Ex-Leatherneck Jack Brennan Talks
About Life with the Former President He Still Chooses to Serve
Posted on August 16, 1976 12:00PM
A Marine
combat veteran who won a Bronze Star and Purple Heart at Khe Sanh, Maj. John V.
(Jack) Brennan was appointed a military aide to President Nixon in 1969.
When Nixon
resigned two years ago this week, Colonel Brennan accompanied him to San Clemente.
Eventually Brennan quit the Marine Corps and now serves as chief of Nixon’s
small staff and as his golfing partner and confidant. In an exclusive interview,
Brennan discussed their relationship with photographer Harry Benson of PEOPLE.
Q. Do you blame Nixon for Watergate?
A. You have to define the crime. The break-in?
He didn’t know about that, or I wouldn’t be here. What he did was trust people.
The main thing that people say he did was cover up. Haven’t you done that? I’ve
done it with my troops. But still, he’s responsible.
Q. How do you
feel about Nixon personally?
A. I believe in
him. I know him, like him, respect him as a man. What other people say about
him—what he did to this guy and that guy—well, that’s them, not me. He has
never done anything to not make me trust him completely.
Q. Does your faith in him lift his spirits?
A. More often than not, he keeps mine up. If I
tell him a problem I have, he tries to help, and if he tells me something, I
say it’s not so bad, forget about it. I think the fact that he’s taken up golf
again has done a lot for him. He regularly shoots 85 and looks forward to our
games.
Q. Did you really
want this San Clemente job?
A. He asked me to
stay, and first I said no. But then he asked me again, and his friends urged
me. They said we’ll set up a business and you can be president of it. I said no
to them. They had taken the wrong approach. Money was not of particular
interest to me.
Q. Was it worth
giving up a promising military career?
A. Some people
say I was crazy to give up after 16 years, not counting reserve time. I could
have retired and gotten the pension. But security was not the significant
factor. I did it because in my mind it was the right thing to do. As long as I
remain healthy, can work, and my kids can go to college, that’s what’s
important to me.
Q. What do you do as chief of staff?
A. The job
encompasses all the aspects of his office and his life, from appointments to
mail to budgets. It includes liaison with the General Services Administration
and the people in Congress at budget time and on the frequent occasions when
they want something for investigations. It’s like being a White House chief of
staff on a much smaller level. There’s never a boring day.
Q. Does Washington keep Nixon informed?
A. We do get occasional briefings. They are
transmitted to a nearby military base. But courier planes used to go to former
Presidents, with a man and briefs. Johnson got one at the ranch every Friday.
And other Presidents were provided with communications equipment that we do not
have. It had to be different with us because of the vindictiveness following
the resignation. A double standard was in effect. They said they didn’t care
what other Presidents got, you don’t get it.
Q. What are your fondest memories of the
President’s term in office?
A. It was exciting to be the first Marine in the
People’s Republic of China. The Marines were the last ones out and I was the
first one back in. And it was very exciting for me as a Catholic to be introduced
to the Pope by the President.
Q. Did you meet Brezhnev too?
A. Yes, and somehow, he and I hit it off. He
told Mrs. Nixon that there was one word to describe me. It was a Spanish word,
and we finally came up with it—”machismo.”
Q. Did you ever see the human side of President
Nixon?
A. Yes. The evening of the Cambodian invasion
[in April 1970] we were having dinner with the family in the dining room of the
presidential yacht Sequoia. “You’re a Marine,” he asked me, “what do you think
of this decision?” I said that it was the right thing to do. I wished I were
there. He said, “I wish I were too.”
Q. Then what happened?
A. He said, “Let’s go all the way to Mount
Vernon.” Every boat that goes by Mount Vernon pays honor to Washington. We got
there and he brought the whole family out on the bow, and the band played the
national anthem. He was standing at attention, and obviously the Americans
fighting were on his mind. There were tears in his eyes. I was touched. No one
ever sees Nixon that way. He would never allow the people to see him that way.
Q. What do you know about the fraudulent tax
returns that got Nixon into so much trouble?
A. I was there when he signed his 1969 tax
forms. There were his tax advisers, and he shook hands with them and said,
“Well, you guys are all confident. I’ll sign the damn things.” As it turned
out, that was stupid. He should have read them. It wasn’t that he was naive
about it. He was just a busy man. He paid these guys a lot of money and thought
he could trust their advice—like he trusted his assistants.
Q. How will history judge Nixon?
A. History can’t possibly overlook his
accomplishments. I think some of the perspectives are already being set. Look
at some of the revelations of his predecessors’ activities: assassination
plots, use of the FBI while running for President, newsmen wiretapped. Given
the moral character of the Congress that was supposed to have judged Nixon, I
know there will be vindication. The question is, how much time will it take?
Q. What do you believe was Nixon’s greatest
achievement as President?
A. When I was a young officer, I was stationed in
Cuba [at the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay] during the Bay of Pigs. I
couldn’t wait to go over the fence and go all the way to Castro. But I’ve
changed now. After seeing young boys under my command killed and mutilated in
Vietnam, I don’t want to see more. I can thank Richard Nixon for this. My son
has just turned 18, and instead of going to Vietnam in the fall, he’s going to
college.
Q. What is the overseas view of Nixon as you read
it?
A. It’s 1,000 percent pro. The amount of mail we
get from foreign countries is incredible. Everyone I know who travels to a foreign
country comes back and says people are asking, where the hell is the crime?
Q. Do foreign diplomats share this view?
A. I know a foreign ambassador, and one night at
a Washington cocktail party this guy got up in front of a very liberal crowd
and gave a very moving speech. After going through every recent President and his
foreign policy, his conclusion was that “finally you Americans had a President
who understood the world and you dumb bastards sent him to San Clemente.”
Q. Do you agree with some Republicans that
Nixon’s last China trip upstaged President Ford during the New Hampshire
primary?
A. The Chinese made several overtures, beginning
a long, long time ago. The first was through a very distinguished visitor to
this country. It said something like: “Chairman Mao Tse-tung wants to invite
the greatest statesman the United States has ever had to visit China.” At that
time I had no idea when the goddamn New Hampshire primary was going to be.
Q. What do you think of Woodward and Bernstein’s
book The Final Days?
A. As a fictitious novel, it reads well. My
theory is that Woodward and Bernstein didn’t write the book. I know they did
the research. They tried to get to me. And I know they went to my friends. They
had a beautiful line about how they wanted to set the record straight and be
honest, and they conned some of my friends into talking to them. There were
even threats made such as, “Talk to me or you’ll look bad.”
Q. Are you saying there were factual mistakes in
the book?
A. I read the excerpts. A friend sent me a copy
of the book and said just look at the places where you are mentioned. There
were 95 places like that—when I was standing there with the President—and in 93
of them the book has either an outright lie or a mistake of fact. I think this
book really destroyed what Woodward and Bernstein did previously. I hope the
money they make compensates their consciences.
Q. Did the Nixon family read the book?
A. I’ve only argued with Mrs. Nixon twice, and
once was when she asked me to get her a copy of the book and I said no. She
said, “It’s about my family and I have a right to read it.” She finally got the
book through one of the secretaries. In my opinion, here’s a woman that should
be canonized right now. But in that book, she is portrayed as a woman who drank
and was cold to her husband.
Q. Was there any warning before she suffered her
stroke?
A. After Watergate she was in great health. She
believed in her husband. But on the day of her stroke her blood pressure was incredibly
high. I don’t know if this was the cause, but she had been reading the book.
Q. How is she now?
A. She has a nurse and she is undergoing therapy
at home. But she has no medical insurance. It lapsed when the President left
office.
Q. Were you at the hospital in 1974 when Nixon
went into shock during treatment for phlebitis?
A. Yes. I was standing by the door in his room
when suddenly I saw the nurse jump up. The President went white and his eyes
started to roll back in his head. A flock of doctors and nurses came running
into the room and Dr. Lungren, the President’s physician, started shouting,
“Dick! Dick! Dick! Do you hear me?”
Q. What did you do?
A. I asked the doctor what happened. He said,
“It’s just like a car. You pull into a service station and you need oil and gas
to keep it going. We just put it right.” I said, “Like hell. It’s more than
that.” I was shaken.
Q. How do you all relax at San Clemente?
A. Quite often the President has a cocktail
party for the staff, and he plays the piano while we all sing. His piano
playing isn’t very good. He only knows one note. I like to sing Danny Boy, but
it’s too sad for me to sing with the President.
 |
The Western White House San Clemente Ca
TRIBUTE
TO JACK BRENNAN-Mike Ebbing
Jack Brennan was such
a dear friend to so many of us, especially those in the Nixon Family and Nixon
White House. Hopefully, you all saw the many tributes to this great man, who
passed away on my wife's birthday (Oct. 20). Below is my tribute:
Jack has been, for
years now, one of the few remaining legacies who has kept the Richard Nixon
story on the front burner. For all of us who worked with him in the Nixon White
House, we share the deepest sympathy for his family.
Jack has been a friend
and colleague for over 50 years. We met in 1970 on my first trip to the Florida
White House in Key Biscayne. I worked the midnight shift at the switchboard
house located on the compound, just a few hundred feet from the President’s
house. The military aide, at that time Jack was a Major, also had his bedroom
in the switchboard house. Shortly after midnight, I went to the kitchen to get
a cup of coffee and was met by a dapper young man in his bath robe. Yes, it was
Major Jack Brennan. I wish I could remember our conversation from that early
morning rendezvous.
I had the good fortune
to meet with Jack earlier this year for breakfast at a restaurant near his home
in the desert. I could tell his health was rapidly failing, but he was always a
tough Marine. After an hour or so of reminiscing, Jack turned to me with his
million-dollar smile and said, “Mike, can you help me up from the table?”
Imagine that… a Marine Colonel asking an Army E5 for help? Knowing his sense of
humor, I thought he was joking. Then, his smile disappeared, and he said, “No,
Mike. I am serious. I have a cane and a walker, but I hate to use them. Once I
am up from a chair, I am OK.” I bear-hugged my long-time friend, got him
upright and we exited the restaurant for what was to be “Our Final Goodbye!”
His loyalty and
compassion for the President and his family has been often mentioned in these
tributes. After all these years, I never heard Jack refer to his boss as
“Nixon,” and he never called the First Lady “Pat.” It was always “The
President” and "Mrs. Nixon.”
Finally, he always had
the highest praise and mutual respect for White House Communications and the
job our agency did in providing worldwide communications support for the
President. RIP, my friend!
Another side note. At our first Nixon/Reagan
Reunion 6 years ago, Donald Cammel
arrived a day early, and we spent the day touring San Clemente and the
surrounding area. Did our best to talk our way into La Casa Pacifica with no
luck. I did contact Jack to give us an idea of some of the restaurants he and
Nixon frequented when Jack was Nixon's chief of staff following his
resignation. Jack was with Nixon at San Clemente during his post-Presidency
years. Jack gave us a couple of their favorite restaurants from back in the
day. Don and I spent most of the day touring the San Clemente Inn plus a couple
of those restaurants (lunch at the El Adobe in San Juan Capistrano) where you
could order Nixon's favorite entree. All the places we visited had extensive
displays of Nixon's time in San Clemente. Jack was so great. |
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