Doctor Zhivago Inspires Nixon

Amid the high tide of university-building takeovers, an administration group took in Doctor Zhivago. Haldeman recorded it in his diary: “Left for Camp David yesterday afternoon. P invited Mitchells to dinner at Aspen and the rest of us for movie later. Strange to sit in room with leader of free world and Commander in Chief of Armed Forces and watch the pictures of the Russian revolution, Army overthrow, etc. We all had the same thought.” Justice Department officials were sent out to deliver barnstorming speeches commemorating Law Day on May 1. Richard Kleindienst imagined a time when “concentration camps” might be necessary for America’s “ideological criminals.” William Rehnquist, speaking to a Newark Kiwanis Club, called them the “new barbarians.” Haldeman dispatched Justice Department flacks – young die-hard GOP lawyers like Billy Rehnquist to lecture about fighting off the hippies.