‘Okay, I’m convinced. What’s the problem?’
‘The administration
also
does things that are just plain wrong – I mean criminal. The President acts as if the law doesn’t apply to him!’
‘Believe me, honey, all criminals think that.’
‘But we public servants are supposed to be discreet. Silence is part of our code. We don’t rat on the politicians, even when we disagree with what they’re doing.’
‘Hmm. Two moral principles in conflict. Your duty to your boss contradicts your duty to your country.’
‘I could just resign. I’d probably earn more outside the government anyway. But Nixon and his people would just carry on, like Mafia hoodlums. And I don’t
want
to work in the private sector. I want to make America a better society, especially for blacks. I’ve dedicated my life to that. Why should I give it up just because Nixon’s a crook?’
‘Plenty of government people talk to the press. I read stories all the time about what “sources” are telling reporters.’
‘We’re so shocked because Nixon and Agnew got elected by promising law and order. The blatant hypocrisy of it all makes us kind of furious.’
‘So, you have to decide whether to “leak” to the media.’
‘I guess that’s what I’m thinking.’
‘If you do,’ said Jacky anxiously, ‘please be careful.’
Maria and George went with Jacky to the evening service at Bethel Evangelical Church, then George drove Maria home. He still had the old dark-blue Mercedes convertible he had bought when he first came to Washington. ‘Just about every part of this car has been replaced,’ he said. ‘Cost me a fortune.’
‘Then it’s a good thing you’re earning a fortune at Fawcett Renshaw.’
‘I do okay.’
Maria realized she was holding her shoulders so rigidly that her back hurt. She tried to relax her muscles. ‘George, I have something serious to talk about.’
‘All right.’
She hesitated. Now or never. ‘In the past month, in the Justice Department, anti-trust investigations into three separate corporations have been cancelled on the direct orders of the White House.’
‘Any reason?’
‘None given. But all three were major donors to Nixon’s campaign in 1968, and are expected to finance his re-election campaign this year.’
‘But that’s straightforward perverting the course of justice! It’s a crime.’
‘Exactly.’
‘I knew Nixon was a liar, but I didn’t think he was an actual crook.’
‘It’s hard to believe, I know.’
‘Why are you telling me?’
‘I want to give the story to the press.’
‘Wow, Maria, that’s kind of dangerous.’
‘I’m prepared to take the risk. But I’m going to be very, very careful.’
‘Good.’
‘Do you know any reporters?’
‘Of course. There’s Lee Montgomery, for a start.’
Maria smiled. ‘I dated him a few times.’
‘I know – I fixed you up.’
‘But that means he knows of the connection between you and me. If you leaked a story to him, and he was wondering who was the source, I’d be the first person he’d think of.’
‘You’re right, bad idea. How about Jasper Murray?’
‘Head of the Washington bureau of
This Day
? He’d be ideal. How do you know him?’
‘I met him years ago, when he was a student journalist, pestering Verena for an interview with Martin Luther King. Then, six months ago, he approached me at a press conference given by one of my clients. Turns out he was at that motel in Memphis, talking to Verena, when they both saw Dr King shot. He asked me what had become of her. I had to tell him I had no idea. I think he was kind of taken with her.’
‘Most men are.’
‘Including me.’
‘Will you go see Murray?’ Maria was tense, fearing that George would refuse, saying he did not want to get involved. ‘Will you tell him what I’ve told you?’
‘So I would be, like, your cut-out. There would be no direct connection between you and Jasper.’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s like a James Bond movie.’
‘But will you do it?’ She held her breath.
He grinned. ‘Absolutely,’ he said.
* * *
President Nixon was mad as hell.
He stood behind his large two-pedestal desk in the Oval Office, framed by the gold window drapes. His back was hunched, his head down, his bushy eyebrows drawn together in a frown. His jowly face was dark, as always, with the shadow of a beard he could never quite shave off. His lower lip was thrust out in his most characteristic expression, defiance that always seemed on the point of turning into self-pity.
His voice was deep, grating, gravelly. ‘I don’t give a damn how it’s done,’ he said. ‘Do whatever has to be done to stop these leaks and prevent further unauthorized disclosures.’
Cam Dewar and his boss, John Ehrlichman, stood listening. Cam was tall, like his father and grandfather, but Ehrlichman was taller. Ehrlichman was Domestic Affairs Assistant to the President. His modest job title was misleading: he was one of Nixon’s closest advisors.
Cam knew why the President was angry. They had all watched
This Day
the evening before. Jasper Murray had turned the lens of his prying camera on Nixon’s financial backers. He claimed that Nixon had cancelled anti-trust investigations into three large corporations, all of which had made substantial donations to his campaign.
It was true.
Worse, Murray had implied that any company that needed to divert an investigation in this presidential election year only had to make a large enough contribution to the Committee to Re-Elect the President, known as CREEP.
Cam guessed that was probably true, too.
Nixon used the power of the presidency to help his friends. He also attacked his enemies, directing tax audits and other investigations at corporations that donated to the Democrats.
Cam had found Murray’s report sickening in its hypocrisy. Everybody knew this was how politics worked. Where did they think the money for election campaigns would come from otherwise? The Kennedy brothers would have done the same, if they had not already had more money than God.
Leaks to the press had plagued Nixon’s presidency. The
New York Times
had exposed Nixon’s top-secret bombing raids on Vietnam’s neighbour, Cambodia, citing anonymous White House sources. Syndicated reporter Seymour Hersh had revealed that US troops had murdered hundreds of innocent people at a Vietnamese village called My Lai – an atrocity the Pentagon had tried desperately to cover up. Now, in January 1972, Nixon’s popularity was at an all-time low.
Dick Nixon took it personally. He took everything personally. This morning he looked hurt, betrayed, outraged. He believed the world was full of people who had it in for him, and the leaks confirmed his paranoia.
Cam, too, was enraged. When he got the White House job he had hoped to be part of a group that would change America. But everything the Nixon administration tried to do was undermined by liberals in the media and their traitorous ‘sources’ within the government. It was agonizingly frustrating.
‘This Jasper Murray,’ said Nixon.
Cam remembered Jasper. The man had been living at the Williams house in London a decade ago when the Dewar family visited. Now
there
was a nest of crypto-Communists.
Nixon said: ‘Is he a Jew?’
Cam felt impatient, and kept his face rigidly expressionless. Nixon had some crackpot ideas, and one was that Jews were natural spies.
Ehrlichman said: ‘I don’t think so.’
Cam said: ‘I met Murray years ago in London. His mother is half Jewish. His father is a British army officer.’
‘Murray is British?’
‘Yes, but we can’t use that against him because he served with the US Army in Vietnam. Saw action, has the medals to prove it.’
‘Well, find a way to stop these leaks. I don’t want to be told why it can’t be done. I don’t want excuses. I want results. I want it done, whatever the cost.’
This was the kind of fighting talk Cam liked to hear. He felt bucked.
Ehrlichman said: ‘Thank you, Mr President,’ and they went out.
‘Well, that’s clear enough!’ Cam said eagerly as soon as they were outside the Oval Office.
‘We need surveillance on Murray,’ Ehrlichman said decisively.
‘I’ll get on it,’ said Cam.
Ehrlichman headed for his office. Cam left the White House and walked along Pennsylvania Avenue towards the Department of Justice.
‘Surveillance’ meant a lot of things. It was not against the law to ‘bug’ a room by placing a hidden recording device. However, getting into the room secretly to place the bug almost always involved the crime of breaking and entering, or burglary. And wiretapping, recording telephone conversations,
was
illegal – with exceptions. The Nixon administration believed wiretapping was legal if approved by the Attorney General. In the last two years the White House had placed a total of seventeen wiretaps, all approved by the Attorney General on grounds of national security and installed by the FBI. Cam was on his way to get authorization for number eighteen.
His memory of Jasper Murray as a youngster was vague, but he vividly recollected the beautiful Evie Williams, who had brutally spurned the advances of fifteen-year-old Cam. When he had told her that he was in love with her she had said: ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ And then, when he pressed her for a reason, she had said: ‘I’m in love with Jasper, you idiot.’
He told himself these were silly adolescent dramas. Evie was a movie star now, and a supporter of every Communist cause from civil rights to sex education. In a famous incident on her brother’s television show she had kissed Percy Marquand, scandalizing an audience who were not used to seeing whites even touch blacks. And she was certainly no longer in love with Jasper. She had dated pop star Hank Remington for a long time, though they were not together now.
But the memory of her scornful rebuff stung Cam like a burn. And women were still rejecting him. Even Stephanie Maple, who was not beautiful at all, had turned him down on the night of Nixon’s victory. Later, when they both came to Washington to work, Stephanie had at last agreed to go to bed with Cam; but she had ended the romance after one night, which, in a way, was worse.
Cam knew he was tall and awkward, but so was his father, who apparently had never had trouble attracting women. Cam had talked to his mother about this indirectly. ‘How come you fell for Dad?’ he had said. ‘He’s not handsome or anything.’
‘Oh, but he was so
nice
,’ she had said.
Cam had no idea what she was talking about.
He arrived at the Department of Justice and entered the high Great Hall with its Art Deco aluminium light fixtures. He anticipated no problem with the authorization: the Attorney General, John Mitchell, was a Nixon crony, and had been Nixon’s campaign manager in 1968.
The elevator’s aluminium door opened. Cam got in and pressed the button for the fifth floor.
* * *
In ten years in the Washington bureaucracy, Maria had learned to be watchful. Her office was in the corridor leading to the Attorney General’s suite of rooms, and she kept her door open, so that she could see who came and went. She was especially alert on the day after the broadcast of the edition of
This Day
based on her leak. She knew there would be an explosive reaction from the White House, and she was waiting to see what form it would take.
As soon as she saw one of John Ehrlichman’s aides go by, she jumped out of her chair.
‘The Attorney General is in a meeting and can’t be disturbed,’ she said, catching him up. She had seen him before. He was an awkward, gangling white boy, tall and thin, his shoulders like a wire coat-hanger for his suit. She knew the type: he would be clever and naive at the same time. She put on her most friendly smile. ‘Perhaps I can do something for you?’
‘It’s not the kind of thing that can be discussed with a secretary,’ he said irritably.
Maria’s antennae quivered. She sensed danger. But she pretended to be eager to help. ‘Then it’s a good thing I’m not a secretary,’ she said. ‘I’m an attorney. My name is Maria Summers.’
He clearly had difficulty with the concept of a black woman lawyer. ‘Where did you study?’ he asked sceptically.
He probably expected her to name an obscure Negro college, so she took pleasure in saying casually: ‘Chicago Law.’ But she could not resist asking: ‘How about you?’
‘I’m not a lawyer,’ he admitted. ‘I majored in Russian at Berkeley. Cam Dewar.’
‘I’ve heard of you. You work for John Ehrlichman. Why don’t we talk in my office?’
‘I’ll wait for the Attorney General.’
‘Is this about that TV show last night?’
Cam glanced around furtively. No one was listening.
‘We have to do something about that,’ Maria said emphatically. ‘The business of government can’t go on with these leaks all the time,’ she went on, feigning indignation. ‘It’s impossible!’
The young man’s attitude warmed. ‘That’s what the President thinks.’
‘But what are we going to do about it?’
‘We need a wiretap on Jasper Murray.’
Maria swallowed. Thank God I found out about this, she thought. But she said: ‘Great – some tough action at last.’
‘A journalist who admits to receiving confidential information from within the government is clearly a danger to national security.’
‘Absolutely. Now don’t you worry about the paperwork. I’ll put an authorization form in front of Mitchell today. He’ll be glad to sign it, I know.’
‘Thank you.’
She caught him looking at her chest. Having seen her first as a secretary and then as a Negro, he was now regarding her as a pair of breasts. Young men were so predictable. ‘This will be what they call a black bag job,’ she said. The phrase meant illegal breaking and entering. ‘Joe Hugo is in charge of that for the FBI.’
‘I’ll go and see him now.’ The headquarters of the Bureau was in the same building. ‘Thank you for your help, Maria.’
‘You’re welcome, Mr Dewar.’
She watched him retreat down the corridor, then she closed her office door. She picked up the phone and dialled Fawcett Renshaw. ‘I’d like to leave a message for George Jakes,’ she said.