Oral history ir.terview with H. R. Haldeman r conducted by RaymG~d H. Geselbracht in Mr. Haldeman's home in Santa Barbara, Califorrtia on April 12, 1988 RHG: Mr. Haldeman, yesterday we were talking about the first White House staff during this shakedowr. pet"icld. I noticed many entries [in Haldeman's Journall during this time about putting [John D.l Ehrl ichman in place as the domest ic pol icy pet"sclr... Or.e clf the thir.gs that surprised rne about this was that it was slclw in developing, and I would Judge from reading your Journal that the idea of using Ehrlichman was first suggested in a staff meeting. Then you had to sell the idea to the Presider.t ar.d maybe ever. Just as importar.t at least sell the idea tCI Ehrl ichmar•• I take it he thought about it for quite a long while. Could you describe that? HRH: I think your overall description is baSically accurate. The need came up very quickly, very early or., and hClw tCI deal wi th it. The need for somebc.dy in general control of clperat ions and procedures, and so forth, on the domestic side, as [Henryl Kissinger was on the foreign policy side, became almost immediately evident, even though we had not theoretically set up the structure with that thought in mind. The question of who it should be automatically rises quickly when that kind of problem arises. The only logical person, in looking back on it, and I'm sure it was the case at the time, was Ehrlichman, in the sense of his being knowledgeable and interested in domestic policy areas, first of all. Secondly, having the President's total confidence 1 as a serliclr key staff pet"son. Thirdly, having the non- involvemen~= not being an advocate of any particular domestic program. He was able to come into that kind of position right. So I think right at the outset it was obvious he was the best choice. Plus the fact that his role as Counsel to the President had been created, really, artificially, to give him a Job as the senior staff person, really as ar. Assistar.t tCI the Pt"esider,t but with the title of Counsel, as I mentioned yesterday, to preserve his lawyer's status in his own mind, in the public image, and so forth. It's not at all surprising, I don't think, that the focus turned to Ehrlichman. The questior. ther. became one clf hClw to structure it, whether to set up an apparatus separately or to simply designate him in that area and let him function using the existing apparatus and tt"y to coordir.ate the existing people. The thinking on that evolved over this shakedown cruise period, as the staff was being fornled. Various problems arose at various times. YCIU have the [ArthurJ Burns and [Daniel P.J Moynihan conflict, which was an intended one. You had [DonaldJ Rumsfeld coming in with some ir.terest ar.d expertise in [theJ domestic policy area. obviously all of the domestic policy Cabinet people, and that we covered yesterday. The President had already designated Ehrlichman as the persor. to har.dle all of those peclple, the Cabinet people, as one of his assignments. So, it really Just kind of developed from there. Then, you had the quest ion of how to structure iot, ar.d the quest ior. of whether Ehrl ichmar. wan°l:ed to take clr, that t"esponsibi lity • He was somewhat reluctant tCI do it. JohYI was pretty careful about getting tagged with an assignment that he wasn't sure how to execute and wasn't sure he had the backup facilities to execute properly. We got into the quest iOYI of setting up a separate secretariat like the NSC [National Security CClltYIC i I] secret ar i at. We already had the White House staff secretariat who covered, theoretically, everything across the board. The NSC had it's own secretariat doing basically the same kind of things with the foreign policy thing. Then, we ended up putting a domestic policy secretariat together also, and that involved a number of personnel changes, the key one being Ken Cole. [He] was a fellow I had brought in (another former J. Walter ThompsoYI guy; we put a bunch clf them iYI there), whcl was extremely able and who was working as •••• I think he was the clrigiYlal Staff Secretary, and I thiYlk that Ehrl ichmaYI cl;:.-opted him, saying how if he was going to take on the domestic thing that Cole had to come with him and do it, which I was very reluctant to have happeYI, but we evolved a replacemeYlt in the Staff Sect"etary positicln, and CClle, as I t"ecall, did m,:,ve CIvet" tCI the Domest ic ColtYlci I [and] worked with JClhYI on that. So, like all of these things, it was a day-by-day evolution. If you go thrclugh my JClurYlal notes duriYlg that first-year period, there are apparently conflicting things at times. We're worried about dissensioYI at OYle poiYlt; we't"e worried abclut CIYle kind of argument on aYlother; we're questioydYlg whether Eht"lichman shcluld take these thiYlgs on; what's Rumsfeld's assigYlflleYlt supposed to be, within that; how do we keep Moynihan on a 3 pY'od uct i ve t l'''ack. It was a thing that I eased into because I didn't have a cleaY' view in my OWYI mind, stY'uct uY'ally c\l"ld CIYI a people basis, as to how it should end up. I didn't want to Just Jump into doing something; I wanted to let it evolve and be sUY'e we weY'e shaki Ylg all of the pieces i YltCI the Y'i ght slots. I think oveY' time we did. Then theY'e was a question of how to stY'uctuY'e my staff to back up and shi ft my Y'ole aY'ound, wh ich was alscI evol vi ng, ki Yld of at the same time. The PY'esident was saying I didn't have enough time to look oveY' PR [public Y'elations] things, Y'ide heY'd on political, Y'ide heY'd on peY'sonnel, and handle all the otheY' Jl.lst day to day choY'es vis-a-vis his needs. So, we wCIY'ked ouy' way thY'ough. I see fY'om my Joul'''nal that we gClt dOWYI tCI about July when EhY'lichman had decided he would take the Y'ole over, and my feeling that that was the Y'ight thing to do. Then we got the PY'esident convinced that it was, and then had to continually keep Ehl'''lichman conviYlced that it was. That lasted thY'cII..lgh July and August. I think somewheY'e along the line, the August/SeptembeY' peY'iod, we put a lot of these changes into effect. RH61 The fiY'st entY'y that I see where you'Y'e talking about the need foY' a domestic czaY', as it's called heY'e, and then EhY'lichman indicated as being the peY'son, is MaY'ch 5, ••• HRH: Right. RH61 ••• 1969. Then the PY'esideYlt accepts the idea July 12, SCI it was quite a while in developing. HRH: Yeah, yeah. RH6: TheY'e' Y'e some notes on heY'e about EhY'l ichmaYI i gYlclY'i Ylg the staff 4 system completely arid "goirlg his merry way", I remember Clrle entry. Let's see if I can find that one. HRH: April 11th. "Ehrl ichman clverlappirlg cClnfusion problem persists as John gCles on his merry way, ignorirlg the staff system cClmpletely. But it'll all work out as he sees his need for the system." RHG: Was he inclined ••• ? HRH: It was John working his way into what he was doing. Part of the pt"oblem, at that pOint, was that his role and pet"ogatives arid responsibilities weren't clear. He was feeling his way into what those were in the process of doing all this. The others had a more clear definition of what their specific fields of responsibility were, and John didn't at that point. RHG: When you say he went outside the staff system, was he Just inclined to ••• ? Not to walk into the Oval Office, that wasn't what he was doing, was it? HRH: I don't •••• We 11, it may have been, and t het"e was nCI prclb 1 em with that. You say "walking in the Oval Office." Nobody Just walked in the Oval Office, or rarely did anybody. The President would call people in, or people would go in with other people in conJunction with meetings, or we'd set up reasons for them to go in. It was more within the staff itself. John trying, not sure what his role was within the staff. staff people or middle-level staff people that we had brought in were, in effect, John's troops. They were guys that had worked for John in the campaign. All of them were trying to •••• We set up purposely at the beginning not a lot of clearly defined responsibilities. We set up people in general areas of t"esponsi bi 1 i ty. I had the four guys they called the "Cub Scouts" or somethirlg--no, the "Beaver Patt"ol," they called them. [TheyJ were four guys that didn't have ar,y assignment at all.