Memo to Bush White House staff

Last month, I watched you on television as you raised your right hands and took the oath of office as members of the White House staff. I was moved to write this letter explaining how integrity is key to your safety and success.

Some ideas about integrity have recently jelled for me that I wish I had understood better 32 years ago when I raised my right hand, took my oath, and set sail on Richard Nixon's ship of state as a member of his crew.

This idea of integrity is incorporated in the commissions appointing you to your positions. You will soon receive yours, beautifully framed, from the White House framing shop. Read them carefully. Most commissions state this: "Reposing special trust in the integrity … of [your name]," the president appoints you to your position. "Special trust in [your] integrity" is the fundamental idea.

I joined Mr. Nixon's staff as a junior lawyer in the White House Counsel's office. My first assignment was to advise nominees to the White House staff on ethical standards and conflict-of-interest laws. For the overwhelming part, Nixon's staff adhered to these standards and served the country honorably. But midway through Nixon's first term, some of us displayed a horrendous breakdown in integrity that contributed to the eventual sinking of his ship.

My participation in this integrity breakdown happened in response to the release to The New York Times of the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret history of the Vietnam War, by one of its authors, Daniel Ellsberg. In the tense atmosphere of the White House, where we were daily preoccupied with the Vietnam War, growing dissent to the government's policies, and nuclear- arms talks with the Soviet Union, this release hit the staff like a bomb and suggested an act of treason. In response to what the president called an extremely grave situation, he set up a special White House unit to investigate the release. White House counsel John Ehrlichman appointed me co-director.

The investigations unit, called the "plumbers," planned and executed a break-in into the office of Lewis Fielding, Dr. Ellsberg's psychiatrist. We were looking for any information in Dr. Fielding's files that could be used to discredit Ellsberg - in particular, anything that would show an intelligence link between him and the USSR.

Somehow, at that time, we were able to convince ourselves that national security justified what we did. Nothing was found during the break-in.

I now know that my direction of the break-in represented a massive breakdown in integrity. In particular, this decision failed the two tests of what integrity requires, affirmative answers to these questions:

Is it whole and complete?

Is it right?

Is it whole and complete?

The first question relates to whether what you are designing can fully accomplish its purpose. We speak of a ship having watertight integrity or even integrity in a work of art. In each case, the idea of wholeness suggests nothing essential is left out.

As you prepare policy options, ask yourself these questions: "Have I thought this through?" "Have I left out any critical items in my analysis?" "Have I considered the second-, third-, and fourth-order consequences of my recommendations?" (This was one of the questions Pat Moynihan kept pressing young staffers to ask when he served on Nixon's staff.) "Will my advice help the president make a sound, balanced judgment on this issue?"

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