was that the market was already operating efficiently and at full capacity. The proposed plan could have wiped out the entire azalea industry in the state.

  We had more success with a program in Alaska that Rumsfeld and I inspected personally. We flew in a chartered Aero Commander, a twin-engine plane, to the village of Tanana, on the Yukon River, where native Alaskans had abundant salmon catches but no markets. With a grant from OEO, the fishermen of Tanana and several other villages were able
to take advantage of a growing demand for salmon in Japan, delivering their catches to a factory ship, where the fish were quick-frozen and then shipped.

  As our twin-engine plane took off from the gravel strip at Tanana, there was a loud bang, and we found ourselves without the engine on the left wing. Our pilot, a fellow in his twenties, didn’t want to try for Nome, where we were supposed to spend the night, but he was sure we could make it to Kotzebue, above the Arctic Circle. I’ve had many a hairy plane ride since, but our one-engine flight that day over miles of Alaskan wilderness still stands out in my memory.

  __________

  ONCE RUMSFELD LEFT OEO, we spent all day at the White House, where he was being tapped for domestic policy advice and used as a troubleshooter on specific projects. My life was somewhat more orderly, but I still missed dinner at home most nights, including on one particularly memorable evening, when Lynne had arranged a celebration for my thirtieth birthday. Although OEO was in the past, a crisis there on January 30, 1971, over the legal services program in California, drew me back in and delayed most of the guests whom Lynne had invited. People who were supposed to arrive at 7:00 p.m. began dribbling in around 10:30 p.m. Lynne responded to the mass tardiness by publicly declaring that her days as a Washington hostess were definitely over. It was a line that got a lot of laughs, since, as our friends knew well, she did not place hostessing high on her list of priorities.

  Lynne had nearly finished her dissertation, an accomplishment that reflected her incredible drive and focus. Our family had grown. Mary Claire was born on March 14, 1969, and, like her sister, she was good-natured, beautiful, and smart. But now we had two young children and I was working long hours. Especially during these early years, I operated on the assumption that the more time you put in, the better you were doing in meeting your responsibilities and achieving your potential. I hadn’t figured out it was important to pace yourself and accept that sometimes less produces more.

  My being gone so much wasn’t ideal, but as Lynne and I discussed our options, we both had the attitude “Who could walk away from something like this?” I was having a heck of a good time, and I did what I could to bring Lynne into the experience. Many nights when I got home late, we’d stay up for hours as I recounted my tales from the day.

  I also tried to keep Sundays clear. I didn’t always succeed, but when I did I’d combine giving Lynne a break with spending time with my daughters. I’d take them for daylong outings, frequently to Civil War battlefields and once or twice to reenactments. We lived in an area rich with history, and we went to Antietam, Manassas, Gettysburg, Chancellorsville, Fredericksburg, and Harpers Ferry. After we’d been at this awhile, Liz and Mary started greeting Sundays by groaning, “Daddy, do we have to do another battlefield?” But the lesson stuck. Today they are both avid readers of history and have even been known to take their own children to visit the Civil War sites.

  After Mary was born our Annandale apartment became too cramped, and we rented a town house nearby in Falls Church. One night, when I came home late after having been on a trip, I stumbled over something lying on the floor in the hall. It was a puppy that Lynne had acquired while I was gone, a long-nosed basset hound, whom she named Cyrano.

  From that first encounter, when I woke him up by stepping on him, Cyrano and I became close friends. We have had several great dogs since, and as I write this, our labs Jackson and Nelson are keeping me company, but I think that Cyrano and I had a special understanding. I took him along when the girls and I went on our Civil War excursions. He’d stick his head out the car window, ears flapping in the wind, and when we got to where we were going, he, unlike my other companions, would jump out of the Volkswagen, totally enthusiastic about tramping around the countryside.

  WITH THE 1972 PRESIDENTIAL election now less than two years away, I began to do a little work on some campaign-related projects, mostly with Bart Porter, who, along with Jeb Magruder, had moved from the White House staff to the Nixon reelection committee. The campaign’s strategy was to keep the president above the fray while others blanketed the country making his case and singing his praises. Porter asked for my help setting up the recruitment and scheduling of these presidential surrogates, who would include Republican congressional leaders, cabinet officers, and administration officials.

  I enjoyed the world of elective politics, and it was interesting to work with so many different people. Our roster of political surrogates read like a Who’s Who of heavy hitters. Our ranks of celebrities, however, were somewhat thinner. While the McGovern campaign was working with Paul Newman, Warren Beatty, Julie Christie, Shirley MacLaine, Carole King, Barbra Streisand, James Taylor, and Quincy Jones, we were scheduling immensely talented but lesser-known luminaries such as Buddy Ebsen, Chad Everett, and Ruta Lee.

  As the reelection operation began moving into higher gear, I had conversations with Porter about the possibility of my moving over to the campaign. It was an interesting idea. The campaign was clearly going to be where all the action was for the next year.

  About this time the president announced a plan to fight inflation and named Rumsfeld to run the Cost of Living Council, the organization that would be in charge. When Rumsfeld asked me to go with him as an assistant director, he emphasized that the decision was mine to make and that he would fully understand if I chose to work with the campaign.

  I sometimes think about how different things would have been if I hadn’t gone with him to the Cost of Living Council. Although the Committee to Re-Elect the President raised unprecedented amounts of money and delivered a landslide, it was a troubled and troubling place. All that money turned out to be the root of many evils, and both Porter and Magruder ended up serving prison sentences. None of this touched the surrogate and scheduling operations, but within a few years, association with the CRP would be an albatross on anyone’s résumé.

  RICHARD NIXON’S REELECTION WAS far from a sure thing. It looked very much as though the war in Vietnam, which he had said when he was campaigning in 1968 he knew how to end, would be an issue again in 1972. Meanwhile, the hefty bills for Lyndon Johnson’s determination to fight the war in Vietnam and fund his Great Society at home had come due. The inflation rate that had hovered comfortably around 1.5 percent at the beginning of the 1960s had climbed to 5 percent. The unemployment rate had nearly doubled to 6 percent.

  The Democratic majority in Congress was urging the president to use powers they had given him when they passed the Economic Stabilization Act, legislation that effectively authorized him to commandeer the economy by imposing controls on wages, prices, salaries, and rents. The Democrats voted these extraordinary powers confident that no Republican president, much less a solid free market one named Richard Nixon, would ever use them, and in the meantime, they could criticize him for not taking action. But Nixon took them up on their offer, and on Sunday night, August 15, 1971, he announced a freeze for ninety days on all wages and prices. The Cost of Living Council was created to monitor the freeze and to achieve an orderly return to the free market when the ninety-day period was over.

  The freeze was simple enough. Nobody was to raise wages or prices. But the follow-on, which became known as Phase Two, would have to have rules covering all sorts of things, from permitted increases in union contracts to the price of dill pickles, for the period until market forces ruled again. The deadline for moving from the freeze to Phase Two came fast, and the two entities that were supposed to write the regulations, the Pay Board and the Price Commission, wrangled and dithered. When it looked as though they were going to miss a crucial deadline for getting regulations published in the Federal Register, Rumsfeld decided to take things in hand. He assembled Jack Grayson, the chairman of the Price Commission, and about a dozen of our CLC staff and said that we wouldn’t be leaving until we had the regulations ready for the printer. We set up in Rumsfeld’s outer office, and as others paced and dictated, I sat at one of the secretary’s desks and typed everything on an IBM Selectric typewriter. By nine the ne
xt morning, when the secretaries arrived and emptied the ashtrays and replenished the coffee, we had written the regulations that would now be governing a major share of the U.S. economy. The degree of detail we achieved during our overnighter was truly impressive. We drew distinctions between apples and applesauce; popped and unpopped corn; raw cabbage and packaged slaw; fresh oranges and glazed citrus peel; garden plants, cut flowers, and floral wreaths. We regulated seafood products “including those which have been shelled, shucked, iced, skinned, scaled, eviscerated, or decapitated.” We covered products custom-made to individual order, including leather goods, fur apparel, jewelry, and wigs and toupees.

  REGULATING ENERGY PRICES WAS one of the most complex and complicated tasks the CLC had to address. At one point, when we were up against a deadline to set prices for the coming week on oil, we discovered that there was no one available with expertise in that area. Then someone mentioned that Chachi Owens was from Texas and that Texas had a lot of oil, so we called Chachi and asked him to stop by. At that time he was working for the public affairs office. If the CLC was going to permit the price of bread to rise by two cents the following week, it was Chachi Owens who would bring you that news.

  Aside from his resonant voice, his claim to fame was that he had played fullback for Darrell Royal at the University of Texas. He turned out to be a very bright young man. Perhaps it was his Texas confidence, or perhaps it was the result of the coaching he’d received, but he had no hesitation about sitting down and writing the oil regs we needed.