All The President’s Men
A group of President Nixon’s closest advisors met Thursday night under the shadow of the Capital, but despite the way it sounds, the goings-on would no longer interest Woodward and Bernstein.
The February Group — a secret society of sorts made of top members of the Nixon administration — met for a cocktail reception in a conference room at Hall of the States for the first time in seven years. What started as a small luncheon in February of 1975 of about a dozen men has grown to include members of the Ford administration and now totals over 100 men and their wives, as was the case Thursday evening.
Original member Steve Bull, Special Assistant to Nixon, said “the group was formed as a way for people that worked together and were friends to stick together.” No doubt the turbulent fall of Nixon played a part in creating a unique bond between the former co-workers.
So was there any talk about the current state of the Republican party, the affiliation “almost entirely everyone” in the group claims? Bull swears the event was “no more than a social gathering” but joked “we’re in Washington, D.C., so of course we talked some politics.”
Bull added that Thursday’s reunion also served to honor the group’s founder, former Nixon advance man, Dewey Clower. When Clower retired from his job at the National Association of Truck Stop Operators in 2002, “the group went into dormancy, so [Thursday] was the first time in years since many of us had seen each other,” Bull said.
Also on hand to honor February’s founder were: President Nixon’s brother, Ed Nixon; former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who was a member of Nixon’s cabinet; Nixon speechwriter Ray Price; Under Secretary of the Interior John Whitaker; and Deputy Assistant to the President Dwight Chapin.
