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    "ocrText": "Exit Interview\nWith\nRONALD H. WALKER\nOn\nDecember 29, 1972\nARCHINES NATION AND 1985 SCRIPTA LITTERA MANET RECORDS\nNATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION\nRICHARD NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY\nDOCUMENT WITHDRAWAL RECORD - RICHARD NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY\nDOCUMENT\nDOCUMENT\nNUMBER\nTYPE\nSUBJECT/TITLE OR CORRESPONDENTS\nDATE\nRESTRICTION\n1\nTransc.\np. 32, from last open, ...presidential\n12/29/1972\nA\nprotection detail.\" to first open, \"one of these\npeople\n2\nTransc.\np. 77, from last open, \"...I took\" to first open\n12/29/1972\nA\n\" who was black.\"\nFILE GROUP TITLE\nBOX NUMBER\nExit Interview: Ronald H. Walker, December 29, 1972\nFOLDER TITLE\nRESTRICTION CODES\nA. Release would violate a Federal statute or Agency\nE. Release would disclose trade secrets or confidential\nPolicy\ncommercial or financial information.\nB. National security classified information.\nF. Release would disclose investigatory information\nC. Pending or approved claim that release would violate\ncompiled for law enforcement purposes.\nan individual's rights.\nG. Withdrawn and return private and personal material.\nD. Release would constitute a clearly unwarranted\nH. Withdrawn and returned non-historical material.\ninvasion of privacy or a libel of a living person.\nNATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION\nNA 14021 (4-85)\nExit interview with Ronald H. Walker\nconducted by Susan Yowell\nin Room 348 of the Old Executive Office Building\non December 29, 1972\nSY:\nfrom you is a history of how the advance staff was\nset up from, right after the election in '68. How you\norganized the advance staff.\nRW: Well, the first six months of the Nixon administration,\nin 1969, the travel arrangement was handled kind of\ntotally by Dwight Chapin. He was the appointments\nsecretary, the travel coordinator, the individual that\nmade the assignments for the various trips the\nPresident made. Then I just happened, by happenstance,\nto be one of the advance men that had more or less\nsurvived and done a fairly good job in 1968 during the\ncampaign. I guess, quickly, to recall what that first\nsix months was about, would be to look at the\nInauguration itself, which was handled by a number of\nadvance men, specifically, [J.] Roy Goodearle, John\nNidecker, Nick CL. Nicholas] Ruwe, myself, and Bill\n[William R.] Codus (who handled the Capitol). These\nwere names that had been in and about the Nixon\ncampaign organization for many years. I was\nrelatively a newcomer, but did come back and help on\nthe Inauguration. I ended up advancing members of the\nFirst Family, specifically Mrs. Nixon, and then working\nwith the various [Inaugural] balls that evening.\nShortly after the Inauguration I went back to Texas,\nwhere I was living at that time, temporarily, and was\n1\nrecalled back to Washington to accept a position, since\nI had more or less terminated my tenure with the Hudson\nCompany in Los Angeles. They put me on a payroll at\nCommerce, thereby allowing me to participate, at John\nEhrlichman's request, and Ed [Edward L.] Morgan, who\nwas, I think, originally designated to possibly be the\nPresident's chief advance man for that first European\ntrip.\nOn that first European trip, we went out in\nJanuary [1969], the latter part of January or the first\npart of February. Just quickly, once again, Dan\n[Daniel T.] Kingsley did Brussels, I did London, Roy\nGoodearle did Germany, Nidecker did West Berlin, [Henry\nC.] Cashen did Rome and the Vatican, and Morgan\nanchored it in Paris. When we returned, I pursued a\nfollow up conversation and interview that I'd had with\nSecretary [Walter J.] Hickel. I eventually accepted\nthat position, at the urging of members of the White\nHouse, to become a special assistant to Hickel,\narranging all his travel, programing him,\nspeechwriting, his everyday appointment schedule,\ntrying to get him organized in a fashion similar to\nwhat I was accustomed to with the President. I\ncontinued to be available to Dwight, upon call, to do\nvarious advances. I didn't do a lot, but those that I\ndid do, in retrospect, I guess I did well. Because I\nkept moving up it seemed.\n2\nThat summer, the summer of '69, the President made\nhis first around the world trip, commencing with the\nApollo XI splashdown, off of Johnson Island, where he\nwent overnight in the Hornet, and received the Apollo\nXI astronauts. From then he preceded on to Manila, to\nBangkok, from there he jumped over to Saigon, and then\ninto New Delhi, which I handled. And then [I]\ncoordinated and helped Dick CW. Richard] Howard, who\nwas doing Lahore, Pakistan. Dick had not had much\nexperience in advancing, and had none on the\ninternational side. After that we proceeded on into\nRomania, from Romania into Mildenhall, England where he\nmet with Prime Minister [Edward] Heath, no the Prime\nMinister at that time was Prime Minister [Harold]\nWilson, and then into Washington. On that flight\nDwight discussed with me the possibility of taking over\nas the President's chief advance man. At this time\nthey had none.\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: And starting to build a new team of advance men,\nconcentrating specifically on advancing a President, as\nopposed to advancing a candidate, and there is a great\ndeal of difference. We did not pursue it all that\nquickly. I went back with Hickel. Sometime within the\nnext couple of months there was an occasion when the\nPresident went to the redwoods in California, Eureka,\nCalifornia to dedicate the Lady Bird Johnson Redwood\n3\nGrove. The former President [Lyndon B.] and Mrs.\nJohnson were there, and the President and Mrs. Nixon.\nI did that advance and it was a good one. It so\nhappened that Hickel was the master of ceremonies, and,\nbecause Hickel had been so good to the White House in\nmaking me available and was a Cabinet officer, we\nhappened to have been able to have returned from there\nto San Clemente on board Air Force One. On that\nflight, Bob CH. R.J Haldeman talked to the Secretary,\nand Dwight talked to me about assuming this position.\nThe Secretary and I overnighted at the Newporter, in\nsouthern California, and had dinner together that\nnight and discussed it. The next morning we flew back\ncommercially, all the time discussing the pros and\ncons. His attitude was that, if this is what the\nPresident needs, by all means, you should go and do it.\nSo, after Dwight returned from San Clemente with the\nPresident, Dwight and I got together, and I decided to\naccept the position. That was in about October, the\ndates escape me. But I say that because I felt, after\nnumerous conversations with the older advance men that\nhad been around, that one of the first things that I\nhad to do was to get a handle on what so many other\npeople had been attempting to do. Not devoting full\ntime to it. For example, there was Chuck [Charles E.]\nStuart, who had been assigned as special projects\nofficer, special projects person, for Bob Haldeman.\n4\nAnd one of his roles [was] to go out and find new\nadvance men. So there were an awful lot of people that\nwere trying to find new advance men. There were also a\nnumber of people, in and around the United States of\nAmerica, that were writing letters, or letters were\nbeing written on their behalf, to the White House,\nsaying that this young man, this young woman, would be\nexcellent advance material\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW:\nfor the President. So I immediately got in touch\nwith everyone--Morgan, Nidecker, John Whitaker, Ken\n[Kenneth R.J Cole, Ruwe, Goodearle, Chuck Stuart,\nDwight--and took all the mail, the correspondence, the\nphone calls, and started assimilating it. But I also\nrealized one of the first things that I needed, in\norder to make the goal as I saw it, in order to start\ntraining new men and building a new corps of advance\nmen that would eventually be the nucleus of a\npresidential campaign in 1972, would be to write a\nmanual. An all-encompassing manual that in no way, the\nindividual that had access to that, which I controlled\nvery, very heavily, quite tightly, that they could\nbecome an advance man by virtue of having read it. But\nthat it was a foundation in order to start building the\ntype of men that we needed to move the President. I\nstayed at the Department of Interior, Secretary Hickel\nmade an office available to me, and a secretary. I\n5\nbegan to take the 1968 campaign manual, using that as a\nstarting point, but by the time it was all completed,\nvery little out of the 1968 campaign was applicable. I\nspent the next three to five months putting that manual\ntogether. The manual will speak for itself, and\nthat'll be part of the Archives.\nSY: And you said before that the files 00 reflect the\nchanges in the manual\nRW: That's correct.\nSY:\nthat it would show that earlier versions and the\nchanges that have been made.\nRW: That's correct. All that material and everything will\nremain in the advance office, because this will be an\nongoing thing for the next four years.\nSY: Of course, yes.\nRW: And it will be needed for the new people that come.\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW:\nto replace me. After I had gotten the manual--and\nthe manual, primarily working on the manual was, well,\nwas me; I wrote it. Then Steve [Stephen B.] Bull and\nDwight and I spent many many hours going through,\nsection by section, with them adding various input,\nchanging certain formats as we decided, maybe, that\nthere was a better way to do it. The manual, I\nenvisioned from the very outset, should be a living\nrepository of thoughts and new concepts and new ideas.\nIn no way should it become a stagnant, dead, this is\n6\nthe only way you can do it.\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: And it did prove to be just that. Because we made any\nnumber of changes and there were [appendices] that were\nmade. It's probably the best material on advancing a\nPresident, or for that matter, a candidate of any sort,\nas long as you take and make it applicable. Whether\nit's a city councilman, or a mayor, or a state\ncongressman, or a state senator, or a governor, or\nnational Senator or Congressman, and then eventually a\nPresident. Probably the best documented piece on\nadvance work that's ever been done. O.K., that was\ndone. Still in Interior, but in February of 1971 I\nmoved to the White House. I took up residence with\nHugh Sloan, on the first floor of the EOB [Old\nExecutive Office Building].\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: I had a desk, and that was it.\nSY: You did not have a secretary?\nRW: No.\nSY: You didn't bring a secretary from Interior?\nRW: Not initially. I started working with Dwight and Steve\ninternally, working at that time with John Davies, who\nwas a special assistant to the President for tours and\nWhite House functions. I handled movement into the\nPresident's office and out of the President's office.\nI handled the Rose Garden affairs, the South Lawn, the\n7\nNorth Lawn, north portico, all the things that were\ninternally being done. The Medal of Honor ceremonies.\nTo look at it from the standpoint of an advance, from\ndoing it for the President, making sure that everything\nwas precise, crisp, well organized, well executed, and\neverybody's in the right place at the right time to\nmake things [unintelligiblel. It was being done well,\nbut I think that\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW:\n...we got it going better. That was about as much time\nas I spent messing around in the White House. It was\nnot my forte. I didn't particularly care for it. My\nforte was building, finding these men, and getting out\non the road and making it happen out there, where you\nhad no resources. You had to pull everything together\nyourself.\nSY: Did you work at all with Mr. Sloan, with Hugh Sloan?\nRW: Yes, I did. Primarily from the standpoint of\nscheduling, not internally, but anything that had to do\nwith external events. Whether it be in the city of\nWashington or outside, in the country. I started\ninterviewing before the first of the year in 1969, on a\ncome-what-may basis. I felt that it was my obligation\nto any young man, or young woman.\nThe record will show that we had no women advance\ntypes. By virtue of the type of work, it was a\nfundamental decision that we made very early in the\n8\ngame. I felt very strongly that a female could not do\nthe things that we were asking to be done for the\nPresident of the United States. But I did support, and\nsupport very strongly, the concept of having female\nadvance types handle Mrs. Nixon and the girls. That\neventually transpired. It eventually proved, through\nthe girls themselves and Mrs. Nixon, that they\npreferred to have men. That's another whole story.\nBut there was a school that was held for the girls,\nConnie [Constance C.] Stuart ran it and I helped her,\nand I spoke at it. But they handled a pretty heavy\ntrip of Mrs. Nixon to about four or five states, and I\nguess the results were less than perfect.\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: Well, anyway, I started interviewing, and I had the\nphilosophy that it was necessary to--I had the personal\nobligation to anyone that wanted to be an advance man\nfor the President of the United States, to at least\ntalk to him and give him the courtesy of having had the\nopportunity to speak with a presidential advance man\n[banging table for emphasis]. Then I made my\nevaluations. But I talked to every one of them.\nI'll talk about it in my own language and\neverything. Some of them were, no way were they the\ncaliber of people that I felt could be representing the\nPresident of the United States out and about this\ncountry, or internationally. Whether it was\n9\nappearance, whether it was their attitude, or whether\nit was what they were hopeful of getting out of it, on\ntheir own behalf, as opposed to putting into it on\nbehalf of the President of the United States. One of\nthe strongest feelings that I had was that they had to\nhave an instilled passion for anonymity. Because, only\nin doing what we have done over the last three and a\nhalf years (and done it most effectively) has it been\naccomplished by virtue of that obscurity, and working\nbehind the scenes, and letting the people that we\norganize to be front runners get the credit.\nMy general philosopy was that it would be very\nsimple for a Ron Walker, or a Mike Duval [Michael\nRaoul-Duvall, or a [W.] Dewey Clower, or a Jon Foust,\nor a Bill [William] Henkel to go into Chicago, call on\nColonel Riley [sp?], which was protocol, who was the\nchief of staff for Mayor [Richard J.J Daley. Make that\ncourtesy call, and then turn to the Republican\norganization, say, \"O.K., this is what we're going to\ndo.\" Turn to Governor [Richard B.] Ogilvie's office\nand say, \"O.K., this is what we're going to do. I'm\ngoing to have a press conference at four o'clock this\nafternoon, lay out the schedule and do everything, you\nknow, and I'll be on television tonight and I'll be\nKing Kong.' Now this is the way that most of [John F.]\nKennedy's advance men and Johnson's advance men worked.\nThey went in with big \"hoolihaw\" [phonetic] and, you\n10\nknow, and a lot of clout, and a lot of open coverage.\nThey'd leave; the underlings would do the work. They'd\ncome back a day or so before the event, take all the\ncredit for it, and blow town. Well, you don't make\nmany friends that way. Not me personally, but you\ndon't make many friends for the President of the United\nStates that way.\nThe way to go about doing it, this is what we\nended up doing, was to go in there, make the courtesy\ncalls on a very low key, low fashion basis. Find out\nwho your key contact is going to be, who's going to be\nthe front runner. Determine very quickly--you had to\nhave that quick decisionmaking ability, or [be] a good\nreader of men and women, to know, initially, whether\nthe guy was a shaker and a mover, whether he was just\ngoing to be a grandstander and a lip service type guy\nthat was going to end up taking all the credit. [Who\nwould] want to sit on the platform, or want to\nintroduce the President, and not want to do any work.\nYou had to make these evaluations and do it very\nquickly because, in many cases, you only had maybe\ntwenty-four hours, seventy-two hours, four or five\ndays, to do that advance. In the period of about a\nfive day advance you can find yourself having anywhere\nfrom seven or eight hundred to two thousand volunteers\nthat are participating in that. Whether they're\nblowing up balloons or cutting confetti, or driving\n11\ncars, or handing out handbills, making telephone calls,\ndoing all these things that are 50 vitally necessary in\norder to turn out a crowd, in order to have people\nwhere you want them at the right, precise time. Then\nyou let the locals\n\"Locals\" is a bad term, that we\nnever used. \"Local\" is an applicable word,\nSY: Hmm.\nRW:\n...\nbut it sort of leaves a bad taste in their mouths.\nWe would call it, you know, the community, or the\npeople that are living in that location that will be\nthe main host committee, or whatever the case may be.\nIt was a good philosophy because it worked.\nAnother point that I always made to my advance men\nwas there should never be a town that you go into that\nyou should not be able to return to again. Or, that\nanother advance man cannot return to and not be looked\nat in a bad light because of the mistakes and the\nsorriness with which you handled that advance. You\nknow, you should be a diplomat, and you should know how\nto convince people to do things that they may not\nnecessarily want to do. But in the long run they end\nup doing it because you made them feel that it was\ntheir idea, and they ended up doing it because it was\ntheir idea. All the time knowing very well what your\ngame plan was. Well, I'm sidetracking, but I think the\npoint's well made.\nBut, anyway, I started interviewing men. I talked\n12\nto hundreds of guys. I would talk to them on the\nphone, I exchanged letters, I started setting up a\ncorrespondence section of anyone that wanted to write\nto me and ask, had to send me a resume and a picture.\nAnd from that we would start progressing. I initially\npulled together, again the number escapes me, but the\nearly part of June in 1970, I had the first advance\nseminar. Now, \"advance seminar\" was a term that I\ncategorized because I did not feel it should be an\n\"advance school\". That sounds too much like you're\ntraining guys to go out and be political hacks, or how\nto go out and get the political hacks. Or you're\nteaching them things that really aren't right. There's\na bad, bad feeling among many politicians, about an\nadvance man: they're con artists, they're young\nwhipper-snappers, they're \"BS\" artists, they're\nprobably a product of a political hack environment.\nWhether they'd been a lobbyist, or an aide to a\nCongressman or a Senator, or an aide to a mayor or a\ngovernor, or whatever the case may be. They know all\nthe political ins and outs, and how to get around\nsomething, you know. They slap them on the back, and\nthey talk percentages in the precincts, and what the\nblack vote's going to do vis-a-vis the Jewish vote, and\nall that kind of stuff. I said, \"Forget it!\" I didn't\nwant any political hack moving on behalf of the\nPresident of the United States. If a guy had never\n13\ndone anything in politics, he started off better with\nme than the guy that had [pounds table for emphasis].\nBecause I didn't come out of a political background,\nand by virtue of that I think it gave me a great\ninsight as to what advancing was all about. My mission\nwas pure and simple: to go in there and to organize a\ncommunity like that community had never been organized\nbefore in their lives. And realizing that I was\nprobably the first contact that that community had ever\nhad with the office of the presidency. And in a\nfavorable light. I would probably be, for the most\npart, [for] all those volunteers that would be doing\nthat work, the only contact, or the closest contact,\nthat they would ever have to a President or the office\nof a President. I had to clean up my language; I\nhappen to be a great, earthy individual. But I had to\npresent the best light that I knew how, and I did it,\nand I demanded nothing less from the men that worked\nfor me [pounds table]. Now these men did not get paid\nby me. For the majority of them were volunteers.\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: Which again, is a kind of a different bag. But, in\nJune of that year, I had the first advance seminar.\nAnd there were about thirty-some-odd guys in there. In\ngoing back through that list, which has been a constant\nproblem that I've experienced over the last three\nyears, is that you go out and you find these good men,\n14\nand you train them in the art of being an advance\nman\nIt is an art. There's no doubt about it. It\ntakes a unique type of individual in order to do the\nthings that you ask that man to do. It takes great\nsacrifice. It takes guts, because you have to talk\nyour boss into being able to take time off and go and\ndo this. You have to learn; you worry. Your stomach\nknots up. You worry about whether the crowd's going to\nbe at the airport, or whether it's going to be along\nthe motorcade route. You worry about whether your\nreception committee's going to be there. You worry\nabout getting the schedule done. You worry about all\nthese kinds of things, and it's a very snort period of\ntime. There's one thing you always experience: that's\nfinality. Because, the moment the President arrives\nback, and he gets on that airplane, on the \"Spirit of\n'76\", and those wheels lift off, it's either been a\ngood advance, or it's been a bad advance. There is no\nmiddle area in my mind. So, you know when that plane\nlifts off, if you've had a good stop [pounds table], if\nit's been a good drill. And, boy, there's nothing, no\nfeeling like that in the world if it's gone well.\nThere's also no feeling in the world if it's gone bad.\nBecause, only you will hate yourself more than anybody\nelse could ever hate [pounds table]. There's always\nthat feeling on the airplane, at least I felt this way,\n15\nthat it was a great empathy for those guys on the\nground. And everyone else on that plane had been\naround long enough in politics, or with the President,\nthrough advancing or movement, that they also snared\nthat same empathy. But not that guy on the ground\n[pounds table]. He knew he had blown it [pounds\ntable]. We had very few that were ever blown. As a\nmatter of fact, if I had to go back, I would say there\nwere, under my tenure, there were never any blown. We\nhad some mistakes, we had some problems, but we didn't\nblow it. The President was never embarrassed, with the\nexception of San Jose.\nOut of that school I can take names like Dick\nHoward, who ended up working for Herb [Herbert G.]\nKlein, and eventually with Chuck [Charles W.] Colson,\nwho I lost advancing. Gordon Strachan, who ended up\nworking for Bob Haldeman. Dave [David N.J Parker, who\nended up working for Dwight. Jack Pettit, who ended up\nbeing, becoming the general counsel of the FCC [Federal\nCommunications Commission]. I can go through the list,\nbut it seemed that it was an ongoing practice that we\nwould find these men, they would be good men, they\nwould be recognized on the road or their talents would\nbe recognized. Someone would say, \"Gee, that's a sharp\nguy.\" The next thing I'd know, he was gone. But, I\nalways felt that that was an obligation that I had, not\nonly to the President, but to the office of the\n16\nPresident. In order to get these good men into various\nslots.\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW:\n...and locations, so that the President's machinery\nruns just as well everyplace else as it does. It gave\nme a great pride, sense of pride, to have found these\nmen, and have them be callen \"Walker's Raiders,' or\n\"The Roadrunner's Raiders.\" And then have them move on\nin. And all through the White House now there are guys\nthat we found, and we trained. They came out of the\nadvance operation, and now they're doing their own\nthing.\n[Recorder turned off]\n[Recording resumed]\nRW:\n...was last time that I did. You shouldn't feel that\nway.\nSY: Well, that's the first time it's happened to me, and I\nhad everyone try to console me. When I went back I\nfound out that Steve [Stephen] Hess, when he and [Earl]\nMazo were doing his book [Nixon: A Political Portrait]\nthey did one of these with the President that didn't t\nwork.\nRW: Oh!\nSY: [Laughter]. So, and we have\nRW: And he probably was less concerned about it than they\nwere.\nSY: Well, they called him up and told him, and he was great\n17\nabout it, apparently.\nRW: I'm sure he was.\nSY: Terry Good talked with Steve Hess when he left, I guess\nit was the White House Conference on Youth, and he\n[Hess] told him the story. The other thing that\nhappened with one of the people with the other\n[presidential] libraries, a man from the [Harry S]\nTruman Library went up to New York to interview, I\nthink it was Rosenberg [sp?], made the trip to New York\njust to talk with him. Came back on the metro[liner]\nand the electrical\nRW: System erased it?\nSY:\n...system just scrambled it, just completely. Before\nthere had been any transcription made or\nBut we\nhave paranoia about those things not working, you know.\nRW: You know what might be a suggestion for you, just put\nthis in the back of your, you know, just put it back in\nthere and think about it.\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: The White House Communications Agency..\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW:\nhas got tremendous recording facilities and the\ntechnicians to handle it.\nSY: Right.\nRW: And if you're going to do anything with somebody that's\na real heavy, you might want to call General [Albert]\nRedman.\n18\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: And just say, \"Sir, I'm going to be conducting this\ninterview with Bob [Robert H.] Finch or, you know, ...\nSY: Hmm.\nRW: with Bob Haldeman, or whatever the case it's going\nto be,\nSY: Hmm.\nRW:\n...and I'd like to have one of your men come in and set\nthis up for me...\nSY: Right.\nRW: ...and be there to monitor it.\nSY: We have used, they, well, it's their tape. And we have\nused them for minor repairs and things like that.\nThey're very helpful.\n[Unknown woman entered]\n[Conversation unrelated to interview]\n[Unknown woman left]\nSY: One thing that you touched on before, which I wanted to\nhave, is something on how you went about recruiting the\npeople you were interviewing, as opposed to their\nRW: Well, I think I was talking about the first seminar,\nwasn't I?\nSY: Right.\nRW: That was really kind of a turning point for me.\nBecause it was the culmination of the initial game plan\nthat I had laid out for myself. I think I told you\nthis: I'm a great game planner, in that I don't\n19\nconsider myself the all time great smart guy. So I\ngive a great deal of time to programing how I want\nsomething to go about. It's probably one of the\nreasons that I was a good advance man. Because I'm a\nstickler for details; I'm a perfectionist in what I do,\nand I know what has to be done.\nSo, I laid this thing out, I talked to all these\nguys. Then I had this first seminar. Well, I\nconducted this first seminar here, at the White House,\nin the Indian Treaty Room. Shortly before that,\nRosamond Gitzen, (G-I-T-Z-E-N) who was a bureaucrat in\nthe Department of Interior, had been my secretary with\nHickel, was detailed over to me. She and I went\nupstairs the day before that weekend. It was the\nfirst, second weekend in June, and I started a pattern\nthat eventually went through the next two and a half\nyears. I did it on a Saturday and a Sunday, which\nallowed guys to fly in and spend Saturday with us, and\nSunday. And then go home and be back to work on\nMonday, SO they didn't miss any work. We went up with\nthe White House Communications Agency and set up the\nIndian Treaty Room. I make this point only to show,\neventually, how we progressed, really. I set that\nwhole thing up myself. Everything from the water\nglasses, filling the water pitchers, and putting the\nglasses out there, to the pads and the paper. Then,\nthe school commenced on Saturday morning.\n20\nA little background on what I did. Shortly before\nthat school, and during the process of time that I was\nscreening and interviewing all these men, I made calls\non Bob [Robert H.] Taylor, who was the head of the\nPresidential Protection Detail, the Secret Service; on\nAl Redman, General Redman, the White House\nCommunications Agency; Don [James D.] Hughes, who was\nthe military aide to the President; Ollie [Oliver R.\nAtkins, who was the President's photographer;\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW:\nat that time it was Jim [James] Keogh, who was the\nPresident's speechwriter; Pat [Patrick J.] Buchanan, at\nthat time, who had the News Summary; well, I could go\non. [I] made calls on these people, saying, \"O.K.,\nthis is what I'm attempting and going about doing.\"\nOne of the things that I had had brought to my\nattention quite early, when I was made to be the\nPresident's chief advance man, was that in the past,\nduring the other administrations, specifically going\nback to Kennedy (because that's when advance men\nstarted really coming into their own, was the 1960\ncampaign)\nNixon, well, Murray Chotiner was the\nfirst guy that conceived of a guy going out and making\nthese arrangements. He was the guy that did it. Then,\nKennedy did it better than Nixon did it in 1968. Now,\nBob Haldeman might take exception to that, but I think\nthe record shows that he ended up having at least more\n21\nmoney, more clout, and better manpower on the road for\nhim [in 1960] than Nixon did [in 1968]. There's an\nawful lot of background information that can\nsubstantiate that statement. Again, I say, Haldeman\nmight take exception to it. Just a side note that the\nrecord may not show, is that, and Bob may allude to\nthis later, but Bob only had about fifteen advance men.\nBut of that group of advance men, there was John\nEhrlichman; John Warner, who is now Secretary of the\nNavy; John Whitaker, who has just recently been named\nUndersecretary of Interior; Sherm [Sherman E.] Unger,\nwho, I believe, is in the administration or has been;\nand then some other ones.\nBut the general feeling was that the political,\nwhich is what they call [unintelligible], or the\npols[?], which were the political advance men.\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW:\nwould go out and play all kinds of games with the\nsupport people. Now this may go back to the individual\ncaliber of the President, Kennedy or Johnson, because\nthey, in their own right, were different types of\npersonalities than is President Nixon. Johnson was\nvery flighty. He, I think, became very, very nervous\nabout his life, after the Kennedy assassination, and\nthen assuming the office of the presidency. He would\nbe going to Denver, he would take off in Air Force One,\nand in the air he would decide that he didn't want to\n22\ngo to Denver, he wanted to go to Chicago. Well, that's\njust ludicrous when it comes to trying to move a man,\nbecause you've got helicopters in Denver, you've got\nthe cars in Denver, you've got the security setup,\nyou've got the program going and stuff. And then, all\nof a sudden, you know, to take a four hour trip and cut\nit to two, and land\nYou know, they don't have\ncars. Then he'd be all upset and everything because\nthe proper facilities weren't there for him. Well, of\ncourse, we've never had that situation with the\nPresident, with President Nixon.\nTaylor indicated that one of the things that you\ncan do that will assist everybody else, is to keep, to\nestablish the type of office that is a liaison and a\ncoordinator of all the support elements: i.e. the\nSecret Service; the White House Communications Agency,\nwhich provides the podium, the flags, the seals, the\nsound equipment, the lights, the radios, the base\nstations, all the things that not only we as a staff\nneed, that the President needs in order to maintain\nthat continuity of the office of the presidency, but\nthe security need. The helicopter needs, all that kind\nof stuff. If they don't have as much information as\nyou can give them, within reason, and within security\npurposes, or however tight we wanted to keep it\ninternally, staffwise, they can't perform their\nmission. If they aren't performing their mission,\n23\nstuff is going to go wrong, and, if something goes\nwrong, there's the high possibility that the\nPresident's going to be embarrassed. And that is\nwrong. The same with the Secret Service. If you\nchange routes, or all of a sudden an advance man says,\n\"No, I don't want to go down that highway; I want to\nget off on this crossroad over here, because there's\nsome nice farms and stuff.\" Well, they don't have\nthose crossroads and stuff programmed. Now, granted,\nyou've got the element of surprise, that you can move\ndown, but that element of surprise leaves me awfully\ncold. Because there's been, indeed, built-in danger in\ndoing anything that you.\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: have not programmed and planned.\nWell, apparantly the Kennedy advance men and the\nJohnson advance men did just exactly what I just said\nwe didn't want to do. But I initially\n[unintelligiblel, that it would be great for me to go\ndown and tell Bob Taylor this, or tell Al Redman this,\nor tell Don Hughes this, or whoever the case was going\nto be, but I had to prove it first. I had to prove\nthat we weren't going to screw them. At a given point\nin time, when the President's airplane lands, and all\nof a sudden this is all in the plan and everything, I\nsay, \"Nope, we're not going to do that. We're going to\ndo something else.\" Because that's what they had\n24\nexperienced in the past.\nSo it took a great deal of time to nurture and to\nchange the attitude. Fine, maybe Bob Taylor was\nconvinced, because he knew me personally, he knew that\nI wouldn't \"BS\" him. But the point I'm trying to make\nis that it was those other agents, those site agents\nthat are down there. You go on a one stop, you've got\nfive or six agents there. You've got the lead agent,\nyou've got the airport agent, you've got the motorcade\nagent, you've got the hotel site agent, you've got the\nevent site agent. All of those guys had dealt with\npolitical type advance men before, and they had this\nsort of stuffy, bad feeling in their throat, or in\ntheir stomach, every time one of us came around. Well,\nI could sense this immediately. By the same token, the\n[White House] Communications Agency, the military\naides\nOf course, we had all our own new military\naides. To develop a rapport, internally, a team type\neffort\nLook, it's not going to be Ron Walker's\nadvance. It's going to be our advance. You're just as\nimportant as I am. Only, I talk to the President's top\nstaff, and I brief them, and I write the schedules, and\nI am the focal point of all communications. I will\ntell you, as soon as I can tell you, everything. Don't\npush me. By the same token, I expect to know\neverything that you're doing. That's the only way we\ncan opperate. By doing that it's an open line of\n25\ncommunications. You got a problem, you tell me. I got\na problem, and it's in your area, I'm going to talk to\nyou about it. All areas concern me. I'm the focal\npoint. I am the President's representative. I have to\nknow what's going on. I'm not going to go talk to the\npolice, that's your job. In the past administrations\nan advance man would go in, he'd call on the chief of\npolice, and do all the kinds of stuff and everything,\nand the Secret Service agent [would] come in and he had\nto tear down what that guy had built. Well, that's not\nright. It's not right for me, or any other advance\nman, to go to a military installation.\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: ...and go and talk to that Commanding General and say,\n\"Sir, we're going to land Air Force One here. We're\ngoing to park all our airplanes out here, and I want\nyou to turn the base personnel out, and I want your\nband out there to play \"Hail to the Chief\".\" No, why?!\nI've got a military aide that can do that. It's his,\nit builds his position, it builds his stature. I'm not\ngoing to make a career out of Secret Service or the\nCommunications Agency, or the military. So, why do I\nneed it? I mean, if that's, and that goes back to that\npassion for annonymity...\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: ...and that low profile. Give the people that have to\ndo the job the credit and the clout to do that job\n26\nwith. It's going to make your job easier, because you\ngot somebody else out there doing it for you. This is\ndelegating of authority. Well, that's another\nsidelight.\nBut that's the kinds of attitudes that we had to\novercome. I can't think of the number of cities or\nmilitary installations that we went to that somebody\nhad been there before us, and they went, \"Yech!!\" They\njust [could] hardly stand it. \"Here comes another\npolitical hack advance man. He's going to come in here\nand tear our base apart, or tear our city apart, and\nthen just walk out in a cloak of darkness one night,\nwith this hanging bag over his head, where nobody can\nsee him.\" So those were the kinds of attitudes we had\nto overcome. We did it. We had not done it just prior\nto that school, that first advance seminar, in June of\n1970. But that was one of the things that I talked\nabout greatly. I talked for two solid days, and that's\ngot to be a drag, for a guy sitting there and listening\nto one guy go--well, I don't claim to be the best\npublic speaker in the world but I did know advancing\nbetter than anybody else in that room. I also invited\nthe Secret Service to come and speak. I also invited\nthe White House Communications Agency to come and\nspeak. I also invited the military aides office to be\nrepresented. They spoke on behalf of all the\nhelicopters: Marine One and Army One. They spoke on\n27\nbehalf of Air Force One. They spoke on behalf of the\ndoctors. They spoke on behalf of the bomb shelter and\nthe \"football\", and the things that have to be an\nongoing process when the President moves someplace.\nWell, I wasn't the expert in those areas, so why should\nI be sitting up there talking about them? Well, that\nbroke the ice.\nFrom that point on, it kind of seemed that it was\na team. Those guys that left that school left with\nthat kind of attitude. I may be the President's\nrepresentative, but I'm not King Kong! Those guys\ndon't work for me, they work for the President of the\nUnited States. I just happen to be a coordinator, or\nhis representative, to make sure everything is pulled\ntogether and tied in a nice little knot. When he\narrives we untie it [clap], and it all falls out just\nperfectly. And that's eventually how it\nWell, a unique thing happened immediately\nfollowing that school that really set this thing\nflying. Or set the complex, or the organization that I\nwas conceiving. Honor America Day, July the fourth\n1970. Within the next week of that seminar Dwight\ncalled me and wanted me to meet with Bill [J. Willard]\nMarriott, Sr., who was the chairman of Honor America\nDay, and Jeb Magruder. Dwight said, \"Look, Ron's got\nthese thirty-some-odd guys, they're sensational,\nthey're our advance men, they know how to build crowds\n28\nand stuff. The President wants that Honor America Day\nto be the biggest happening on a Fourth of July ever in\nWashington, D.C. Let's let them have it.\" Well, it\nwas just like a gift from heaven. I took all thirty of\nthose guys, and they ranged from all the way up into\nupper state New York, down into Virginia. We had some\nin from Chicago and that area, but most of them were in\nthe east coast, the Washington area. I thought I\nshould go after my first element of men, [they] should\nbe in the government and up and down this coast here,\nwhere I can get to them quickly, as opposed to going\nout into the midwest and to the southwest and to the\nfar west. So that's what I had. I turned those guys\nloose. Crowd raising, handbills, leaflets, telephone,\nboiler room operations, and they just set up mini\npresidential advances. But they couldn't use the name\nof the President.\nSo, it not only gave them the opportunity to go\nout and try their wares or what I tried to teach them\n[pounds table], but they had to be innovative, they had\nto be imaginative, and they had to have a lot of guts\nto go about that job [pounds table]. It's great to go\nout there and say, \"The President of the United States\nand Mrs. Nixon will be arriving at Tupelo, Mississippi\nairport at four o'clock next week.\" That's clout! I\nmean, that's the President of the United States! We\ndidn't have anything going except, at that point in\n29\ntime, an Honor America Day ceremony. Well, we started\nprogramming. We got Bob Hope, we got.... Then, of\ncourse, Honor America Day speaks for itself. We had\nthe better part of 400,000 people that were here for\nthat event that night. Those guys did one hell of a\njob. I mean, it would never have happened, it would\nnever have happened if it hadn't been for those advance\nmen. They set up regional offices. We put up an\noffice in downtown Washington, we put two or three out\nin Maryland, we put some out in Virginia. We had\noffices in Philadelphia, we had offices in New York.\nWe had trains that came from New York, down through\nPhiladelphia, huge trains full of people. That's where\nPeter Brennan, we met Peter Brennan, who's now the\nSecretary of Labor.\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: We met him the first time. He had a whole train of\nhardhats and brought them down. We had [H.] Ross Perot\nfrom Texas that rented two airplanes and flew them in.\nIt was that kind of, \"Give me a job, and by God, I'll\nget it done! [pounds tablel. There's nothing I can't\ndo!\" If the guy had that kind of attitude, and had a\nlittle more going for him, we'd won. Yes?\n[Recorder turned off]\n[Recording resumed]\nRW: Well, anyway, Honor America Day was a real plus. It\nnot only took what I'd been building for a year, or\n30\nworking for for a year, but it just highlighted it.\nThe President and his staff were in California, and\nI'll never forget as long as I live, out from that\nEllipse, that night, when at two o'clock in the\nafternoon, for a program that was going to start at\neight, there were hundreds of people arriving with\npicnic lunches. That were going to sit on that ground\nthere for four and five hours, six and seven hours. We\nhad, it was the damndest happening, probably, this city\nhad ever seen, from a standpoint of [an] outpouring of\nlove of America. Now, they've had outpourings of hate\nfor America, but that was a real happening. Everybody\ntook notice, and everybody gave us credit for it. So,\nfrom that point on, it just started to really go.\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: We did some trips in between that time. But then the\nnext thing that happened was the off-year election that\nFall. By that time I had managed to get my own office,\nand Rosamond and I were set up, now, on the first\nfloor, but over on the Seventeenth Street side of the\nEOB. We were there in a four office complex with Hugh\nSloan and his office, and my secretary in my office.\nWell, we went about\nI was caught, I was caught in\n1970, because I had not prepared\nEverybody had\nsaid the President was not going to campaign. Well, I\nhadn't had any more seminars. I had continued to\nrecruit, but I did not have any other trained men,\n31\nSANITIZED\nother than what came out of that first seminar. Well,\nall of a sudden, the President decided to start moving.\nIt was a great lesson for me. Thank God it was an off\nyear election, because I didn't have enough advance men\nthat were trained. We did large political rallies. We\nended up doing something like twenty-seven stops in two\nweeks. At one point in time I had everybody committed\non the east coast, and I had to fly to the west coast\nand handle five states, by myself, until the President\nhad finished up some of these stops on the east coast,\nand I could bring some of those men over to handle\nthose stops.\nAt that point in time we came up with what we\ncalled a pre-advance. It was just prior to that.\nWhere we took a Jetstar, and we took the key people\nthat had to make decisions on the road. Those people\nwere myself, as the head of the pre-advance team, a\nSecret Service agent, and normally it was a senior\nrepresentative from the presidential protection detail.\n[NAME RESTRICTED] or [NAME RESTRICTED] or\n[NAME RESTRICTED]\n\" one of those people, Dick\n[Richard E.] Keiser. Oftentimes Bob Taylor went.\nThere was a White House Communications Agency, General\nRedman, he always went. There was Tim [Timothy G.]\nElbourne, who was from the press standpoint. And a\nmilitary aide. Those were the key people that had to\ngo in, do a site survey, find out what the hell it was\nSANITIZED\n32\nall about, what was going on. We had a game plan of\nwhat we wanted to do, we had to find a place to make it\nhappen. Was the airport conducive to building a crowd?\nWas the motorcade route conducive to building a crowd?\nWhere was the rally going to be held? Determining\nwhether, what site was the best site to do it.\nOftentimes, it wasn't always possible, but I would like\nto have had what we ended up calling the \"lead advance\nman\", which was the guy that had the overall\nresponsibility [pounds table], to be on the site when\nwe arrived [pounding], or go with us. So that he was\nthere [pounding]. That was the guy that was going to\nhave to execute what decisions we were making\n[pounding]. It's pretty difficult to go and do that\nand not have a guy with you to know what you're talking\nabout, and the reasons behind it. So, that's when we\ncame up with the concept.\nWell, we did the pre-advances on all twenty-seven\nof those stops. Some of them, we would leave at seven\no'clock in the morning, and not get back til two or\nthree o' 'clock the next morning, and then leave again at\nseven and go do some more pre-advances. So, I had to\nrun the advance office all by myself, with Rosamond:\nbe on the phone, talk to all these guys, talking\nthrough their problems, the questions they had. Answer\ntheir questions. We had no tour desk. We had no\nliaison, internally, to be getting information. So I\n33\nworked very closely, by phone, with Dwight. It was\nless than ideal Well, we learned a great deal coming\nout of that. Out of that campaign I hired Mike Duval,\nDewey Clower, Bill Henkel and Jon Foust, who eventually\nbecame known as the senior advance men.\nSY: Up until that time then, the '70 campaign, you were the\nonly\nRW: That's correct.\nSY:\nadvance man on the White House payroll.\nRW: That is correct.\nSY: The first one.\nRW: Now, initially these guys were not hired on the payroll\nof the White House. We slotted them into the various\nDepartments and agencies.\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: They were detailed in to us. There were some good\nadvance men out of the '70 campaign, and there were\nsome bad ones. I did a great weeding out process of\nthat. As a result of that, I probably ended up, I\nprobably had, on the record, twenty or twenty-two guys.\nMany of them couldn't get out, which was a problem I\nhad. But, I probably cut half of them. The reasons\nwere, they weren't buttoned down, they just weren't the\ncaliber of man we were looking for. So then, all of a\nsudden, it became necessary to start going and finding\nmore again.\nWell, going into 1971, we set about interviewing\n34\nanybody and everybody that we could get our hands on.\nTalking to friends, talking to relatives, talking to\nanybody we could talk to, to try and find the kinds of\nguys we were looking for. We started putting together\na team. We had more weekend seminars, started training\nguys. I got those four men then, started going through\nthe manual, and revising it. The changes that had\ntranspired since the initial publication that I had.\nDiagrams we went into much more detail with diagrams.\nSandy [Sanford L.] Fox helped us on getting the\ndiagrams of airports. We had four, five, six different\ntypes of airport diagrams that a guy could set up. We\nhad different types of motorcades. We talked about the\nparade-type motorcade, the confetti-type motorcade, the\nballoon-type motorcade, a standard motorcade, all that\nkind of stuff. So we really started to refine the\nthings that we had sort of haphazardly pulled together.\nThe next seminars and stuff that we had, I let the\nsenior advance men [pounding] start handling certain\nportions of them. Each, in [his] own right [pounding],\n[was] good in certain areas. For example, Clower was\nan excellent hotel man [pounding]. Foust was extremely\ngood at crowd raising, as was Henkel. Duval was an\nexceptionally fine organizer [pounding]. So I took\nthese innuendos and stuff like that, and\nOf course\nthat year we had, well, we did an awful lot that year.\nThose guys stayed busy. We trained other guys, got\n35\nthem out on the trips. At that point in time we\nstarted taking three and four trainees on a trip.\nThose guys were the leads, and eventually, we'd get\nthree for four guys out there. Maybe two of them had\nthe moves that we wanted. Another two didn't. We\nalways told them, \"Thanks very much. It gave you a\ngreat chance, and you may end up being president of\nChase Manhattan Bank, but you're just not\nIt may\nnot be your bag, but it's not our bag for you either.\"\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: Well, that brought us through that year, we got through\nit. We had another European trip that year. Out of\nthe 1970 campaign I hired Karen Rietz. She had been\nworking for Murray Chotiner; the campaign was over;\nMurray had left the White House; and I hired Karen.\nThe early part of 1971, for the most part, was a game\nplan time. We had no office space. These four guys\nwere on my payrolls, and they bounced around from\nvarious open office to open office. They had no phones\nor anything, and, at the end, they ended up in my\noffice. That was a pretty hectic time. There were\nfive guys, five of us sharing my office.\nSY: Hmm.\nRW: Shortly after the first of the year we staked out this\narea on the third floor. We put together a game plan\nas to how we saw the advance office growing. We knew\nit had to grow in order to get ready for 1972. We also\n36\nknew that we had to go about finding a lot of men fast,\nand training them. Realizing that it's going to take\nat least a half a dozen stops, or drills, what we call\na drill, in order for a guy to be a seasoned advance\nman.\nIn order to be a lead advance man, a guy should\nhave experience in an airport rally, building crowds.\nThat's probably the most important thing an advance man\nhas to do, to know how to build crowds, turn out\npeople. You can have the all time great hall, you can\nhave the all time great balloons, all time great signs\nand everything, but if you've got empty seats, man,\nit's a disaster! So I'd rather have a hall that's just\noverflowing into the streets, [people] bumping into one\nanother, and not have any signs or balloons or a great\nband or anything. Now, if you can pull all that stuff\ntogether, then you've got a happening. But go for the\ncrowds, go for the people, get them in there. That's\nthe backbone of a good advance. Those kind of guys you\ndon't make. They're born with it. They just know how\nto go about doing something like that. Well, those are\nthe kind of guys that we tried to find. We had a\nEuropean trip. The latter part of that year we\ncontinued to have advance seminars. We started game\nplanning. The types of things the President should do\nin 1971, that he couldn't do in 1972, because [it was]\na political year. So we put together what we called a\n37\n\"blockbuster\". We took every conceivable state, every\nconceivable thing that a President could do that was\npresidential [pounding], that was not political\n[pounding]: a park, a prison, anything like that.\nBelieve it or not, by the time 1971 was over, we'd done\nthe better part of ninety-five percent of them\n[pounding]. The blockbuster is in the file here. But\nit was to try and hit fifty states, and do it in\n1971\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW:\ncounting on the first two years of the\nadministration,\nSY: Hm hmm. [Unintelligiblel.\nRW:\nand we did it. If you' 11 recall, the latter part of\n1971 we hit all fifty states.\nBut then we started working on China. I'll never\nforget it, when I was in San Clemente, at the end of\nthe summer of 1971. We'd ended up doing a series of\nstops on the way out. We were out there for the\nsummer. All of a sudden, it was a Friday afternoon, I\ngot a call from Dwight. I was laying next to the pool\nat the San Clemente Inn. He said, \"Get dressed and get\nover here.\" I went over, and all of a sudden I walked\ninto the conference room, and there was the advance\nteam. Which by this time had become happenstance. It\nwas a great love for us. We were doing our jobs and\nthey were doing theirs, 'cause we had problems,\n38\nalong There were some agents that were fired,\nthere were some advance men that were fired. But we\nhad developed what I had initially set out to do, so\nnow it was a team. \"Can't tell you what's going to\nhappen, but the President's going to make a move, to\nBurbank, where he's going to address the nation,\" that\nevening. When we went down we had like two hours to do\nit. Landed a helicopter, drove a motorcade, got down\nto Burbank, get in and set the whole damned thing up,\ngot staff offices set up, offices, telephones. The\nWhite House Communications Agency had to get their\nphones in there and everything. The President walked\nout and said he's going to visit China [pounds table].\nSaid Henry Kissinger's just gotten back. Well, you\ncould have knocked me down with a feather!\nSY: That was the first time?\nRW: Right, the first I knew about it.\nSY: [Laughter].\nRW: Well, from that point on, it became very much our\nbusiness. Because we spent the next three months in\nthe bomb shelter, organizing and pre-planning, and\ngetting ready for the China trip.\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: Then, before the China trip he announced he was going\nto Russia in the spring, SO....\nWe continued to have the seminars, we continued to\nbuild a team. I was shooting for seventy-five men. We\n39\nended up with fifty very solid men. Probably another\ntwenty-five or thirty that we sent to the Committee for\nthe Reelection [Committee to Reelect the President] for\ntheir advance operation. We did China. We came back.\nI had to make a decision, at that point, because, while\nwe'd been in China, the Committee for the Reelection\nhad started and they were having problems. The\nproblems were that they had had a big rally in New\nHampshire and a big rally in Florida, and they'd been\nbust. Just disasters. But we had not been involved.\nSo Haldeman told me to find out what was going on.\nDwight asked that I meet with Magruder and those people\nand find out\nWell, I went over and met with them\nand knew just exactly what had happened: they didn't\nknow what the hell they were doing. So I came back,\nand I had to make recommendations. Well, the\nrecommendation was made, among some other ones, but I\nknew what it was when I said it. I'm going to have to\ntake one of my full time men.\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW:\nand send him over there to head their advance\noperation. I sent Jon Foust. Jon did a hell of a JOD,\nbut I also sent a lot of men with him. Bill [William\nE.] Moeller. Now, in January of 1971, I decided what\nwe had to start doing, was approaching various\ncompanies that were inclined and favorable toward the\nPresident. I took Bill Henkel and Mike Duval, and gave\n40\nthem a crash course in meeting with the president and\nchairman of the board of various companies, on how to\ninterview. We went to New York, after making contact\nwith probably a dozen of the President's friends, and\nwent and saw the president of the board, chairman of\nthe board, and told him that what we were doing was\nstarting to build a presidential advance team. We were\nlooking for bright, young men. I did a mailer, and\nsent them to all kinds of people. I went back and\ncontacted every advance man out of 1968, to find out if\nthey were interested, what they were doing, if they had\nany thoughts. We've got a file of advance men in there\nthat numbers somewhere in the vicinity of around\nfourteen hundred men.\nSY: Hmm.\nRW:\nthat we personally talked to. Those guys [the\nsenior advance men] took off, and for the next three or\nfour months they traveled all over this country,\ninterviewing. Meeting with the president of that\nboard, and he, in turn, going back into his\norganization and finding one, two, three young men.\nThat was the backbone of how we went about building\nthis organization.\nThen the European trip came up, and then the\npresidential travel. Puerto Vallarta, Mexico came up.\nOther movements came up, and then China. We didn't\nhave the time. I needed these guys. So then I\n41\nsolicited Fred [Frederic V.] Malek. Then he and John\nClarke went about a nationwide search of manpower for\nus. They did a hell of a job. John Clarke probably\ntalked to five hundred men; of those we probably talked\nto a hundred; of those we probably picked thirty-five.\nSome of those were some of our best advance men. The\nonly thing they lacked was experience. It was very\ndifficult, because the President wasn't moving in 1972,\nexcept for international. That's how we built it.\nWe've had four seminars this year. The last seminar I\nprogramed to end on the first of June. After the first\nof June we were finished. No more interviews, no more\ntalking to people.\nIn the meantime I hired Julie Rowe, Marsha\nGriswold. We hired Julie Rowe out of Rochester, New\nYork. She helped in the advance office, she was a\nschool teacher, she did a hell of a Job, came back down\nhere. We had steps, [unintelligible due to table\npounding] doing this. I hired Terry [Terrence]\n0' Donnell, I hired Tom [Thomas] Hart, I hired John\nGartland, I hired Jim [James L.] Kolstad, I hired Allen\nHall. These are all men that\nI....\nWe just all of a\nsudden we went from a one man operation, to a two man\noperation, to a five man operation, to a six man\noperation, and all of a sudden it was up to, at one\npoint in time, counting the First Family operation,\ntoward the latter part of the 1972 campaign, we\n42\nprobably had twenty-five people up here. We moved into\nthese offices, designed them so they were functional.\nMark Goode moved up, Tim Elbourne moved up. Mark Goode\ncame on as a television consultant, which we felt we\nneeded, because we didn't have the expertise in\ntelevision. We needed a real solid television guy\n[pounding]. We found Bill [William H.] Carruthers and\nMark Goode at the Anaheim rally at the end of the 1970\ncampaign. It was the last rally that he did for\n[George L.] Murphy. And\nSY: Was, is that office under this office then?\nRW: Well, I have a genuine relationship, in that nobody\nworks for me, we all work together.\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: Actually, Timmy works for Ron [Ronald L.] Ziegler.\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: Mark Goode actually reports to Dwight Chapin. I report\nto Dwight Chapin.\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: But what Dwight would do is say, \"O.K. Ron, here it is,\nbang, go.\" Then I would get with Mark and get with Tim\nand get with the Secret Service and the White House\nCommunications Agency and bang, bang, bang, we were\noff.\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: Then we started staffing out; we started getting the\nreports; we started getting it in writing, 50 that the\n43\ndecisions were in writing, and they could go through in\na very simple format\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: ...yes/no. Here are the options, approve/disapprove.\nSo that, contrary to what we had in 1970, which was\njust a hodgepodge of nothing. We're lucky we didn't\nscrew it up. We were probably so well organized in\n1972 that we were too organized. But I vowed to myself\nthat I'd never get caught like I got caught in 1970\n[pounding]. So I planned for the maximum! And as it\nended up, we ended up doing the minimum, but....\nThat's where we are now.\nSY: Well, if you'd go back just a little bit and talk\nabout, you've mentioned coordinating with Mark Goode's\noffice, and you've mentioned helping out with the First\nLady's advance staff and the Committee [to Reelect the\nPresident]. Were there other areas that you went into,\nsuch as those?\nRW: Well, I think it, I think the revealing thing is that\nthe advance office and I would have to admit that it\nwas probably by design of me, is that I instilled in\neveryone here, to include Mark and inlcude Timmy, who\neventually became a part of our operation that the\nadvance office is a unique kind of office [pounding].\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: For example, we did restaurant surveys, we did\nlimousine surveys, we did hotel surveys in Washington\n44\n[pounding]. We did surveys in probably twenty of the\nmajor cities in America. We've got more information\n[pounding], we've got more contacts around this country\n[pounding], for a centralized office, than probably\nanybody else in the White House. We're the liaison for\nthe Department of the Interior for all their guest\nhouses. If anybody in the White House wants to go to\nthe Virgin Islands, or wants to go to Camp Hoover, or\ngo to Cape Cod, or Grand Tetons in the national parks\nand stuff, they have to come to this office. And then\nwe, in turn, have developed the relationship with the\nInterior Department that we act as the liaison for it\n[pounding].\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: If anybody has guests coming into town and they're\nlooking for a hotel, something like that, it came to a\npoint where, Jesus, if you want to ask questions of\nsomebody, call the advance office. Well, that's the\nway I felt like this office should operate. We should\nwork very closely with the speechwriters to make sure\nthey've got the proper information. We should work\nvery closely with Dick [Richard A.] Moore. So that\nDick Moore, who does the color and travels with the\nPresident on the airplane, has constant communication\nwith the advance man. If there's a football player\nthat just broke his neck the night before, in a game;\nor if a football team just won a national championship,\n45\nor a state championship, or a city championship, and\nstuff; or if a policeman just got his back blown off by\na bomb that went off, or just got shot, or something\nhappened; or a young man saved some little kid's life;\nor some little kid's saved an old man's life; those\nkinds of things that the President, when he steps off\nof that plane and steps up to a mike, he can say,\n\"Geez, it's great to be in Fargo. And I see that we've\ngot the Fargo High School here. You guys just won your\nbasketball game last night. What was the score? 82 to\n72. Sensational! I'm really happy for you, but I feel\nbadly for the other kids \"cause they lost,\" and\nthat\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW:\nall of a sudden you see five thousand people go,\n\"Gee, this guy really cares.\"\nThe people that we, the press office, we damn near\nwrote their press schedules for them, for all the press\ncorps. You take Ollie Atkins. We, the advance man got\nto the point where he could pick where the best shots\nwere going to be for Ollie to get different pictures\nthan the wires were going to get. So Ollie would walk\noff that plane, and the first thing he would want to\nknow is where the advance man is. \"Where do I go, what\ndo I do?\" There'd be a ladder for him, where he could\nstep up on the top of that ladder and get a whole\ndifferent perspective of a picture, for the West [Wing\n46\nof the White House] basement, or for the President, or\nwhatever the case was. Those were the kinds of things\nwe started doing. We would take it to the point of the\ntraveling staff. What their personal things were when\nyou had an overnight. With Mort [Lyndon K.J Allin, we\ntook the responsibility of getting the News Summary,\nand getting the News Summary distributed on the road.\nWe worked it out with the White House Communications\nAgency. We took the dex machines out of the\ncommunications department and started having one of\nthose, every advance man had a dex machine in his\noffice. We had a dex machine in this office right\nhere. So there was constant communication between this\noffice and that. Every morning we could see the\nbuildup coming in for the President. Four days before\nit was an article, two days before it was the headline.\nThe day before it was a whole front page. We got that\nstuff dexed to us. So we knew what was happening.\nFrom the time I walked off that plane as the chief- by\nthat time I was the tour director, running the entire\ntour-I'd walk off that plane [snaps fingers], I'd know\nas much about that advance and that city as the advance\nman, who was on the ground.\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: Except I hadn't been there. So there were very few\nquestions that I couldn't answer.\nSY: Hm hmm.\n47\nRW: There were very few needs that wouldn't be met. And we\njust, I just had the attitude that there is nothing\nthat we can't do. If it comes to the point where we\nsay we can't do it, there are going to be damn few\nother people that can do it.\nBy the same token, the relationship that we\ndeveloped in the field, with the Republican National\nCommittee [RNC], with the Committee for the Reelection.\nWe give the Committee for the Reelection a great deal\nof support, manpower-wise and advice and counsel.\n, Cause we're the experts, we're the pros. We've done\nthings that other people have never done in a lifetime.\nWhen you take China, you take Russia, we put on a\nconvention. When it was a dull convention, we made it\na happening. Fine, Ken [Kenneth S.] Rietz brought\nthree thousand kids down here, but we orchestrated\nthose three thousand kids. If you want to try\nsomething sometime, try and orchestrate three thousand\nkids! Or try and get them into a convention, on the\nfloor, when the RNC didn't want them in there. Well,\ntwo sessions during that 1972 convention we made happen\nthat would have been nothing but \"blaah\" [phonetic] if\nit hadn't been for those kids. The first night was\nMrs. Nixon's night, when they just blew the roof right\noff of that place, and probably helped us capture the\nbetter part of forty-five percent of the youth vote\naround this country, that [George S.] McGovern was\n48\nsaying he had.\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: It was that kind of activity. If a guy says we can't\nget them on the floor, which Ody Fish said, screw Ody\nFish! If I have to go pick locks and pull every con\ntrick I know, I'll blow five or six hundred kids into\nthat hall, and watch my smoke! That's what we did.\nThey didn't like it. Dick [R.L.] Herman and Bob\n[Robert J.] Dole and those guys didn't like it. Well,\ntough bananas! It was the right thing to have done and\nwe did it [pounding]! If we'd sat back on our haunches\nand let, listened to those guys, nothing would have\nhappened. It would have been a \"thppt\" [phonetic],\nstinky convention.\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: Now that's the kind of activity, that's the kinds of\nthings that I felt so strongly that we should do.\nSomething needs to be done, and it's the right thing to\nbe done, by God, it's going to happen. I don't care\nwho we step on, who we run through, what corners we\nhave to cut. It's going to happen.\nSY: Hm hmm. Something we mentioned last week. You did say\nthat both Jon Foust, over at the Committee and, was it\nBill [William R.] Codus, who handled First Family?\nRW: Right.\nSY: They worked independently?\nRW: Right, well, yes. When I sent Jon Foust to the\n49\nCommittee, I knew it wasn't going to be easy on Jon.\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: He was going in because of some, other people couldn't\ndo the job. It was, that was exactly the case.\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: He had a rough time. Because he was an outsider, and\nhe was one of the President's advance men, that was\ncome over there to do a job that they couldn't get done\nthemselves. So those people that had been hired to do\nthose kind of jobs immediately, probably, had a great\ndeal of animosity,\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW:\nnot only toward me, but obviously toward him,\nbecause he's the guy on the scene. So I took other\nadvance men and started assigning them to him. Good\nguys that we found. Like, we took one of our best\nadvance men and made him his chief of staff, as I had\ndone with Mike [Michael R.] Schrauth.\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: Mike Schrauth was the chief of staff of our office. He\nwas the center focal point of everything. Nothing\nhappened in this office that I didn't tell Mike about,\nor the advance man didn't have to come back in to Mike.\nThe men in the field talked to Mike. When it came down\nto a day before the trip or the morning of the trip, I\ngot on my conference phone with that advance man, and\nwe went through that thing from nut to bolt. Just so\n50\nthat I knew what they were doing, and I could\nsharpshoot and say, \"What about this, what about\nthat?\", and everything else.\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: Mike had run shotgun on it up to that point. Well, we\ndid the same thing for Foust. We sent him Bill\nMoeller. From there we gave him Tim Austin, we gave\nhim Ed Caneer [sp?], we gave probably a half a dozen\nother guys, maybe even a dozen. Then he went about\ntaking some of the names that we had discarded, not\nbecause they weren't good, but because we'd found\nbetter. We gave him that whole package, and from that\nhe built his own advance men over there, of around\nfifty-some-odd guys. Those guys were help, were much\nmore busy than we were, but yet I was not about to\nrelease any of those guys. If there were occasions\nthat, like that kick-off weekend, that they went out\nand canvassed all around the country and stuff, where\nall the Cabinet officers and the girls went out and\neverything. He used every one of our men for that\nweekend. So he had something like a hundred and some-\nodd guys out in the various states.\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: But for the most part, those were my men. And I\nguarded them and held them very close, because I never\nknew when something was going to happen.\nSY: Hm hmm.\n51\nRW: So that was Jon's bag over there. By the same token, I\nknew a year ago that, at a point in time, the First\nFamily operation, under Connie [Stuart], would be hard\npressed to handle the First Family during a campaign.\nNow, Connie would not like this comment, but this was\nsomething that I felt. Dwight and I talked about it\nlong and hard and we knew it was going to be a very\ntouchy situation, obviously, SO we went about doing it\nas quietly and as convincingly as we could. We took\nBill Codus; he did a number of things for Mrs. Nixon in\nand around the city. I had Allen Hall, who I'd\ndesignated to handle\nWe took on Julie [Nixon\nEisenhower] first.\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: Julie said she wanted somebody from my office to handle\nher trips and stuff. Allen Hall was the one that did\nthat. From that, Tricia [Nixon Cox] moved in. Dave\nParker ended up doing their scheduling, Allen Hall\nexecuted, using our advance men, again.\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: So we got Bill Codus. Bill Codus did a few things for\nMrs. Nixon. Bill Codus went to Hawaii to do the\n[Kakuei] Tanaka thing. Bill Codus went to Russia and\ndid that. He handled her on the stops. So that was\nkind of building the rapport for Bill Codus. Came\nback, Bill Codus went in, talked to Mrs. Nixon, and it\nwas set. So, from that standpoint, we had Bill Codus,\n52\nwho was handling Mrs. Nixon and, really, the girls. He\nbrought with him Marylou Sheils from State Department,\nand Steve [Stephen J.] McCarthy. I gave him Dan Searby\nout of the convention, he worked Mrs. Nixon at the\nconvention also. I also hired Kathy [Kathleen M.\nTindle. Kathy Tindle was going to be on my staff, but\nI moved her into the operation of the First Family.\nAllen Hall remained in that operation. Allen Hall\neventually became the man that handled Eddie [Edward R.\nF.] Cox. He did more traveling than all the rest of\nthem put together.\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: So that organization worked very close in hand with\nours. All our files and all our information and all\nour advance men were available to the First Family,\nlock, stock and barrel. All the surrogates and stuff,\nJon Foust handled. There were occasions when we were\nin slack periods and stuff, that I did make the\npresidential advance men available to him and, with\nrare exceptions, they were always ready, willing and\nable to do so.\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: All total, tripwise, this time those advance men\nprobably averaged six events apiece. All total, this\noffice, during the 1972 campaign, include the things we\ndid for the Committee for the Reelection, plus the\nPresident, plus the members of the First Family,\n53\nnumbered somewhere in the vicinity of around a hundred\nand twenty-five.\nSY: Hm hmm. Do you see the office\nRW: Yes.\nSY: ...decreasing greatly in size and ?\nRW: Yes. You can go back through all the reports and\neverything that I wrote gearing up to 1972, the plan\nfor the advance office for 1972. I knew we were going\nto need a lot. We ended up getting a lot, and it\nworked. Just little things which I'm sure you would\nunderstand, but many people wouldn't, a xerox. Try and\ndo forty schedules, fifteen or twenty page schedules, I\nmean, from the standpoint of when they eat lunch to\nwhen they can go to bed, damn near. We finally got the\nxerox up here, and that kind of stuff. Well, that\nstuff will remain, but now it's not necessary, because\nhe's a President again. He's not a lame duck\nPresident, but he will never run for office again. So,\nthe tenure of this office is going to have to be\nretained. The magnitude of what it's going to\nencompass now will be just as important as it was for\nwhen he went to the [Harry S Truman] funeral, day\nbefore yesterday. There's already a backbone and a\ngreat foundation established here.\nBill Henkel, who I've named as my successor, was\none of the senior advance men. The reason I named\nBill, because he was the youngest of the group, but\n54\nmore importantly, I felt that the other ones were older\nand should be moving on into bigger and better things.\nWhether they stay in government, or whether they get\nout of government. Bill is a very organized type of\nindividual, as I am. He's also very personable, which\nI may or may not be. But that's the kind of person\nthat should be here. It shouldn't be a heavy,\nhardhanded guy that's going to be demanding and\nforceful, because it's not that kind of an operation.\nIt's the kind of operation that you tell us what needs\nto be done and we'll go about doing it, and we'll do it\nthe best that we know how. It's that kind of an\noperation. Bill can do that. There's going to be some\nheavy travel, but what you've got now is a hard core of\nabout fifty men that are trained, ready, willing and\nable to do anything they can.\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW:\n... for a member of the First Family or the President of\nthe United States. Many of these men will stay in\nprivate industry, private enterprise, where they were\nwhen they were working for us. Many of them will\nprobably join the government. Many of them may or may\nnot be able to 00 any more advancing. But the point\nis, that there will be a nucleus to call upon. You\ndon't have to worry about the Hatch Act now, which we\nhad to concern ourselves about. One point I did not\n[make] is, by May of 1971, all the men that I named,\n55\nthat were on my full time staff, were being paid by the\nWhite House. They'd gone on the White House rolls.\nApproaching the last three or four months of the\ncampaign, those, there were certain members that they\nhad to take a leave of absence, or they had to quit\ntheir companies, in order to come and do this,\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW:\nthat we put on the payroll of the Committee. So,\nthe way I envision the office moving is that you will\nhave a whether he'll be a commissioned officer as I\nwas, I don't know. I was a special assistant to the\nPresident. I don't know whether that's going to happen\nor not.\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: But, he will be the chief advance man, and most likely\nthe tour director. What he will need then, is a\ncombination senior advance man and desk man. The desk\nman is very important. A senior advance man is very\nimportant. It may be that he hires a combination of\ntwo and they rotate between being senior advance man\nand participating in these\nThese will be two new\nmen now, that will not have been here for the last four\nyears. Because what I would like to see Bill be able\nto do, in a year, is to move out and go and be able to\ndo something on his own. The two men that he hires\nnow, one would take over as the chief advance man and\nthe other one would become the desk man. Then they\n56\nmight hire another senior advance man that would be\nable to do the pre-advances, to work here and about the\nWhite House\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: ...or on the road, or whatever the case be. All the\ntime being able to call upon the men that have been\nproven and experienced. In the meantime, continuing to\nlook, not as heavily as we did, but for new and more\ntypes of guys that can be advance men for this next\nfour years.\nSY: Hm hmm.\n.W: I am convinced that the core of the people that we had\nin 1972, regardless of who the candidate will be in\n1976, can probably, more than likely, well....\nCan\nalmost rest assured will be called upon, in some\ncapacity, to perform a mission for the next candidate.\nNow, that's going to have to be their decision, it's\ngoing to be a personal decision for them. By the same\ntoken, the 1976 convention, plus, you know, what\nhappens in the meantime. You've got the Bicentennial\ncoming and I can conceive of an awful lot of\npresidential advance men being involved in the\nBicentennial, because that's the kind of things these\nguys can do, and do well.\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: They're action oriented, they get a job done, you know,\n\"Give it to me.\" It's like the Inauguration. I've\n57\ngot, right now, probably fifteen guys that are over at\nthe Inauguration. And what are they handling? They're\nhandling the things nobody else would want to handle:\nthe parade, the seating, the building of those\nplatforms out there, the platform here, the swearing-in\nceremony. The things you get your hands dirty with.\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: But the office is going to have to be.... The White\nHouse has become, the people in the White House have\nbecome accustomed to knowing that if there's anything\nthat needs to be disseminated, in regard to a\npresidential trip, they call the advance office.\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: And if we don't know, we'll find out. But most of the\ntime we know.\nSY: One other thing, to skip around a little bit, but I\nwanted to ask you about again. You mentioned when you\nwere doing the advance manual, you had the '68 campaign\nmanual and you worked with Steve Bull and Dwight\nChapin. Were there other people from previous\nadministrations that you had contacted?\nRW: No.\nSY: Or, other people, like Murray Chotiner, who...?\nRW: I spent a lot of time talking to Murray.\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: But here, you see, here was the thing. Steve Bull had\ndone a little bit of advancing, but not much.\n58\nSY: Hmm.\nRW: But Steve thinks like an advance man thinks. Dwight\nthinks like an advance man thinks. Dwight had not done\nmuch advancing. Dwight was the aide to the President\nduring the 1968 campaign, had been with him for two\nyears before that. Steve only did one advance for a\nPresident, and that was under my tenure, with me, he\ndid it with me. And that was Massena, New York. Well,\nit was a real education for Steve, because he no longer\nhad to go out and rent his own cars. He no longer had\nto go out and rent his own sound system, or his own\nlights, and get volunteers to drive the cars. Make\nsure gas was in the tanks, which I told you last time,\nI think.\nSY: Right.\nRW: It's all done for you now. But there was a much--I'd\nbeen through both of those. So, right now I'm the only\nguy around, that's involved in presidential travel,\nthat has experienced both sides of the fence. When I\nleave, that [leaves] a big void [in] this office. But\nI'll always be called upon, I know I'll always be\navailable if there's anything that's needed.\nSY: Hmm.\nRW: But it's not needed now anymore. When it is going to\nbe needed, if a guy goes out and it's going to be a\n[Charles R.] Percy, or a George Bush, or a Bill\n[William E.] Brock, or somebody like that, that has no\n59\nrelationship with the White House, or the White House\nfacilities, to call upon. If it's [Spiro T.J Agnew,\nhe'll obviously take with him the Vice President's\nfacilities and support and everything. So, that's,\nthat's what it's going to be like.\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: The only thing that Dwight and Steve added to the\nmanual, which was really needed from my standpoint, was\nwhat the personal staff thought. The Bob Haldemans,\nthe John Ehrlichmans, and then what the President\n[unintelligible].\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: Which were things that, when you're out on the road\nI had my own checklist, and that checklist told me\nabout all kinds of things that would necessarily\nnever\nThe President, well, he just is way, so far\nabove that he'd never even worry about it. He just\nconsiders that stuff's being done. That's the great\nrelationship that we had. The President knew that we\nwere out there. He knew that the job was being done\nfor him, and he knew that it was being done better than\nit had ever been done for anybody else. He didn't have\nto worry about that stuff. That's the way he should,\nwhen he got off that plane he should have known that\nthe only thing he's going to have to be told is where\nhe goes to speak, where he should work the fence. The\ncar, when he turns around, the car is going to be\n60\nthere. When he gets out, somebody's going to meet him.\nSomebody will take him through to where he's going to\nhave to go next. He'll go on to a briefing room. At\nthat point we' 11 tell him about who he's going to be\nspeaking to, where it is, how he gets there. That kind\nof activity he didn't have to worry about. He knew it\nwas going to be there. He knew his speech was going to\nbe on the platform, he knew the sound system was going\nto work, he knew the lights were going to be there, he\nknew the camera positions were going to be correct. He\nknew the head-on camera, if it was going to be live,\nwas going to be in the right place. He, just those\nkinds of things. The flags were in the right place.\nHis chair was there, it was labeled. Mrs. Nixon would\nbe taken care of. If he worked a crowd, he knew that\nMrs. Nixon would be taken care of. Those kinds of\nthings are the things that the President didn't have to\nworry about. That was our job.\nSY: Hm hmm. It certainly has worked.\nRW: It worked.\nSY: Do you have a permanent address? If not a permanent\nhome address, but an address of family or, where you\nmight be reached over the next ten years if an oral\nhistory project really is gone into more depth, to talk\nabout things like, oh, the China experience?\nHopefully, we will, at some point, get back to staff\nmembers. At this point we're so glad to have some\n61\nrecord of what you've just been telling me.\nRW: Right, I understand. Well, I really don't [have a\npermanent address]. But I think you' 11 always have my\naddress.\nSY: All right.\nRW: We're not going to\nSY: Well\nRW: Right now you've got my home address here and,\nSY:\n...\nobviously right now it won't be any problem. You\ncan be reached at Interior, but\nRW: Right. And you have my home address here.\nSY: Hm hmm. Hm hmm.\nRW: And, Rose Mary [Woods?] will always know where I am. I\nmean, that's just a relationship that I'll never lose.\nAnd the White House Communications Agency, most of the\noperators will always know where I am.\nSY: O.K. Well, that shouldn't be any problem then.\nRW: No.\nSY: But\nRW: I don't plan on going underground.\nSY: [Laughter].\nRW: When the New York Times attacked me I....\nSY: Yeah, and as I was saying, hopefully, at some point, we\ncan come back to people and talk in more detail on\nindividual events, or specific, more specific\nareas.\nRW: Well, I would be very happy\n...\nI think one of the,\n62\njust one final note that I'll make is that,\nSY: All right.\nRW:\nI think one of the reasons that the advance office\nhas worked, and worked so well, is that-- I have a\ncliche, I have a lot of them. I've looked at us as\nbeing little guys that ran around putting all the fires\nout. There were other people building them, the\nPresident building his, [Henry A.] Kissinger building\nthose, the front runners, the heavy hitters,...\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW:\nwhat I would call them. What our mission was--I had\na hard time, on many occasions, biting [my] tongue.\nFor five years of my life, I have worked behind the\nscenes. I've worked out of the third floor of this\noffice, I've gone into a city and I've worked out of a\nhotel room. I've moved out under the cloak of\ndarkness, never talking to press, never letting them\nknow what I do. Never having a, granting an interview.\nAlmost to the point of where I hide. As a result of\nthat, that's the way the other advance men work. I set\nthe example, in that I trained them. A guy that didn't\nwant to follow my example, I fired him. Now how do you\nfire a volunteer? You don't, you just tell him, \"Don't\ncome, don't call me, I'll call you. =\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: But those are the kind of men that we had. I think the\nPresident\n...\nThe last rally we did, 1972, was in\n63\nOntario, California. Why did we do Ontario,\nCalifornia? Well, I like to be first to admit that I\ndidn't know why we were doing Ontario, California.\nI've done twenty-five advances in California, and, if I\nhad to pick a place to do an airport arrival, it sure\nas hell wouldn't have been Ontario. But, if you go\nback to Six Crises, on November the sixth, 1960, the\nPresident had a rally in Chicago, late evening. Got on\nhis plane and flew to California. He arrived there at\nsomething like three a.m. in the morning, and he\narrived in Ontario airport. They had a torchlight\nrally for him. There were something like fifteen\nthousand people there. The next day the election\nresult, and he lost. Well, it was very obvious why we\nwent back to Ontario. We vowed that was going to be\nthe biggest happening that the President had ever had\nin his life, because it was going to be his last, his\nlast, in his name, political rally the man would ever\ngo to. Mike Duval was the senior representative and\nHomer Luther was the lead advance man. We did two\nother stops that day, Greensboro, North Carolina, and\nwe probaly had twenty-five thousand people in\nGreensboro, North Carolina. They broke the ropes and\ncompletely engulfed Air Force One. Ollie has pictures\nof that that are the most incredible sight that you\nhave ever laid your eyes on. Because Ollie stood\ninside the door of Air Force One, had the President and\n64\nMrs. Nixon waving, the back of their heads, and all you\ncan see, for as far as the eyes will go, is heads. It\nis the most incredible thing, I mean, if I had had to\nplan that [pounds table], I, excuse me,\nSY: [Laughter] That's all right.\nRW:\nI couldn't, I could never have planned it better.\nIt's completly engulfed that plane.\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: Well, that's a happening that you could never plan, for\nsecurity reasons and all kinds of other reasons. We\nhadn't been airborne more than an hour, the President,\nBob Haldeman came back and got me out of the staff\nsection. I went up, and I had never met with the\nPresident in his office on Air Force One. As a matter\nof fact, I had had very little relationship with the\nPresident, because that was not my job. My job was to\nmake sure everything was going right. Steve Bull\ntalked to the President of the United States. Why\nshould the President of the United States have to worry\nabout talking to four or five guys? There's just no\nreason for it. If I had been an egotistical bastard I\ncould have pushed my way in to talk to the President in\norder to get in the pictures and stuff like that. You\nknow, at least SO my mother and father would see me on\nthe front page. I just, I, it was just not in me to do\nthat.\nSY: Hm hmm.\n65\nRW: If I had an advance man that did it, I'd fire him\nfaster than greased lightening. I'd say, \"Sir, you' 11\nnever do another advance for me, period.\" But he\ncalled me up, Dwight and Bob and I went into his\noffice, in this little office on Air Force One, and he\nstarted talking about Greensboro and what great people\nthey were. Then he started saying what a fine job that\nI had done [unintelligible]. Good, bright young men,\nwhat a great job had been done and how much he had\nappreciated it. And he made one comment, he said,\n\"It's too bad that we really didn't have a tough\ncampaign so that your guys could have, that they could\nhave really done their thing.\" And then Bob said,\n\"Sir,\" he said, \"you're absolutely correct. Ron has\nput together a hell of a team. I think you'd have been\nvery proud had they had the opportunity to do it for\nyou.\" He said, \"Well, we didn't need it.\" And I said,\n\"Sir, that's just as important to me as if we had\nneeded it.\"\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: Well, you know, it's probably one of the greatest\nthrills of my life. But then we landed in Ontario that\nnight, and I probably had fifteen advance men assigned\nto that one stop. That's a lot of advance men. What\nwe did, we broke it down into sectors. We assigned,\nmaybe, a five mile radius to one advance man, and he\nhad his own phone bank and his own handbill operation.\n66\nWe may have had five or six sectors, where one advance\nman or two advance men were working. And, I'm telling\nyou, we turned out the better part of fifty thousand\npeople.\nSY: Hmm.\nRW: It was the most incredible sight I have ever laid my\neyes on. We had torches....\nThe back of that plane--I\nknew it was going to be my last advance, or my last\nstop, the last stop as a tour director, and after that\nis was all over. I'd already turned in my resignation,\nI'd had already said, \"After 1972, November the\nseventh, I'm finished, I've had it.\"\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: He, they opened the back end of that plane and all I\ncould think was, \"God almighty! Three and a half years\nof my life [snaps fingers] building something like\nthis, and then what a happening to end it on.\" And I\ncan remember just\nI was always the first one off\nthe back of the plane. All I could do when that plane,\nthat door opened, was to put my head in my hands and\njust go, \"Wow!\" The next morning\n[End of reel one]\n[Reel two begins]\nRW: Well, anyway, the morning, I guess, let's see, this was\nSunday morning, 50 it had to be the fifth we did the\nOntario event. We flew from the east coast to\nGreensboro, Albuquerque. Albuquerque, again, was\n67\nanother sensational stop. We had about fifteen to\ntwenty thousand people there. And then out of\nAlbuquerque we flew on in, to arrive in Ontario. I\nthink we called the rally for six o'clock. Maybe seven\no'clock, I don't know, anyway the files will show what\ntime it was. So that was the fourth. The next morning\nwas the fifth, which was Sunday. I called a meeting at\nten o'clock, ended up being ten-thirty, in the\nconference room in the Western White House, of the\nadvance men that had participated in that evening's\nevent. Those advance men were Duval, who was the\nsenior representative\nLet me just make one other point right quick. All\nduring the time we were building this advance\noperation, I was the expert. Haldeman felt better,\nDwight felt better and, I'm sure, if the President knew\nabout it, he would have felt better, that on every stop\nI was on the ground. I may not get in there until the\nnight before, but we'd call a countdown meeting. The\ncountdown meeting transpired the evening before the\nevent. It pulled everybody in that had anything to do\nwith anything, as far as that event was concerned.\nThey went through it from the time that airplane was\napproaching, fifteen minutes out, until it was fifteen\nminutes gone. It was the movements, the diagrams of\nthe airport, the diagrams of the motorcade route, the\ncars, the radios in the cars, you know, everything.\n68\nJust everything that was going to happen was talked\nabout in that countdown meeting. So if there was any\nproblem, if an agent said, \"Now wait a minute, there\nare ropes and barrels in that area?\" \"Unh uh, they're\nnot there.\" Well, Timmy could say, \"I want to move my\npress through that area.\" It got it right on the\ntable, right now. Well, this was something I did a\nlong time ago, during my first advances, I said, \"By\nGod, I'm going to get everybody that has got anything\nto say about this trip, and I'm going to get them in\none room, and we're going to sit down and we're going\nto talk it over. Because that's how things will go\nwrong [pounding].\" Well, I would always get in there\nfor that countdown meeting. Well, as \"The Roadrunner,\"\nwhich was my code name, when I hit the ground, it was\nimmediate fear, because, I had been there probably four\nor five times before. There wasn't anything that one\nof these guys was going to experience that I hadn't\nexperienced before, and probably got in trouble for, or\nat least made a mistake. Or had corrected the mistake\nbefore it became a problem.\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: I had a great tendancy, and it was part of my style, to\ninstill great fear. When I got into there, that son of\na bitch had better be buttoned down. Excuse my\nlanguage. It'd better be buttoned down to the point\nwhere [snaps fingers] it's right, now. Well, it got to\n69\na point where I couldn't physically do it, because I\nhad responsibilities here, I had responsibilities as\nfar as all kinds of\nBut I didn't need to do any\nmore, because what I had, was I had three Ron Walkers,\nor three senior advance men. Duval, Clower and Henkel.\nAnd so, during [1972] these men were me. They would go\nin and be there, sometimes they were there for the\nentire trip. But they would let the lead advance man\nrun it. They'd be more of a sounding board for advice\nand counsel and everything else. Well, it worked.\nYeah, some people may say, in going back, that we had a\nhell of a lot of men involved in a presidential stop.\nWell, it took that. We proved that it was the right\nway to do it. Now, we may have been able to do it with\nless men and have the same results. I'll never want to\nchance it. I'll never chance it, and I wouldn't have\nchanced it then. But that worked.\nWell anyway, Duval was the senior representative\non the Ontario stop. Homer Luther was the lead, and\nwith him, he had Peter Jarvis, Peter Murphy, Wayne\nWhitehill, John Pitchess, Jim Kolstad, Jack [John E.]\nPackard, Tom Hart, and some others. Sandy [Sanford R.J\nAbbey was with them. Phil [Philip H.] Martyr was with\nthem. I'm going around the table when we, well those\nwere the guys that came in the next morning. I had\npicked up \"Red\" [B. M.J Cavaney and Dewey Clower in\nAlbuquerque and taken them into California. So they\n70\nwere in the room also. I kind of suspected that Dwight\nwas up to something. About an hour before, Dwight\ncalled me and he said, \"What time is your meeting?\" I\nsaid, \"Well, it's at ten-thirty.\" He said, \"Oh, I\nthought it was at ten.' And I said, \"No, it's at ten-\nthirty.\" He said, \"Well, the President is probably\ngoing to do a drop by.\" And I thought, \"Geez, that's\nsensational.\" So we went in, and I started my meeting,\nand I didn't tell any of these guys. All of a sudden\nthe door opened, Steve Bull stepped in and said,\n\"Gentlemen, the President of the United States.\"\nWell, these guys had worked for the President,\nMike, in his case, for three years, some of the other\nones for two years, and then some, most recently, this\nyear, had never met the President. Mike had met him,\nbut just a handshake and a thanks after an advance. A\ngood advance, I normally would take them on the plane\nand the President could at least shake their hand and\nsay thank you. I always felt that I should do it in\nthe plane, as opposed to doing it on the ground,\nbecause on the ground everybody was looking. Here's a\nguy that's been on the ground for four or five days,\nthat's talking for the President of the United States.\nAll of a sudden I walk up and introduce him to the\nPresident of the United States, they're going to think,\n\"I thought this guy knew the President all along,\n=\nSY: [Laughter].\n71\nRW: ...\"I thought he was drinking buddies with him. = So,\nthat was kind of an awkward situation, so I always took\nthem on the back of the plane, and then, as he was\ncoming to his quarters, I'd have them there in the\naisle.\nThe President came in very relaxed. The Gallup\nand Harris polls had come out that morning and, he was\nsomething like twenty-seven points ahead; he was just\nvery relaxed and very calm. He talked for about\ntwenty, maybe twenty to twenty-five minutes. And he\nsaid, \"I know what you men do, what you have to do. I\nknow what sacrifices you've had to make and I know what\nit must be doing to your families.\" He said, \"I know\nit's difficult for your wife to think about you out\nthere with all those cute little \"Nixonaires\" and\n\"Nixonettes\" and everything.\" He said, \"I know how\nhard you have to work.\" He said, \"I know the traumatic\nexperience it is to have to stand on an airport and\nworry about whether the crowd's going to show up, or\nwhether it's going to rain, or whether the sun's going\nto shine, and everything.\" Well, it was just here is\nthe President of the United States standing there\ntalking to a group of little guys, that had done a hell\nof a job for him, but never asked for anything. Never\nasked for anything, period. The rewards they got were\nsomething that you couldn't buy in a store, or anybody\ncould ever give you. It was something that they\n72\nearned, and they\nIt was something they' 11 carry\nwith them the rest of their lives. But, to have the\nPresident stand there and talk to them about the things\nthey had been doing, made them realize, \"Yes, here's a\nman that does know what we have to go through. He\nmay not know the minute details and stuff like that,\nbut at least he has an empathy with what our job is. =\nHe talked about, well, for a long time. He went into\nwhat the last four years has meant, and what the next\nfour years will mean to America. [About] how the\nopportunity to be a part of this was really the only\nthing that mattered. That they'd been a part of\nsomething that's really bigger than him, or any\nindividual in that room, and for that they should carry\naway a great sense of accomplishment and a great\ncontribution to something that was far bigger than all\nof us. So that kind of wrapped up my career right\nthere.\nSY: I guess SO. Well, just very briefly, but is there\nanything which stands out at this point? I realize\nthat perspectives will change over the next few years\nwhen you have\nIs there anything which stands out\nas being of particular interest that you might want to\ntalk about later, in more depth? Any of the trips,\nwhich might be outstanding, or any. ?\nRW: Well, I've done some three hundred, I've done over\nthree hundred advances for the President.\n73\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: Every one of them I learned something. Every one of\nthem was a new experience. And they're--yeah, fine,\nyou go into a rally, and a rally's a rally, and you\ncan't change a rally. But, there were different\npeople. There were different associations, different\nfriendships made. If I had to--and I have thought\nabout this. There are probably three or four things,\nmaybe a half a dozen. You have to take and divide it\ninto two sectors. One of them is the domestic side of\nadvancing.\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: And the other is the international. The international\nside is something that, really, one can never truly\nexplain. What it's all about. Because you all of a\nsudden find yourself really an ambassador for the\nPresident, and yet still a con artist. Yet you're\ndealing with some pretty fair con artists themselves.\nI would say, probably, well, it would, beyond any\ndoubt--the one international advance that I had, out of\nthe ten or so that I did, was China.\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: I could talk, again, the better part of the day about\nChina. It was probably the most unique experience that\nany person in the last twenty-five years has ever had.\nI happen to have shared that, I happen to have been at\nthe focal point of that experience. Because I spent\n74\nseven weeks in that country as the President's\nrepresentative, with no ambassador, no embassy, and\nhaving to handle the better part of a hundred, [up] to\neventually four hundred, people. That would be the\ninternat--, or course Russia, again, you'd have to\nslash it, but in Russia you had an embassy.\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: Russia had had foreign dignataries, you know heavy\ndignataries visit their country before. The largest\nparty that China had ever had was thirty-five. To\ninclude the head of state, plus press and everything,\nthirty-five. We came blowing along with four hundred\npeople. So that's the international side. I could\ntalk about China and Russia, China probably more than\nanything else. I could talk about India. Did England,\ndid Italy, did Ireland, did Mexico, did the Apollo XIII\nsplash down in Hawaii, which was really a domestic, but\nit was, well, I think as close as you can do\nDid\nCanada.\nDomestically, I think the two or three, four\nthings that stand out most vivid in my mind, was the\nApollo XIII splash down, which we only had twenty-four\nhours to do it. It's when those astronauts almost\ndied. The President flew out and presented the\nMedal of Freedom. Incredible experience on my behalf,\nbecause I moved mountains to make that thing happen.\nThe Whitney Young funeral in Lexington, Kentucky, as\n75\nfunny as it might seem. I'll bet I've done at least a\nhalf a dozen funerals, include the [Charles] DeGaulle\nfuneral. But Whitney Young was, obviously, black; he\nhad a very unique organization that he was president\nof. They were hard core blacks, and they were not very\ninclined to deal with whites at all. Probably one of\nthe toughest advances, on a short period of time, short\nnotice, that I've ever had to do. Because they took\nthe body from New York into Louisville, where it laid\nin rest for an evening, and then they had a motorcade.\nAnd at one point they were talking about somewhere in\nthe vicinity of between five and ten thousand cars\nbeing a part of that motorcade in the fifty mile drive\nfrom Louisville to Lexington, Kentucky, where the\nfuneral would transpire. The President wanted to be\nthere for the funeral. Well, how do you have the\nPresident of the United States come when the motorcade\nis going to be--I mean, there's no telling when the\nmotorcade's going to arrive. The President sat in his\nOval Office and I sat on the phone in Lexington,\nKentucky, and never left my hotel room, because I had\nVern [Vernon C.] Coffey. I picked my, I got to the\npoint, because I was King Kong, where I could pick my\nadvance team, I could pick my agent.\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: I could pick my military aide. I could pick my\ncommunications officer, which is a very agreeable\n76\nSANITIZED\nposition to be in. But I took Vern Coffey, who was\nblack. I took [NAME RESTRICTED], who was black. And\nprobably two or three other black agents. And they\nbecame, actually became site advance men for me. We\ndiscussed this, and we knew it. And we knew that was\nthe best way to go about doing it. I had to make a\ncall, a judgment call, as to where that cortege was.\nThe President would walk out of his office at my\nsignal. \"Mister President, we're ready to leave.\"\nWalks out of his office, gets in his airplane, his\nhelicopter, goes to Air Force One, flies to Lexington,\nKentucky, Bluegrass Airport. [I had to] make that\ncall, where the President didn't have to sit on that\nplane for an hour, or two hours.\nSY: Hm hmm.\nRW: Or three hours. Even a half hour I would have been\nsweating blood. Well, I called Mike Schrauth in, I had\nMike Duval with me. I put Mike Schrauth in a wire\nservice car with a telephone. He was there at four\no'clock in the morning in Louisville, watching the\nprocession. I was on the radio with him for something\nlike eight hours. I had a telephone in my ear, or the\ngirl that, the volunteer secretary that I had there was\nmonitoring it for me. He rode in that motorcade. He\nhad driven that thing twice, and he had, we'd had\nfourteen checkpoints of how much time it took to get\nfrom here to there, driving at forty miles an hour,\nSANITIZED\n77\nbang to bang to bang. I mean, just nothing left to\nchance, except whatever they did. I called that snot\nand the President was in within ten minutes. The\nPresident landed, the governor met him. He went up and\nspent a few minutes with the governor [snaps fingers],\ncame off and got into his car, and the motorcade\narrived and ours arrived, just like that.\nSY: Hmm.\nRW: After that advance the President called me. The first\nphone call I ever got from the President. He told me\nwhat a fine job I'd done, and he knew how difficult the\nsituation was and everything. Those blacks just did\nnot like us, uh huh, simple as that. That's one\ndomestic advance. Apollo XIII was another.\nSY: Well, I'm sure there're so many individual incidents\nand things that can be...\nRW: Well, I've talked long enough.\nSY: ...interesting. Well, thank you SO much. We.\n[End of interview]\n78\nName index\nto exit interview with Ronald H. Walker\nconducted by Susan Yowell\nin Room 348 of the Old Executive Office Building\non December 29, 1972\nName\nPage number\nAbbey, Sanford R.\n70\nAgnew, Spiro T.\n60\nAllin, Lyndon K. (\"Mort\")\n47\nAtkins, Oliver R. (\"Ollie\")\n21,46,64\nAustin, Tim\n51\nBrennan, Peter\n30\nBrock, William E.\n59\nBuchanan, Patrick J.\n21\nBull, Stephen B.\n6-7,58-60,71,\nBush, George H. W.\n59\nCaneer, Ed [?]\n51\nCarruthers, William H.\n43\nCashen, Henry C.\n2\nCavaney, B. M. (\"Red\")\n70\nChapin, Dwight\n1-2,4,6-7,16,28,34,38,40,43,52,\n58-60,66,68,71\nChotiner, Murray\n21,36,58\nClarke, John E.\n42\nClower, W. Dewey\n10,34,35,70\nCodus, William R.\n1,49,52\nCoffee, Vernon C.\n76\nCole, Kenneth R.\n5\nColson, Charles W.\n16\n1\nCox, Edward F.\n53\nCox, Tricia Nixon\n52\nDaley, Richard J.\n10\nDavies, John\n7\nDeGaulle, Charles\n76\nDole, Robert J.\n49\nDuval, Michael\nSEE Raoul-Duval, Michael\nEhrlichman, John D.\n2,22,60\nEisenhower, Julie Nixon\n52\nElbourne, Timothy G.\n32,43,44,69\nFinch, Robert H.\n19\nFish, Ody\n49\nFoust, Jon\n10,34-35,40,49,51-53\nFox, Sanford L.\n35\nGartland, John\n42\nGitzen, Rosamond\n20,33\nGood, Terry\n18\nGoode, Mark\n43-44\nGoodearle, J. Roy\n1-2,5\nHaldeman, H. R. (\"Bob\")\n4,16,19,21-22,40,60,66,68\nHall, Allen C.\n42,52,53\nHart, Thomas\n42,70\nHeath, Edward\n3\nHerman, R. L.\n49\nHenkel, William\n10,34-35,40,54-55,70\nHess, Stephen\n17-18\nHickel, Walter J.\n2-4\n2\nHope, Bob\n30\nHoward, W. Richard\n3,16\nHughes, James D.\n21,24\nJarvis, Peter\n70\nJohnson, Claudia Taylor\n4\nJohnson, Lyndon B.\n4,10,22\nKeiser, Richard E.\n32\nKennedy, John F.\n10,21-22\nKeogh, James\n21\nKingsley, Daniel T.\n2\nKissinger, Henry A.\n39,63\nKlein, Herbert G.\n16\nKolstad, James L.\n42,70\nLuther, Homer\n64,70\nMagruder, Jeb Stuart\n28,40\nMalek, Frederic V.\n42\nMarriott, J. Willard, Sr.\n28\nMartyr, Philip H.\n70\nMazo, Earl\n17\nMcCarthy, Stephen J.\n53\nMcGovern, George S.\n48\nMoeller, William E.\n40,51\nMoore, Richard A.\n45\nMorgan, Edward L.\n2,5\nMurphy, George L.\n43\nMurphy, Peter\n70\nNidecker, John\n1-2,5\n3\nNixon, Mrs.\n1,4,9,48,52-53,61,65\nO'Donnell, Terrence\n42\nOgilvie, Richard B.\n10\nPackard, John E.\n70\nParker, David N.\n16,52\nPercy, Charles R.\n59\nPettit, John W. (\"Jack\")\n16\nPitchess, John\n70\nRaoul-Duval, Michael\n10,34-35,40,64,70-71\nRedman, Albert\n18,21,24\nRietz, Karen\n36\nRietz, Kenneth S.\n48\nRiley, Colonel [sp?]\n10\nRosenberg [sp?], [first name unk. ] 18\nRowe, Julie\n42\nRuwe, L. Nicholas\n1,5\nSchrauth, Michael R.\n50-51,77\nSearby, Dan\n53\nSheils, Marylou\n53\nSloan, Hugh\n7-8\nStrachan, Gordon\n16\nStuart, Charles E.\n4-5\nStuart, Constance C.\n9,52\nTaylor, Robert H.\n21,23-25,32\nTindle, Kathleen M.\n53\nTruman, Harry S.\n54\nUnger, Sherman E.\n22\n4\nWarner, John\n22\nWhitaker, John\n5,22\nWhitehill, Wayne\n70\nWilson, Harold\n3\nWoods [?], Rose Mary\n62\nYoung, Whitney\n76\nZiegler, Ronald L.\n43\n5"
}