Sherman and Mr. Peabody's wonderful cartoon time machine - which transports the boy and his dog to significant historical events and casts them in the starring roles - is no longer just a fantasy for people who'd like an insider's perspective into the intricacies of Washington. Sony Electronic Publishing is giving them the opportunity to sit at the desk of the White House chief of staff during one of the most fascinating periods in US history - the Nixon years.
The Haldeman Diaries: Inside the Nixon White House is a CD-ROM that contains a wealth of material cleverly presented in the form of the late H.R. Haldeman's desktop. (He died in November 1993.) You see his personal diary (all 2,200 pages), appointment book, video camera, files, and photo album.
The idea for the CD-ROM came from Haldeman himself, according to Jeffrey Fox at Sony. From Haldeman's first day in the White House, he began filming people and events with his own 8 mm camera (45 minutes from the 27 hours of footage Haldeman shot are included on the disc). He also took hundreds of photographs - and kept extensive records of his daily activities in a diary.
Additional material includes biographies of more than 100 major figures, 2,000 pages of documents from the period, and a 120-page letter that Haldeman wrote from prison to prosecuting attorney James Neal, professing his innocence in the Watergate break-in and coverup.
The hot buttons and hyperlinks in the text of the diary allow you to call up one of 700 corresponding photos, or a video clip, on a wide variety of subjects - ranging from the meetings with foreign dignitaries to never- before-seen footage of Nixon dancing (at daughter Tricia's wedding).
The US$69.95 CD-ROM (available for DOS - the Mac version is coming later this year) was released to coincide with the publication of excerpts of Haldeman's diary by Putnam. Sony Electronic Publishing: +1 (212) 702 6273.
ELECTRIC WORD
The Watergate Way-Back Machine
