A typed letter signed (with his familiar monogram) to Frank C.P. McGlinn, Fidelity Bank, Philadelphia, on White House letterhead, 3 March 1969. The letter, written during Nixon's presidency, is short but oh so sweet: 'Dear Frank | Rose Mary brought my attention to your | thoughtful note of January 24 and the enclosed | cartoon. It is always good to look at the light | side! | With appreciation and warmest personal regards'

Rose Mary [Woods] (1917-2005) was Nixon's private secretary from 1951 until the end of his political career in 1974, and she became a close family friend. She was fiercely loyal, and more - as the 'Washington Post' obituary put it, 'Miss Woods was Nixon's gatekeeper. Reporters said she controlled who could see her boss - and punished those she deemed critical'. The 'New York Times' (25 December 2005) takes up the baton: 'Woods's outsize allegiance burst the confines of the Oval Office when, after a career spent discreetly in the background, she achieved precisely 18 [and a half] minutes of hideous, disfiguring fame. For a woman with a reputation for probity, Woods's implausible explanation of the erasure of a portion of a key Watergate tape was like a public self-immolation ... Woods made the cover of "Time" in December 1973 not as a supremely competent woman behind the throne, let alone the first female chief of staff, but as the hapless executive secretary of a pathetic and criminal cover-up'.