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

by Chris Whipple

only reason he’s into political espionage is because Hoover won’t do it anymore.” Haldeman would defend Richard Nixon to the end. Before the Senate Watergate Committee, the president’s ever-dutiful chief insisted that Nixon had no knowledge of the cover-up and never authorized giving hush money to the burglars. For those untruths, H. R. Haldeman would be convicted of perjury, conspiracy, and obstruction of justice and sent to prison at the federal minimum security facility in Lompoc, California, where he served a sentence of eighteen months. “Son of Nixonstein” read the caption on a magazine cartoon, depicting the fallen chief as the president’s monster. To the press, and to most Americans, Haldeman seemed proof that too much power invested in the White House chief leads to calamity. But that’s not the way Haldeman’s successors saw him. Years later, in January of