Word: haldemans
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Writing in the first person, Starbuck tells us a story that is a pitifully amusing parody of the John Dean-H.R. Haldeman "Let's Make Money Off of Watergate" autobiographies. And somehow, Vonnegut manages to work in some particularly cogent statements about the mistreatment of Sacco and Vanzetti and the history and problems of the twentieth-century labor movement in general...
Helms' resentment increased when members of the Nixon White House, such as Chuck Colson and H.R. Haldeman, began hinting that Watergate may have been, after all, a CIA operation; and it peaked when John Ehrlichman wrote The Company, which featured a CIA director very much like Richard Helms black-mailing a President very much like Richard Nixon: give me an ambassadorship or I'll expose Watergate's sleazy underside. Why the hell would I want to be ambassador to Iran? says Helms...
...deputy, Alexander Haig, Haldeman and I met with Nixon in his hideaway in the Executive Office Building. The President was in good form, calm and analytical. The only symptom of his excitement was that instead of slouching in an easy chair as usual, he was pacing up and down, gesticulating with a pipe on which he was occasionally puffing, something I had never previously seen him do. On one level he was playing MacArthur. On another he was steeling himself for a decision on which his political future would depend...
When I arrived, Haldeman was there. Before I could hand Nixon the order, he told me that Haldeman had raised new questions. To my amazement Haldeman described the dire impact that the proposed action would have on public opinion and the President's standing in the polls. When Nixon excused himself to go to the bathroom, I whirled on Haldeman, who had never meddled in substance, and castigated him for interfering at a moment of such crisis. Haldeman grinned shamefacedly, making clear by his bearing that Nixon had put him up to his little speech. I was used...
Nixon was quite positive that an agreement was unnecessary for the election; its benefit would be too marginal to warrant any risks. Haldeman thought that an agreement was a potential liability; he was certain that Democratic Candidate George McGovern's support had been reduced to fanatics who would not vote for Nixon even if he arranged the Second Coming. On the other hand, an agreement might disquiet conservative supporters. The Viet Nam negotiations, in short, were not used to affect the election; the election was used to accelerate the negotiations...