THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025 37 1969 From Johnson to Nixon: Donald F. McHenry “Still a Period of Bipartisanship” In November, right after Nixon was elected, I was sitting in my little office and the phone rang, and it was William Rogers, whom [President Lyndon] Johnson had appointed in 1967 or so as the U.S. representative on the Special Commission on Southwest Africa, and I had been sent off to be his adviser. In any event, in November of 1968, the phone rang, and it was Rogers, saying that Nixon was going to appoint him Secretary of State. Rogers didn’t know that many people in the State Department, but he knew me and wanted me to work with him and Dick Pedersen, who later became the ambassador to Hungary, on the transition from Johnson to Nixon. And so I worked on the transition team. I was detailed to the Nixon transition team, … November, December, and January, 1968-1969. … It was still a period of … bipartisanship in foreign policy. Some of the people were brought back in, like [U. Alexis] Johnson—a career officer who was simply brought back in a higher position in the new administration. Dick Pedersen, who had been up at the United Nations, was brought in. Elliot Richardson, who was an eastern Republican stylistic figure, came down as under secretary of State, the number-two position. I don’t think that there was as much ideology in that transition as we saw, for example, from Carter to Reagan. I say that despite the fact that Nixon made any number of speeches in which he talked about the State Department and that he knew who the good guys were and the bad ones, and that he was going to clean up the place, and so forth. There wasn’t that much of that at the time. And, of course, Rogers was really a gentle and decent person, and Richardson was. What we saw, however, early on, was not the sharks taking over so much as the complete takeover of foreign policy by the White House, specifically by [Henry] Kissinger and the National Security Council staff. And we know that’s what Nixon wanted to do. … In the transition period, I saw it occurring. I saw those drafts of Nixon’s first [National Security Council]. ... And it was very clear to me that they were setting up a structure in which the Secretary of State was going to be frozen out. In fact, I told Secretary Rogers, and he expressed the view that it didn’t matter what the bureaucratic structure was, he was going to be Secretary of State, and when he wanted to get to the president, he would. Foreign Service Officer Donald F. McHenry worked with Secretary William P. Rogers on Southwest Africa, before Rogers was nominated as Secretary of State under incoming President Richard Nixon in 1969. This interview was conducted by Charles Stuart Kennedy in 1993. 1969 From Johnson to Nixon: Benjamin H. Read “Full Disclosure All Around” I was appointed … for the transition, so I saw quite a bit of [cooperation with the incoming Nixon administration]. I think it was done quite well. … It was one of the most civil transitions between parties that had occurred, unlike 1980. There was very full disclosure, offerings of briefings. [Incoming Secretary of State] Bill Rogers and [outgoing Secretary] Dean Rusk met repeatedly. Unlike Secretary [James] Baker and Secretary [George] Shultz. We gave them an office right on the seventh floor, yards away from the Secretary’s office where Bill Leonhart and the under secretary of the Eisenhower period, the famous diplomat Bob Murphy, were putting together the personnel for State. Henry Kissinger had run a Vietnam peace initiative for LBJ, and I knew Henry quite well. I went up to the Hotel Pierre to see him a few times, and I don’t think it could have been handled much more gracefully than it was, although I’m sure there were glitches at different levels. I didn’t see Nixon during this period. I saw some of his staff who became notorious during that time. The State Department’s whole transition team was very effective and had entrée anywhere they wanted. They got just as full briefings as they desired. There had been briefings during the campaign of Nixon or his designees. The transition was pretty well done, I think. Benjamin H. Read was under secretary for management in the late 1970s and worked in the Executive Secretariat during the transition from President Lyndon Johnson to President Richard Nixon. This interview was conducted by Charles Stuart Kennedy in 1990.
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