The Week In Doonesbury That Wasn’t - May 7, 1973

What does a sheet of comics printing materials from 1973 tell us about American politics? A lot, if the sheet contains a week of daily Doonesbury comic strips from May 7, 1973. That week, cartoonist Gerry Trudeau tried to get his readers interested in the shadowy John Ehrlichman, an aide to Richard M. Nixon who seemed in the thick of the developing Watergate Hotel break-in crisis. Unfortunately for Trudeau, Ehrlichman resigned April 30, 1973, days before his topical strips were to run. Trudeau and his syndicate pulled the comics, which never ran in their original format. This little-covered footnote to history arose from my discovery of a sheet of “flong” or printing molds containing the strips. I recount that week that never was in this video.
This story will be told in full in my upcoming book, How Comics Were Made: A Visual History from the Drawing Board to the Printed Page which you can pre-order at howcomicswerem...
*Transcript*
It's April 30, 1973.
With the Watergate scandal at full boil and the first associated convictions secured weeks earlier, on this day, President Richard M. Nixon fires White House counsel John Dean, who is cooperating with prosecutors. That same day, White House aides John Ehrlichman and H.R. Haldeman resign, along with Attorney General Richard Kleindienst. Nixon goes on television that evening to disclaim knowledge of the break-in.
This caused significant problems - for Garry Trudeau.
Weeks earlier, Trudeau had sent his syndicate a week of Doonesbury comic strips dealing humorously with how little people knew about John Ehrlichman, at that time, the Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs, and trying to educate people about his role at the White House.
The strips that were to run the week of May 7, 1973, never appeared in their original format. The syndicate swapped in some later comics taking place during a Yale alumni reunion that would seem somewhat early in the year to those in the know.
Trudeau told me via email, "There were never, ever any strips held in reserve - I always made my deadlines at the last possible moment." "It was during the Watergate period that I first moved away from a six-week advance schedule."
The comics you're seeing right now are in "flong" or "mat" form, a kind of printing mold distributed by the syndicate to newspapers, which were cut up, cast in lead alloy, and assembled as part of a newspaper page. This sheet is labeled in pen "Hartford Courant" and someone at the paper must have had the political and historical foresight to grab the now worthless sheet, even though the syndicate might have sent out a request to destroy it. I purchased it on eBay in 2017, not fully realizing how unique it was until I tried to find the print versions of the strips.
A couple of newspapers didn't get the news in time, and the Monday installment of that week ran in several smaller papers around the country, though Tuesday and later days don't appear anywhere.
Trudeau's change didn't go unnoticed. Despite the perilous state Ehrlichman was in, he took the trouble to send a note to Trudeau, now housed with Trudeau's archives at the Yale University Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Ehrlichman collected original cartoon art, including strips that absolutely excoriated him. He had written twice to Trudeau, who doesn't recall if he sent the originals to the former White House official. But in a handwritten footnote on a letter dated May 18, 1973, nearly three weeks after his resignation and still using White House stationery, Ehrlichman wrote:
"I hear my resignation fouled up your following series. Sorry. Next time (!) let me know what you're planning and I'll try to cooperate."
Ehrlichman and others were convicted on several counts on January 1, 1975, and he served 18 months in prison. In 1977, he said, "I abdicated my moral judgments and turned them over to somebody else. And if I had any advice for my kids, it would be never -- to never, ever -- defer your moral judgments to anybody."
And Garry Trudeau says, "To avoid another Ehrlichman incident - and to enhance timeliness, I started cutting it closer and closer until the strip was finally distributed only one week in advance."

[@LordMondegrene]

I still recall Mark Slackmeyer's triumphant announcement, "... that's guilty, Guilty, GUILTY!!!"

[@GlennFleishmanTypeHistory]

A number of newspapers refused to run that strip and some canceled Doonesbury! He used to move mountains. www.nytimes.com/1973/05/31/archives/cartoon-is-rejected-for-guilty-comment.html

[@gdan58]

What I also remember is a series of Doonesbury strips a bit later featuring a then relatively unknown (to most of us) speechwriter for Nixon, Pat Buchanan, working on Nixon's resignation speech, before it happened. Trudeau is a national treasure.

[@stevereber3358]

If Erlichman's letter (on White House stationary) is dated May 18th, does this again re-enforce the premise that in the first week you should steal as many office supplies including stationary (for letters of reference etc...) because sometimes your departure is a big surprise.

[@GlennFleishmanTypeHistory]

😆 Well, I have been wondering whether after this resignation he was allowed to continue to work in the office for a period of time! I was unable to determine whether that was the case. I am trying to track down his comics collection, however.

[@KaiColloquoun-gt7kw]

I always found a stock of ex-employer stationery handy for providing post-employment references that I forgot to ask for.

[@michaelfoxbrass]

What an interesting story! Thanks for sharing it, sir.

[@pauldzim]

2:13 Wow! Broom-Hilda and Funky Winkerbean. I haven't seen those for a while.

[@GlennFleishmanTypeHistory]

Funky is now out of syndication, but has SORT OF migrated into Crankshaft. I had a great talk with the cartoonist, Tom Batiuk-Funky lasted nearly 50 years, but his strip partner wanted to retire, and so the two story lines have kind of coalesced at Crankshaft.

[@nickvandergraaf1053]

Terrific story. I only encountered those comics about five years later in various anthologies, which included both, but in proper order.

[@GlennFleishmanTypeHistory]

Yes, I didn't dig into that part, but it appears that of the five thematic ones (Saturday was often totally off base, like that week), one never ran, one was substantially reworked, and three were somewhat reworked. They don't make as much sense when they did appear because Ehrlichman had gone from a dubious figure in the White House to someone who was making regularly headlines as his convictions mounted and his case headed towards trial. But as Trudeau has mentioned a lot of times-he had no slack (just Slackmeyer), so he likely reworked them to not give himself another week of strips to write!

[@frenchfriar]

What a fascinating glimpse into a very odd moment of history, thank you!

[@photosurrealism]

Gosh, hearing that makes Ehrlichman (slightly) more likable!

[@GlennFleishmanTypeHistory]

Got to say, for all he did that was ethically and criminally wrong, he paid the price for it, almost immediately admitted admitted his moral fault, didn't attempt to fundraise off it, and went on to an entirely different career, and even wrote a biography taking Nixon to task. So very different from today’s alleged and convicted political wrongdoers!

[@pauldonnelly910]

Boy, I haven't seen mats like that in more than 50 years. (Which, if I'd have heard somebody say that at the time -- and I probably did about something -- I'd have judged them in my head. TBF, a half-century prior, Harding was President and Babe Ruth had a bellyache.) Along with many brothers and sisters, I delivered newspapers in those days. Every so often, particularly in bad weather they'd wrap the bundles in the mats, Thanks.

[@GlennFleishmanTypeHistory]

Thanks for these memories! I feel like mats were abandoned and forgotten despite their critical role in a way that most important obsolete technology has not been!

[@BELCAN57]

The "Hartford Courant" is the oldest continually published newspaper in the United States.

[@BTScriviner]

Back when there were still some Republicans with something resembling integrity.

[@adamolsen838]

I want to buy it but i live in danmark

[@GlennFleishmanTypeHistory]

The How Comic Were Made book ships to Denmark! See howcomicsweremade.ink/order