Harry Robbins "Bob" Haldeman (October 27, 1926 – November 12, 1993) was an American political aide and businessman, best known for his service as White House Chief of Staff to President Richard Nixon and his consequent involvement in the Watergate scandal.
Born in California, Haldeman served in the Navy Reserves in World War II and attended UCLA. In 1949, he joined the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency, where he worked for 20 years as a prominent advertising executive in both Los Angeles and New York City. He made a name for himself early in Los Angeles social circles from his work as chairman of the UCLA Alumni Association and a member of the University of California Board of Regents.
A long family association with the Republican Party and his own interest drew Haldeman to politics. In the 1950s, he became acquainted with Nixon, for whom he developed both an intense respect and steadfast loyalty. He began as an advance man on President Dwight D. Eisenhower's reelection campaign in 1956, again worked as an advance man on Nixon's 1960 presidential campaign, and managed Nixon's 1962 run for governor of California. When Nixon was elected President in 1968, he selected Haldeman as his chief of staff.
Haldeman is credited with implementing more significant changes to White House staffing systems and Executive Branch governance and operations than any chief of staff before him or since, and it is the "Haldeman system" that presidential administrations continue to operate on today. His intensity and no-nonsense management style earned him a reputation as a stern taskmaster who expected top-notch performance. [1]
After he left the Nixon administration in April 1973, Haldeman was tried on counts of perjury, conspiracy, and obstruction of justice for his role in the Watergate cover-up. He was found guilty and imprisoned for 18 months. Upon Haldeman's release, he returned to private life and was a successful businessman and real estate developer until his death from cancer in 1993 at the age of 67.
Haldeman was born in Los Angeles on October 27, 1926, one of three children of socially prominent parents. His father, Harry Francis Haldeman, founded and ran a successful heating and air conditioning supply company, and gave time and financial support to local Republican causes, [2] including the Richard Nixon financial fund that led to the so-called "Fund Crisis" during the 1952 presidential race. His mother, Katherine (née Robbins), was a longtime volunteer with the Salvation Army and other philanthropic organizations. His paternal grandfather, Harry Marston Haldeman, co-founded the Better America Federation of California, The Oz Film Manufacturing Company, and a gentleman's club named The Uplifters. [2] Young Haldeman and his siblings were raised as Christian Scientists. Known to his peers as a "straight arrow", he sported his trademark flat-top haircut from his high school years – a look that he would adopt for most of his life until after his resignation as Chief of Staff – enjoyed discussions of ethics, and achieved the rank of Life Scout. [3] He attended Harvard School, an elite boys prep school, during which time he met Joanne "Jo" Horton, who was attending Marlborough School, an elite, private secondary school which educated women in the 7th to 12th grades. The two married in 1949.
During World War II he was in the United States Navy Reserve but did not see active combat. Haldeman attended the University of Redlands and the University of Southern California, then transferred to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). [4] [5] He received his B.A. from UCLA in 1948, where he was a member of Beta Theta Pi fraternity. [6] At UCLA, he met John Ehrlichman, who became a close friend and colleague in the Nixon administration.
In 1949, he joined the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency, where he worked for 20 years in both Los Angeles and New York City; [7] other employees of this firm during this period included Ronald Ziegler, who went on to serve as White House Press Secretary in the Nixon administration.
A long family association with the Republican Party and his own interest drew Haldeman to politics and during this period he commenced working for Richard Nixon, for whom he developed both an intense respect and steadfast loyalty. Beginning as an advance man on Nixon's 1956 and 1960 campaigns, Haldeman managed Nixon's 1962 run for governor of California, and when Nixon was elected President in 1968, he chose Haldeman to be his chief of staff.
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When Haldeman's appointment to the White House was announced, Robert Rutland, a close friend and presidential scholar, urged him to start keeping a daily diary recording the major events of each day and Haldeman's thoughts on them. Haldeman took this suggestion and started keeping and maintaining a daily diary throughout his entire career in the Nixon White House (January 18, 1969 – April 30, 1973). The full text of the diaries is almost 750,000 words, and an abridged version was published as The Haldeman Diaries after Haldeman's death. A full version is available to researchers at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum.
Gaining a reputation as a stern taskmaster who expected top-notch work, he and John Ehrlichman were called "the Berlin Wall" by other White House staffers in a play on their German family names and shared penchant for keeping others away from Nixon and serving as his "gatekeepers". They became Nixon's most loyal and trusted aides during his presidency. Both were keen in protecting what they regarded as Nixon's best interests. He and the president were very close – Haldeman was even dubbed "the president's son-of-a-bitch" [8] – and Nixon relied on him to filter information that came into his office and to make sure that information was properly dispensed.
Haldeman was one of the various key figures in the Watergate scandal.
The "Smoking Gun" tape revealed that Nixon instructed Haldeman to have the CIA pressure the FBI into dropping its Watergate investigation. [9] Nixon instructed him to tell the CIA that the investigation would "open up the whole Bay of Pigs thing again". [9] [10] In his book, Haldeman later wrote: "It seems that in all those references to the Bay of Pigs, he was actually referring to the Kennedy assassination." [9] [10] He also said that Nixon might have been reminding CIA Director Richard Helms that the CIA assassination attempts on Fidel Castro may have triggered the assassination of Kennedy. [10]
The unexplained 18+1⁄2 minute gap in Nixon's Oval Office recordings occurred during a discussion that included the President and Haldeman on June 20, 1972.
Nixon requested the resignations of Haldeman and Ehrlichman in what has been described as a long and emotional meeting at Camp David. Haldeman resigned, and the resignations were announced on April 30, 1973. In a phone conversation shortly after the resignations, Nixon told Haldeman that he loved him like his brother. [11] On the eve of Nixon's resignation, Haldeman asked for a full pardon along with a full pardon of Vietnam War draft dodgers. He argued that pardoning the draft dodgers would take some of the heat off him. Nixon refused.
On January 1, 1975, Haldeman was convicted of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and three counts of perjury. He was sentenced to serve 2+1⁄2 to 8 years, subsequently commuted to 1 to 4 years. In Lompoc Federal Prison, Haldeman worked in a facility testing sewage. On December 20, 1978, after serving 18 months, Haldeman was released on parole.
In 1978, Times Books published The Ends of Power, written by Haldeman with the writer Joseph DiMona. [12] [13] Haldeman wrote in the book that Nixon had initiated the break-in and had participated in the cover-up from the onset. [2]
A passage in The Ends of Power has been claimed to support allegations linking Watergate to the assassination of John F. Kennedy. [9] [10]
James Woods portrayed Haldeman in Oliver Stone's 1995 film Nixon , which presents the scenario that Nixon attempted to use the CIA's hidden anti-Castro history to help cover up his own misdeeds during Watergate. [14] [15] Stone credited the comments attributed to Haldeman in The Ends of Power as the source for his scenario. [14]
According to political commentator Chris Matthews, Haldeman denied writing those words and said the theory of events actually belonged to DiMona. Matthews reported that Haldeman said he had no idea of what Nixon meant by the "whole Bay of Pigs thing" comments. [14] Noting that Stone had implicated Nixon as having a role in planning a plot to kill Castro, Howard Rosenberg described it as "one of the most controversial themes of his movie". [15] A response by Nixon writers Steven Rivele and Christopher Wilkinson stated that DiMona, Haldeman's ghostwriter, had confirmed that it was Haldeman's conclusion that "the Bay of Pigs thing" was a code for the Kennedy assassination. [16]
In his post-prison years, Haldeman went on to have a successful career as a businessman. Haldeman and Buzz Aldrin, representing Americom International Corp in collaboration with Radisson Hotels, signed an agreement to establish the first U.S. hotel and business complex venture within the former Soviet Union in Moscow. This agreement was signed during a ceremony held in conjunction with the US-USSR Trade and Economic Council. [17] Haldeman also worked on development and real estate, and opened eight Sizzler Steak Houses in Florida. [18] [19]
On November 12, 1993, after refusing medical treatment in accordance with his Christian Science beliefs, Haldeman died of abdominal cancer at his home in Santa Barbara, California. He was survived by his wife of almost 45 years, the former Joanne Horton, and their four children – Susan, Harry (Hank), Peter, and Ann. [2]
Upon Haldeman's death, Richard Nixon said in a statement, "I have known Bob Haldeman to be a man of rare intelligence, strength, integrity and courage. He played an indispensable role in turbulent times as our Administration undertook a broad range of initiatives at home and abroad." [7] His White House diaries were released posthumously as The Haldeman Diaries in 1994. [20]
The Watergate scandal was a political scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Richard Nixon which ultimately led to Nixon's resignation. It revolved around members of a fundraising organization associated with Nixon's 1972 re-election campaign breaking into the Democratic National Committee headquarters located in the Watergate Office Building in Washington, D.C., on June 17, 1972, and Nixon's subsequent attempts to conceal his administration's involvement.
Nixon is a 1995 American epic historical drama film directed by Oliver Stone, produced by Stone, Clayton Townsend, and Andrew G. Vajna, and written by Stone, Christopher Wilkinson, and Stephen J. Rievele, with significant contributions from "project consultants" Christopher Scheer and Robert Scheer. The film tells the story of the political and personal life of former U.S. President Richard Nixon, played by Anthony Hopkins.
Jeb Stuart Magruder was an American businessman and high-level political operative in the Republican Party who served time in prison for his role in the Watergate scandal.
Everette Howard Hunt Jr. was an American intelligence officer and author. From 1949 to 1970, Hunt served as an officer in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), where he was a central figure in U.S. regime change in Latin America including the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état and the 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion in Cuba. Along with G. Gordon Liddy, Frank Sturgis, and others, Hunt was one of the Nixon administration's so-called White House Plumbers, a team of operatives charged with identifying government leaks to outside parties.
John Daniel Ehrlichman was an American political aide who served as White House Counsel and Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs under President Richard Nixon. Ehrlichman was an important influence on Nixon's domestic policy, coaching him on issues and enlisting his support for environmental initiatives.
Ronald Louis Ziegler was the 13th White House Press Secretary, serving during President Richard Nixon's administration.
Louis Patrick Gray III was acting director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from May 3, 1972, to April 27, 1973. During this time, the FBI was in charge of the initial investigation into the burglaries that sparked the Watergate scandal, which eventually led to the resignation of President Nixon. Gray was nominated as permanent Director by Nixon on February 15, 1973, but failed to win Senate confirmation. He resigned as Acting FBI director on April 27, 1973, after he admitted to destroying documents that had come from convicted Watergate conspirator E. Howard Hunt's safe—documents received on June 28, 1972, 11 days after the Watergate burglary, and given to Gray by White House counsel John Dean.
The White House Plumbers, sometimes simply called the Plumbers, the Room 16 Project, ODESSA or more officially, the White House Special Investigations Unit, was a covert White House Special Investigations Unit, established within a week of the publication of the Pentagon Papers in June 1971, during the presidency of Richard Nixon. Its task was to stop and/or respond to the leaking of classified information, such as the Pentagon Papers, to the news media. The work of the unit "tapered off" after the bungled "Ellsberg break-in" but some of its former operatives branched into illegal activities while still employed at the White House together with managers of the Committee for the Re-Election of the President, including the Watergate break-in and the ensuing Watergate scandal. The group has been described as Nixon's "fixers".
Alexander Porter Butterfield is a retired United States Air Force officer, public official, and businessman. He served as the deputy assistant to President Richard Nixon from 1969 to 1973. He revealed the White House taping system's existence on July 13, 1973, during the Watergate investigation but had no other involvement in the scandal. From 1973 to 1975, he served as administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration.
Gordon Creighton Strachan is an American attorney and political staffer who served as an aide to H.R. Haldeman, the chief of staff for President Richard Nixon and a figure in the Watergate scandal.
The Watergate scandal refers to the burglary and illegal wiretapping of the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee, in the Watergate complex by members of President Richard Nixon's re-election campaign, and the subsequent cover-up of the break-in resulting in Nixon's resignation on August 9, 1974, as well as other abuses of power by the Nixon White House that were discovered during the course of the scandal.
Audio recordings of conversations between U.S. President Richard Nixon and Nixon administration officials, Nixon family members, and White House staff surfaced during the Watergate scandal in 1973 and 1974, leading to Nixon's resignation.
Francis Donald Nixon was a younger brother of U.S. President Richard Nixon.
A limited hangout or partial hangout is a tactic used in media relations, perception management, politics, and information management. The tactic originated as a technique in the espionage trade.
William Matthew Byrne Jr. was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Central District of California.
Murray M Chotiner was an American political strategist, attorney, government official, and close associate and friend of President Richard Nixon during much of the 37th President's political career. He served as campaign manager for the future president's successful runs for the United States Senate in 1950 and for the vice presidency in 1952, and managed the campaigns of other California Republicans. He was active in each of Nixon's two successful runs for the White House in low-profile positions.
Born Again is a 1978 American biographical drama film directed by Hollywood veteran Irving Rapper depicting the involvement of Charles Colson in the Watergate scandal, his subsequent conversion to Christianity and his prison term. It stars Dean Jones as Colson, Anne Francis as his wife, Dana Andrews as Tom Phillips, Harry Spillman as President Nixon, former Senator Harold Hughes as himself and George Brent in his final film. The film was released by Avco Embassy Pictures.
Henry E. Petersen was an attorney and United States federal government official. He served as Assistant U.S. Attorney General during the Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford administrations. He also engaged in ethically questionable communications with Nixon and his staff, providing inside information about the Watergate investigation prior to the appointment of the Special Prosecutor.
Operation Sandwedge was a proposed clandestine intelligence-gathering operation against the political enemies of U.S. President Richard Nixon's administration. The proposals were put together by Nixon's Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman, domestic affairs assistant John Ehrlichman and staffer Jack Caulfield in 1971. Caulfield, a former police officer, created a plan to target the Democratic Party and the anti-Vietnam War movement, inspired by what he believed to be the Democratic Party's employment of a private investigation firm.
Geoffrey Carroll Shepard is an American lawyer, author and lecturer.