Word: haldemans
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Then came the era of John Ehrlichman and Bob Haldeman...
...more than cardboard props. There was no soul in them, no commitment behind them. They languished and no one cared. We now see from Ehrlichman's own testimony that he was busy grappling for power, covering up dirty tricks and investigating the drinking and sexual habits of opponents. Haldeman, as he told it on the Watergate stand, conceived himself and the President to be in a state of siege, with Communists and other monsters just outside the White House gates. His energy was devoted to identifying enemies and destroying them, leaking squalid accusations and encouraging dirty political tricks, violating...
...Lawyer John Wilson's clients, John Ehrlichman and H.R. Haldeman, are also children of that mother tongue. And so are Caulfield and Dean, Odle and Porter, Mitchell and Magruder, and virtually every other Watergate witness. Those witnesses are a peculiar group of siblings, obedient to every authority except that of their parent language...
Most of the Watergate witnesses prefer not to answer with a simple yes or no. The vagueness shown last week by H.R. Haldeman has been the motto of the month: "I am not sure whether I was or not. I may very well have been." Other witnesses felt that truth was illusory; facts could only be construed "in their context." The quibbling over nuances would do credit to Henry James-as when Ehrlichman vainly tried to distinguish between "literal" and "actual...
Perhaps because Haldeman has been characterized as a former adman, he avoided any run-it-up-the-flagpole chatter. Still, he introduced some collector's items: "Zero-defect system," for perfection; "containment" for the withholding of information. Throughout the hearings, where precision would help, a file of worn metaphors and similes appears. Usually the phrases smack of the military or sports-two arenas notable for their threadbare lexicons. Porter thought of himself as "a team player," Dean as a soldier who had "earned my stripes." Ehrlichman considered himself proficient at "downfield blocking." J. Edgar Hoover was "a loyal trooper...