The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency

by Chris Whipple

visitor: J. Edgar Hoover, the long-serving FBI director. As Haldeman later vividly recalled: “The president asked me to be present when Hoover paid his respects. Hoover, florid, rumpled, came into the suite and quickly got down to business. He said that LBJ had ordered the FBI to wiretap Nixon during the campaign. In fact, he told Nixon, Johnson had directed the FBI to ‘bug’ Nixon’s campaign airplane, and this had been done.” In truth, no such bug had been planted on Nixon’s plane. Hoover was lying to the president-elect, cleverly exploiting Nixon’s suspicions to enhance his own power. But for the man who was about to become the thirty-seventh president of the United States, this was confirmation of his worst fears about his political enemies: LBJ, the Kennedys, the liberals, and the press.