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The (So-Called) Halloween Massacre

MEMORANDUM FOR THE PRESIDENT

From: Donald Rumsfeld and Richard Cheney

October 24, 1975

“. . . Because of our deep sense of these problems, the only way to conclusively make the case and demonstrate the importance we attach to the kinds of changes recommended, is to assure that there will be absolutely no question in your mind that anything said below would affect us in any way or be to our advantage.

You must be free to decide, with absolutely no question on your mind about the motives of those making the recommendations. We are convinced that the job you need done cannot be done unless these major changes take place. You must be free to decide quite apart from any personal relationships including us. Therefore, our resignations are attached.”¹

You know, there are funny things you think of just before you go to sleep,” President Ford mused to me in a meeting on October 22, 1975. “This will shock you,” he continued. “I am not proposing it. I’m just saying I thought of it, and it should not be repeated—Schlesinger’s handling of the Defense Department is a disaster and, well, I’m tempted to send Rocky over there and bring George Bush back from China as Vice President, right now.”²

We had been meeting that morning in the Oval Office in a continuation of his periodic discussions about the administration’s state of affairs.³ The poorly coordinated speech shop, irritating press leaks, and often out-of-sync National Security Council team, and the President’s poor relationship with the Secretary of Defense continued to pose problems with solutions not yet in sight. The challenges of the unexpected presidency of Gerald Ford were sizable, but there were also some unnecessary self-inflicted wounds that hampered operations.

This was one of the drawbacks that President Ford faced in having never run a presidential campaign prior to his move to the White House. A tough campaign requires a candidate to make difficult and occasionally distasteful decisions, often about personnel. Dealing with unpleasant personnel situations did not come easily to Ford, who was as kind a man as I suspect ever occupied the Oval Office. That is, until he decided he had no choice.

Having grown into his role as the only never nominated and never elected President of the United States in history, making the decision he wanted to seek the nomination and hold the office, and coming to grips with all that was on the line for the country, President Ford decided to make some staffing and organizational changes. These major decisions, apparently made without consultation with anyone, were a surprise to me, to his team, and in Washington, D.C., and went beyond what anyone might have expected. His announcements were mischaracterized in the media as “the Halloween Massacre,” even though they in no way amounted to a “massacre”—Gerald Ford would never treat his associates in such a way—and they weren’t designed or announced on Halloween. Though questioned by a few at the time, the moves revealed that the President had come into his own and decided to put in place a Ford administration in every sense of the word. To the best of my knowledge, this is how it happened.

*  *  *

The new Ford administration had encountered and weathered some of the standard challenges faced in many if not most new administrations. One of my many meeting memos, dated June 1975, commented on this issue.

MEETING WITH THE PRESIDENT

June 11, 1975

8:31 to 9:04 a.m.

. . . The President said he was very concerned about the [Fred] Barnes article saying that there was staff conflict. I said it was a terrible article and that in reviewing the thing, if I were to blame anyone, I would blame me for assigning coordinating responsibility to the Counsel’s office, and then I would blame the Counsel’s office for not coordinating . . . effectively, and finally, I suppose, blame the President for setting up a staff system that has the “spokes of the wheel” coming up where you have different people doing different things, everyone thinking that they are dealing directly with the President, and assuming that everything is going to work out all right, and at some point where you have to mesh more than one spoke of the wheel, it doesn’t get done unless the President does it. . . .

Furthermore, the fact that Hartmann and the Speech Shop, and the political operation, are separated from the White House—he doesn’t come to the staff meetings, the fact that the Domestic Council and Rockefeller are separated from the White House, and he doesn’t come to the staff meetings, the fact that Kissinger and the NSC are separated from the White House and he doesn’t come to the staff meetings leaves the situation where people don’t have a daily rubbing of shoulders and that instinctive desire to protect each other.

The three big pieces—each one goes straight in to the President, no one else in the building knows what’s going on there, and they are never around . . . the effect of that on the White House is very, very damaging, and it is because of the design of the organization that he imposed. I said to him that you simply cannot have each person operating in a way that the rest of the people feel that he is doing his own thing and to hell with the rest of them.⁴

Over several months, the President was beginning to indicate a readiness to consider suggestions from his friends to begin to fix his problems. I suggested that there were two ways to move forward, with the goal of gaining control and boosting morale. First, whenever someone came through the wrong channel, he or she needed to be put back into the staff system. Some of the major policy mechanisms, such as the Domestic Council and the NSC, were not functioning as smoothly as they must, with the result that people were understandably moving outside the normal channels to get their jobs done.

Second, I suggested management by example. The President might best deal with less-than-professional staff work, leaks, and public disagreements by consciously deciding to reward good performance and punish poor performance. Whenever one of his senior staff members did something inside the line of acceptable conduct—whether controversial or not—the President should make a point to support and defend them. Conversely, when someone did something that was over the line, the President needed to crack them.⁵ That meant, for instance, that inferior drafts of speeches had to be sent back, deadlines had to be set and met, and people not performing had to be corrected by him as well as by me and, when necessary, replaced. More broadly, the President needed to be respected as a leader who was fair, but who could, when necessary, be tough.

During a meeting with his close staff about half way through the month, the President asked why his approval rating had leveled off despite the economy’s turnaround and his foreign policy successes. Bryce Harlow, the seasoned and highly respected pro who served as an unofficial advisor for the President, warned that “public divisions” within the administration were creating an impression that the President was not fully in command. As one example, Bryce directly pointed to the deepening public rift between Kissinger and Schlesinger.⁶ Because of his close relationship with the President, Kissinger was in a position to and did in fact wield outsized power and influence. Conversely, Schlesinger’s views, and therefore the views of the Department of Defense, were considerably less influential due to Jim’s notably prickly relationship with the President.⁷ This problem was further compounded by the fact that in every NSC meeting, Vice President Rockefeller was a consistent vocal supporter of any position or view Kissinger put forward.

Unlike his relationship with Schlesinger, Ford’s relationship with Vice President Nelson Rockefeller had developed into a warm one. As a result, Ford had a difficult time wrestling with his decision as to whether or not to replace him on the GOP ticket. The Vice President, from the time he was confirmed, had been the prime target of conservative opposition as a result of his history, his outspoken liberal policy views, and the growing public perception of his influence in shaping Ford administration policies, given his long personal relationship with Henry Kissinger as well as his assigned role in domestic policy. But even beyond those factors, the Vice President seemed to not mind and on occasion even relish being the target of conservatives. I supposed this aided him politically in a state like New York, which tended to lean to the liberal side. But this issue was clearly unhelpful to President Ford in his efforts to secure the Republican nomination for President.

Nothing during the intervening months had lessened Rockefeller’s conviction that he had been empowered by the President with sweeping authority for the administration’s domestic, economic, and energy affairs. The result was a breakdown in the President’s chain of command on those issues. Also, perhaps inevitably, I along with my deputy Dick Cheney became the VP’s nemeses as we worked to achieve reasonable order in the White House on behalf of the President.⁸

A familiar pattern had begun to emerge. Rockefeller would periodically offer up an idea or policy initiative, present it in one of his private meetings with the President, and do so with little if any coordination with the President’s relevant senior policy personnel. Because President Ford was a gracious person who wanted Rockefeller to feel part of the team, he would often give Rockefeller some kind and supportive words, which Rockefeller would not unreasonably take as an endorsement. Then Ford would hand the proposal to me—or to Dick—and ask, “What . . . do we do with this?” I’d reply, having not seen the VP’s proposal, “Well, we will staff it out,” which meant sending it through the White House staff system for consideration and comment by the President’s senior relevant policy officials in the Cabinet and on the White House staff. The result was, on many occasions, a range of policy comments, concerns, objections, and resistance, which we would then have to report to the President. Unsurprisingly, the reactions of the President’s policy officials would often displease Rockefeller. He seemed to see the staff’s comments not as policy differences, which was what they largely were, but as an infringement on what he saw as his responsibilities as the “head of domestic policy,” as assigned by President Ford, and those who differed were throwing sand in his gears. The Vice President was not used to having staff people take policy positions different from his views.

One notorious example came about when the Vice President presented an energy proposal to the President apparently crafted by his personal connections and resources outside of the administration. He did not have it briefed in a meeting with the President’s senior policy experts on energy, but gave it to the President personally. I was not in the meeting, but Rockefeller must have left with an impression Ford was interested and did not oppose the VP’s proposal. Later that day the President handed the VP’s proposal to me to “handle.” I advised him I would send it out, as I did with every proposal, to the appropriate federal departments and agencies with relevant statutory responsibilities and to the relevant senior White House policy officials for their review and comment. The feedback from the policy experts overall was not positive. It became clear later that the President may well have had an impression from Rockefeller that the key White House policy officials had provided their input and either were in support or at least were not opposed. It became my task to explain to the President what had actually taken place. After learning what had actually occurred in the case of the energy proposal, he took a deep breath and reluctantly told me that, nonetheless, he felt he should keep his agreement to send the VP’s proposal up to the Congress as an administrative proposal. I said that I believed that would be a mistake. Nonetheless, he insisted on keeping what he saw as his commitment. As a result, the Vice President’s proposal then was sent up to Capitol Hill for consideration by the Congress as the President’s proposal. As the President’s energy staff experts had anticipated, the proposal dropped like a rock in midocean. Later that year even a greatly reduced and modified version of the Rockefeller energy proposal was defeated in a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives, a totally avoidable embarrassment for the President and his administration.

In March 1975, I observed the Vice President’s unusual performance at a breakfast gathering at which the President was present. “The Vice President spent all his time at [the] breakfast walking around and shaking hands,” I noted. “He was still doing that when the President started talking.” During the President’s remarks and the remarks of others, Rockefeller, in the audience, would say, “Hear, hear,” in response to assertions he favored, which, while supportive of the President, was a distraction.⁹

The Vice President began inviting some Ford White House staff members to fly in his private aircraft to his home in New York. But given the legal maelstrom from which the White House was still recuperating, I discouraged that practice.

In August, Rockefeller decided to redesign the seal of the Vice President of the United States that had been established during the Truman years, which in my view could lead to unnecessary controversy in the media.¹⁰ In short, while he was an enthusiastic “hail fellow well met,” and certainly a strong friend and supporter of President Ford, his positive attributes came with some downsides, which I suppose is true of most of us.

President Ford, for his part, may well have given Rockefeller ambiguous signals as to his intentions about keeping him on the ticket in 1976. This would not have been because Ford would ever have intended to be duplicitous. Instead, it was likely due to the fact that Ford was of two minds on the subject. At some points, such as during a meeting on February 1, 1975, he left the strong impression that Rockefeller would be his running mate though, at the time, some of Ford’s political advisors were concerned and suggested the possibility that he leave his options open on the VP question.¹¹ On April 28, 1975, Ford told me he had advised the Vice President that he would be on the ticket. Later that day, however, Ford held a meeting with the Governor of North Carolina, who warned him that there might well be an “open revolt” against Rockefeller at the GOP convention.¹² By late May, the President’s thinking on the Vice President had evolved. Hearing the concerns within the GOP, he began to take steps to try to keep conservatives from defecting to Reagan.

On July 10, Bo Callaway, whom President Ford had selected as his presidential campaign manager, came into the Oval Office with an unorthodox suggestion. “This is absolutely confidential and does not go out of this room,” Callaway began. He explained that someone he considered “very shrewd” had suggested to him that the President arrange for Rockefeller to become Secretary of State and for John Connally to become Vice President.¹³ I had no idea who this “very shrewd” person was, but I was reminded of someone who had always been chief among John Connally’s admirers—Richard Nixon.

Eventually Ford reluctantly acquiesced to the concerns expressed by a number of his political advisors, saying that while he favored Rockefeller for VP, he would support an open convention that would allow delegates to choose the party’s vice presidential nominee. This approach seemed to satisfy the President, but it was unlikely to have satisfied Rockefeller. In an open convention, it was close to a certainty that the more conservative Republican delegates would vote to nominate someone else.

By the fall of 1975, while personally respecting Rockefeller as a friend, Ford had reluctantly concluded that he was a political liability, particularly if it contributed to a decision by Governor Ronald Reagan to challenge Ford for the Republican nomination. When the President mentioned this, in late-October, Dick Cheney suggested to Ford that Rockefeller might step forward and “take a Sherman”—a reference to General William Tecumseh Sherman, who had made unmistakably clear that he would not pursue or accept the nomination for President in the election of 1884. Cheney went on to suggest that Rockefeller could also then call on Reagan, for the sake of the GOP’s prospects, to similarly step aside in a statesmanlike manner.¹⁴

Less than a week after this conversation, President Ford apparently met with the Vice President. I was not briefed on exactly what transpired: Either Ford asked Rockefeller to step aside or possibly the Vice President offered to do so. In any event, the result was that Rockefeller advised the President that he would announce that he would not be a candidate for public office in 1976. Ford recounted the conversation to me, quoting Rockefeller as saying, “I would be happy to do anything that you want. I came down here to help, and I will help in any way humanly possible.” This was a classy and admirable response by Vice President Rockefeller, one that I sensed was greatly appreciated by the President.

Resolving the issue of the vice presidential nomination was helpful but hardly a solution to all of the administration’s challenges. It was just one, albeit an important one, in a series of issues Ford needed to handle before he entered the decisive election year of 1976.

On Saturday, October 25, shortly after 11:00 a.m., Cheney and I met with the President in the Oval Office. We were there to discuss a memo that I had drafted and hand delivered to the President. The memo, dated October 24, 1975, outlined a series of challenges facing the Ford administration. The memo included some suggested “do’s” and “don’t’s” for the months ahead, and concluded with some suggestions. I opened my cover letter to the President by outlining his successes, from having ended U.S. military involvement in Southeast Asia to dealing with what was likely the most difficult economic situation since the end of World War II. “Perhaps most important of all,” I wrote, “you have successfully healed the wounds of a nation deeply divided, a nation grown weary of scandal and mistrustful of its leadership. . . .”

At the end of the memo, to underscore my seriousness and to make clear I had no agenda but the interest of the country and the President’s success, I attached my resignation letter. I asked Dick Cheney to review the memo. He did so, agreed with the recommendations and asked to join in signing it. He then attached his own letter of resignation as well.

Dick and I were serious about the memo. For whatever reason, I had failed to successfully get the President to take the management actions that I was convinced were required for him to succeed. I felt that I had told him what I believed needed to be done for him to succeed, but I had up to that point been unsuccessful.

When President Ford read the memo and our letters of resignation, it focused him on the concerns. The President paused, regained his composure, and then proceeded to reread the entire memo. Toward the end of it, I had advised that many of the actions suggested in the memo should best be announced and if possible carried out prior to a formal candidacy announcement for President by Governor Reagan. Finally, I urged at the end of the memo that he decide that he was determined to win in 1976 and that he would do everything possible to achieve it.

A few hours later, Kissinger and I were called in to meet with the President. Ford calmly and methodically explained that he was going to make some personnel changes shortly. First, Rockefeller would withdraw his name from consideration as his running mate, and Henry’s seasoned deputy, Brent Scowcroft, would become the National Security Advisor.

To deal with the nearly yearlong controversy over America’s intelligence activities, Ford told us that he decided to nominate someone outside the ranks of the intelligence community to replace the experienced but under-fire CIA Director Bill Colby. Ford seemed to have lost his patience with the criticisms of Colby and the CIA and the implications that the Agency was stonewalling investigations into its activities. At one heated meeting in September 1975, Ford told Colby directly: “I want you to know that we are not going to classify anything to cover it up, whether it is a mistake, an error of judgment, no matter how bad it is. I won’t do it.”¹⁵ In our meeting, Ford said that his choice as Colby’s replacement would be George H. W. Bush, then the U.S. envoy to China.

The President also said he intended to replace Schlesinger as Secretary of Defense, and that he had been considering doing so for some time. What might well have been the last straw for the President was a recent press conference in which Schlesinger had criticized the Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Democrat George Mahon. Mahon was a close friend and colleague of the President. Neither Ford nor Mahon appreciated Schlesinger’s critical comments of the chairman.

To succeed Jim Schlesinger at the Department of Defense, Ford apparently considered John Connally, and also our friend and former colleague in the Congress from Kansas, the experienced Bob Ellsworth, who was a former U.S. Ambassador to NATO and had been an Assistant to the President under Nixon. Ford wanted to avoid angering conservatives even further.¹⁶ He then said that he intended to nominate me for the post. Ford knew that I had a great deal of personal respect for Jim Schlesinger and that I shared many of the same views—which was perhaps a consideration for Ford in nominating me. Dick Cheney, the President added, would succeed me as White House Chief of Staff. The series of decisions by the President came to Henry and certainly to me as a complete surprise.

Ford knew I had a great deal of respect for Henry Kissinger’s impressive intellect and accomplishments and his stated intention was that Henry and I could end the public debates between the Departments. I hoped, as did Ford, that we would be able to work together in ways that the Departments of State and Defense hadn’t. I was determined to do all I could to help make this work.

The President also opened up about his own future. He noted he had the option of not running for election as President in his own right. However, he said with confidence that he was convinced he had been a good President and that a Democratic win in 1976 would take the country in the wrong direction. With a passion I had not seen before, he boomed, “I’m running. It will be a tough race, but I’m not going to pull a [Lyndon] Johnson and bow out. It will be bloody right down to the last gong if Reagan runs.” Only a few weeks later, Governor Ronald Reagan announced that he intended to do just that.