In the Shadow of the White House: A Memoir of the Washington and Watergate Years, 1968-1978

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For her first forty years, Jo Haldemans life followed a conventional path. While her husband, Bob, built his career in advertising, Jo comfortably settled into her role as mother of four, housewife, and community volunteer.
In 1968, Jos world changed dramatically. Richard Nixon was elected President of the United States, and Bob was offered the job of a lifetimeWhite House Chief of Staff. As Jo and Bob discussed the opportunities and challenges that this move would entail, little did she anticipate the course that her life, and her relationship with Bob, would take over the next ten years.
In this insightful, poignant, and guileless memoir of those ten years, Jo shares her story as the wife of H. R. Haldeman, often referred to as the second most powerful person in the White House. She offers a window into the world of trips on Air Force One, weekends at Camp David, and events at the White House, as well as family vignettes and the growing stresses of her husbands demanding job.
Then a bungled burglary at the Watergate erupted into a national scandal. The news began to feature the Haldeman name. Blaring headlines and vicious political cartoons accompanied new revelations of a cover-up. Multiple investigations and Senate hearings followed. Criminal proceedings loomed.
Jos compelling account takes the reader on her journey from the heady heights of Washington life through an excruciating public resignation and trial to her husbands conviction and imprisonment. In a true period piece, Jo illuminates the story of the "woman behind the man" and personalizes the Watergate experience. Enhanced by her personal photographs and the immediacy of her present tense delivery, In the Shadow of the White House is a fascinating work of nonfiction that reads like a novel.

Reviews

"...he was the chief of staff, and from that position he wielded enormous power that flowed directly from his absolute control over both the people and the paper that reached the President's inner office." --The Washington Post, May 1, 1973 "...as White House chief of staff that Haldeman became known as 'Nixon's S.O.B.' and the 'Iron Chancellor.'" --Los Angeles Times About H. R. Haldeman's The Haldeman Diaries: "A fascinating portrait of the major events of this era, including the Cambodia bombings, the Kent State killings, the fall of Spiro Agnew, the Watergate scandal and new insights on Richard Nixon."

Author Bio

Jo Haldeman was married to H. R. "Bob" Haldeman--Richard Nixon's Chief of Staff--for forty-four years. She lives in Santa Barbara, California, and has four children and six grandchildren.