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The Times syndicate will not reveal how much it expects to earn from the newspaper reprint rights, but it went to remarkable lengths to protect the security of its investment. Stung by the Washington Post's premature publication of Haldeman's book, The Ends of Power, the Times had lost some $500,000 in payments that newspapers refused to make after the Post destroyed the news value of their Haldeman excerpts. This time the precautions were as stringent, said one editor, as "wartime security for military maps and weapons."
The manuscript was sent from Grosset & Dunlap to the Times in true cloak-and-dagger style. The Times first telephoned the publisher with the description of its courier, who was dispatched to pick up parts of the manuscript on three separate trips. When the courier reached Grosset & Dunlap, he was given half of a letter. Then he traveled from New York to the still undisclosed city where the books were printed. When he reached the printing plant, the courier gave his half of the letter to a printing-company official who held the other half. Only when the two halves matched was the courier given the third of the manuscript that was ready for him.
When Nixon made late editing changes, his longtime aide Frank Gannon carried them first from San Clemente to the printing plant by airplane, then to the Times office in New York. "He would usually show up dead tired, in jeans and sports shirt, after up to 30 hours without sleep," recalls a Times editor. There was especially tight security on the deliveries of the syndicated excerpts to foreign newspapers. The excerpts were shipped in bulk to such points as Paris and Tokyo, then personally taken to the client papers by Times couriers. A flap arose when one shipment destined for Taiwan was temporarily lost; it had been mistakenly unloaded in Tokyo.
The precautions apparently worked, as the newspaper serialization began without a damaging leak. Whether the fascination of readers would prove as intense as the editors hoped remained in doubt. For Nixon, the personal financial value of his work was already assured. The bigger and yet to be answered question was whether Richard Nixon's message would be accepted favorably "down through the ages." ∎