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Soon thereafter, Haig got a call from Haldeman. The general asked Haldeman to hold the line, rushed into Nixon's office and asked him what to do. Nixon told Haig to hear Haldeman out but that he would not talk to Haldeman. Haig hurried to the office of James St. Clair, at the tune Nixon's chief Watergate defense attorney. St. Clair advised that any citizen had the right to appeal for clemency. Haig asked St. Clair to monitor the conversation. Haldeman's pitch was brief, citing the difficulty of getting a fair trial. There was no threat of blackmail, although given the circumstances, the approach could have seemed ominous to Nixon.
On St. Clair's instructions, Haig advised Haldeman to put his appeal in writing. Haldeman and Ehrlichman's attorneys promptly submitted a memo. But Nixon was irritated by the whole incident, thought it was a bad time to pressure him, considering his own difficulties, and rejected any pardon. Ehrlichman tried a different tactic, telephoning Friend Julie Eisenhower, but he made no better progress. Sourly, and with no supporting evidence, one associate of the two aides concluded: "It's possible that Nixon turned his back on Haldeman and Ehrlichman because his own pardon deal was set and he didn't want to queer it by pardoning them at the last minute."
Whatever the damage done to Ford's standing by his clemency for Nixon—and much of it seems ultimately repairable—the controversy also hurt members of Ford's staff. As the only member of the Ford inner circle known to have supported the President's decision before it was announced, former Nixon Hand Alexander Haig was sullied. While Haig belittled his own role in that decision, other staffers resented the Nixon holdover and suspected his influence. Haig has been in frequent telephone contact with Nixon and Ziegler, talking to San Clemente at least three or four times weekly. He has also been constantly at Ford's elbow. "We've got to get him out of there; he's got to go," declared one Ford associate.
Sear Tissue. Haig fully expects to be out of the White House within a week or two and en route to his new post as Supreme Commander of NATO. He recognizes the hostility within the Ford staff. "I feel like a Martian mutation—I've got so much scar tissue," he says wryly. While Haig performed heroically in holding Nixon's White House together in the last days and helped persuade Nixon to resign, suspicions of the general's pro-Nixon sentiments are not groundless. He had, after all, helped push the first special prosecutor, Archibald Cox, out of office after playing a devious role in the phony Stennis compromise on the Nixon tapes. He had also managed to disregard much of the evidence against Nixon until it was too devastating to ignore. In returning to the Army, Haig now faces considerable Pentagon resentment from officers who feel that he has been too politicized for the Army's good.
Also injured during the hectic week was the silver-haired, mild-mannered Buchen, who tried to brief reporters on the pardon decision, but seemed uncertain and unaware of the full implications (see THE PRESS). When