Fire-fighting (6)

Continuing excerpt from John Dean's bestseller, Blind Ambition (page 35).

"This isn't any problem. I'll take care of it for you with a phone call, " he answered confidently. He returned the next day to report that a tax inquiry would be fruitless because the magazine was only six months old and its owners had yet to file their first return. Being resourceful, however, he had asked the IRS to look into the owners themselves. "You can tell the President everything is taken care of," he assured me.

'I've got a good one for you to pass along to the President," Jack added proudly. His Treasury Department sources had noticed an authoritative article in the U.S.-Mexico drug traffic published by Scanlan's Monthly. It would be excellent background reading for the President's upcoming meeting with Mexican President Diaz Ordaz. I attached a copy of the article to my memo to the President, and was amused to hear that the article was removed before the memo landed on the President's desk. No one in Halderman's office wanted to be responsible for passing along anything from a magazine the President hated so much.

I summarized the tax situation in my report. "The fact that Scalan's is a new entity does not make the tax inquiry very promising," I concluded. "Accordingly, I have also requested that the inquiry be extended to the principal organizers and promoters of the publication." Thus, within a month of coming to the White House, I had crossed an ethical line. I had no choice, as I saw it. The fact that I had not carried out the assignment myself eased my conscience slightly. I had no idea Jack had done it so easily, nor did I ask, and I never found out what became of the IRS inquiry.

Watergate: Firefighting 4

The following passages are extracts from Watergate co-conspirator's John Dean's Blind Ambition, detailing the workings of the Nixon Administration in the Watergate Scandal years.

Murray was testy, or maybe defensive-I couldn't decide. It was clear that he didn't want to discuss the matter further. I thanked him and left. If I was going to play ball in Richard Nixon's league, I would have to get over my squeamishness. I am not sure what I would have done if John J. Caulfield had not walked into my office.

Jack Caulfield could easily have been born in the mind of Damon Runyon instead of New York City. He had moved up the ranks of the New York police force, from a street beat to detective, arriving at the White House after an assignment as candidate Nixon's personal bodyguard in 1968. Bob Haldeman had assigned him to me without telling me why. Caulfield explained that he was White House liaison with the Secret Service and the local police, but his principal assignment was to investigate Senator Edward M. Kennedy's conduct in the Chappaquiddlck accident for John Ehrlichman.


Jack was a bountiful source of information. He knew what everybody was doing. He could tell you how to get a refrigerator or parking privileges and who was sleeping with whose secretary. And he wanted to help me find my bearings. He seemed a natural person to turn to with my IRS orders, and I decided to show him the memos. "How would you handle these assignments?" I asked.

TO BE CONTINUED.