Read Online All the President's Men by Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein - Free Book Online
Authors: Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein
Ads: Link
effect—that money was transferred to and from Mexico.”
Moore immediately sought to make clear to Bernstein that the FBI agents were not interested in his own actions, but in those of the Texas committee’s chairman, Robert H. Allen, who was also president of the Gulf Resources and Chemical Co. of Houston. The agents had expressed particular interest in Allen’s relationship with a Mexico City lawyer, Manuel Ogarrio Daguerre, who represented Gulf Resources’ interests in Mexico.
The Mexican connection. What did it mean?
Moore, who said he had been as unnerved by the FBI’s visit as by Bernstein’s call, knew nothing of the reasons for moving the money across the border.
Bernstein began leaving messages for Robert Allen at his home and office. They were not answered. Finally, on the morning that Maurice Stans summoned the GAO’s auditor to Miami, Bernstein got up at 6:00 A.M.— 5:00 A.M . in Texas—and called Allen at his Houston home. Allen sleepily declined to discuss the matter, “because it’s before the grand jury.”
Using his primitive high-school Spanish, Bernstein intensified his telephone search for Ogarrio and for any information on the elusive Mexican lawyer. Gradually, the enterprise became the object of good-natured office ridicule. Bernstein was unable to construct anything other than disjointed school-book phrases in the present tense. Ken Ringle, a reporter on the Virginia staff who sat next to Bernstein, would shout, “Bernstein’s talking Spanish again,” and reporters and editors would walk over to offer appropriate commentary. The calls went to bankers, relatives of Ogarrio, his former law partners, his clients, Mexican banking commissioners, the police, law schools. Nada. The standing office joke had it that Bernstein heard the whole Watergate story and didn’t understand it.
Not surprisingly, the Nixon campaign’s Mexican connection was uncovered in English.
On August 24, Bernstein called Martin Dardis in Miami. The chiefinvestigator said he was coming up with pretty good information on the Mexican checks, really weird stuff that he didn’t want to talk about on the telephone. Dardis assured Bernstein that it would be worth his while to fly down to Miami again. Bernstein caught the first flight out of Washington Friday, August 25, and again spent most of the day with Ruby. Seething, he left to search again for the photo shop where the burglars from Miami supposedly had bought their film.
On the freeway, a billboard caught his eye. It pictured a handsome, thirtyish, blond man who looked like a model in a cigarette ad. “Vote for Neal Sonnett, State’s Attorney, Dade County,” it said. Bernstein’s anger at the chief investigator turned to rage.
A couple of weeks before, Dardis had called him for a favor. “It’s on a case we’re working, not related to Watergate,” he had told Bernstein. “You must have some friends at the Pentagon or somewhere in the military. If you could get somebody to look up the records for you . . .” Then he asked for any possible derogatory information—arrests, mental illness, history of homosexuality—in the file of a Neal Sonnett.
A Pentagon colonel had agreed to try to get Sonnett’s military information for Bernstein, and just before the Republican convention Bernstein had called Dardis to tell him so. Fortunately, Dardis had said he didn’t need it any more.
Bernstein called Dardis before six o’clock the next morning, August 26. Gerstein’s campaign schedule, he knew, began at 7:30. Dardis picked up the phone on the first ring. “God damn it, Carl, let’s get together later, I gotta run. It can wait a few hours.”
Bernstein mentioned what nice posters Neal Sonnett had all over town.
“I guess I shouldn’t have asked you to do that,” Dardis said sheepishly.
Bernstein asked him what he had learned about the Mexican checks.
“It’s called ‘laundering,’” Dardis began. “You set up a money chain that makes it
Moore immediately sought to make clear to Bernstein that the FBI agents were not interested in his own actions, but in those of the Texas committee’s chairman, Robert H. Allen, who was also president of the Gulf Resources and Chemical Co. of Houston. The agents had expressed particular interest in Allen’s relationship with a Mexico City lawyer, Manuel Ogarrio Daguerre, who represented Gulf Resources’ interests in Mexico.
The Mexican connection. What did it mean?
Moore, who said he had been as unnerved by the FBI’s visit as by Bernstein’s call, knew nothing of the reasons for moving the money across the border.
Bernstein began leaving messages for Robert Allen at his home and office. They were not answered. Finally, on the morning that Maurice Stans summoned the GAO’s auditor to Miami, Bernstein got up at 6:00 A.M.— 5:00 A.M . in Texas—and called Allen at his Houston home. Allen sleepily declined to discuss the matter, “because it’s before the grand jury.”
Using his primitive high-school Spanish, Bernstein intensified his telephone search for Ogarrio and for any information on the elusive Mexican lawyer. Gradually, the enterprise became the object of good-natured office ridicule. Bernstein was unable to construct anything other than disjointed school-book phrases in the present tense. Ken Ringle, a reporter on the Virginia staff who sat next to Bernstein, would shout, “Bernstein’s talking Spanish again,” and reporters and editors would walk over to offer appropriate commentary. The calls went to bankers, relatives of Ogarrio, his former law partners, his clients, Mexican banking commissioners, the police, law schools. Nada. The standing office joke had it that Bernstein heard the whole Watergate story and didn’t understand it.
Not surprisingly, the Nixon campaign’s Mexican connection was uncovered in English.
On August 24, Bernstein called Martin Dardis in Miami. The chiefinvestigator said he was coming up with pretty good information on the Mexican checks, really weird stuff that he didn’t want to talk about on the telephone. Dardis assured Bernstein that it would be worth his while to fly down to Miami again. Bernstein caught the first flight out of Washington Friday, August 25, and again spent most of the day with Ruby. Seething, he left to search again for the photo shop where the burglars from Miami supposedly had bought their film.
On the freeway, a billboard caught his eye. It pictured a handsome, thirtyish, blond man who looked like a model in a cigarette ad. “Vote for Neal Sonnett, State’s Attorney, Dade County,” it said. Bernstein’s anger at the chief investigator turned to rage.
A couple of weeks before, Dardis had called him for a favor. “It’s on a case we’re working, not related to Watergate,” he had told Bernstein. “You must have some friends at the Pentagon or somewhere in the military. If you could get somebody to look up the records for you . . .” Then he asked for any possible derogatory information—arrests, mental illness, history of homosexuality—in the file of a Neal Sonnett.
A Pentagon colonel had agreed to try to get Sonnett’s military information for Bernstein, and just before the Republican convention Bernstein had called Dardis to tell him so. Fortunately, Dardis had said he didn’t need it any more.
Bernstein called Dardis before six o’clock the next morning, August 26. Gerstein’s campaign schedule, he knew, began at 7:30. Dardis picked up the phone on the first ring. “God damn it, Carl, let’s get together later, I gotta run. It can wait a few hours.”
Bernstein mentioned what nice posters Neal Sonnett had all over town.
“I guess I shouldn’t have asked you to do that,” Dardis said sheepishly.
Bernstein asked him what he had learned about the Mexican checks.
“It’s called ‘laundering,’” Dardis began. “You set up a money chain that makes it
Similar Books
