Customer Reviews

The Ends of Power

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Forget conventional wisdom, or wisdom of any branch or brand. The "secret story of Watergate," according to H.R. Haldeman in `The Ends of Power,' was rooted in the Nixon Administration post re-election plans to reorganize government. More specifically, to reorganize the Cabinet into four `Super Cabinet' offices and, in the process, bypass the obstructionist federal bureaucracy that had proved so frustrating during Nixon's first term. Haldeman was Nixon's chief of staff until his resignation in April, 1973. Often likened to a Prussian guard, Haldeman was a loyal, stern and forbidding guardian of access to the President. That is, until he (Haldeman) became so mired in the ever-widening Watergate scandal that he was forced by circumstances to resign. Eventually he would go to trial for his role in the Watergate scandal and serve an 18 month prison sentence.

`The Ends of Power' is Haldeman's account of the scandal that brought down a president. Co-written with Joseph DiMona, it covers the period immediately following the break-in at the DNC headquarters in the Watergate to the resignation of President Nixon. Although it contains "most of what... I would like to ignore and forget," Haldeman attacks the topic with gusto. The topic is not the only thing he attacks, either. Credibility is assailed, as well. In Haldeman's scheme of things, an overwhelming re-election notwithstanding, the Nixon Administration was an embattled one. The `bureaucracy," filled with obstructionist New Deal holdovers, was only one of many enemies lurking in the shadows. Congress was controlled by the Democrats, the press was... well, the press, and Nixon could expect nothing from vitriol from them. The fourth great enemy, curiously, is the intelligence community, who had `plants' in the administration and, in one of a number of theories set forth by Haldeman to explain Watergate, may have "instigated the break-in in order to embarrass the president they feared."

To his credit, Haldeman discounts the CIA Trap Theory quickly after setting it forth. He discounts my favorite, the Democratic Party Trap Theory, just as quickly. The Democratic Trap Theory, first proposed by Senate Watergate Committee minority counsel Fred Thompson, holds that the Democrats engineered the break-in to embarrass the administration. It's convoluted enough to hold two theories, but it had some currency with Republican apologists back then. Thompson, I was tickled to note, failed to return Haldeman's phone calls. I was equally tickled to finally read Haldeman's theory on who caused the break-in. Without giving too much away - if anything CAN be given away from a book published thirty years ago, that is - Haldeman combines presidential aide Chuck Colson, Nixon, the Dita Beard/ITT memo, DNC Committee Chairman Lawrence O'Brien and Howard Hughes in his explanation. If you don't recognize the names `Ends of Power' is NOT the first book on Watergate you should read. Out of context Haldman's theories make sense, and I'm sure they'll be prime fodder when the revisionists take hold of the subject. The starkest revelation, to me at least, was the willingness Haldeman, the once-loyal Haldeman, shows in throwing Nixon under the bus not only on the break-in but in the cover-up. Richard Nixon was, he writes, "involved in the cover-up from Day One."

Observers mighty and small have noticed a duality to Nixon's nature, and have usually attributed Watergate to the nasty synergy generated whenever he and Haldeman squared off behind their yellow legal pads. Haldeman, in the popular view, was the evil catalyst that energized Nixon's darker angels. Haldeman, sprightly enough, gives that role to Colson. Admitting -grudgingly, I imagine - his own mistakes and culpability, Haldeman portrays himself as a distracted chief of staff who conceived his post-breakin duty to be that of containment. "We had no intention to impede the Watergate investigation itself - only to avoid... lead(ing) the investigators... into `other things'." Well, other things were indeed found, the press called it a cover-up up and the courts ruled it obstruction of justice. Haldeman admits vaguely to mistakes being made, and for that he deserves some credit. His theories, and this is a book full of them, maintain a certain internal logic although they wither when examines against certain known facts. `Ends of Power' is not recommended for the first-timer, but Watergate wonks should get a kick out of it.

All of the revealations about Watergate and the continual release of "new Nixon tapes" are moot points. Anyone who has read the indispensable "Ends of Power" already knew the story behind Watergate. In the context of this book, Watergate was an inevitable if lamentable event. Joe DiMona achieves the difficult task of getting Haldeman to drop his "Prusssian guard" role and open up about Nixon, in a way he would never do again. Haldeman returned to his loyalist position soon after the book was published. DiMona displays such ease of style, political sagacity and understanding of human nature that Haldeman emerges as just Bob, a California advertising man, soldiering on for a cause. The portrait of Nixon that appears is the smaller than life version who would show up in Oliver Stone's film. The "Ends of Power" does not aim for any gradiose explantions of Nixon or Watergate. Like any good story the observations are germane and the actions of the characters have a basis in logic. The expression "character equals destiny" drives the story. Ultimately Nixon appears more banal than dark, more neurotic than sneaky. This is a candid and surprisingly relaxed "inside politics" look at a complex and disturbing time in our history. HR Haldeman and Joe DiMona delivered an accessible and iconoclastic book. A must read.

I must second the review of the reader from Malibu...a must read! Haldeman shows again (like in the "Haldeman Diaries") his human side and not the rigid company man that he's always made out to be. The break-in and subsequent cover-up (or as Haldeman says "containment") are explained with an insiders perspective and in what I must say, the best and most clarifying way that I've read (there's still a lot on Watergate that I haven't read though...). The only critique that I might make is I wonder how much of this was J.Dimona? S. Ambrose's "Ruin and Recovery" explains that Haldeman, in later years, refuted this book and it's conclusions and, if true, that would be a shame as the conclusions drawn from this book make the most sense given the advantage of over 20 years perspective. Even though this was published in 1979, many copies are still available and can be gotten for very reasonable prices ... so I'd again recommend this book highly.

This is HRH's memoir of his years in the Nixon White House, and the overwhelming failure known as Watergate. HRH was not a lawyer or politician; he was in advertising when he first became a volunteer for Nixon in 1956 (p.49). HRH was not alarmed by the Watergate break-in. Nixon used wiretapping in his first term, and it was also used by LBJ and JFK; it was widespread in business (p.5). HRH blames Watergate on John Mitchell's neglect of his duties at CRP (p.10), which left Magruder in charge. Nixon told HRH it was "unimportant", when in reality Nixon blew up in a towering rage; HRH was being deceived by Nixon (p.13)!

HRH sealed Nixon's doom by meeting him on June 23, 1972 to discuss getting the CIA to stop the FBI's search into CRP money. Tell the CIA "this will open up the whole Bay of Pigs thing again", said Nixon. Helms and Walter denied any CIA connection with Watergate (p.34). But at least one of the burglars was still on the CIA payroll, and was reporting about the proposed break-in even before it happened; the first lawyer for the burglars was reportedly CIA-connected. When the CIA at first refused to tell the FBI to back off, HRH played Nixon's trump: "this entire affair may be connected to the Bay of Pigs". Turmoil followed; HRH was absolutely shocked by Helms' violent reaction. And so the CIA asked the FBI to not investigate the Mexican bank and the CRP money. Years later the mystery of the "Bay of Pigs" connection was cleared up by reading Daniel Schorr's "Clearing the Air"; it was a code word for the assassination of JFK (pp. 37-39).

HRH said he protected Nixon by not following "petty vindictive orders" (p.58). But Charles Colson encouraged Nixon's dark impulses, and acted on them. ...In retrospect, there were many indications along the way that could have caused him to wonder what was really going on. His responsibility was the operation of the office of the President; he chose not to know anything else at the time.

"The Hidden Story of Watergate" mentioned that Nixon planned a reorganization of the government that aimed to give him unprecedented control. This must have scared the Ruling Class much more than members of the Federal Bureaucracy! Nixon was only the President, not the absolute ruler of America. HRH gives a rationale for Nixon's termination, but doesn't seem to realize it!

Page 226 tells how Nixon would "have Buckley write a column" to push a policy. I always suspected Buckley was a hired voice who echoed opinions. I wonder who has this job today?

The "Conclusion" sums up his views on "Watergate". "Most of us would have been willing to sacrifice ourselves, if necessary, to save the Presidency that we believed in. But we couldn't even do that because we didn't know the real situation." "I can see that my loyalty to President Nixon and my assumption that I knew all that I needed to know led me to some serious errors of judgment." Yet if he had the chance to do it all over again, he would! Like the Bourbons, he remembered everything but learned nothing.

Hlademan was known as NIxon's "Son of a Bitch." Why? Well, because he controlled access to Nixon and carried out all his negative decisions. He was also the one who demonstrated the greatest loyalty to NIxon as well. What you get in this memoir is recounting of devoting their career to the service of another individual and what happens when that loyalty is not repaid by that person whom they devoted their future too. He explains why he did what he did, and why he thought his actions were justified. Primarily, he thought that his boss had all the answers, and as a result, was doing the country's bidding by doing his boss's bidding. Thus, you see he was a deeply misguided patriot. Get this one and enjoy!!!

I reread *The Ends of Power* for two reasons. First, Sidney Blumenthal's recent *The Clinton Wars* recreates the White House when President Clinton was impeached. Richard Nixon was threatened with impeachment for more serious actions and resigned to avoid it--a neat contrast. Second, Professor William Gaines and his journalism class at the University of Illinois announced in May 2003 that Deep Throat, Bob Woodward's mysterious informant in *All the President's Men,* was John Dean's assistant Fred Fielding. In two tidy pages (136-137), H. R. Haldeman reaches the same conclusion. His brief is necessarily sketchier than that of the Gaines group, but his thinking is similar. On this topic, Haldeman is less sentimental, more objective and more briskly intelligent than Leonard Garment and John Dean, who ride hobby horses.

How does the rest of *The Ends of Power* hold up? The prose, probably Joseph DiMona's, is serviceable but slick. Most of the text is an explanation or defense of Watergate. The most insightful idea is Haldeman's linkage of Viet Nam to Watergate; however, as its title indicates, the book does not pretend to be a full account of Nixon's presidency. As Haldeman presents them, the facts are not apparently self-serving. They may thus be more subtly self-exculpatory.

Haldeman exhibits little moral feeling. There is no sense here of the country's having been done a great wrong or of the fact that Nixon's abilities--which the text names--were wasted by this ethical void. Watergate was surely a more consequential breach of behavior than oval office trysts, though the anguished evasions of Nixon and Clinton may appear eerily alike.

On the positive side, one feels that Haldeman succeeds, with a compression equal to his argument about the identity of Deep Throat, in making Nixon humanly understandable, even likeable. Longer and more balanced accounts of Nixon's administration do this task less effectively, and at greater length.

There is no index in *The Ends of Power.* That is outrageous and unforgivable!

This is HRH's memoir of his years in the Nixon White House, and the overwhelming failure known as Watergate. HRH was not a lawyer or politician; he was in advertising when he first became a volunteer for Nixon in 1956 (p.49).

HRH was not alarmed by the Watergate break-in. Nixon used wiretapping in his first term, and it was also used by LBJ and JFK; it was widespread in business (p.5). HRH blames Watergate on John Mitchell's neglect of his duties at CRP (p.10), which left Magruder in charge. Nixon told HRH it was "unimportant", when in reality Nixon blew up in a towering rage; HRH was being deceived by Nixon (p.13)!

HRH sealed Nixon's doom by meeting him on June 23, 1972 to discuss getting the CIA to stop the FBI's search into CRP money. Tell the CIA "this will open up the whole Bay of Pigs thing again", said Nixon. Helms and Walter denied any CIA connection with Watergate (p.34). But at least one of the burglars was still on the CIA payroll, and was reporting about the proposed break-in even before it happened; the first lawyer for the burglars was reportedly CIA-connected.

When the CIA at first refused to tell the FBI to back off, HRH played Nixon's trump: "this entire affair may be connected to the Bay of Pigs". Turmoil followed; HRH was absolutely shocked by Helms' violent reaction. And so the CIA asked the FBI to not investigate the Mexican bank and the CRP money. Years later the mystery of the "Bay of Pigs" connection was cleared up by reading Daniel Schorr's "Clearing the Air"; it was a code word for the assassination of JFK (pp. 37-39).

HRH said he protected Nixon by not following "petty vindictive orders" (p.58). But Charles Colson encouraged Nixon's dark impulses, and acted on them. Pages 62-64 tell that the associates who confronted Nixon's "dark" side would not survive on the job. HRH then says he was sorry he did not try to positively restrain the dark side of Nixon.

"The Mysteries of the Cover-Up" explains how their "containment" created a "cover-up" that the courts called "conspiracy to obstruct justice" (pp. 216-218). In retrospect, there were many indications along the way that could have caused him to wonder what was really going on. His responsibility was the operation of the office of the President; he chose not to know anything else at the time.

"The Hidden Story of Watergate" mentioned that Nixon planned a reorganization of the government that aimed to give him unprecedented control. This must have scared the Ruling Class much more than members of the Federal Bureaucracy! Nixon was only the President, not the absolute ruler of America. HRH gives a rationale for Nixon's termination, but doesn't seem to realize it!

Page 226 tells how Nixon would "have Buckley write a column" to push a policy. I always suspected Buckley was a hired voice who echoed opinions. I wonder who has this job today?

The "Conclusion" sums up his views on "Watergate". "Most of us would have been willing to sacrifice ourselves, if necessary, to save the Presidency that we believed in. But we couldn't even do that because we didn't know the real situation." "I can see that my loyalty to President Nixon and my assumption that I knew all that I needed to know led me to some serious errors of judgment." Yet if he had the chance to do it all over again, he would! Like the Bourbons, he remembered everything but learned nothing.