WASHINGTON -- Former presidential aide John Ehrlichman writes in his forthcoming memoirs that Richard Nixon had trouble holding his liquor and that the former president once suggested psychiatric help for his national security advisor, Henry Kissinger, Newsweek magazine reported Sunday.
Newsweek, which said it had obtained a bound galley copy of Ehrlichman's memoirs, 'Witness to Power,' said the manuscript also told of Nixon's joking reference to his vice president, Spiro Agnew as his 'insurance policy.'
'No assassin in his right mind would kill me,' Ehrlichman reportedly quoted Nixon. 'They know that if they did they would end up with Agnew.'
Newsweek said Ehrlichman wrote of his agreement to help Nixon with his 1968 presidential campaign only after Nixon agreed to 'lay off the booze.'
Ehrlichman, the magazine said, was especially aghast over an incident at the 1964 GOP convention when a drunk Nixon became 'loudly celebratory and made 'clumsy passes' at a young woman.
Galley proofs of 'Witness to Power,' to be published by Simon and Schuster in February, have also been obtained by other news organizations.
The Washington Post, quoting from the manuscript, reported last week that Nixon, former Attorney General John Mitchell and Chief Justice Warren Burger discussed pending cases before the Supreme Court.
Also in the book, according to Newsweek, is an accounting of Nixon's impatience with Kissinger, his national security adviser.
'According to Ehrilichman, Kissinger became so obsessed with leaks and his public image that Nixon asked him to suggest psychiatric help to Kissinger. The suggestion was never made,' Newsweek said.
