All the President's Men by Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein Read Free Book Online Page A

story about it and if you want to comment  . . .
    Dahlberg finally interrupted. “I don’t know what happened to it. I don’t have the vaguest idea about it. . . . I turn all my money over to the committee.”
    The Nixon re-election committee?
    “Yes.”
    Didn’t the FBI ask you how your check ended up in Barker’s bank account?
    “I’m a proper citizen, what I do is proper,” Dahlberg responded. His voice was tense. Then he seemed to relax for a moment and asked Woodward’s indulgence. “I’ve just been through a terrible ordeal,” he explained. “My dear friend and neighbor Virginia Piper was kidnaped and held for two days.” *
    Woodward asked again about the check.
    Dahlberg acknowledged that it was his, refused to discuss it and hung up. Minutes later, he called back. He said he had been hesitant to answer questions because he was not sure Woodward was really a Post reporter. He paused, seeming to invite questions.
    Whose money was the $25,000? Woodward asked.
    “Contributions I collected in my role as Midwest finance chairman.”
    Woodward was quiet. He was afraid he might be sounding too anxious.
    “I know I shouldn’t tell you this,” Dahlberg resumed.
    Tell me, Woodward thought. Tell me.
    “Okay. I’ll tell you. At a meeting in Washington of the [campaign] committee, I turned the check over either to the treasurer of the committee [Hugh W. Sloan, Jr.] or to Maurice Stans himself.”
    Woodward couldn’t wait to get off the line. Stans was Nixon’s chief fund-raiser and CRP’s finance chairman.
    It was 9:30 P.M ., just an hour from deadline for the second edition. Woodward began typing:
    A $25,000 cashier’s check, apparently earmarked for the campaign chest of President Nixon, was deposited in April in the bank account of Bernard L. Barker, one of the five men arrested in the break-in and alleged bugging attempt at Democratic National Committee headquarters here June 17.
    The last page of copy was passed to Sussman just at the deadline. Sussman set his pen and pipe down on his desk and turned to Woodward. “We’ve never had a story like this,” he said. “Just never.”

3
    Now, SIX WEEKS after Mitchell’s initial statement affirming CRP’s dedication to the traditional American electoral process, the committee’s protestations of non-involvement in Watergate were disintegrating. Woodward telephoned Clark MacGregor, Mitchell’s successor as manager of the Nixon campaign, and told him what the Post had learned.
    “I know nothing about it,” MacGregor said.
    “These events took place before I came aboard,” he continued. “Mitchell and Stans would presumably know about this.” He sounded disgusted, less with Woodward, it seemed, than with Mitchell and Stans.
    Earlier that evening, George McGovern had announced that his running mate, Senator Thomas F. Eagleton of Missouri, was withdrawing from the Democratic ticket, after his medical history had been made an issue in the campaign. * More than ever, Richard Nixon’s re-election seemed assured.
    •   •   •
    The next morning, Woodward talked again to Dahlberg.
    “Obviously, I’m caught in the middle of something. What it is Idon’t know,” Dahlberg said. He was now certain that he had given the $25,000 check to Maurice Stans personally, on April 11.
    Stans’ secretary told Woodward that there would be no immediate comment. She said Stans was “agonized over the confusing circumstances” which made it impossible for him to explain what had actually happened and thus reaffirm his own integrity.
    At the White House, Ron Ziegler said the President continued to have full confidence in Stans, and referred inquiries about the $25,000 to CRP. The committee’s statement, issued over Clark MacGregor’s name, said that further comment would not be “proper” because the matter was under investigation.
    Woodward telephoned Philip S. Hughes, director of the new Federal Elections Division of the General Accounting