Ehrlichman was Nixon’s advance man. He was intimidatingly tall, six foot two, with black eyebrows and receding hair. “Dick loved your letter,” he said.

They met at a fragrant coffee shop on Telegraph Avenue and sat outside under a tree in new leaf, watching students go by on bicycles in the sunshine. “A nice place to study,” Ehrlichman said. “I went to UCLA.”

He asked Cam a lot of questions. He was intrigued by Cam’s Democratic forebears. “My grandmother was editor of a newspaper called the Buffalo Anarchist,” Cam admitted.

“It’s a sign of how America is becoming more conservative,” Ehrlichman said.

Cam was relieved to learn that his family would not be an obstruction to a career in the Republican Party.

“Dick won’t speak on the Berkeley campus,” Ehrlichman said. “It’s too risky.”

Cam was disappointed. He thought Ehrlichman was wrong: the event could be a big success.

He was about to argue when Ehrlichman said: “But he wants you to start a group called Berkeley Students for Nixon. It will show that not all young people are fooled by Gene McCarthy or in love with Bobby Kennedy.”

Cam was flattered to be taken so seriously by a presidential campaigner, and he quickly agreed to do what Ehrlichman asked.

His closest friend on campus was Jamie Mulgrove, who like Cam was majoring in Russian and a member of the Young Republicans. They announced the formation of the group, and got some publicity in The Daily Californian, the student newspaper, but only ten people joined.

Cam and Jamie organized a lunchtime meeting to attract members. With Ehrlichman’s help, Cam got three prominent California Republicans to speak. He booked a hall that would hold two hundred fifty.

He sent out a press release and this time got a wider response from local newspapers and radio stations intrigued by the counterintuitive idea of Berkeley students supporting Nixon. Several ran stories about the meeting and promised to send reporters.

Sharon McIsaac from the San Francisco Examiner called Cam. “How many members do you have so far?” she asked.

Cam took an instinctive dislike to her pushy tone. “I can’t tell you that,” he said. “It’s like a military secret. Before a battle, you don’t let the enemy know how many guns you’ve got.”

“Not many, then,” she said sarcastically.

The meeting was shaping up to be a minor media event.

Unfortunately, they could not sell the tickets.

They could have given them away, but that was risky: it could attract left-wing students who would heckle.

Cam still believed that thousands of students were conservative, but he realized they were unwilling to admit it in today’s atmosphere. That was cowardly, but politics did not matter much to most people, he knew.

But what was he going to do?

The day before the meeting he had more than two hundred tickets left—and Ehrlichman called. “Just checking, Cam,” he said. “How’s it shaping up?”

“It’s going to be terrific, John,” Cam lied.

“Any press interest?”

“Some. I’m expecting a few reporters.”