Wanted bad bruins

  The Associated Press UCLA graduates H.R.
“Bob” Haldeman (left) and John
Ehrlichman, both members of Richard Nixon’s White
House staff, were convicted of obstruction of justice in connection
with the Watergate scandal.

By Mason Stockstill
Daily Bruin Senior Staff UCLA’s been around for more than 80
years now, and it seems safe to say that there are thousands of
Bruin alumni roaming the globe. And, as we all know, plenty of them
go on to achieve great things in their post-UCLA careers. Athletes
like Florence Griffith-Joyner, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Jackie
Robinson; statesmen like Ralph Bunche and Tom Bradley ““ the
list of high-achieving Bruins goes on and on. But what of those
fellow Bruins who are remembered for contributions to society that
rank, well, a little lower than sports championships or Nobel
Prizes? What about the fugitives, the criminals, the disgraced
politicians? Well, plenty of them went here too.

The Nixon connection The biggest and baddest of
our notorious alumni are actually a pair of men who attended class
here in the 1940s, later becoming members of President Richard
Nixon’s staff ““ and later still, serving time for
obstruction of justice. UCLA was a different place back when John
Ehrlichman and H.R. “Bob” Haldeman were students. The
fear of Communism was as rampant here as it was throughout the rest
of the country, and the two did their best to try and stop its
spread. As members of the Interfraternity Council, which then
controlled the student government, Ehrlichman and Haldeman
patrolled the campus’s institutions to make sure the seeds of
liberalism weren’t taking root anywhere. And one of their
targets was the Daily Bruin. “John and Bob tried to take over
The Bruin through the Interfraternity Council,” said Frank
Manckiewicz, a former editor of The Bruin, in 1973. Haldeman, who
in 1970 was picked by the UCLA Alumni Association as the alumni of
the year, felt that The Bruin was part of a liberal conspiracy to
ruin his reputation, according to novelist and former Bruin editor
Clancy Sigal. When authorities held Haldeman, a pledge master at
Beta Theta Pi, responsible for the killing of a dog during a hazing
ritual, The Bruin’s coverage infuriated him. Haldeman and
Ehrlichman both felt that The Bruin was a hotbed of communist
activity (and they weren’t alone; in 1950 the Saturday
Evening Post declared that The Bruin “carries party
propaganda just as faithfully as if it were loaded” with
Communist party members). The two felt the only way to solve all of
the paper’s perceived problems was for the university’s
administration to have a stronger hand in choosing The
Bruin’s editors. “When I was at UCLA, I was fascinated
by the Communist-front organizations, what they were trying to
do,” Haldeman, who died in 1993, would say later in a Los
Angeles Times interview. After their years in UCLA’s student
power structure (Haldeman handled Ehrlichman’s wife’s
campaign for student government), the two men met again in the
Nixon white house. “Every president needs an S.O.B., and
I’m Nixon’s,” Haldeman, the president’s
chief of staff, told the United Press International. Though things
were looking up for the two, the good times wouldn’t last.
Both resigned their posts in April 1973; both served time in a
federal penitentiary for obstruction of justice in connection with
the Watergate scandal that eventually forced Nixon to resign. Of
course, Ehrlichman and Haldeman aren’t the only Bruins to
experience great success followed by great disappointment in the
political realm. Take, for instance, former state Senator Alan
Robbins. After earning his bachelor’s degree from UCLA in
1963, Robbins became a popular state legislator from Van Nuys. His
achievements included co-authoring a law requiring motorists to
carry proof of insurance. But after 18 years of public service,
Robbins in 1991 pleaded guilty to charges that he extorted money
from lobbyists and former business partners while he was in office.
He later testified against fellow legislators and revealed that he
had tape-recorded several conversations with a lobbyist who offered
him a $250,000 bribe to vote for certain legislation. He served 20
months at the Lompoc federal work camp. Robbins’ travails
didn’t end there, though. Three month ago, Assemblyman Lou
Papan (D-Millbrae) put forward a bill that would remove the former
senator’s name from all previously enacted legislation that
still bears his name. The Robbins Rape Evidence Law of 1974, for
example, and the Areias-Robbins Credit Card Full Disclosure Act
would remain in effect, but without his name.

Football embarrassments When 14 current and
former UCLA football players pleaded no contest to charges of
fraudulently obtaining and using a disabled parking placard last
summer, many people thought the team’s image had been
permanently damaged. These days, though, more attention seems to be
focused on former UCLA quarterback Cade McNown, whose penchant for
Playboy bunnies (including one deemed off-limits by Hugh Hefner
himself) has earned the former Bruin star some notoriety of his
own. Of course, former Los Angeles Ram and UCLA defensive back
Darryl Henley has also done his part to earn infamy for the team.
Henley played for the Bruins in the late ’80s on the same
team as Troy Aikman, winning the Cotton Bowl in 1987. He was picked
by the Rams in the second round of the NFL draft and had a great
rookie season, leading the Rams in interceptions and playing in the
NFC title game. In 1993, though, Henley’s upward momentum was
sharply halted. A former Rams cheerleader was arrested with 12
kilos of cocaine in her trunk, which eventually led to
Henley’s arrest. He was convicted of drug trafficking charges
that carried a minimum of 10 years in prison. But that’s only
the beginning. While in jail awaiting his sentence, Henley
attempted to hire a hit man to murder the cheerleader who testified
against him and the judge who presided over his case.
Henley’s sentences for all of these crimes leave him no
opportunity for parole. With good behavior factored in, he’ll
remain in Marion Correctional Facility until at least 2031.

Wrongly accused Bruins? Another recently jailed
Bruin is Steven Colbern, who was arrested in 1995 in Arizona on
federal weapons charges. Colbern’s arrest would have passed
under the national radar were it not for rumors from federal
investigators that Colbern was involved with the Oklahoma City
bombing earlier that year. Colbern was dropped as a suspect after
he was questioned extensively by authorities involved in the case
in 1995. “I thought it was unfair that my parents were
harassed and that the media assumed I was guilty of being involved
in that bombing with no proof,” he told the Los Angeles Times
in 1997. Colbern, who studied biochemistry at UCLA in the
’80s, served time in the Federal Correctional Institute in
Lompoc for possession of outlawed weapons, but was released before
the end of his 27-month sentence for good behavior and time already
served. His past continued to haunt UCLA, though. In May 1998, FBI
and San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies raided the
Triangle fraternity house on Landfair Avenue, where Colbern was
once a member, searching for bomb-making materials they believed he
may have stashed in the house. The investigators didn’t find
what they were looking for, but they didn’t leave
empty-handed: their bomb-sniffing dogs found a bag of fireworks.
Another Bruin who faced unfair charges is Iva Ikuro Toguri, better
known during WWII as “Tokyo Rose.” Toguri, who
graduated from UCLA in 1941, had moved to Japan to care for her
sick aunt. When the war broke out, the Japanese government made
Toguri an object of constant harassment because of her U.S.
citizenship. Eventually, Toguri was forced to work on the
government’s English-language radio program that was
broadcast to the U.S. soldiers in the Pacific in an attempt to
destroy their morale. “Just remember, fellas, while
you’re sweating it out on the islands, your sweet little
patootie back home is having a hot time with some friendly defense
worker,” she said in one broadcast, speaking under the name
“Tokyo Rose.” After the war, the U.S. government
imprisoned Toguri on charges of treason. But the soldiers who had
listened to her broadcasts with amusement took a different slant on
her activities. “She tried to tear our hearts out, but only
cheered us with swell jive music,” said one Marine Corps
lieutenant in the official corps publication The Chevron.
“She was the best morale builder we had.” Toguri served
10 years in prison and was stripped of her American citizenship.
The $10,000 fine imposed on her was paid off in full by her
father’s estate when he died in 1972. Then, in the early
’70s, a campaign grew around her, as activists alleged that
her conviction was based on racism and incomplete evidence. Two
witnesses later said they had been coached by the prosecutor and
testified under duress. In 1977, President Gerald Ford granted
Toguri a full pardon and an official apology.

It’s all relative Of course, notoriety is
a relative thing. Bruin grads who are heroes to some are villains
to others. Take Jim Morrison, for example. The lead singer of the
Doors remains popular today, though in its time, his music inspired
hundreds of frightened parents to throw out their children’s
record collections. And author Mike Davis? His books on Los Angeles
have been praised as insightful and brilliant by some while trashed
for their factual inaccuracies by others. And while it may seem
impossible for any of the basketball starts of the John Wooden
years to tarnish their image at UCLA, perhaps the award for Most
Notorious Bruin should go to one of their number: Henry Bibby, who
now coaches basketball at USC.