STChronicie Toughing' wilt Out With Nixon A Rose Among the

By Judy Bachrach Washington Post Washington N SEPTEMBER, 1952, while he I was campaigning as vice presiden- tial running-mate to General Dwight D. Eisenhower, under- went one of his crises. It was called "The Secret Fund Scandal" and it broke while he and Pat and his advis- er, , and Rose Woods — the old, hardy regulars — were riding the campaign train out West. It was a crucial time for Nixon. He was accused of having his lifestyle supported by a "secret club of mil- lionaires," and Ike was not exactly supporting his running-mate. So it seemed like the end of the ride when Nixon dictated to his letter of resignation to Eisenhower and told her, to send it out immediately. Upon hearing the news, Chotiner came racing out of his compartment, whirled the secretary around and ripped the letter out of her hands, tearing it to shreds. "You didn't have to do that," she said simply. "I wouldn't have sent it out anyway." * • * * ccW HAT YOU'VE got to under- stand," says Henry D. Spald- ing, who tells the story, "what you should know is that if Rose and Cho- tiner hadn't done that, the whole his- tory of our nation would have been. Rose Mary Woods, flanked by attorney Charles S. Rhyne altered." and Steven Bull, outside a Washington courthouse , Spalding, who wrote "The Nixon Nobody Knows," and was reporting on the Nixon campaign in those days, a woman devote 23 years of her life you're not very good at it yourself is says that on the train "Rose didn't to the exclusive service of one man? invaluable. And Nixon wasn't very have hours. Boy, she was around the "You've hit it there," says some- good at that." .clock. To bed at 3 a.m. and up at 6. one still at the . "But She was more than his secretary. She Rose— she worked her way up from * * * was his right-hand man. And when the grass roots. And you must consid- she wanted, she could be as closed- er this: maybe this is the only life she ECAUSE THAT is Rose Mary mouthed as Coolidge." could have had." B. Woods' main function: knowing. She knew old friends and greW dis- * * * Rose Mary Woods' loyalty has tressed when she couldn't usher them conferred upon her the kind of license past the Haldeman blockade. ("She TEVE MARTINDALE, who works permitted few others in the Presi- has more savvy," says someone still S for Rose Mary's sometime escort dent's rarefied circle. Former presi- at the White House, "than all those Bob Gray at a public-relations firm, dential assistant Robert Finch re- P-R types put together.") She knew and has double-dated with the older members her "giving a good Irish speeches and would regularly dissect couple, compares his boss's compan- piece of her mind" to senators, gover- each one. She knew whom to invite to ion to a nun. nors. Others have seen her snap back White House functions, and those "Well, if you stay with someone at Nixon. who were left out in the cold put her like (Richard Nixon) that long. it's "I remember." says one former hirrh nii Choir anorni7 iicte Survivors subsequent testimony about a $100,- 000 contribution f r o m Howard Hughes only increased her worries. Steve Bull, a Nixon aide who believeS in her integrity, says she "is comport- "Well, proximity is the main thing. ing herself with an unusual amount Haldeman moved into that tiny office of poise and confidence these days." outside the Oval Room. And with that Another source thinks that she is came ready access to the President." actually enjoying herself "in a mor- It is said that at one point Halde- bid sort of way. man tried to move Mr. Nixon's faith- "I mean now she's getting all,the ful secretary to the Executive Office notoriety, all the recognition that Building. was once denied her as a result of the "Quite right," says Wiley Bu- Haldeman-Ehrlichman blockade." chanan, a former chief of protocol and a buddy of Rose Woods. "Halde- man was very jealous. Whenever the HITE HOUSE communications President was around, Haldeman took W director Ken Clawson calls her every opportunity to keep Rose occu- "the symbol of continuity," and may- pied and out of the way." be she is. For one reason or another, Buchanan says that Rose Woods ( they have abandoned Richard Nixon put up with this for a while. But fi- most of the others. But Rose nally she went to Mr. Nixon and told Woods, who it is said wept with Pat him she was going to quit. Nixon in a lonely hotel room right "Rose said she would go quietly after the secret fund scandal broke, and not make a fuss. Well, Nixon told and Rose Woods who was injured in her not to go. And then he called Venezuela when they threw rocks at Haldeman in and really laid him Vice President Nixon, and Rose low." Woods who arrives to work each If he did, it didn't work. As one morning at 8 and glances at her office White House source puts it: "es wall Where Nixon-family photos there was a struggle going on. Alid hang — Rose Woods still remains. Rose lost." "I think the one thing you've got to give her," Clawson says, "is that * * * she's survived." UT IN April, 1973, almost a year So far, anyWay. But how can Rose fl after the Watergate break-in, Woods survive if Richard Nixon does Richard M. Nixon sorrowfully an- not? nounced the departure of John Ehr- "Boy that's a rough one," says a lichman and H. R. Haldeman, his two White House source with a sigh. most trusted aides. "Rose has labored in the vineyardS so Two months later Richard Nixon long that I'm worried for her. Let's promoted Rose Mary Woods from face it. Rose has hitched her whole personal secretary to executive as- life to one star." sistant. "Well that's what she was all along, really," declares one indigent friend. Maybe that's true. But that'snot the point. The point is that in the end Rose Mary Woods won. After a fashion. * * * BOUT FIVE months after her A promotion all hell broke lobse for Rose Mary Woods, in connection with the 18%-minute gap, and

"Haldeman was very jealous. Whenever the President was a roun d, Haldeman took every op- portunity to keep Rose