Final_Judgment

462 “Deep Throat” [365]
Although, as president, Richard Nixon was generally perceived as a
friend of Israel, there were long-standing suspicions about Nixon in the
American Jewish community in general. Nixon had barely won the
presidency in 1968, narrowly defeating Hubert Humphrey, a devoted
supporter of Israel who was highly popular among Jewish voters.
However, in 1972 Nixon was overwhelmingly re-elected in one of the
largest popular landslides in American history and, at that juncture, Nixon
evidently decided that he had a genuine mandate to actually begin flexing
some real clout.
In fact, according to former White House Chief of Staff H.R.
Haldeman, writing in his book The Ends of Power, the president intended to
overhaul the entire federal bureaucracy and bring it under the direct control
of his own handpicked loyalists in the White House inner circle—trusted
longtime colleagues who were not part of the Establishment elite.
"Reorganization," says Haldeman, "is the secret story of Watergate.
That reorganization in the winter of 1972—very little known to the
American public—eventually spurred into action against Nixon the great
power blocs in Washington.
"All of them saw danger as the hated Nixon moved more and more to
control the executive branch from the White House, as he was
Constitutionally mandated to do. What they feared was real. Nixon
genuinely meant to take the reins of government in hand, and if members of
the Congress had been privy to a presidential conversation on September
15, 1972, they would have been even more fearful." 938
According to Haldeman, Nixon said, "We're going to have a
housecleaning. It's time for a new team. Period. I'm going to [tell the
American people] we didn't do it when we came in before, but now we
have a mandate. And one of the mandates is to do the cleaning up that we
didn't do in 1968." 939 As the proposed housecleaning was described by
Haldeman: "Not only would [Nixon] tightly control all reigns of the
government through eight top officers in the White House; he would plant
his own 'agents' in key positions in every agency of the government." 940
Clearly, Nixon had big plans: he was actually going to assert himself
and attempt to gain control of the executive branch and its myriad agencies.
This move, needless to say, made many in the American Jewish community
uneasy. Rumors of Nixon's "lists" of Jews in high-ranking positions in the
executive branch and the agencies began circulating, adding fuel to the
already long-standing suspicions of Nixon. And as all of this was taking
place in the United States, events in the Middle East began to unfold that set
a new tone to Israel's perception of the American president.
NIXON CROSSES THE ISRAELIS
Following his massive 1972 re-election victory, Nixon crossed the line
as far as his previous support for Israel was concerned. In 1973, the Nixon