Haldeman, a Californian like Nixon, had proudly supported him in that ’52 vice presidential campaign — even standing outside the television studio when Nixon gave his famous “Checkers” speech when a financial scandal caused his bid to drop — but Haldeman’s offer to volunteer for the campaign was never accepted. Instead, four years later, he signed on as a frontrunner for the ’56 re-election bid and eventually became Nixon’s head of the vanguard for the failed 1960 presidential bid against John F. Kennedy.
Haldeman remained loyal through Nixon’s wilderness years as he grew up his own advertising career at J. Walter Thompson, working for Disneyland, 7UP, Aerowax and more, honing his own sales and messaging skills that he would later deploy on Nixon’s behalf. He discovered that he had a knack for figuring out what would sell and what wouldn’t, and how to convince people that they absolutely needed things they hadn’t even thought of — one of his biggest product launches was of slug-killing pellets called ” Snarol,” positions the common gastropod as a scourge of modern California life.
Aboard the ’68 campaign, Haldeman led the way with a new tactic, using television instead of an endless series of stump speeches as the centerpiece of a national campaign. The new approach was not only technologically savvy and tactically and strategically revolutionary, but it helped Nixon maintain privacy and solitude, making him less drained of his energy to always be on, always sit back, and be happy.
By election night, Nixon had proved Haldeman right: Despite being rewritten by the political establishment after the ’60s loss, and even after effectively writing himself off following his loss of the ’62 California governor’s race, Nixon had fought back to to be in your thirties. seventh president of the United States – the first losing presidential candidate of the twentieth century to win later.
Once at the White House, Haldeman quickly emerged as first among equals. The chief of staff, one of the few assistants with nearly unrestricted access to the boss, was rarely more than a few feet from the president during the workday—his office just a hundred gold-plated feet from the Oval—and he saw every piece. paper before it reached the president’s desk. While Nixon often refrained from direct confrontation, Haldeman was the man who said no, sending unwanted proposals, inappropriate personnel, and unnecessary obligations with the cold precision of an executioner. By profiling him, TIME magazine wrote: “Spiky and eye-catching, he . † † personifies the Nixon administration: the Prussian guard who guards Mr. Nixon’s door, the flawless man in charge of the White House staff, the all-knowing assistant president of legendary arrogance, efficiency and power,” while news week was even sharper: “Harry Robbins Haldeman is, as he once put it, Richard Nixon’s bastard.”
Haldeman’s main role was simply listening to and absorbing Richard Nixon’s hopes, fears, obsessions, insecurities, victories and losses. As Nixon’s mind turned, he listened for hours, translating the president’s thoughts—both good and bad—into page after page of notes and diaries on yellow notepads. Nixon’s desire to associate with as few people as possible was a uniquely strange trait in a politician, and it’s part of what gave Haldeman such historically unparalleled power. As gatekeeper, he decided which of the president’s many injunctions, interests, and instincts would be put into action next by the White House and the government beyond. He always saw his mission as not just serving the country, or serving just the president, but serving the unique combination of people, cause, and moment. He said he doubted he would ever have served another president. “I have been accused of blind loyalty to President Nixon,” Haldeman later wrote. “I plead guilty to loyalty, but not to blindness. My loyalty was and is based on a clear recognition of both great virtues and great faults in the man I served. On balance, I never doubted the validity of that loyalty.”
In general, few employees got the continued approval of Haldeman and the man in the Oval Office; those who did had both given in to the president’s fantasies and were quick to do so. “Nixon was an aggressive campaigner; his theme was always attack, attack and attack again,” Haldeman recalls. “He was not averse to using every possible means to try and defeat his opponents.” Haldeman’s orders came out of his office with such vehemence that answers seemed too late, even before they arrived on a staff’s desk; his “tickle” file, with assigned tasks and deadlines religiously tracked to the hour, never forgotten or forgiven. “He dealt with most people through memos because memos were quick and impersonal,” assistant Jeb Stuart Magruder later recalled. Saying no via a memo was as quick as checking the ‘Disapprove’ line, no conversation, gilding, or comfort needed. Chuck Colson would regret that while he chatted for maybe ten or fifteen minutes with the president—in theory the most tightly planned man in the building—he never got as much attention from Haldeman. Haldeman’s standard message to White House staff was simple: “There had to be results, not alibis.”
[ Return to the review of “Watergate.” ]