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CHAPTER TWO

Women’s Appointments and the President’s Task Force on Women’s Rights and Responsibilities

Vera Glaser’s February 6, 1969, press conference question focused attention on the uncomfortable truth that only three of the first two hundred policy position appointments in the new Nixon administration had gone to women: Pat Hitt, assistant secretary for health, education, and welfare; Elizabeth Koontz, director of the Women’s Bureau in the Labor Department; and Rita Hauser, U.S. representative to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights and delegate to the General Assembly. Not that there hadn’t been pressure for more. The White House began receiving letters almost immediately after the inauguration urging more women appointees and action on women’s issues.1

Within the White House, there were staff members who saw potential advantages to supporting women’s rights. Tom Cole, an assistant to Dr. Arthur Burns, counselor to the president, suggested that “one of those matters we can pursue expeditiously and with minimum of cost is the proposal calling for equal rights for women.”2 This question of administration support for the ERA was to be a topic of continuous staff debate over the next four years. It would often be linked to calls for appointing more women to high-level positions and for a special assistant or office for women’s affairs in the White House.

Florence Dwyer, Republican U.S. representative for New Jersey, first broached these issues in a February 26, 1969, letter to the president. She urged concrete steps toward “the expansion of women’s opportunities and responsibilities, the protection of women’s equal rights, and the elimination of all forms of discrimination based on sex.” She suggested as alternative strategies either a presidential commission or the creation of an Office of Women’s Rights and Responsibilities and the appointment of a special assistant to the president to head it. The White House’s answers were polite but perfunctory.3

FIGURE 9

President Nixon greets Pat Hitt in January 1969 after her appointment as assistant secretary for community and field services in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. A Few Good Women Oral History Collection, Penn State University Archives.

FIGURE 10

Vera Glaser, reporter for the North American Newspaper Alliance and a member of the Task Force on Women’s Rights and Responsibilities in 1970. A Few Good Women Oral History Collection, Penn State University Archives.

Clearly, simple confidence on the part of advocates for women’s rights would not be enough to bring about change. Vera Glaser’s question set off a series of events that led to a dramatic transformation in the role of women in government service. Then a reporter for the North American Newspaper Alliance, she began to write a five-part series on the status of women in government entitled “The Female Revolt,” which appeared in mid-March 1969, eventually seeing print in more than forty newspapers. She had been pleasantly surprised by all the positive feedback she had received for her question after the news conference, but there was, indeed, one person who contacted her who would make a crucial difference in this effort.

FIGURE 11

Catherine East, of the Labor Department, was a key figure in the work of both the Kennedy Commission on the Status of Women and the Nixon Task Force on Women’s Rights and Responsibilities. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.

Catherine East, then chief of the Career Services Division of the U.S. Civil Service Commission, had been an advocate for women’s rights for many years. She had served as technical secretary for the Committee on Federal Employment of the President’s Commission on the Status of Women (1961–1963) and was also executive secretary of the Citizens’ Advisory Council on the Status of Women. She probably had more facts on women in government at her command than anyone else anywhere.

East sent Glaser a note the next day saying, “Congratulations on asking the President about appointments for women. All women owe you a debt.”4 Glaser recalled that Catherine East later called her, “saying that my question indicated I probably could use some statistics on the status of women. ‘Indeed, I can,’ I replied.”5 And thus began a very productive alliance.

East began to supply Glaser with information and even suggested questions that would be pertinent to ask administration officials. Glaser in the meantime was working all the angles she could. On March 27, she wrote Presidential Press Secretary Ron Ziegler, sending him her series of articles to place before the president. She told him, “I have no desire to become the permanent floating expert on women’s rights. There are too many other subjects I am expected to cover. But I do feel deeply on the subject, as do women throughout the country.” She also suggested that she had understated the “seething resentment” of women but that the president had a “magnificent opportunity [to] mend fences with women” and inspire the country.6

FIGURE 12

President Nixon and Virginia Knauer, special assistant to the president and director of the Office of Consumer Affairs. A Few Good Women Oral History Collection, Penn State University Archives.

In a Rose Garden announcement on April 9, the administration added to its number of women appointees by introducing Virginia Knauer as special assistant to the president for consumer affairs. As Knauer’s new Office of Consumer Affairs developed with a staff of 17, it was to coordinate over 900 programs in 413 agencies. Knauer had directed the nationally recognized Pennsylvania Bureau of Consumer Protection. The president noted at her swearing-in ceremony that “her appointment is based solely on merit and qualification for the job.… She had the experience, the background, and the dedication in this subject that we thought qualified her for the top position in the Federal Government on consumer affairs.”7 Future senator Elizabeth Hanford Dole and future U.S. representative Tillie Fowler were among the women Knauer mentored in her office.8 As consumer concerns widened, Knauer acquired more responsibilities, including membership on the Cost of Living Council and U.S. representative to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Consumer Affairs Subcommittee.

Still the administration moved very slowly for most women. Senator John Tower of Texas, who was known to be a supporter of the ERA, had directed a member of his staff to ask the White House about jobs for women. In response, presidential aide Charles B. Wilkinson reported, “I checked with Harry Fleming in the personnel office. He tells me that at the moment he has no jobs that could appropriately be reserved for women.”9 This response was an all-too common one; many male staffers did not think that women were qualified for senior positions, or the notion itself simply had not occurred to them.

FIGURE 13

Virginia Knauer was the only woman member of President Nixon’s Cost of Living Council, seen here in 1972. A Few Good Women Oral History Collection, Penn State University Archives.

FIGURE 14

Republican campaign button featuring Pat Nixon. Alice Marshall Women’s History Collection, Penn State Harrisburg Library.

In April, Vera Glaser sent copies of her series of articles to Bryce Harlow, a Nixon counselor and even sent to Pat Nixon a list of names of women lawyers and jurists who might be qualified to fill a Supreme Court vacancy. The First Lady had requested this when Glaser had talked with her at a White House reception in May.10

The day before, Mrs. Nixon was quoted in the Washington Post as saying, “I really feel women have equal rights if they want to exercise those rights. The women I know, who are really interested in going out, pitch in and do good. I don’t think there is any discrimination. I have not seen it. I know my husband doesn’t feel that way.”11 Staff responded to criticisms of the statement by saying the First Lady was misunderstood—obviously, she knew the long struggle for women’s rights still had further to go; it was time, now, to enforce existing laws and to adapt those laws and regulations to the new circumstances of today. As there was no infrastructure yet to enforce sex discrimination laws as there was for racial discrimination, the episode was read by many women’s rights advocates as another mixed message from an administration that they perceived, fairly or not, to be indifferent to women.

A week later, Glaser had another opportunity to test the Nixon administration. In a May 15 news briefing, presidential counselor Arthur Burns said in response to a Glaser question that he was sure there were women capable of making policy decisions, but “I’m not aware of any discrimination against the better half of mankind.… I’m speaking only for myself, and I may be blind.” Systemic discrimination would be “abhorrent,” he believed.12 She decided to challenge him on the fairness and equity of Nixon administration policies toward women. She wrote him a letter eight days later saying, “Dr. Burns, I am sure you must know your statement was not true because there are so few women in the administration. Women are being kept out of graduate schools for law and medicine, etc. Meanwhile, the Nixon administration pursues these policies.”13

Burns called and asked her to come back to see him so that they could resolve these differences. He said, “You are quite right that I have not given this problem any real attention.”14 She asked if she could bring Catherine East and he agreed. Tom Cole’s briefing memorandum for the meeting reminded Burns of both the president’s campaign endorsement of the ERA and Representative Dwyer’s February 26 letter advocating possible courses of presidential action on women’s concerns. Cole recommended that Burns consider a presidential directive to agencies urging that “more women be considered for employment, especially high-level jobs.”15

At their June 2 meeting, Glaser and East provided Burns with information on the inequities to women in government, business, and professional education and also on the potential political advantages to be gained by fair policies. Glaser thought that Burns seemed unconvinced, but he promised to look into it. The two women had pushed, in particular, for an idea first advanced by Representative Dwyer that the president should either name a White House adviser to focus on “making better use of the abilities of the nation’s women” or establish “an independent agency to strengthen women’s rights and opportunities.”16 Glaser’s notes report that Burns commented, “If we put a man in charge of this, he’d probably have to do it along with other things,” to which Glaser responded, “then it probably wouldn’t get done, needs someone full time, and should be a woman.”17

Burns was apparently more receptive than Glaser realized. The following day, he met with Peter Flanigan, assistant to the president, and Civil Service Commission chair Robert Hampton to discuss both placing more women in high-level government jobs and improving the effectiveness of the Civil Service’s Federal Women’s Program. Cole, in briefing Burns for this second meeting, also suggested that appointing a staff assistant or creating a small office for women’s rights and responsibilities could bring positive publicity to the administration as well as helping in efforts to recruit women.18

FIGURE 15

Peter M. Flanigan began working in the White House on staffing and gradually assumed a larger role as assistant to the president on economic, commercial, and financial areas. White House Photograph files, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum.

Although visible progress was hard to discern, the drumbeat continued. Throughout the summer, Catherine East continued to send analytical studies and pertinent news articles to Burns, and like others, she was suggesting names for consideration as the possible staff assistant. In June, Letitia Baldrige, a public relations executive and former chief of staff to Jacqueline Kennedy, wrote Peter Flanigan, saying, “I know you are always looking for good women for top government jobs (or at least, you should be looking),” and suggested tapping top advertising women. Flanigan responded, “You are quite right, we are on the lookout for qualified women for government posts.”19 The tone seemed to be changing, but results were still modest.

On July 8, Representative Dwyer and three other congresswomen succeeded in getting a meeting with President Nixon for almost an hour and a half. They presented him with an eight-page memo that outlined the problems in depth and delivered a number of recommendations, including, once again, appointment of both a Special Assistant to the President for Women’s Rights and Responsibilities and an independent, bipartisan commission to make recommendations for executive and legislative action. The memo began: “Our sole purpose is to suggest ways and means by which women’s rights as citizens and human beings may be better protected, discrimination against women be eliminated, and women’s ability to contribute to the economic, social and political life of the Nation be recognized. None of us are feminists. We do not ask for special privileges. We seek only equal opportunity.”20

FIGURE 16

The Citizens’ Advisory Council on the Status of Women, at its second meeting, November 11, 1969. White House Photograph files, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum.

At the next day’s cabinet meeting, President Nixon requested those present to place qualified women in high-level positions in the administration as a first step toward correcting the imbalance. Six weeks later, Glaser followed up on the president’s instructions with letters to all the cabinet secretaries, most of whom replied but reported little progress.21 Glaser would finally file the story in October. It began, “On July 10, Nixon gave the word to his cabinet—see that more women in your departments get a better break on jobs and promotions. That was three months ago and … the Cabinet’s done nothing.”22

In August, the president announced appointments of a chair and nineteen new members of the Citizens’ Advisory Council on the Status of Women, a body for which Catherine East served as executive secretary. A few days later, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, counselor to the president for urban affairs, created something of a stir with a memo that began with the prediction that “female equality will be a major cultural/political force of the 1970s.” He continued, “The essential fact is that we have educated women for equality in America, but have not really given it to them. Not at all. Inequality is so great that the dominant group either doesn’t notice it, or assumes the dominated group likes it that way.… I would suggest you take advantage of this. In your appointments (as you have begun to do), but perhaps especially in your pronouncements. This is a subject ripe for creative political leadership and initiative.”23

FIGURE 17

Dr. Daniel Patrick Moynihan was counselor to the president and assistant to the president for urban affairs from 1969 through December 1970. White House Photograph files, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum.

FIGURE 18

Melvin R. Laird was in his ninth term as a congressman from Wisconsin when President Nixon selected him to be secretary of defense, serving from 1969 to 1973. A Few Good Women Oral History Collection, Penn State University Archives.

Moynihan’s memo sparked controversy among the staff, but by late September, it had emerged from the domestic affairs arena and went to the president with a cover note from John Ehrlichman, then White House counsel and an adviser on domestic affairs. Ehrlichman’s note said that Bryce Harlow and Peter Flanigan, among others, agreed that “politically this is a golden opportunity and that we should, whenever possible, champion female equality.”24 An “OK,” presumably the president’s, was written next to this final paragraph.

Melvin Laird, then secretary of defense, recalled that Harlow, in particular, strongly backed appointing women. “He built a fire under everybody from Ehrlichman and [H. R.] Haldeman. He built a fire under Arthur Burns. He built a fire under those people so every time they saw Bryce coming, they tried to duck because he wanted more women in top positions. He attributed his call to action as coming directly from the President.”25

Meanwhile, Glaser had heard nothing from Arthur Burns in the several months since their June meeting when she was contacted by White House Special Assistant Charles Clapp, who worked for Burns. Clapp told her, “President Nixon is preparing his State of the Union message. He and Dr. Burns are setting up a lot of task forces on different subjects to get new ideas for the speech. They’re setting up a task force on women and would like to know if you are willing to serve on it.”26 With the permission of her editors, Glaser agreed to serve, and her appointment, along with the rest of the task force members, was announced on October 1, 1969.

Charles Clapp, a political science PhD from Berkeley, had been a longtime House and Senate staffer and a Brookings Institute Fellow. He had come to the White House at the invitation of Arthur Burns specifically to work on what eventually became seventeen presidential commissions in the domestic arena. According to Clapp, Burns “liked my background because of the Brookings association and also my association with business groups, really through Brookings.… He told me that he wanted task forces to be set up, each of which would have one government representative, a government liaison person. And then they would be composed only of outside people, not government people at all. And he thought that I could do that.”27

Clapp continued:

We had a list of task forces … [but] the task forces changed somewhat. I mean we were asked to develop some other things and I can’t even remember whether the list Burns gave me had women’s rights on it or whether it was one of the groups that were added. We were trying to run the gamut of all sorts of different things. I don’t think there was recognition at the time, certainly not in the White House, that this was so important an issue. I don’t know whether [Burns’s meeting with Glaser and East played a role in the decision to set up the task force]. I can’t honestly say. Burns never mentioned that to me.28

While Arthur Burns wanted a task force that was made up largely of private citizens, the appointment of a chair would be a critical step. Politics certainly played a role, but Clapp believed that ideology could not be the first consideration. He recalled that the names being suggested by other staff members were too conservative. “For the Chair of the Women’s Rights Task Force … Virginia Allan’s papers were there. I don’t know who submitted them really. Her credentials I thought were very good. I checked with a few people I knew. And I talked with her and I came to the conclusion that she would be a good member, a good chair.”

“So I went to Burns because the others were pushing hard on a particular person I didn’t think would be so good from an administration point of view.”29 Clapp continued:

I said to Burns, look, it’s very important if you’re going to set this up that you don’t make a mistake by your choice of chair. You could ruin everything. It’s not going to be accepted by groups in the country if you don’t have someone who’s respected, and Virginia Allan has the credentials because of her past presidency of the Business and Professional Women, her work with the drug stores and the college regents and so on. She had the qualifications and the personality and she would be the best one. And Burns went with me. But it was not an automatic thing.30

Virginia Allan was named to chair the task force in early September 1969. A Michigan native, educator, and businesswoman, her interest in women’s issues developed through her work as president of the National Federation of Business and Professional Women’s Clubs (BPW) in the mid-1960s. Allan recalled her preparation for the work of the task force:

The people in BPW, really we studied discrimination, we had our platform that would correct the situation and so we really had the backing of women across the country. Plus, I had met with many organizations and all of the organizations agreed on what should be done, so we had quite a number of women organized throughout the country.… I knew it couldn’t be done with just one organization. It had to be across the board. Also, at the same time, some of the newer organizations, we were educating them on what the discrimination was. They had felt it, but they hadn’t been in a movement that would do anything about it.31

She brought not only knowledge to the work of the task force but patience and leadership skills. Allan recalled, “Well, number one, I like people. I like to work with people. I recognize the ones with ability and try to draw them in.… You don’t come on aggressively. You get people like we had on the Task Force, we had people who were key to the Republican Party and those people made a difference, ran interference and [showed] that you understood the issues and educated people … not scaring or threatening people. If you in any way show you are belligerent or you don’t appreciate what they’ve done—it is just working with people and doing what you can accomplish.”32 This attitude would prove to be successful.

FIGURE 19

Virginia Allan, a Michigan native, was president of the National Federation of Business and Professional Women when she was selected to chair the President’s Task Force on Women’s Rights and Responsibilities in 1969. A Few Good Women Oral History Collection, Penn State University Archives.

However, at the same time, she acknowledged that this was a team effort and that Catherine East played a critical role. “She was the key to it.… Catherine was the one who had the knowledge. I mean, through BPW and so on, I knew what the problems were, but Catherine knew the people that should be working on this, brought in and recognized. We couldn’t have had what we did if it hadn’t been for Catherine. She was the center.”33

The selection of the members for the commission took several months. Clapp recalls:

We got suggestions from a lot of people, members of Burns’ staff went out to their own constituency, so to speak, for suggestions. Some Hill people were approached. It depended, of course, on the task force.… But they came from everywhere really. There were far more people suggested than we had places. And the selection was not always easy. My own position was more of a moderate than say Marty Anderson and Dick Burris and Tom Cole … on Burns’ staff. They were all pretty conservative people.… And they didn’t hesitate to make suggestions.…

Now, on the women’s task force, politics played an important role there with me, for example. My feeling was that women’s issues had been controlled almost completely by the Democrats; that the Republicans didn’t have anybody with the pedigree or the credentials to lead in these matters.… It certainly would give Republicans a larger voice in these issues and more exposure, and it would not be so much the sole province of the Democratic Party. So I did, I have to confess that at least several of these people were selected by me, rightly or wrongly, based on what I regarded as the importance for the Republican Party of having qualified women with a credential who could go out and speak on women’s issues.34

Clapp noted that almost all of the women selected for the task force were “committed to the development of the importance of women and the necessity of including women in public life.… I don’t know that these people were so intent on putting the Republican imprint on this as they were in the general philosophy of women needed more exposure, needed more opportunity, that sort of thing.”35 The importance of having a political balance was important to both Clapp and Allan. They worked together on selecting the members.

Allan saw value in having a variety of backgrounds represented. Ann Blackham and William Mercer were business executives, as was Allan. Evelyn Whitlow was a lawyer and Betty Athanasakos a judge, Dorothy Haener of the United Automobile Workers represented labor, and Evelyn Cunningham and Vera Glaser were journalists. Katherine Massenburg was chairing the Maryland Commission on the Status of Women; both she and Pat Hutar had been active with Republican women’s groups. Alan Simpson was president of Vassar College, and Sister Ida Gannon was president of Mundelein College, a Catholic women’s college in Chicago. Dee Boersma was a graduate student at Ohio State, particularly selected by Allan because she had wanted to bring in young people’s views.

Some were active in party politics; Clapp felt that the task force gave women like Pat Hutar, Ann Blackham, Kitty Massenburg, and Virginia Allan a chance to receive more public recognition. Evelyn Cunningham was also a good choice—she “was an assistant to Governor Rockefeller and Black and was very articulate and very useful because New York had accomplished a lot.”36 On the Democratic side, “Dorothy Haener represented the union and she was good. But she kept your feet to the fire, too.… [She] was concerned that Nixon might get more credit than he really deserved, something like that.”37

Of the male contingent on the task force, Simpson probably had the greater appreciation of the issues, but as Clapp recalled, “[the men] had to be led along a little.”38 However, William Mercer, AT&T’s vice president for personnel, found his service particularly valuable. Patricia Hutar, native Chicagoan active in Republican politics from her college days, recalls that Mercer “was acutely aware of it because women were raising their voices in companies and expressing themselves very vigorously.… He was already recognizing these needs.”39 Mercer was later responsible for adding more programs for women in telephone companies than had existed in the past.

FIGURE 20

Elizabeth Athanasakos, a Florida judge, served on the Task Force on Women’s Rights and Responsibilities as well as several other advisory and commission posts in the Nixon and Ford administrations. A Few Good Women Oral History Collection, Penn State University Archives.

Burns had told Allan that the task force should “appraise the effectiveness of present programs to enhance women’s rights, to suggest how such programs might be improved or better coordinated, and to determine what actions might be taken, in light of practical considerations and present budgetary constraints, in this important area.” While the work of the task force would look specifically at possible actions to take in 1970, they could determine their scope as they saw fit.40

The task force worked through a number of briefing papers and held hearings on a variety of topics. Allan recalled that she and East collaborated on setting the agendas. Pat Hutar described the meetings: “We’d ‘chew’ over these issues, and there were very, very frank discussions—vigorous pros and cons—we had lively members.”41

Rita Hauser, a New York lawyer and early Nixon appointee, who had helped to craft the task force’s direction and goals and then served as a consultant to it, recalled:

FIGURE 21

An international lawyer, Rita Hauser was a consultant to the Task Force on Women’s Rights and Responsibilities and later served as U.S. representative to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights (1969–1972). A Few Good Women Oral History Collection, Penn State University Archives.

We were women who were interested in professions and careers and taking our place. And obviously, there were very few women appointees; it was necessary to get more women. And then there was also a woman’s agenda in that at that time there were a lot of state commissions meeting to look at archaic laws. A married woman couldn’t get credit by herself. She couldn’t open loans or mortgages. In many states, everything she did had to be cosigned by her husband. There were all kinds of restrictions from 19th century law. So we felt this was something the commission ought to take a look at, what we called emancipating women.42

Pat Hutar added, “We’re talking about rights, but we’re also talking about the responsibilities that go along with that. We also said that whatever affected women and was unfavorable to men should be changed,”43 particularly relating to spousal benefits and pensions of working women.

Evelyn Cunningham, the journalist who was an assistant to Governor Rockefeller and head of the Women’s Unit in New York state government, recalled the tenor of the meetings: “We were all so different from each other. We came from different backgrounds. We had different goals. We had different experiences.… But all of that had no meaning when we relaxed and just talked and probed each other about what we were doing before we got there. The differences of opinion would emerge, of course. But they were honest differences of opinion. It was just not because somebody did not like somebody and wanted to take another side.”44

Most recall Allan exercising a calm but determined influence. Clapp noted: “She’s got a commitment and she moves toward it. And you know she is pleasant about it, but she is still moving. And it’s not easy for people to combat it, because she is so reasonable about it all but there she goes, you’ve got to keep watching.”45 Hutar concurred: “Virginia is a person of very gentle disposition, but very firm, and could move the agenda along. She’s also one of the fairest chairs I’ve ever seen in that all sides were heard.”46 Thanks to these traits, progress was made.

The task force reached nearly unanimous agreement on its recommendations and, after Vera Glaser did much of the organizing and editing of the justification language, forwarded them to the president on December 15, 1969. The report, with the eloquent title A Matter of Simple Justice, was released to the public the following June. The recommendations fell into five basic groups:

1. Create an Office of Women’s Rights and Responsibilities headed by a special assistant to the president;

2. Hold a White House conference on women’s rights and responsibilities in 1970, the fiftieth anniversary of the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment and the creation of the Women’s Bureau;

3. Send a broad legislative agenda to Congress for women, beginning with a ringing endorsement of the ERA, and for reforms in the areas of enforcement of civil rights; ending discrimination in education, public accommodations, Fair Labor Standards, and Social Security; provisions for child care; equal benefits for the families of working women; and support for state commissions on the status of women;

4. Through cabinet-level action, end discrimination by government contractors and in training and manpower programs; seek legal redress under the Civil Rights Act and the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments in cases of sex discrimination; collect all social and economic statistics by gender as well as race; establish an office to specifically focus on discrimination in education; support training programs for household employment; and

5. End sex discrimination in the executive branch by appointing more women to positions of top responsibility and ensure that women were treated equitably in all matters of hiring and promotion.47

President Nixon’s State of the Union Address, on January 22, 1970, focused on peace, the need for a balanced budget, and “quality of life” issues, such as economic growth without inflation, reducing crime, and healing environmental degradation. “New Federalism” at home and the “Nixon Doctrine” abroad were presented. Women were not mentioned explicitly. However, among urgent domestic priorities, he noted: “We must adopt reforms which will expand the range of opportunities for all Americans. We can fulfill the American dream only when each person has a fair chance to fulfill his own dreams. This means equal voting rights, equal employment opportunity, and new opportunities for expanded ownership. Because in order to be secure in their human rights, people need access to property rights.”48

Task force members and some advocates would read into those remarks with optimism that the concerns of women as expressed in the task force report were heard and would be addressed; many others were more skeptical. White House staffer Charles Clapp, who had worked with the task force throughout its deliberations, assessed the reaction thusly: “I think that within the White House there was opposition to some of the recommendations, because they didn’t want anything to happen, you know, the old Ehrlichman crowd, those people. They would come to me occasionally and say, what are these people going to do, where did you find them. So given the state of the art at the time and the situation in which they [the task force] found themselves, I think that they pursued the right path and were more effective because of it.”

According to Evelyn Cunningham, there was a unique quality to the task force: “Women’s groups during that era—the ones that were trying to get something done were noisy. This was a calmer, cooler kind of modus operandi. And I think the women involved were much respected. Not that other women weren’t, but the technique was different. It was something Republican about the technique, about the way it was done. And here again … Republican men do things very differently from Republican women.”49

This sense of the task force bringing something new to the “revolution” could be seen in Ted Lewis’s New York Daily News column in response to the publication of the report’s contents. “Thanks to the Nixon task force report, the view of mature women—the establishment type—is now obtainable and it basically agrees with what the aroused girls of the younger generation have been shouting and screaming about. What this task force has done has set a middle-of-the-road course for the equal rights movement.… For too long American males have underestimated the power of women en masse, even though they have never underestimated the power of woman, singularly. For the first time to our knowledge, the danger of such thinking has been pointed out bluntly by a blue-ribbon presidential task force.”50

Pat Hutar had another perspective: “The task force did [build a foundation], because it certainly motivated President Nixon.… But I think the fact that the President did, in his administration, enact some of these things, saw that they were put in place in the White House, made a difference. Because people could see that we were having some movement forward.… So I think when women began to see results, that made quite a bit of difference in raising morale.”51

In fact, virtually all of the legislative and cabinet-level recommendations were eventually enacted. Although a White House Office of Women’s Rights and Responsibilities was not created, a significant step forward was achieved. New York business executive Barbara Hackman Franklin was appointed staff assistant to the president in April of 1971. In many ways, she was the model of the very kind of person the administration was looking for.

In the fall of 1958, Barbara Ann Hackman left her home in Landisville, in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where she had graduated as class valedictorian from Hempfield High School, to attend Pennsylvania State University. Penn State’s main campus sits in almost the geographical center of the state, and like her home county, it is a productive farming area and has traditionally been moderately Republican in tone.

During her four years at Penn State, Hackman proved to be an outstanding student and a campus leader. Graduating with honors in political science, she was attracted to activities that developed leadership skills, like student government and women’s debate. She was president of her sorority as well as of Mortar Board, the highly selective senior women’s honorary society (which would begin admitting men in 1975).

During Barbara Hackman’s sophomore year, a new, young dean of women, Dorothy J. Lipp, arrived at Penn State. In one of her first interviews, she told the student newspaper, “We are forcing the present generation to grow up very fast. We must make them responsible and free people, not protect them. The day is passed when we have to protect, with a capital P, women students.” In 1962, Dean Lipp had the opportunity to choose a senior woman to nominate for a full scholarship to the Harvard Business School, whose doors had just opened to women. Recognizing her strength and potential, the dean chose Barbara Hackman.

FIGURE 22

Barbara Hackman, Penn State graduate, class of 1962, on her way to Harvard Business School. Barbara Hackman Franklin Papers, Penn State University Archives.

Although she wasn’t awarded the full scholarship, Hackman did receive a combination of a scholarship and loan that made attendance at Harvard possible for her. She headed for Boston and became a pioneer at Harvard, completing her MBA degree in 1964. There, she was one of twelve women in a class of 632, placing her among the first women to graduate from the Harvard Business School.52 Barbara Hackman Franklin—the surname she acquired after her marriage—went to work initially for Singer Company in New York City. Not only was she the first woman MBA Singer had ever hired; she became a member of the corporate planning staff, where she created their environmental analysis function, to watch trends and analyze competition worldwide.

After four years at Singer, Franklin was recruited to First National City Bank (now Citibank), for another position in corporate planning. As at Singer, she found that “there were some men who just didn’t take women seriously. [One] time when I knew I didn’t get as much of a salary increase as the guy who worked beside me, I raised that issue and was told, ‘You don’t need that salary increase. You’re doing fine for a girl, and, besides, you have a husband who works.’ There was that sort of thinking then at the bank.”53 It was not the first or last example of sex discrimination she would encounter, or the only one she ever questioned.

Franklin’s most significant accomplishment at City Bank was creating a government relations department. In 1970, the U.S. Congress passed legislation closing a loophole that had allowed banks to form holding companies, which could add services to the bank’s business without violating banking regulations. The banking industry was caught off guard. In a meeting of the planning group with CEO Walter Wriston, Franklin recalled that Wriston said, “Well, we don’t want this to ever happen again.” He then looked at her and said, “I want you to figure out how we don’t get surprised.” Her management study of the bank’s relationships with government at all levels led to the creation of the government relations department, which she headed. It also later led to the establishment of a Washington office for the bank to track legislation and do lobbying.54

In the meantime, Barbara Franklin had joined an informal women’s group. Charlotte Browne-Mayers was an executive at Standard Oil Company (now Exxon); they met and became close friends. In 1964 or 1965, they began having get-togethers with some of Barbara’s former business school classmates and other women who were working in the city. Franklin recalled: “ ‘The Group’ met once a month in someone’s apartment, we’d have some glasses of wine and talk about whatever was on our minds. Everyone was in a career, and we shared experiences. It was consciousness-raising and how to get over the obstacles of the workplace, even though we didn’t call it that.”55

At the same time, Franklin was also getting involved in Republican politics in New York City and would eventually be consulted about recruiting new people to work in the White House. Thus began an explicit effort to identify and recruit women for leadership and policy-making positions in the executive branch, an initiative no presidential administration in history had attempted before.