--- title: A Nixon Parallel in the Trump Op-Ed: Thwarting a President description: One moment from Nixon's time offers insight into what it might look like for staffers to manage a President's potential volatility canonical: https://time.com/5388648/watergate-nixon-anonymous-op-ed/ author: Olivia B. Waxman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-09-06T18:28:20.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T21:21:45.727Z article:section: History og:title: A Nixon Parallel in the Trump Op-Ed: Thwarting a President og:description: One moment from Nixon's time offers insight into what it might look like for staffers to manage a President's potential volatility og:url: https://time.com/5388648/watergate-nixon-anonymous-op-ed/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9ee5a713064b2e1f/69893996457a527efed5f4e1/nixon-schlesinger-oped.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2405 og:image:height: 1353 og:image:alt: nixon-schlesinger-oped og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: A Nixon Parallel in the Trump Op-Ed: Thwarting a President twitter:description: One moment from Nixon's time offers insight into what it might look like for staffers to manage a President's potential volatility twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9ee5a713064b2e1f/69893996457a527efed5f4e1/nixon-schlesinger-oped.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # An Anonymous Trump Official Claims Insiders Are 'Thwarting' Him. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription.  by [Olivia B. Waxman](https://time.com/author/olivia-b-waxman/)  ## Olivia B. Waxman Staff Writer Sep 6, 2018 6:28 PM UTC  Nixon flanked by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (left) and Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger at the White House on Aug. 6, 1974. Nixon flanked by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (left) and Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger at the White House on Aug. 6, 1974. Bettmann—Getty Images  by [Olivia B. Waxman](https://time.com/author/olivia-b-waxman/)  ## Olivia B. Waxman Staff Writer Sep 6, 2018 6:28 PM UTC After the New York _Times_ on Wednesday published an [op-ed](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/05/opinion/trump-white-house-anonymous-resistance.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage) from an anonymous official who claimed that a “resistance inside the Trump Administration” was “thwarting Mr. Trump’s more misguided impulses,” it didn’t take long for some [historians](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/06/anonymous-nyt-op-ed-echoes-darkest-days-of-nixon-years-historians.html) to see in it [yet another](http://time.com/5373723/watergate-john-dean-manafort-cohen/) reason to compare troubles in the Trump White House to the Watergate-era Nixon Administration. One particular moment from Nixon’s time offers insight into what it might look like for staffers to manage a President’s potential volatility: In the period before Nixon’s Aug. 9, 1974, resignation, Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger reportedly ordered certain presidential orders — especially those related to nuclear arms — to be cleared by himself personally or National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger. The story goes that Nixon had alarmed Schlesinger and advisors by [declaring](http://time.com/5098402/could-the-25th-amendment-be-trumps-downfall/): “I can go into my office and pick up the telephone, and in 25 minutes 70 million people will be dead.” As Craig Nelson [explains](https://books.google.com/books?id=vTcGAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA289&dq=%22keeping+a+berserk+President+from+plunging+us+into+a+holocaust.%E2%80%9D&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjMte2S-abdAhVDNd8KHeIRC7oQ6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&q=%22keeping%20a%20berserk%20President%20from%20plunging%20us%20into%20a%20holocaust.%E2%80%9D&f=false) in his history of the atomic age, Nixon embraced the so-called Madman Theory when it came to nuclear weapons. According to that theory, it helped U.S. foreign policy for Nixon to seem a bit crazy because it made potential enemies wary that he might actually use nuclear weapons. But California Senator Alan Cranston wasn’t comforted by that possible explanation. He is said to have flagged Schlesinger on the “the need for keeping a berserk President from plunging us into a holocaust,” as TIME [previously reported](http://time.com/5098402/could-the-25th-amendment-be-trumps-downfall/). Fears about what Nixon might do had arisen even earlier that year. In the spring of 1974, Joseph Laitin, who had worked in public affairs in the Johnson White House, approached Schlesinger and “broached some of his fears,” [paraphrased](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1983/08/the-pardon/305571/) by Seymour Hersh in 1983 as: “Was it possible for the President of the United States to authorize the use of nuclear weapons without his secretary of defense knowing it? What if Nixon, ordered by the Supreme Court to leave office, refused to leave and called for the military to surround the Washington area? Who was in charge then? Whose orders would be obeyed in a crisis?” Hersh reported that at one point Schlesinger said, “I had seen enough so that I was not going to run risks with the future of the United States.” A few weeks after Nixon’s resignation, the public began to get a look at the story of the White House being hyper-vigilant. An Aug. 25, 1974, [story](https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1974/08/25/issue.html) on the front page of the New York _Times_ was headlined “Pentagon Kept Tight Rein in Last Days of Nixon Rule: Schlesinger and the Joint Chiefs Acted to Insure White House Gave Military Units No Unauthorized Orders.” It described Schlesinger and the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman George S. Brown as keeping “unusually close control over lines of command.” A senior Pentagon official told the paper that “Schlesinger began to worry…Nixon or one of his aides might get in touch with some military units directly” and “order that some action be taken to block the ‘constitutional process.'” On the other hand, the paper reported that the official said that the concern was “hypothetical,” and the article also quoted Schlesinger as saying that he was careful not to do anything that would interfere with “the proper constitutional and legislated chain of command.” Whether these ideas led to any real change in White House procedure is hard to say, and not just because a nuclear war didn’t happen. As historian Stanley Kutler [points out](https://www.huffingtonpost.com/stanley-kutler/the-imaginings-of-james-r%5Fb%5F5066130.html), there are no “corroborating documents” that back up this story, nor have other public officials told the same sequence of events. Some journalists, however, argue that it would be too [risky](https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-most-patriotic-act-of-treason-in-american-history) for Schlesinger to put such orders into writing. Now it remains to be seen whether this anonymous Trump staffer feels the same way or whether any paper trail will surface. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5388648/watergate-nixon-anonymous-op-ed/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5388648/watergate-nixon-anonymous-op-ed/"},"headline":"An Anonymous Trump Official Claims Insiders Are 'Thwarting' Him. 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