The Nixon Years

From 1970 through 1975 Maroon created what is possibly the definitive collection of Watergate and the Nixon Administration during that period. This award-winning body or work is probably the most significant of Maroon’s career. Read more.

 

President Nixon is lost in thought while working in the presidential helicopter, en route from San Clemente to El Toro Marine Base, where he would board Air Force One. January 14, 1971.

After I had completed a photo session with the President in San Clemente he asked me if there was anything more I wanted. I of course stated the obvious: that I would like more opportunities to photograph him. To my surprise I was informed shortly afterwards that I could fly with him and his family and staff on the presidential helicopter from San Clemente to El Toro Marine Base in southern California.
-FJM

President Nixon walking between the columns to his office in the West Wing. December 14, 1970.

On this brisk winter morning, the President waved hello to me, disappeared between the columns, and crossed the garden to a door that led directly to his office.
-FJM

President Nixon in the Oval Office with Representative Gerald Ford. December 14, 1970.

President Nixon often met with Members of Congress. This 1970 photograph shows the President's cordial relationship with Representative Gerald Ford years before the drama of Watergate dramatically changed their respective roles.
-FJM

President Nixon working on a television speech in his office in the Executive Office Building. October 7, 1970.

The President had a hideaway office in the Executive Office Building, next door to the White House, and I was taken there to photograph him as he prepared for a television address. He scarcely moved the entire time I was there. I kept hoping he might answer the telephone or walk around the room, so I could get some variety, but it didn't happen. Later, in the Press Room, I overheard some White House correspondents commenting on how formal the President always was. One said: "I bet he takes a shower in that suit!" Another added: "If a photographer ever shot him with his feet up, it would be worth a million dollars." I smiled and kept my little secret to myself, but doubted that I'd ever see the million dollars!
-FJM

Mrs. Nixon during a conversation with a journalist in the family quarters of the White House. February 1971.

Mrs. Nixon was being interviewed for a magazine story in the living room area of the family quarters on the second floor of the White House. Many women of the press shared with me the feeling that she was their favorite First Lady. Some of the questions amused her, and she laughed freely. However when asked what had been the hardest time of her political life with the President, she said it was when he was defeated for the presidency in November 1960. She was devastated for all the people who had worked so hard on his behalf. She became very sad at that moment; I could see tears in her eyes.
-FJM

President Nixon with (left-right) Dr. Henry A. Kissinger, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, John D. Ehrlichman, Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs, and H. R. Haldeman, Assistant to the President. In the Oval Office in the White House. February 10, 1971.

I had waited months for the opportunity to photograph President Nixon with his three top assistants, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, John D. Ehrlichman and Henry A. Kissinger. The doorway provided a perfect frame for this view of the Oval Office, as seen by an outsider looking in. I was not the only one who experienced difficulty gaining access to the Oval Office. Haldeman himself admitted to having constructed a protective wall around the President; some outsiders went further and characterized it as a "Berlin Wall." Either way, President Nixon had a reputation of being isolated by his staff.
-FJM

President Nixon and John Connally face the press to announce Connally's appointment as Secretary of the Treasury, replacing David Kennedy. December 14, 1970.

This is one of the few "news" photographs I took in the White House. President Nixon introduced to the press the man he had nominated as Secretary of the Treasury. I thought at the time how "presidential" John Connally of Texas looked. Later I watched him rise in stature and importance, and for a time this picture appeared quite prophetic.
-FJM

President and Mrs. Nixon enjoying their favorite view at San Clemente. January 1971.

The President told me there was a bench at San Clemente overlooking the Pacific Ocean that was a favorite spot of his. He asked me if I would photograph him there with his wife. After he resigned and returned to San Clemente I often saw him and her on this bench in my mind's eye, and wondered what they must have thought as they reflected on the highs and lows that life had dealt them.
-FJM

President Nixon and Henry Kissinger during an early morning conference by the Oval Office door leading to the Rose Garden. February 10, 1971.

The President and Kissinger were constantly making news regarding Vietnam, Cambodia, China, and other foreign policy matters, and I was eager to get a photograph that would symbolize their close relationship. My patience was rewarded one winter morning when, ignoring my presence, the two men conferred in the Oval Office.
-FJM

President Nixon in the Oval Office in the White House with (left-right): John D. Ehrlichman, Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs, H. R. Haldeman (seated), Assistant to the President, Dr. Henry A. Kissinger, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs.

Harry Robbins ("H.R.") Haldeman, White House chief of staff. July 30, 1973.

Bob Haldeman was not the stranger to me when he testified that he was to most of the press corps. Known as "Mr. Inside," he was perhaps the most inaccessible of all the President's key advisors. In his own words: "Every president needs an S.O.B., and I'm Nixon's." His testimony before the Committee essentially mirrored Ehrlichman's in content; both men had the same lawyer. Their styles, however, were quite different. He was deferential where Ehrlichman was pugnacious. Haldeman came across as the quintessential advertising executive, talking only about the positive aspects of his "product" and admitting nothing that was negative.
-FJM

Attorney General John Mitchell (left) and President Nixon confer outside the Oval Office. April 20, 1971.

The President and Attorney General John Mitchell confer on the terrace outside the Oval Office, overlooking the Rose Garden. Afterwards, they continued their conversation as they walked back into the White House.
-FJM

John Mitchell and his attorneys, William Hundley and Plato Cacheris.

At the conclusion of the day's testimony I was allowed to accompany Mitchell and his lawyers in their limousine back to the Hotel Washington, where he was staying. It was a somber journey. I sat in the front seat with the driver and with a very wide 15mm Hologon lens on a Leica M I was able to squeeze off an exposure or two.
-FJM

Spectators during the Senate "Watergate" hearings, including John Lennon and Yoko Ono. June 26, 1973.

It was not unusual for superstars to be part of the daily crowd of spectators. Though I was not a Beatles fan, I squeezed off a few exposures none the less. Years later, this photograph is the most noteworthy in my Watergate collection to a certain age group, especially my own children.
-FJM

President Nixon with aide, Stephen Bull. February 10, 1971.

I loved being a "fly on the wall" in the Oval Office, waiting for that perfect fleeting moment. Steve Bull, the President's appointments secretary, is gesturing to someone as the President, hands in pockets, and with his own seemingly dark thoughts, walks towards him.
-FJM

John D. Ehrlichman, chief domestic affairs advisor to the president. July 24, 1973.

John Ehrlichman could present a ferocious look at times. He had an extraordinarily mobile face, and I thought this photograph exactly captured his demeanor before the Senate "Watergate" Committee. He was combative and evasive, and came prepared to take the senators on. I had experienced his toughness in the White House, but there it was interspersed with humor and warmth. Before the Committee the unvarnished version of John Ehrlichman was on display.
-FJM

Senator Sam J. Ervin, Jr., of North Carolina, chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities. November 1, 1973.

Senator Sam J. Ervin, Jr., a North Carolina Democrat, was the chairman of the Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, popularly known as the "Watergate" Committee. Ervin, seventy-five years old at the time and a senator for eighteen years, had been the author of the resolution that proposed the investigation into the Watergate affair. He quickly became a household name as a result of his manner and approach, and developed such a following that spectators would applaud when he entered the room. There is nothing that beats a wise old man. Before coming to the Senate he had been a lower court and state supreme court judge for a total of fourteen years. When he banged his gavel, to many, he embodied the conscience of the nation.
-FJM

During a recess in the hearings, Representative Trent Lott (Mississippi) was interviewed by Sam Donaldson and Frank Reynolds of ABC, in a lobby with set-up for press corps. July 1974.

Due to limited space inside, most of the press had to set up outside the House Judiciary Committee hearing room for live coverage. On July 27, 1974, after the final 27-11 vote of approval of the Articles for Impeachment, news and interviews were broadcast to the waiting world. It was the first recommendation of impeachment to be lodged against a president by a House investigating body since 1868.
-FJM

President Nixon, flanked by members of his family, addressing members of the Cabinet and the White House staff during his farewell in the East Room of the White House on the morning of August 9, 1974.

The moments leading up to this traumatic moment in the life of the President had taken a visual toll. It took enormous courage and strength on his part to carry off the draining farewell we were witnessing. Two hours later, at 11:35 A.M., when he was already on route to California, his letter of resignation was delivered to the Secretary of State and Nixon's presidency came to an end.
-FJM

Henry A. Kissinger with his wife, Nancy, in the East Room of the White House, during President Nixon's farewell. August 9, 1974.

President Nixon addressing members of the Cabinet and the White House staff during his farewell in the East Room of the White House on the morning of August 9, 1974.

In a twenty-minute epitaph the President had written himself, he poured out his heart, with emotional echoes of his "Checkers" speech twenty years earlier, memories of his mother, and a quotation from a man he greatly admired - Theodore Roosevelt. Despite the somber occasion, Nixon attempted a determinedly upbeat delivery: "Greatness comes not when things go always good for you, but the greatness comes when you are really tested, and you take some knocks, some disappointments, when sadness comes, because only if you have been in the deepest valley can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain."
-FJM

Helen Thomas, of UPI, listening to President Nixon's farewell. August 9, 1974.

On a national level, this was constitutional democracy functioning as it should: the orderly, legal transference of power. But on a human level, I am sure no one in the East Room on August 9, 1974, was immune from the intense poignancy of watching the President struggle through the emotional trauma of saying "au revoir." Whether one loved or hated Richard Nixon, it was almost like a death in the family.
-FJM

President Nixon addressing members of the Cabinet and the White House staff during his farewell in the East Room of the White House on the morning of August 9, 1974. Behind the President is his son-in-law, David Eisenhower and his daughter Julie Nixon Eisenhower.

Mrs. Nixon and daughter, Tricia Nixon Cox, during President Nixon's farewell, East Room of the White House, August 9, 1974.

As the President spoke, everyone in the East Room felt for his family, and particularly for Mrs. Nixon. I remembered her remark that the hardest time of her political life with her husband had been when he lost his first bid for the presidency in November 1960. I could not help but feel that that day had now been eclipsed.
-FJM

President and Mrs. Nixon on the beach at San Clemente. January 1971.

Even though it was drizzling, the President and the First Lady went for a walk along the beach front of their San Clemente retreat, and agreed to be photographed. It was a challenge to capture the President in a moment of relaxation, but here on the beach the interplay between him and his wife was both natural and affectionate.
-FJM

 

President Richard M. Nixon

"When Richard Milhous Nixon became president in 1969 I had been a freelance photographer in Washington, DC, for seventeen years. At that time I was out of Washington more than I was in, doing exotic and far-flung assignments for a variety of national and international magazines. Political photography, however, was a reality for any Washington-based photographer, and I did my share of it when I was in town. 

Earlier, with the election of John Kennedy in 1960, Washington had undergone a sea change. No longer a sleepy Southern town, the city acquired a new glamour and status by virtue of the occupants of the White House. LOOK Magazine assigned me to do my first major features on the White House: Jacqueline Kennedy's "New Look in the White House," followed by "Christmas in the White House." Magazine interest in the presidency became a regular thing, and during the Johnson era that followed I was having as many as one hundred pages of photographs on it published in magazines each year.

It was therefore with some surprise that I realized that these regular assignments had come to a sudden stop when Nixon became president. I was curious as to why this should be. When I brought the subject up at story conferences with magazine editors I was told that they simply were not interested. Moreover, I discovered it was a two-way street. The Nixon White House had no love affair with the press, and they were very selective when it came to deciding with whom to cooperate. The average American knew precious little about how the Nixon White House worked, and the dearth of photographic coverage emanating from the White House presented a challenge to me. The editors might not be interested in the subject, but I was. 

I had produced my first book, on Washington, several years earlier, and I liked the luxury of space to tell a story that a book afforded. If any subject deserved book rather than magazine treatment, the White House did. I met with Herb Klein, the President's director of communications, and proposed doing a book on the Nixon Administration - not just on the President, but on the workings of the entire White House staff. Allen Drury was to be the writer. The proposal was "staffed out," as they in the White House termed it, and six months after my initial visit the project was approved. The understanding was that neither photographs nor text were to be subject to review by the White House, and we were to receive full cooperation. For the most part, we did.

After the book was published in 1971, Attorney General John Mitchell was put in charge of the Committee for the Re-election of the President (CRP), with Jeb Magruder as his deputy. Magruder had been Herb Klein's deputy, and during a conversation with him early in 1972 he assured me that I could count on complete access should I wish to do any magazine story on CRP (referred to by many as "CREEP"). Armed with this commitment, I approached LIFE Magazine and was guaranteed four pages for such a story. A week before the Watergate break-in I telephoned Jeb Magruder to tell him of the LIFE assignment and to make arrangements to start photographing.

A discernible pattern developed while I was working at CRP in the weeks immediately following the Watergate break-in. I would be allowed to photograph a meeting for ten or fifteen minutes and then be asked to leave. I can only imagine what pivotal conversations must have taken place the minute I was safely out of the room. LIFE ran its four pages, selecting photographs that seemed important at the time. Subsequent events have given other CRP photographs - and individuals - far greater significance today. 

In April 1973 an editor at TIME Magazine called me, looking for a picture of John Dean. I was too busy to spend much time searching for a headshot of a relatively unknown individual, but over the course of the next few days the editor called back several more times, with ever increasing urgency. My agent in New York, Louis Mercier, and I realized that something important was breaking. In quick succession, one newspaper story after another appeared, culminating in the announcement of the Senate Watergate hearings. With my coverage of the key players in the Nixon White House, and my coverage of CRP, I realized I had the beginning of an important historic photographic document and had no choice but to continue. I canceled all other assignments and dedicated myself to covering the Senate Watergate hearings in their entirety in 1973. Each day I would drive from my house in Georgetown, allowing ample time to find a legal all-day parking spot on Capitol Hill, and lug two cases of cameras, lenses, and film several blocks before beginning my day's work in the Senate Caucus Room of the Russell Senate Office Building.

The Impeachment hearings in the House of Representatives in the summer of 1974 became the next important phase in my on-going documentation - then in its fourth year. Surprisingly, these hearings were sedate compared to the fireworks and conflicts that erupted between senators and witnesses during the lengthier and more highly charged hearings in the Senate. Also, as with the Senate, the House committee struck me as relatively non-partisan. There were differences between the two parties, of course, but at the end of the day three Articles of Impeachment against President Nixon passed with both parties contributing to the results. Certainly there was none of the partisan bickering that drove the Judiciary Committee in 1998 when the impeachment of President Clinton was being considered. 

In August 1974 my project ended where it began - in the White House. It was certainly a far cry from the days in 1970 and 1971 when I had observed a staff in complete control of everything that happened there. During the week leading up to August 8th, when President Nixon announced his resignation, uncertainty and apprehension prevailed. And the dramatic moment in the East Room the next day, when the President mustered up the strength and control to say goodbye to his staff, Cabinet and friends, was like nothing any of us expected to experience.

One of the advantages of being a freelance photographer is that you are your own boss. It is often self-assigned work that best reflects the photographer, and has the greatest long-term significance. Staff photographers may have the security of regular employment, but they seldom have the freedom to pursue their own muse. I am certain that, had I not enjoyed the independence I did, the Nixon document as seen here would not exist. Certainly there was little intimate coverage of the Nixon White House behind the scenes, and even had there been, it is unlikely that the continuing chapters of the Watergate affair would have been assigned to the same photographer, with the same style and approach. It was because I was neutral, unaffiliated with any political group or with any publication with a known political bias, that I was allowed access to the White House in the first place. And because I owned my own material, I could decide how it would eventually be used. 

Early on I had decided that the material I collected would remain under wraps until such time as passions had cooled, and people could look at the photographs objectively and with historical perspective. After twenty-five years I realized that was never going to happen completely in my lifetime. This was such a politically charged event that it will always arouse passions, both pro and con. In 1997, aware that I wasn't getting younger, I decided to take my Nixon material out of storage and organize the story myself, rather than leaving it to strangers at some future time. From the 576 rolls I shot I made over a thousand work prints. For more than a year I edited the photographs, researched details, and refined the collection in order to arrive at the 145 images found in my book, The Nixon Years 1969–1974, and the exhibition, Photographing History: Fred J. Maroon and the Nixon Years, 1970–1974, held at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History from July to December, 1999. 

My four children were all under ten when their father thought producing this archive was more important than a steady income. I hope it has given them, and others of their generation and the generations to follow, a glimpse at the cast of characters who played roles in this American drama - in what was, up to then, the greatest political tragedy our country had known."