Word: laird
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...locker-room and fraternity tradition, all the President's men had their nicknames. John Dean told the Ervin committee last year about H.R. ("The Brush") Haldeman and John ("The Pipe") Mitchell, but Magruder adds to the list. Transportation Secretary John Volpe was "The Bus Driver"; Defense Secretary Melvin Laird was "The Bullet"; Postmaster General Winton Blount was "The Postman"; and Martha Mitchell was known as "The Account," an advertising term for a client. Nixon himself was above nicknames; in memos and meetings he was referred to as "RN," or "the President," or occasionally by his military code name, "Searchlight...
...Melvin R. Laird decline to answer questions about the invasion of Laos in February...
...weeks ago, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger sent an urgent query to former Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird, now a Reader's Digest executive in Washington. What was Ford's private assessment of Kissinger? The answer came back: excellent. In almost every important negotiation Kissinger is asked if Nixon will survive, and if not, what will happen to Kissinger in particular and foreign policy in general...
Just last week, after the story on Ford's doubts about Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger, Laird's phone jangled again. A concerned Schlesinger wanted a reading of the true meaning of Ford's speculation. Schlesinger was reassured. Ford had not liked Schlesinger's performance on the Hill, but he had high regard for his ability and felt Schlesinger could learn to do better with Congress...
...American political system is built in part on contingency planning, and it could be that what is happening in Washington is nothing more than that. Yet it is another part of the tide that rises against Nixon. On the day that Spiro Agnew resigned, Mel Laird looked at his old friend Jerry Ford, then the minority leader of the House, and he said, "Jerry, some day you are going to be President." Laird insists that he was looking down the line of normal political evolution to the 1976 election. But a lot of leaders in Government are now conditioning themselves...