Though they are not likely to, the two men who could do most to untangle the contradictions of all the Watergate testimony are due to face the Ervin committee this week. Until their resignations April 30, H.R. Haldeman as White House Chief of Staff and John D. Ehrlichman as Domestic Affairs Adviser were, along with Henry Kissinger, the men closest to Richard Nixon. Both are Christian Scientists; they attended U.C.L.A. together, share a passion for photography, a longtime friendship —and unswerving loyalty to Nixon.
Haldeman began doing volunteer work for Nixon in 1952, and has worked in every Nixon political foray since then, while becoming a successful Los Angeles adman. Ehrlichman was settled in Seattle with a reputation as an effective zoning lawyer and an avid conservationist. At Haldeman's urging, he joined Nixon's unsuccessful 1960 presidential campaign, then rejoined in 1968 and moved on into Washington with his political mentor. More than anyone else, the two made Nixon's White House work, but in an arbitrary and authoritarian fashion that made them a good many enemies and critics as well. On the eve of their Senate appearance, TIME Correspondent Bonnie Angelo sent this retrospective view of what life was like behind the "Berlin Wall" they created around Nixon:
If the Ervin committee drives a wedge between Ehrlichman, 48, and Haldeman, 46, in the course of next week's interrogations, it will be a first.
Together they rose to their ultimate power and fell from it. Together they ran the White House. Together they became a superentity called "Hehrldeman." White House Insider Richard A. Moore spoke for many when he confessed to the Senate committee, "I always got them mixed up."
At the outset of the Nixon Administration, Haldeman was first among equals, the dour watchdog at the Oval Office gates who determined who and what the President saw and heard. Ehrlichman began as no more than an important secondary player. During that first year as the President's counsel, Ehrlichman was engrossed in working out details of the President's real estate transactions at Key Biscayne and San Clemente, and other peripheral matters and issues regarding possible conflicts of interest.
Haldeman was the undisputed power in the Nixon White House. The taut, crew-cut chief of staff had a finger in everything, from top-level staffing to deciding who should be invited to the Nixon parties. In his zeal for absolute power, Haldeman even tried to replace the President's personal secretary, Rose Mary Woods, who has been at Nixon's right hand since 1951, and is almost a member of the Nixon family.
Soon Ehrlichman, with Haldeman's backing, began to rise in the White House hierarchy. Said one former aide:
"The President was longing for a certain neatness and efficiency. He turned out to be a person the President liked and worked well with." But another former colleague noticed a weakness:
"What hurt him was that he did not have the sensitivities he needed to have in the Washington community. As 'Uncle Joe' Cannon used to say, 'Keep your ear so close to the ground you get grasshoppers in it.' "