Read Online All the President's Men by Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein
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impossible to trace the source. The Mafia does it all the time. So does Nixon, or at least that’s what this guy who’s the lawyer for Robert Allen says. This guy says Stans set up the whole thing. It was Stans’ idea. He says they were doing it elsewhere too, that Stans didn’t want any way they could trace where the money was coming from.”
Dardis said he had learned the whole story from Richard Haynes, a Texas lawyer who represented Allen. Haynes had outlined the Mexican laundry operation to Dardis this way:
Shortly before April 7, the effective date of the new campaign finance law, and the last day anonymous contributions could be legally accepted, Stans had gone on a final fund-raising swing across the Southwest. If Democrats were reluctant to contribute to the campaign of a Republican presidential candidate, Stans assured them that their anonymity could be absolutely ensured, if necessary by moving their contributions through a Mexican middleman whose bank records were not subject to subpoena by U.S. investigators. The protection would also allow CRP to receive donations from corporations, which were forbidden by campaign laws to contribute to political candidates; from business executives and labor leaders having difficulties with government regulatory agencies; and from special-interest groups and such underground sources of income as the big Las Vegas gambling casinos and mob-dominated unions. To guarantee anonymity, the “gifts,” whether checks, security notes or stock certificates, would be taken across the border to Mexico, converted to cash in Mexico City through deposit in a bank account established by a Mexican national with no known ties to the Nixon campaign, and only then sent on to Washington. The only record would be jealously guarded in Washington by Stans, kept simply to make sure the contributor would not be forgotten in his time of need.
From Houston, Haynes confirmed the operation to Bernstein. An operator familiar with the rough-and-tumble of Texas politics and corporate intrigues, Haynes spoke in the breezy, swashbuckling style that had earned him the nickname “Racehorse” in courthouses from Dallas to Austin.
“Shit, Stans has been running this operation for years with Nixon,” he said. “Nothing really wrong with it. That’s how you give your tithe.”
Robert Allen, the head of the Nixon campaign organization in Texas, was merely the conduit for the funds moving to Mexico, including the $89,000 that had gone into Barker’s bank account, Haynes said. Ogarrio was the money-changer, converting the checks and notes given him by Allen into American dollars, both in cash and in dollar drafts drawn on his account at the Banco Internacional.
Haynes estimated that $750,000 raised by Stans and his two principalfund-raisers in Texas had moved through Mexico in the final weeks of the pre-April 7 campaign.
“Maury came through here like a goddamned train,” said Haynes, “he was really ballin’ the jack. He’d say to the Democrats, the big money men who’d never gone for a Republican before, ‘You know we got this crazy man Ruckelshaus * back East who’d just as soon close your factory as let the smokestack belch. He’s a hard man to control and he’s not the only one like that in Washington. People need a place to go, to cut through the red tape when you’ve got a guy like that on the loose. Now, don’t misunderstand me; we’re not making any promises, all we can do is make ourselves accessible. . . .’ ”
But the message was indelible, said Haynes. “Maury’s a right high-type fellow; he would never actually threaten any of those guys. Then he’d do his Mexican hat dance, tell them there’d be no danger of the Democrats or their company’s competitors finding out about the contributing, it would all get lost in Mexico. . . . If a guy pleaded broke, Maury would get him to turn over stock in his company or some other stock. He was talking 10 percent, saying it
Dardis said he had learned the whole story from Richard Haynes, a Texas lawyer who represented Allen. Haynes had outlined the Mexican laundry operation to Dardis this way:
Shortly before April 7, the effective date of the new campaign finance law, and the last day anonymous contributions could be legally accepted, Stans had gone on a final fund-raising swing across the Southwest. If Democrats were reluctant to contribute to the campaign of a Republican presidential candidate, Stans assured them that their anonymity could be absolutely ensured, if necessary by moving their contributions through a Mexican middleman whose bank records were not subject to subpoena by U.S. investigators. The protection would also allow CRP to receive donations from corporations, which were forbidden by campaign laws to contribute to political candidates; from business executives and labor leaders having difficulties with government regulatory agencies; and from special-interest groups and such underground sources of income as the big Las Vegas gambling casinos and mob-dominated unions. To guarantee anonymity, the “gifts,” whether checks, security notes or stock certificates, would be taken across the border to Mexico, converted to cash in Mexico City through deposit in a bank account established by a Mexican national with no known ties to the Nixon campaign, and only then sent on to Washington. The only record would be jealously guarded in Washington by Stans, kept simply to make sure the contributor would not be forgotten in his time of need.
From Houston, Haynes confirmed the operation to Bernstein. An operator familiar with the rough-and-tumble of Texas politics and corporate intrigues, Haynes spoke in the breezy, swashbuckling style that had earned him the nickname “Racehorse” in courthouses from Dallas to Austin.
“Shit, Stans has been running this operation for years with Nixon,” he said. “Nothing really wrong with it. That’s how you give your tithe.”
Robert Allen, the head of the Nixon campaign organization in Texas, was merely the conduit for the funds moving to Mexico, including the $89,000 that had gone into Barker’s bank account, Haynes said. Ogarrio was the money-changer, converting the checks and notes given him by Allen into American dollars, both in cash and in dollar drafts drawn on his account at the Banco Internacional.
Haynes estimated that $750,000 raised by Stans and his two principalfund-raisers in Texas had moved through Mexico in the final weeks of the pre-April 7 campaign.
“Maury came through here like a goddamned train,” said Haynes, “he was really ballin’ the jack. He’d say to the Democrats, the big money men who’d never gone for a Republican before, ‘You know we got this crazy man Ruckelshaus * back East who’d just as soon close your factory as let the smokestack belch. He’s a hard man to control and he’s not the only one like that in Washington. People need a place to go, to cut through the red tape when you’ve got a guy like that on the loose. Now, don’t misunderstand me; we’re not making any promises, all we can do is make ourselves accessible. . . .’ ”
But the message was indelible, said Haynes. “Maury’s a right high-type fellow; he would never actually threaten any of those guys. Then he’d do his Mexican hat dance, tell them there’d be no danger of the Democrats or their company’s competitors finding out about the contributing, it would all get lost in Mexico. . . . If a guy pleaded broke, Maury would get him to turn over stock in his company or some other stock. He was talking 10 percent, saying it
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