Blind Ambition: The End of the Story Read Online Free PDF

arrived so fast I was apprehensive, a bit frightened. I thought about what I would tell my friends when they asked how I had pulled off this job at the age of thirty-one, after practicing law for a total of six months. Well, I would say, I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. I laughed to myself at the thought of how unsatisfying this answer would be.
    Returning home, I wondered how John Mitchell would react. I was anxious for the blessings of my mentor, and a bit concerned.
    Mitchell called me to his office almost as soon as I returned from San Clemente. “Well, I can understand why you took the job, it’s a nice opportunity for a young lawyer,” he said. “Congratulations.”
    I was relieved, and curious to hear any advice he had to offer before I moved on.
    “It’s a tough place to work,” he began. “The hours are long, and sometimes the demands incredible. Everything has to be done yesterday. And it can be rough-and-tumble at times.”
    “I gather it’s pretty competitive up there.”
    “That’s right. Everyone wants the President’s ear and he’s only got two of them,” he said, leaning back in his chair as the smoke from his pipe rose to form the thin haze that always hung over his desk. He thought for a moment about what he wanted to tell me.
    “I’m not sure what this latest reorganization of the White House staff means,” he continued. “I’ve been watching it.” He summarized the recent division of responsibilities: Henry Kissinger running the National Security Council (foreign policy), John Ehrlichman heading the new Domestic Council (domestic affairs), George P. Shultz directing the reorganized Office of Management and Budget (money matters), with Bob Haldeman “coordinating the whole ball of wax.”
    “I see a head-on collision coming between Shultz and Ehrlichman. Ehrlichman is in over his head. He likes to dabble in everything,” Mitchell observed with annoyance. He stopped to repack his pipe banging its charred contents into an ashtray. “I’ll be curious to see if Ehrlichman ever takes his foot off your shoulder. You’re going to be a threat to him.”
    I was flattered by the remark, which Mitchell had not intended as flattery.
    “Shultz is a good man,” he went on. “He’s a real stand-up-type guy. Tough too. I’m glad to see the President relying on him more, and I’ve told the President that. Shultz can keep the President out of trouble with Ehrlichman’s half-baked schemes to cure the ills of the country.”
    John Mitchell, usually a man of few words except after several martinis, was talking more candidly about the White House than I had ever heard him. I listened hard. It was a place I knew nothing about, and Mitchell knew a lot.
    “Don’t be intimidated by Haldeman,” he advised. “He’s really a fine, personable guy once you get to know him. The President needs Haldeman. I had to talk Bob into taking that job at the White House after the campaign. Now he’s the President’s right and left hands. He does for the President what the President isn’t any good at doing himself. Once you’ve proved yourself to him, well, the President will know it.”
    Now Mitchell grew even more personal. “The President will like you. Just sit back and do the job you’re quite capable of doing and the President will discover you. Once you’ve gained his confidence, he’ll listen to you. You can help him and tell him the way things are, which he needs to hear more often.”
    Mitchell wished me well at the White House and told me I was always welcome if I wished to return to Justice. We talked briefly about the future. He felt Richard Nixon would have no trouble getting reelected in 1972.
    “Mr. Mitchell, what are you going to do in the next administration?” I asked. “Would you like to go to the Supreme Court?”
    “Hell, no,” he replied with a laugh as he got up to give me a farewell handshake. “I just want to get back to New York as soon as I