Blind Ambition: The End of the Story (51 page)

“And that was there in the Mayflower
Hotel?”

“That is correct.”

“Well, the committee has subpoenaed the records of the hotel. And I have a letter here from the Mayflower
, and also one from the Statler Hilton
. I would like a committee staffer to give these copies to the witness.”

I looked at the documents. The Mayflower
said Kalmbach hadn’t been there. The Statler Hilton
said he had been there. I had confused the hotels, even though I remembered the meeting vividly and could still see Kalmbach turning on the television in his room so that the chambermaids nearby could not hear us. I remembered it as clearly as the next meeting, when Kalmbach had tapped his briefcase filled with money while we were sitting on the park bench. I knew that Gurney
might demolish my entire testimony because I had made one careless error. How could my memory of the President’s words be trusted, he would wonder aloud, when I had been proven wrong about something as elementary and as obvious as a hotel name? It was all I could do to keep from leaving the hearing room in disgust. I was overwhelmed by the absurdity. In desperation, I suggested illogically that perhaps Kalmbach had stayed at the Mayflower
under another name.

“Well,” the Senator countered, “it also occurred to me that that could be the case, that he was using an assumed name, but it just does not make sense. If he was coming into the city under an assumed name so that no one would know he was here and no later record could be found, why in the world would he register under his own name at a nearby hotel?”

“I see what you’re saying,” I conceded. “I have testified the Mayflower
, and I am never sure which is the Mayflower
and which is the Statler Hilton
. The hotel I recall is the one that is on Sixteenth Street up from the White House. I walked up from the office to his room.”

“How long have you lived in Washington?” Gurney
wasn’t going to settle for a confession either.

“I’ve lived here about ten years.”

“And you don’t know the difference between the Washington Hilton
and the Mayflower
?”

“I continually get them confused, I must admit.”

“Well, I must say I am reminded of your colloquy with the chairman yesterday, Mr. Dean, when you said what an excellent memory you had right from school days right on down. That is why you were able to reconstruct...”

I interrupted defensively, “That is right, but I confuse some names often. I don’t pretend to have a perfect memory. I think I have a good memory, Senator.” Gurney
was doing a hell of a job on me, I thought. Then I got a break.

During an interruption, Bob McCandless handed me a note: “
The coffee shop at Statler Hilton
is called the Mayflower
Room.
” Bob didn’t have to tell me what to do with this little gimcrack. I cleared my throat, got the attention of the committee, and said, “I might go back over one point. The name of the coffee shop at the Statler Hilton
is the Mayflower
.”

The audience applauded. I’d explained my confusion with a plausible answer. The crowd’s support, which I hadn’t expected, did more to repair the dents Gurney
had made in my credibility than anything I could possibly have said or done. Gurney
was annoyed and tried to discredit my explanation. When he claimed it had come from my lawyer, Charlie jumped up and grabbed the microphone. “Mr. Chairman, that was Mr. McCandless,” he said, smiling and pointing at Bob. “I would like to give him credit for that.” This time the entire room, including Gurney
, broke out in laughter.

“Bob, thanks for the note,” I said at the recess. “I was afraid I was going down the tube over that silly hotel thing.”

“Don’t thank me. Thank Dan Schorr
. He handed it to me and told me he eats there all the time and is positive of the name.”

“I’ll be damned,” I responded. Schorr
had run the nasty story, over our strong protest, that I feared going to jail because of homosexual attack. He had done me a dirty deed, but he had just evened the score as far as I was concerned.

It is difficult to keep track of time when one is testifying. The windows of the hearing room had been blackened for the television lights. There were no clocks visible, and I’d been busy concentrating on questions. By Friday afternoon, my fifth day, I could think of little else but what time it was. I kept checking my watch. I wanted to get out of there. I was weary, and when you’re tired you can make mistakes, I kept reminding myself. It was three o’clock. Four o’clock. Five o’clock. And the questions kept coming. I was getting upset and angry. The senators take a break whenever they feel like it, I thought resentfully; they interrogate only as long as they feel like it. Shit, I have to sit here while they take turns at me. It’s unfair. At five-thirty, I turned around to speak to Charlie. Fred Thompson was questioning me.

“Charlie, give Dash the signal,” I whispered. “I’ve got to take a leak, awful.” Charlie and Sam had devised a signaling system to use if I needed a break, but I had not yet called for one. I had sipped water all afternoon for my throat, and my bladder was sending a painful message.

“Can’t you keep going?” Charlie asked unsympathetically. “I think we can finish up this afternoon, but if you stop now they may call you back Monday for more. Dammit, just keep going.” The more I thought about my dilemma, the worse it got. It was interfering with my concentration, and Fred Thompson was hot and heavy after me. He was grilling me about something very embarrassing that I’d volunteered with considerable pain to both the prosecutors and the committee during its executive session—I had taken several thousand dollars of the money Gordon Strachan had given me after the break-in, to use on my honeymoon, and left an IOU in my safe. I had been in a pinch because of a particularly frenetic cover-up week, had failed to get the cash necessary for the trip and the wedding expenses, and had taken an expedient loan. The “honeymoon money
” had become a favored topic among my detractors, who were making me out a thief.

Thompson: “Did you subsequently get to Miami
to spend a few more days on your honeymoon?”

“As I recall, we made several trips to Miami
to try to have a honeymoon and were called back.”

“Did you leave for Miami
on October twentieth, if you recall?”

“That is very possible. As I told you when we started this line of questioning, I have not sat down and tried to reconstruct this. I am perfectly willing to reconstruct it for the committee and turn it all over to the committee for the committee’s use. I just have not entered this area of reconstruction and I am sure—”

Thompson interrupted. “You will not test your memory on these particular points. Is that what you’re saying?”

Goddam him, I thought. I could take him day by day through my trips to and from Florida, but it would take more effort than I’ve got left in my condition. He obviously thinks he can show I never intended to go to Florida for more than a few days and will insinuate that I must have taken the money for some other reason.

I had run out of steam and I was in pain. I decided to let Thompson have it his way and renewed my offer to let the committee investigators go over all my finances. It wasn’t a very good way to handle him, I knew, but I no longer cared. Thompson, feeling sure he’d scored well, started toward the finish line. Chairman Ervin apparently thought Thompson had scored well also, and intervened on my behalf.

“If I could ask a question or so here, I might shorten some of this,” Ervin interrupted, exercising his chairman’s prerogative. “Mr. Dean, did anybody know that you had taken the $4,850 out of this money, except yourself?”

“No, sir, they did not.”

“If you had wanted to deceive anybody about it, what would have prevented you from getting $4,850 and replacing it?”

“Nothing.”

He was offering me the chance to say that I could have hidden it. In fact, the IOU was still in the safe when I told Charlie of the loan, which I then immediately redeemed.

Finally the chairman turned to the other members of the committee and asked if there were any further questions. Nobody asked anything. I was elated. It was over. It had been a wretched week. Now all I wanted was to get first to a bathroom and then out of Washington for as long as I could.

Mo and I talked about where we might go. We had to be careful with money, because I didn’t know when I would be able to work again. We decided to accept the invitation of Lance Cooper
, an old prep-school friend, who had a beautiful little house on an isolated stretch of beach near Melbourne
, Florida. It was so private that the deputy marshals who met our flight in Orlando felt they could leave us alone.
3
*

The trip to Florida made me appreciate the privacy all the more. People now recognized me instantly, and I didn’t like being infamous. I was ashamed to be who I was, even though people said nice things to me. I didn’t feel I could explain my new thirst for privacy to Mo. When we were packing I had ignored her question about why I was carrying
Inside the Third Reich
, by Albert Speer
. I wanted to know how Speer had coped with guilt.

After a week of my refusing to go to the grocery store (except once disguised in sunglasses and a pulled-down tennis hat) or to restaurants or window shopping, Mo was getting annoyed. She wanted to get out and do something. I wanted to hide. To ease the tension, we invited some friends down. When Heidi and Morgan arrived, the party started. It went on day after day, almost nonstop. For the first time in years, I was having fun.

When Sam Dash called on Friday, July 13, 1973, I wasn’t surprised. He’d already called several times to ask me about John Mitchell’s and Richard Moore’s testimony before the committee.

“Can you come back to Washington?” Dash asked. The request took me aback.

“What do you need, Sam?” I moaned. “Can’t we handle it on the telephone?”

“Not really. It’s important, very important, John, that you return, so we can talk. I need to see you. Something has come up.”

“I should have known your call would be bad news today. Okay, I’ll make reservations and call you back,” I said unenthusiastically.

Sam was excited and a bit nervous. Most unlike him, I thought. I wondered what was up. Was he going to recall me as a witness? Whatever it was, it made me nervous, because he wouldn’t tell me. I hated the thought of leaving Melbourne. Mo had been enjoying herself more than I could last remember. This would not sit well with her. The taste of relaxation had made us both crave more. As I called to arrange a flight back, I decided I would not leave until the next morning. I was determined to have one more day off. Mo took the bad news without comment, and we all decided we would not let it spoil the last night. Out came the Monopoly board, the booze, a run to the grocery store by Morgan, and the barbecue was stoked up, and we all assembled at the dining-room table for the first event of the evening.

“I’m going to build another hotel on the boardwalk,” I announced well into the Monopoly game. “But I’d like to make a small loan from the bank,” I told the banker. It was Morgan.

“You can’t do that,” Mo protested.

“Why not?” I asked.

“You’re already overextended,” she said, glancing at some of my choice properties, which had been costing the others dearly.

“Sure I can, if Morgan thinks I’m a good risk. Also I can mortgage some of this stuff.”

“Don’t you dare,” Mo said threateningly, “or I’m quitting!”

“I’m going to start dinner,” Heidi said, getting up from the table. She sensed what I knew—that Mo’s anger had nothing to do with the game. Both Heidi and Morgan knew we had serious financial worries. Lawyers’ fees and living expenses were eating our savings. Mo was worried about how we were going to make it. So was I, but I refused to admit it to her.

“Morgan, I’d like to borrow one thousand dollars for another hotel and I’ll give you a mortgage on the two existing hotels, which are worth double my loan.” I had decided to confront Mo’s threat; I was really telling her that our finances were my worry.

“Well, I don’t know,” Morgan said, stroking his chin. “Maybe we could work out a private deal and I’d give you a little loan myself.” He was being diplomatic.

“Oh, no. No, sir,” Mo said. “No charity for the kid over here.”

“Now, that’s an ugly attitude,” I told her, steering away from a clash with a mocking smile.

“I tell you what. After you take your turn, I’ll consider a bank loan,” Morgan announced. His strategy was good, both for the game and for the incipient argument between Mo and me. If I could survive a roll of the dice on the heavily owned board, I’d be in good shape.