TN: What effect on your life did the fact
that your name appeared in Woodward and Bernstein's one of their first articles?
What, what, what effect did that have on your life? WT: Not pleasant. One of the very
first articles named me and several other people as the recipients of the
illegal fruits of the Watergate taping system, which wasn't true but it
didn't bother me a lot because I thought that was kind of a nothing burger and
who cares and so forth. But then it continued and it did upset me then. I put
a denial out through Ron Ziegler, the Press Secretary and, and, um. So, I called the
counsel of the President, and said, "Look. I'm mad. Can I sue these guys? I had nothing to do with it, didn't even know about it, and I've been defamed, and what can I do?" "Oh, no. You can't do anything" he said. "There are depositions and you'd have to pay a lawyer. Everything will just blow over. You shouldn't get involved in it." Of course, the counselor
was John Dean who gave me that great advice and, clearly, he had another agenda,
which I didn't know about. I couldn't have won it anyway under the
Sullivan Act, I think, but still, it it upset me and they never apologized for
that. If you buy their book, Woodward and
Bernstein's book "All the President's Men", on page something, 250, they admit they made
a mistake in that but there was no public, to this day, apology or acknowledgement
that they made a mistake. They're supposed to have two sources for
everything and all that's a bunch of baloney. So it did upset me a little bit
but people forgot about it and moved on. Although, McGovern picked it up and ran it
as a TV commercial in that in the '72 election and I'd get calls from
around the country and 'I just saw your name on television.' So, it was not
pleasant. TN: Some time later, you'd be picked up by
another presidential candidate and participate and be a figure in an election.
This happened to you in this recent election. WT: Well, but I wasn't
involved in that. That's, again, the press. That's why I'm reluctant to talk to the press. They get things so messed up. I was never involved in John McCain's campaign. Never gave him a
nickel of money. I voted for him and supported him indirectly but I wasn't
part of the campaign and was kind of pilloried about on that and
going over my background and clients and the consummate insider and everything else,
which is ironic in light of the people he's put in the White House.
Um. Back to the legislative shop, I didn't point out that when Bryce
Harlow who was my mentor, a great friend and guide and teacher, we had two members
of his staff work the Senate, two members worked the House, and that continued and eventually,
I got when I became the Assistant to the President, after a year so, the workload was
so immense I got the President to agree to three for the Senate and three for
the House. So we enlarged our staff. And so, we did with seven what they do now
with 25. I mean, the current and the immediate past presidents have had huge
legislative staff. But, you know, there were about 5,000 record votes during
Nixon's term on the floors of both the Senate and the House, not counting all the votes in
the committees and subcommittees, which had to be five times that or something.
We probably got a hundred thousand letters over the course of the six years.
We got 35,000 incoming but you have to acknowledge them and then prepare
substantive responses from either the President or from some policy office. We had
to comment on all the President's speeches and public statements that have any
effect on Congress: the State of the Union, when he sent messages to Congress, and so forth.
We had to read those things and write comments to the Staff Secretary who sent
those around to other offices too. Telephone calls, you wouldn't believe the
number of telephone calls we got. Dozens and dozens and dozens every day
and, of course, hell hath no fury like a politician or committee chairman that
doesn't get his phone call returned. So, we're there working all night on
these things. If you take all those on you consider the workload, it's just amazing to me, looking back on it, that we got anything done at all. I mean, we were just consumed with, with work for
a small operation. Um. That doesn't mean that the current people can't do it. There are different ways to organize your office. Some people do it policy. We did it by Senate and House
but it was humongous. We had bill signing ceremonies. We had the
President took people down on the Sequoia boat, the presidential yacht. Air Force
One, the President took members on. We had I had him give us 30 minutes every week
for to bring in the Cherry Blossom Princess or some member wanted some
person to come in and meet the President and have a picture taken. No substance was
allowed in those meetings and the President didn't like them very much. He thought it was a
waste of his time but, nevertheless, he did it. And then leadership meetings.
We had breakfasts. Seems to me we had more breakfasts than I can recall with leaders
up on the top floor of the-- I did an analysis during when I was in the White
House and during his first term, he had more direct meetings with members of Congress
than Lyndon Johnson did. People wouldn't think about that today. People
don't know about Amtrak and the Space Shuttle and and 18-year-old vote and
all-volunteer army vote and Amtrak and that he created the not only the OMB
we've talked about but the Domestic Council as patterned after the
National Security Council, Council of Environmental Quality, Post Office
Department made independent, which caused a lot of uproar among politicians who
want to always appoint the local postmaster. A lot of real organization going on.
We mentioned EPA. All these things exists today and they come from
the Nixon administration. So, again, I want to congratulate the library and for all
the work you're doing to bring this stuff to light and let people look at the good and the bad, whatever the facts in history show. TN: When you were working on the Reagan
transition, to what extent did you use the lessons from this period?
WT: Well, nothing specific, because the transition of Nixon was a little different but the
government experience itself was very helpful. How things work. What kinds of
people do you need in different departments and agencies? Timetables. What
do you do the first hundred days? What will Congress accept? What won't they
accept? So, the experiences of working in the Nixon White House were very, very helpful.
There was no specific item that was applicable, though, to the Reagan
transition. TN: Given what happened to the Nixon White House with all of its achievements, what was the lesson from the, from Watergate? WT: What could have been. I think the President-- After all, he won
re-election overwhelmingly and he had a mandate and if it hadn't been for
Watergate, I think he would have gone on and done great things. Clearly, SALT 2,
which he helped negotiate but wouldn't sign, it would have gone on and detente would
have gone on. So, that whole thing-- China would have been improved more, I think, in
the second term and there would have been probably more budget control. Maybe
more tax reductions to stimulate the economy. There would've been a lot of things, I think, if it hadn't been for Watergate. TN: When you did read the - or you didn't read it -
but when you learned of the "Smoking Gun" tape, what, were you surprised?
WT: Yeah. Yes. In fact, I'm in the staff mess with, I guess, Len Garment and Harry Dent maybe, I
can't remember, the three of us and I said, "We can't-- He can't sustain this.
He's gonna, gonna be impeached and he oughta consider resigning." And I,
of course, was a loyalist and still am but that was really devastating.
TN: What role did Mel Laird play in the last in 1973? He was brought back to help you. I mean -- WT: No, no. He didn't. He was brought back to help the President. TN: The President but-- WT: And, uh, I don't know. I think he gave him advice and counsel and he might have gone up and talked to some people. I don't, don't know
but he was very popular among a group of House members, particularly. He was a senior
person and Bryce was brought back, Bryce Harlow. So, they had some heavy guns there.
TN: Did they coordinate? Would they work with you? WT: I don't remember. I think they
probably did in the sense of 'We want to see X, Y and Z. Do you want to come with
us? Do you want to set it up? Here's what we're gonna say.' I'm guessing some of
that. I don't remember specifically. TN: Do you remember any specifics about the
fight over the Jackson-Vanik Amendment? WT: Yeah. WT: The Jackson-Vanik Amendment of most-favored nation trade agreement that, that, uh, Jackson would not approve until the Soviet Union
allowed Jews to emigrate to Israel, I guess, and they were being persecuted
something fierce in those days and "Scoop" Jackson was very adamant that nothing be
done to further relations with the Soviet Union unless they agreed to this
immigration. So, as I recall, that was the Jackson-Vanik Amendment. TN: Yes.
WT: And the President agreed with it, I think. Best I can recall. TN: Do you-- When you were involved in the
Nixon transition, do you recall that "Scoop" Jackson was considered-- WT: Mm-hmm. TN: for the post of Secretary of Defense? WT: Mm-hmm. Yeah. There was some talk of it. I'm not-_ I didn't talk to the
President-elect about it but there was talk in the Pierre Hotel up there about
"Scoop" Jackson being the Secretary of Defense. TN: Was there a difference in your work from
when, the change when, there was a change from Haldeman to Haig? Did that make a
difference in--? WT: No. I knew Al Haig quite well because we had adjoining
offices and, uh, and they both were quite precise and they were both loyal to the
President. So, there's no big change, particularly. I
hated the circumstances of Bob Haldeman and John Ehrlichman leaving but no, we
got along good with Haig and he understood our role and included me in
things that I should have been included in. TN: We've interviewed John Lehman. Did, did you, was he one of those sort of assistants who worked with you and would,
would consult with you on, on that sort of national security implications?
WT: Yes. Yes. National Security Council. Very helpful, smart, and was immensely helpful in those days,
and I don't think he had an independent agenda to go to the Hill kinda on his own.
If he had to go up, he would talk to us about it and everything else.
Unlike Henry Kissinger who did a lot of things on the Hill and never told us about it. TN: Well, those, the classified briefings of the small group of congressional
leaders, they would be done by Kissinger not you. Correct? WT: Yes, correct. That's correct. TN: So, you-- WT: Or maybe Haig, I mean, I don't know but not me. TN: And you would not necessarily be told what what they-- WT: That's right. TN: --were briefed on? WT: That's right.
TN: Didn't that make you-- did that complicate your job? WT: Well, it did but I mentioned the
workload we had there. I mean, to carve out time for that, it just would have
been incredibly difficult; although, it's important, obviously, but other people
could do the job better. National Security Council people or Defense people or wherever on all that. So, I can't be involved in
everything, which brings up another point is that Bryce Harlow instituted a sit-in
in, in the Republican leader's office hour every week in the House and another hour
in the Senate Republican leader's office, and I would go with him to the House
side and Ken BeLieu would go in the Senate side and, after he left, I continued that
process where you sit there and have the leader schedule members in who wanted face-to-face complaint time and I'd sit there with him every week and listen to what they had and take notes and try to get back to
them on their issues, which was a release for them, I think, but the time involved
was incredible. So, all of these things take time out of other things that
perhaps should have been done. TN: What was the difference for you in the shift from
President Nixon to President Ford? WT: Well, kinda sad, I guess. It was a sad time to see
President Nixon depart under those circumstances. I was never particularly
close to him in the sense of the bond. I was much closer to Gerald Ford, actually,
because he was the Republican leader and I kinda lived in his office for a while.
I knew him back when I worked in the Congress and his personality was
different than President Nixon. So, he was easy to get to know and talk to,
and he named me, I think, the first holdover to stay, publicly. Press release out of the press room. Um. Primarily for continuity of the legislative program
not because of me personally. Um. So, uh, and we got along well. I had-- He was really easy
to talk to, very accessible. President Nixon was not that easy to talk to and
if you had to see him, you could, but you better make sure you had something that
was worthy of his time. TN: Was it difficult to get him to make calls to Congressmen? WT: Ford?
TN: No. President Nixon. WT: Yeah. We were able to do that. We would submit call sheets and
talking points and he did some. He wasn't happy with that.
It's like the Cherry Blossom Princess thing. He wasn't happy spending his time
with that but he did some, particularly when he felt it was really important,
there was an issue at stake, and, and he did make some calls. Not a lot. I think
not as much as Ford did, obviously, but, you know, President Nixon served in the
House, he served in the Senate, eight years Vice
President presiding over the Senate, uh. He knew what made them tick and for
people to say he was isolated and didn't know what Congress, that's baloney. He knew
them quite well, probably too well. And, uh, but, he would make
calls, yeah, and write notes occasionally on his own. We would submit some but he
would write. TN: Mr. Timmons, thank you for your time. WT: Thank you for having me.
TN: Thank you, gentlemen. [Cameraman announces he is recording room tone.] [Cameraman: Thank you.] you
