White House Director Of Communications During Watergate

Herbert G. Klein, 91, a San Diego newspaperman who was a longtime aide to Richard M. Nixon and was White House communications director during much of the Watergate era, died July 2 at his home in La Jolla, Calif., after a heart attack.

Mr. Klein, who later was the top editor at the San Diego-based Copley newspaper chain, began working for Nixon in 1948, when the future president was running for Congress in California. He was Nixon's press aide during the 1952 presidential campaign when Nixon was the vice presidential candidate on the Republican ticket with Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Mr. Klein, who joined the vice president's office in 1956, helped arrange the televised debates between Nixon and John F. Kennedy during the 1960 presidential campaign. The debates were viewed as a watershed moment in national politics, emphasizing the importance of the candidates' appearance on television. Nixon's five o'clock shadow and brooding countenance did him no favors when compared with Kennedy's tanned and youthful good looks.

Mr. Klein, whose career alternated between newspaper work and politics, came to Washington after Nixon was elected president in 1968.

"Truth will become the hallmark of the Nixon Administration," Mr. Klein announced.

He was the first director of communications at the White House, a job he created and held until 1973. The position emphasized public relations and other communications strategies, in contrast to the White House press secretary's daily give-and-take with reporters.

Known as "a decent, reasonable chap whose sole aberration was his fondness for Richard Nixon," as Boston Globe bureau chief Martin F. Nolan wrote in The Washington Post in 1980, Mr. Klein was intensely loyal to his fellow Californian. He later criticized Nixon's administration for its obsession with public relations, but he never turned his back on the president.

In 1969, Mr. Klein called local television stations to ask whether they would be airing editorial comments after Nixon's "Silent Majority" speech, in which the president claimed to have the support of the "silent majority" of Americans. The calls worried broadcasters, whose licenses are granted by the federal government.

That year, Mr. Klein persuaded the three major networks to broadcast Vice President Spiro T. Agnew's speech attacking the Eastern establishment news media. A few days later, Mr. Klein appeared on the news show "Face the Nation" supporting Agnew's premises and saying, "Any industry -- if you look at the problems you have today and you fail to continue to examine them, you do invite the government to come in."

He said he would not like to see that happen to the media, but his statement was taken as a threat.

Nixon became suspicious of Mr. Klein's loyalties after he balked at employing tougher tactics with the news media during Watergate. "He doesn't have his head screwed on right," Nixon told his aide H.R. Haldeman. "He's not our guy at all, is he?"

Haldeman then hired Jeb Stuart Magruder to go on a public relations offensive against the media.

Mr. Klein left the White House in 1973, a year after the Watergate burglary and a year before Nixon resigned. In his 1980 book, "Making It Perfectly Clear," Mr. Klein wrote: "The White House did not accept the concept of openness and gradually we drifted from an atmosphere of mutual working arrangements to an unproductive bully attitude toward the news media. The problem stemmed not from a lack of attention to the media but more from an obsession with it."

Herbert George Klein was born April 1, 1918, in Los Angeles. He graduated from the University of Southern California in 1940 and served in the Navy during World War II as a press officer in San Diego. After the war, he became a reporter and editor at California newspapers.

When he left the White House, he became a vice president for the Metromedia broadcasting group. In 1980, he was made vice president and editor-in-chief of Copley Newspapers, a job he held until his retirement in 2003.

He was a fellow with the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research and often wrote commentary articles for the Washington Times. In a December essay, he argued against "extreme partisan deadlock," noting that "in my term, I stressed factual information. Credibility built on facts, not propaganda, is vital to success in my opinion."

His wife of 66 years, Marjorie Galbraith Klein, died last year. Survivors include a daughter; a brother; three grandsons; and three great-grandsons.

Mr. Klein once wrote that Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward, who helped expose the Watergate scandal, told him they had shared an elevator at the Hay-Adams Hotel as Woodward went to meet a source. Woodward was petrified that Mr. Klein would recognize him, but he did not.