Word: haldemans
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From West Point to Korea, from the Pentagon to Viet Nam, he answered every call to duty. Then Richard Nixon called him one day when Haig, at the time a four-star general and Army vice chief of staff, was visiting Fort Benning. Haldeman and Ehrlichman, about to be thrown out of the White House, wanted Haig to come take charge of the staff. "I really don't think I'm the man," he said. "You don't want a military man in that...
Haig sat last week in the luxurious office that Haldeman had crafted so carefully for himself. Almost by the hour there were new accusations hurled at him-he had got Nixon his pardon, he had subverted the Ford transition with his secrecy and obsession to protect the Nixon record. He was being blamed for more than he had ever done. But he has never admitted just how much he did do. "I may write it some day when I'm 60," he mused (he is now 49). He saw the destruction of a President at closer range than anyone...
When he began his last White House tour of duty, he found almost total paralysis in the wake of the Haldeman-Ehrlichman firing. He got the machinery going again. He found that Nixon had no Watergate counsel. Haig recruited Fred Buzhardt from the Pentagon and urged Nixon to lay out all of the Watergate case. When Nixon made his May 22 statement, Haig thought that was the whole story. How could he have continued to believe as one by one Nixon's defenses were shown to be false, incomplete? That is the part that Haig cannot explain away. Maybe...
Soon thereafter, Haig got a call from Haldeman. The general asked Haldeman to hold the line, rushed into Nixon's office and asked him what to do. Nixon told Haig to hear Haldeman out but that he would not talk to Haldeman. Haig hurried to the office of James St. Clair, at the tune Nixon's chief Watergate defense attorney. St. Clair advised that any citizen had the right to appeal for clemency. Haig asked St. Clair to monitor the conversation. Haldeman's pitch was brief, citing the difficulty of getting a fair trial. There was no threat of blackmail...
...Clair's instructions, Haig advised Haldeman to put his appeal in writing. Haldeman and Ehrlichman's attorneys promptly submitted a memo. But Nixon was irritated by the whole incident, thought it was a bad time to pressure him, considering his own difficulties, and rejected any pardon. Ehrlichman tried a different tactic, telephoning Friend Julie Eisenhower, but he made no better progress. Sourly, and with no supporting evidence, one associate of the two aides concluded: "It's possible that Nixon turned his back on Haldeman and Ehrlichman because his own pardon deal was set and he didn't want to queer...