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Demanding Boss. The hope among White House staffers is that Vice President Gerald Ford will perform Laird's role as a top-level troubleshooter while also influencing domestic policy. But to accomplish this, Ford will have to become a commanding figure in his own right, something no Vice President in history has been able to do. Says one key White House assistant: "Let's wait six weeks and see how it works."
During the siege of Watergate, the man whom the President has relied upon to keep the demoralized White House staff running has been Alexander Haig. Kissinger, one of the most demanding of bosses, was so impressed with Haig's dedication and mind that he took him on as his deputy. When Haldeman left the White House, Haig, 49, resigned as a four-star general to become Nixon's chief of staff.
Although a demon worker, Haig does not crack the same whip that Haldeman did, and he does not have Haldeman's intimacy with Nixon. The President has come to rely most heavily for advice upon Press Secretary Ron Ziegler, the man who lost his standing with newsmen by repeatedly "misspeaking" the facts about Watergate. Ziegler's rise has baffled most of Nixon's senior aides and horrified Senator Barry Goldwater, who told the Christian Science Monitor last month: "I just can't believe that he would listen to Ziegler. That in my opinion would be something disastrous. Nothing personal, but Ziegler doesn't understand politics."
Ziegler's background is in advertising; he worked for Haldeman at the J. Walter Thompson office in Los Angeles, where Disneyland was one of his accounts. Hired, trained and brought into the White House by Haldeman, Ziegler still consults his former boss on the President's problems. Ziegler is the one remaining adviser who goes back to the old days with Nixon: he worked on the losing 1962 gubernatorial campaign in California. The President, who values loyalty above all other qualities, obviously feels at ease with him.
Ziegler is not only Nixon's window on the world, he is the aide more responsible than anyone—Laird, Harlow or any of the lawyers—for shaping the President's Watergate policy. Ziegler is a hardliner, urging the President to keep his cooperation and disclosures to the barest minimum as he deals with his adversaries in the courts and Congress. The release last week of the President's incomplete and undocumented statements on the milk fund and ITT was planned by Ziegler.
In the months ahead, Ziegler is expected to continue as Nixon's top personal adviser. The question remains of who will do the long, slogging hours of leg-and brainwork to develop White House policy on the whole galaxy of domestic problems, from national health insurance to welfare reform. That job had been done by John Ehrlichman, who directed the Domestic Council. Under him, the council boasted a staff of 75 and played an important role in shaping Nixon's domestic programs during the first term. Now the council is down to 26 staffers, and its influence has declined proportionately.