Politics and the Post Office

On September 2, 1969, President Nixon held a short press conference at his San Clemente, California, home. The press conference was organized to push for a seemingly impossible task: postal reform. Standing to Nixon’s right, in a show of bipartisan support, was Lawrence O’Brien. Nixon and O’Brien did not agree on much. O’Brien was the consummate Democratic Party insider — he had run President Kennedy’s Senate and presidential campaigns; had served as a special assistant for congressional relations in both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations; had headed the Democratic National Committee in 1968; had overseen the Post Office Department as postmaster general under President Johnson; and had run Robert Kennedy’s ill-fated presidential campaign — and a natural adversary for Nixon.