Letter from Washington

Republican professionals from coast to coast are bitter about the President’s strategy of piling up a meaningless popular-vote landslide while refusing to exert himself on behalf of other GOP candidates. As a result, the President may have a needlessly rocky second term. The trouble could start when Congress begins rooting around in the Watergate and other espionage/ sabotage affairs. Some evidence seems to point toward the involvement of the President’s top assistant, Bob Haldeman, and the President’s Appointments Secretary, Dwight Chapin. The Democrats have nothing much against these two personally but a lot of Republicans do. Haldeman and Chapin are the two men who guard the gate of the Oval Office. The typical Republican senator has had the experience of calling the President and having his call shunted off to Haldeman, or to the 32-year-old Chapin, or to some Chapin assistant. If the Democrats attack Haldeman and Chapin, do not look for a lot of Republicans to rush to their defense.

If you seek a monument to the President’s campaign strategy, look at Floyd Haskell, the new Democratic senator from Colorado. Haskell defeated Senate GOP Policy Committee Chairman Gordon Allott by less than twelve thousand votes. Allott would have won if the President had consented to make a campaign appearance in Colorado. Early in the campaign Clark MacGregor, the President’s campaign manager, told Allott that the President would come to Colorado if Allott asked for him. Allott asked for the President, and was refused. Ten days before the election Allott had hard poll evidence that he needed a presidential visit. In the closing days of the campaign the President went to Oklahoma, New Mexico and Rhode Island. But the President could not be bothered to put Air Force One down at Denver’s Stapleton Airport for a twenty-minute stop. The political operatives at the White House assured Allott they had reliable information that he was ahead by fifteen to twenty points.

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Republican professionals from coast to coast are bitter about the President’s strategy of piling up a meaningless popular-vote landslide while refusing to exert himself on behalf of other GOP candidates. As a result, the President may have a needlessly rocky second term. The trouble could start when Congress begins rooting around in the Watergate and other espionage/ sabotage affairs. Some evidence seems to point toward the involvement of the President’s top assistant, Bob Haldeman, and the President’s Appointments Secretary, Dwight Chapin. The Democrats have nothing much against these two personally but a lot of Republicans do. Haldeman and Chapin are the two men who guard the gate of the Oval Office. The typical Republican senator has had the experience of calling the President and having his call shunted off to Haldeman, or to the 32-year-old Chapin, or to some Chapin assistant. If the Democrats attack Haldeman and Chapin, do not look for a lot of Republicans to rush to their defense.

If you seek a monument to the President’s campaign strategy, look at Floyd Haskell, the new Democratic senator from Colorado. Haskell defeated Senate GOP Policy Committee Chairman Gordon Allott by less than twelve thousand votes. Allott would have won if the President had consented to make a campaign appearance in Colorado. Early in the campaign Clark MacGregor, the President’s campaign manager, told Allott that the President would come to Colorado if Allott asked for him. Allott asked for the President, and was refused. Ten days before the election Allott had hard poll evidence that he needed a presidential visit. In the closing days of the campaign the President went to Oklahoma, New Mexico and Rhode Island. But the President could not be bothered to put Air Force One down at Denver’s Stapleton Airport for a twenty-minute stop. The political operatives at the White House assured Allott they had reliable information that he was ahead by fifteen to twenty points.