Steven E. Levingston on Mary C. Brennan's upcoming book on Pat Nixon:Chief among her adversaries was chief of staff H.R. Haldeman, who saw it as his job to build a wall around the president, leaving Pat Nixon and many others excluded. When the administration bought a new airplane for the president’s 1972 campaign, Haldeman put the first lady’s compartment at the back. To see her husband, Pat Nixon had to walk through the White House staff offices – until she intervened and had the plane redesigned.
Haldeman annoyed the first lady by inserting himself into staffing and other matters of her East Wing operations. “On more than one occasion,” Brennan writes, “she ‘blasted’ Haldeman for his interference in her domain.”
