Yup. For you Watergate fans out there, that’s John Erlichman and HR Haldeman, in a photograph taken three days before they were fired. Haldeman was legendary for the discipline he imposed on the White House staff. But for Alexander Butterfield, the President’s Watergate involvement might only have come to light when Nixon’s Presidential records became available.
The original “smoking gun” was a White House tape of Nixon and Haldeman discussing methods for obstructing Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski’s investigation of the Watergate break-in. Fun fact: One of the people Nixon and Haldeman considering using to obstruct was Deep Throat himself, Mark Felt (who, without the tapes, would have had little corroboration for his statements to Woodward and Bernstein):
PRESIDENT: What about Pat Gray, ah, you mean he doesn't want to?
HALDEMAN: Pat does want to. He doesn't know how to,and he doesn't have, he doesn't have any basis for doing it. Given this, he will then have the basis. He'll call Mark Felt in, and the two of them ...and Mark Felt wants to cooperate because…
PRESIDENT: Yeah.
HALDEMAN: he's ambitious…
PRESIDENT: Yeah.
HALDEMAN: Ah, he'll call him in and say, "We've got the signal from across the river to, to put the hold on this." And that will fit rather well because the FBI agents who are working the case, at this point, feel that's what it is. This is CIA.
Why does this matter now? First, John Kelly is not HR Haldeman. He has no strong loyalty to the Thief-in-Chief. If asked by the Special Counsel’s office, he’s likely to be forthcoming to the extent that he has knowledge: anywhere from confirming details to supplying new ones. And in fact, we know that he has been interviewed.
Second, Kelly will not easily be replaced, and any replacement will be herding cats who are searching for the way out of a burning building. The case for Nick Ayres’ appointment presumably was that he would know much of the staff and could hit the ground running. Ayres’ declination stings, because there’s no obvious alternative, and, despite Ayres’ comments, his future political viability obviously overrode his ambition. The next Chief of Staff will likely be a Trump loyalist, with few of the skills needed to fight the myriad fires blazing.
That is, if there even is another Chief of Staff. Mick Mulvaney has been mentioned; he appears to have the discipline, but leaves a hole to fill at Budget. Mark Meadows, he of the Freedom Caucus, is loyal, but there’s no evidence he has controlled the Caucus, let alone the White House staff. Trump without a Chief of Staff will be completely untethered from the staff, free-floating in his Twitterworld, while the staff either leave or make friends with whichever Republicans they think will remain standing in 2021.
And Nixon, post-Haldeman? The next chief of staff was Alexander Haig, who, for good or ill, did this:
After only four months as VCSA, Haig returned to the Nixon administration at the height of the Watergate affair as White House chief of staff in May 1973. Retaining his Army commission, he remained in the position until September 21, 1974, ultimately overseeing the transition to the presidency of Gerald Ford following Nixon's resignation on August 9, 1974.
Haig has been largely credited with keeping the government running while President Nixon was preoccupied with Watergate[1] and was essentially seen as the "acting president" during Nixon's last few months in office.[15] During July and early August 1974, Haig played an instrumental role in finally persuading Nixon to resign. Haig presented several pardon options to Ford a few days before Nixon eventually resigned. In this regard, in his 1999 book Shadow, author Bob Woodward describes Haig's role as the point man between Nixon and Ford during the final days of Nixon's presidency. According to Woodward, Haig played a major behind-the-scenes role in the delicate negotiations of the transfer of power from President Nixon to President Ford.[16] Indeed, about one month after taking office, Ford did pardon Nixon, resulting in much controversy.
I don’t see any Chief of Staff chosen by the *resident who would be capable of any part of that; do you?