Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, June 13, 1973 (1/2)
Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, June 13, 1973 (1/2)
[00.41.16] Senator INOUYE. Now, upon your return from the meeting this is what Mr. Sloan testified to, and I am quoting from the testimony: By "he" he means you, sir, "He returned from that meeting with Mr. Mitchell and he confirmed that Mr. Magruder continued to have this authority that I should pay these funds and with regard to my question of concern about his purpose he said 'I do not want to know and you do not want to know'." Do you recall this, sir? Mr. STANS. Before I answer that, may I say that with respect to the meeting with 'Mr. Mitchell on the 24th I have checked my records last night and I do not, have any record of a meeting with 'Mr. 'Mitchell on the 24th of June. Now, that does not mean that I may have met him in the hall, the building, on the street, or even dropped in his office, but I have no record of this meeting having taken place. I did have lunch with Mr. 'Mitchell in his office on the 23d. Now, with respect to the remark that was made after I checked with 'Mitchell about the authority of 'Magruder to ask Sloan to make payments to Liddy, I recall the occasion but that was not the, whole conversation. and I am not quite sure that it is entirely accurate but, it is the substance of what was said. But last week when ',Mr. Sloan testified he also put that remark in a much larger context and that context was much broader than the matter of payments to Liddy and it, was quite accurate. As I recall, he said the context was one of total frustration that I had and he had with the spending program of the campaign committee. At that point we had received a budget of $34 million and it Was incomplete on its face because some items were not priced out. It meant they were going to spend $40 million. I had argued when I came On the committee and even before, that the campaign ought to run, with the President in office. for $25 to $30 million. It was evident, we were in a situation in which the campaign committee was calling all the signals was making all the commitments. We really had nothing to Say about it, and it was one, as I said, of total frustration with the whole situation. I threw up my hands and I that literally and I think Mr. Sloan quoted that specifically, that we were just not going to have any influence in this situation. [00.44.23] The remark I made, and I cannot quote it precisely, was something to the effect that "I don't know what's going on in this Campaign and I don't think you ought to try to know." We were the cashiers, we received the money, and we paid the bills. They had the responsibility for everything they did. If they did it right they got the credit. If they did it wrong they got the blame and it did not seem that it 'Was incumbent upon us to question the propriety of any payment, Whether it was to -Mr. Liddy or anybody else, and we did not. Senator INOUYE. Wasn't this rather uncharacteristic of your background, sir, as one who had received all of the honors that a certified Public accountant can ever hope to get, one who has been described as having an accountant" mentality one who is a stickler for details, one who insists upon putting the right notes on the debit side and the right notes on the asset side, that you would put up your hand and say "I do not want to know?" [00.45.31] Mr. STANS. It was uncharacteristic of my background as an accountant but it Was not uncharacteristic of the responsibilities I had in this campaign -which had absolutely nothing to do with accounting. My job was to raise an unbelievable amount or money $40 million or More. Mr. INOUYE. And you were not curious about how these funds, especially since you read in the paper about the break-in On the 18th, you heard about the accounts of the Dahlberg money on the 23d. you read about it in the paper and then you heard about. Mr. McCord being one of those arrested, weren't you a bit suspicious? Mr. STANS. Oh, I must say, Senator, that in the sequence of dates, it did not occur that way. This conversation that I had with Mr. Sloan and the occasion of the verification of Magruder's authority took place early in April, and the subsequent events obviously could not possibly have been conceived by me or anyone else. [00.46.37]