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Although Haldeman and Ehrlichman have merged into one formidable figure in the public mind, "This is unfair to Ehrlichman," says one who knew both well. "Ehrlichman was a good person to work with; you always got a fair hearing from him. He has a nice sense of humor and was never curt—not that Prussian image. He would sit with his feet on the desk and talk ideas. But Haldeman—well, the public image is the correct one. I've never known him to crack a joke. I've never known him to seem relaxed."
Kenneth R. Cole Jr., Ehrlichman's former assistant, expresses the same view: "He is a much warmer human being than most people perceive. On Mother's Day, he sent boxes of candy to the White House telephone operators. It used to drive us to distraction the way he would constantly be meeting with people who had no relation to the business at hand. Like, maybe, a Boy Scout troop—he'd be over in the White House theater telling them about the place."
Ehrlichman is described as being unflappable. Cole remembers a flight they shared into Utah one day when the aircraft's hydraulic system failed.
"The pilot was wrestling with it, and the other passengers were saying their prayers in a panic. But John was sitting back looking over his briefing papers.
When we came in for a landing, all these fire trucks were alongside—and there was John with his Minox, taking pictures of the emergency equipment rushing to save the plane."
As the 1972 campaign began to gear up, there was bad blood between Ehrlichman and John N. Mitchell. When Clark MacGregor took over, the same friction persisted. Ehrlichman wanted a bigger voice in strategy, and his differences with MacGregor grew to the point that the two had to have it out, with Haldeman as mediator. Haldeman noted that Ehrlichman had made his point—and backed MacGregor. It was one of the rare times the two friends came down on different sides of a problem. As time went on, both seemed to feel the Government of the U.S. was synonymous with the presidency. Ehrlichman once told a reporter: "The President is the Government."
Ehrlichman subscribed wholly to Nixon's oft-expressed dictum that the best defense is a good offense. He once responded to an inquisitive journalist:
"Who do you reporters represent? Who elected you to anything?" The same biting attitude could be aimed at Congressmen—that "bunch of clowns," Ehrlichman once called them. And even the President's own Cabinet was denigrated as taking up Nixon's valuable time with "their show-and-tell sessions."
Such gibes saddened those who liked Ehrlichman. Long ago, the tightlipped, buttoned-down Haldeman was written off as a man of blacks and whites, allies v. enemies, a man with no desire to be liked and not likely to be.
But somehow, people expected more savvy from Ehrlichman, who seemed to move more easily in Washington social circles. But he never did learn to take the advice of Uncle Joe Cannon. He never had an earful of grasshoppers.