135. Editorial Note
In his diary entry for January 20, 1971, President’s Assistant H.R. Haldeman wrote the following: “We had a long meeting this afternoon with E[hrlichman], Shultz, Mitchell, and K[issinger], at Henry’s request to discuss in detail his problems with the State Department. He walked into the meeting with huge thick folders for each of us with all kinds of papers documenting his case on the terrible things State has been doing in the public press, and how they’ve been undercutting him in [Page 290] internal operations, and how they’ve disobeyed Presidential orders, cable traffic and all sorts of stuff. He did an extremely good job, for a change, of presenting his case quite unemotionally and very rationally; this made it far more effective than it usually is when he gets going. He really wrapped it up by saying he wasn’t going to discuss with the P[resident], but was hoping we would find a way to approach it, and that problem had to be resolved. He would not continue this method of operation. If it couldn’t be resolved, he would leave; if it could be, he’d be perfectly willing to work within a new approach, as long as NSC has complete control and Rogers is, as he puts it, ‘brought to heel.’” (The Haldeman Diaries: Multimedia Edition)