Glaser, reporter for the North American Newspaper Alliance and a member of the Task Force on Women’s Rights and Responsibilities in 1970. A Few Good Women Oral History Collection, Penn State University Archives.
Clearly, simple confidence on the part of advocates for women’s rights would not be enough to bring about change. Vera Glaser’s question set off a series of events that led to a dramatic transformation in the role of women in government service. Then a reporter for the North American Newspaper Alliance, she began to write a five-part series on the status of women in government entitled “The Female Revolt,” which appeared in mid-March 1969, eventually seeing print in more than forty newspapers. She had been pleasantly surprised by all the positive feedback she had received for her question after the news conference, but there was, indeed, one person who contacted her who would make a crucial difference in this effort.
FIGURE 11
Catherine East, of the Labor Department, was a key figure in the work of both the Kennedy Commission on the Status of Women and the Nixon Task Force on Women’s Rights and Responsibilities. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.
Catherine East, then chief of the Career Services Division of the U.S. Civil Service Commission, had been an advocate for women’s rights for many years. She had served as technical secretary for the Committee on Federal Employment of the President’s Commission on the Status of Women (1961–1963) and was also executive secretary of the Citizens’ Advisory Council on the Status of Women. She probably had more facts on women in government at her command than anyone else anywhere.
East sent Glaser a note the next day saying, “Congratulations on asking the President about appointments for women. All women owe you a debt.”4 Glaser recalled that Catherine East later called her, “saying that my question indicated I probably could use some statistics on the status of women. ‘Indeed, I can,’ I replied.”5 And thus began a very productive alliance.
East began to supply Glaser with information and even suggested questions that would be pertinent to ask administration officials. Glaser in the meantime was working all the angles she could. On March 27, she wrote Presidential Press Secretary Ron Ziegler, sending him her series of articles to place before the president. She told him, “I have no desire to become the permanent floating expert on women’s rights. There are too many other subjects I am expected to cover. But I do feel deeply on the subject, as do women throughout the country.” She also suggested that she had understated the “seething resentment” of women but that the president had a “magnificent opportunity [to] mend fences with women” and inspire the country.6
FIGURE 12
President Nixon and Virginia Knauer, special assistant to the president and director of the Office of Consumer Affairs. A Few Good Women Oral History Collection, Penn State University Archives.
In a Rose Garden announcement on April 9, the administration added to its number of women appointees by introducing Virginia Knauer as special assistant to the president for consumer affairs. As Knauer’s new Office of Consumer Affairs developed with a staff of 17, it was to coordinate over 900 programs in 413 agencies. Knauer had directed the nationally recognized Pennsylvania Bureau of Consumer Protection. The president noted at her swearing-in ceremony that “her appointment is based solely on merit and qualification for the job.… She had the experience, the background, and the dedication in this subject that we thought qualified her for the top position in the Federal Government on consumer affairs.”7 Future senator Elizabeth Hanford Dole and future U.S. representative Tillie Fowler were among the women Knauer mentored in her office.8 As consumer concerns widened, Knauer acquired more responsibilities, including membership on the Cost of Living Council and U.S. representative to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Consumer Affairs Subcommittee.
Still the administration moved very slowly for most women. Senator John Tower of Texas, who was known to be a supporter of the ERA, had directed a member of his staff to ask the White House about jobs for women. In response, presidential aide Charles B. Wilkinson reported, “I checked with Harry Fleming in the personnel office. He tells me that at the moment he has no jobs that could appropriately be reserved for women.”9 This response was an all-too common one; many male staffers did not think that women were qualified for senior positions, or the notion itself simply had not occurred to them.
FIGURE 13
Virginia Knauer was the only woman member of President Nixon’s Cost of Living Council, seen here in 1972. A Few Good Women Oral History Collection, Penn State University Archives.
FIGURE 14
Republican campaign button featuring Pat Nixon. Alice Marshall Women’s History Collection, Penn State Harrisburg Library.
In April, Vera Glaser sent copies of her series of articles to Bryce Harlow, a Nixon counselor and even sent to Pat Nixon a list of names of women lawyers and jurists who might be qualified to fill a Supreme Court vacancy. The First Lady had requested this when Glaser had talked with her at a White House reception in May.10
The day before, Mrs. Nixon was quoted in the Washington Post as saying, “I really feel women have equal rights if they want to exercise those rights. The women I know, who are really interested in going out, pitch in and do good. I don’t think there is any discrimination. I have not seen it. I know my husband doesn’t feel that way.”11 Staff responded to criticisms of the statement by saying the First Lady was misunderstood—obviously, she knew the long struggle for women’s rights still had further to go; it was time, now, to enforce existing laws and to adapt those laws and regulations to the new circumstances of today. As there was no infrastructure yet to enforce sex discrimination laws as there was for racial discrimination, the episode was read by many women’s rights advocates as another mixed message from an administration that they perceived, fairly or not, to be indifferent to women.
A week later, Glaser had another opportunity to test the Nixon administration. In a May 15 news briefing, presidential counselor Arthur Burns said in response to a Glaser question that he was sure there were women capable of making policy decisions, but “I’m not aware of any discrimination against the better half of mankind.… I’m speaking only for myself, and I may be blind.” Systemic discrimination would be “abhorrent,” he believed.12 She decided to challenge him on the fairness and equity of Nixon administration policies toward women. She wrote him a letter eight days later saying, “Dr. Burns, I am sure you must know your statement was not true because there are so few women in the administration. Women are being kept out of graduate schools for law and medicine, etc. Meanwhile, the Nixon administration pursues these policies.”13
Burns called and asked her to come back to see him so that they could resolve these differences. He said, “You are quite right that I have not given this problem any real attention.”14 She asked if she could bring Catherine East and he agreed. Tom Cole’s briefing memorandum for the meeting reminded Burns of both the president’s campaign endorsement of the ERA and Representative Dwyer’s February 26 letter advocating possible courses of presidential action on women’s concerns. Cole recommended that Burns consider a presidential directive to agencies urging that “more women be considered for employment, especially high-level jobs.”15
At their June 2 meeting, Glaser and East provided Burns with information on the inequities to women in government, business, and professional education and also on the potential political advantages to be gained by fair policies. Glaser thought that Burns seemed unconvinced, but he promised to look into it. The two women had pushed, in particular, for an idea first advanced by Representative Dwyer that the president should either name a White House adviser to focus on “making better use of the abilities of the nation’s women” or establish “an independent agency to