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Beneath the top quadrumvirate of Nixon's palace guard and trusted advisers—Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Kissinger and Mitchell—there are many key second-echelon figures. Among them:
> Ronald Ziegler, 31, the boyish press secretary, and Herb Klein, 52, Nixon's rumpled chief of communications. After seeing Kissinger, Nixon meets with Ziegler daily for ten minutes to half an hour—more frequently when news is breaking fast—and Ziegler normally briefs the White House press corps twice a day. One White House aide puts his limitations precisely: "He's not an interpreter—he's a conveyor belt, a funnel." Ziegler, who worked in Haldeman's advertising agency, mixes computerese into his briefings: he talks of "inputs" and "outputs," of "implementing" a policy within a "time frame." A chance for photographers to take pictures is solemnly billed a "photo opportunity." Less visible than Ziegler, Klein, as the Administration's imagemaker, musters officials to help explain policy in public and coordinates the public relations departments of Government agencies. Klein sees Nixon less frequently than Ziegler, but one respectful colleague comments: "Herb is better clued in than I expected him to be. Herb is pretty good at the infighting."
> Harry Dent, 40, an acquisition from the staff of South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond, and Murray Chotiner, 60, an old Nixon crony from California campaigns, tend the political store for the President. Dent handles patronage, is widely thought to be behind a move to get Republicans into third-level jobs in place of holdover Democrats. Dent sees Nixon at least twice a week, and screens Republican candidates for office who want time with the President. Representative George Bush, who is running for the Senate in Texas, got 35 minutes with Nixon last week; Lenore Romney, wife of Nixon's HUD chief and a candidate for the senatorial primary in Michigan, found that a brief audience with Nixon turned into a 45-minute lecture on political tactics. Nixon characteristically spends more time than scheduled with those who have managed to get appointments. But others less favored simply do not get through.
> William Timmons, 39, took over the congressional liaison job from Bryce Harlow last February. House Minority Leader Gerald Ford credits him with doing "a first-rate job," but a Midwestern Republican Senator complains: "I never see Timmons around. I suppose he must be awfully busy." A Republican Senate aide adds: "Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Ziegler—none of them have any understanding of the Hill. They don't realize that we are an equal branch of Government." California Representative Paul McCloskey Jr., a liberal Republican and a college friend of Ehrlichman's, thinks that the Nixon staff has wrapped the President in a cocoon. Says McCloskey: "For the President to isolate himself from all criticism, from differing opinion is a dangerous thing. Hell, every time I see the President the band has been playing Hail to the Chief and everyone has been bowing and scraping. That's not the real world. I see no one who has the guts to stand up to the President down there and say 'You're wrong.' He needs