The Week In Doonesbury That Wasn’t – May 7, 1973
Channel: Glenn Fleishman
Date: 2024-03-16

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 is told in full in my book, How Comics Were Made: A Visual History from the Drawing Board to the Printed Page which you can order at https://howcomicsweremade.ink/order

**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."