On Watergate
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s, He's 84. He Wants His Good Name Back. Shouldn't We Give It to Him? By Ken Ringle Washington Poet Staff Writer ere we have Maurice Stans, the notorious bagman of Wa- tergate, who, as finance chair- contributions. Out of nearly a million trans- man of Richard Nixon's reelec- actions that year!" tion campaign 20 years ago, Now that the record shows he knew Htrafficked in suitcases filled with $100 bills, nothing of the conspiracies and .coverups and, while raising more political money rice • Stans wore the exasperated sincerity his money-raising underwrote, and that all than any previous man in history, financed such charges against him were false, he the burglaries and the coverups and all the of the substitute teacher who just can't qui- et the class. He never seemed to under- says, "there should be some process in the sordid black baggeries of the greatest po- media for absolution." litical scandal in American history. stand what could be wrong with doing his job so well, or why people thought all that Stans has pursued that absolution with And on the other hand we have, appar- the same tenacity and zeal with which he ently in the same chair, the tousle-haired, cash he raised might tempt. Nixon and his operatives to send some of it on dubious once made six- and seven-figure contribu- bespectacled pride of Shakopee, Minn., the tions leap from the 'pockets of corporate. son of a Belgian-born house painter and errands. America. He has testified and granted in- concert bandmaster; who read Horatio Al- "There can be such a thing as an over- ger stories and believed them and believes dose of loyalty," said the Republican Par- them still; who in three years of exhaustive ty's most famous accountant the other day investigations and excruciating trials about on a visit here from his home in Pasadena. Watergate was repeatedly found INNO- "I may have been guilty of that. Loyal- CENT of ANY knowing violation of ANY ty is one of my characteristics," But for 20 law, and is still asking America to "give me years, he says, journalists and prosecutors terviews. He has telephoned and demand- back my good name." have been assuming—and writing—that ed corrections. "When necessary" he has As Dwight Eisenhower's chief fiscal the man who raised nearly $60 million for filed libel suits, all of which, he says, have watchdog, this is the man who gave Ameri- Richard Nixon must have known every- ca its last balanced budget. thing that money was buying. been settled out of court. Can it be that we owe him some sort of "I can understand how and why they In 1978 he published "The Terrors of . apology? thought that," Stans said. After all, he end- Justice," a 478-page apologia setting forth ed up pleading guilty to five of the charges his storybook journey from a $30-a-week against him and paying a $5,000 fine. "But stenographer for a sausage casing compa- In the vast rogues' gallery of Watergate, that had nothing to do with Watergate," he ny •to the millionaire money man of presi- Maurice Stans was never a very satisfacto- insists. "They were two charges of non- dents. ry villain. Amid the bulldog intransigence willful receipt of illegal campaign contribu- Written in clear, accountant-like style, of John Mitchell, the snarling defiance of tions—the word 'nonwiliful' appears both complete with periodic summing up and John Ehrlichman, the storm-trooper glare in the charge and in the judge's ruling— frequent double entries, it adds up all the of H.R. Haldeman, the hand-in-the-candle- and three minor counts of late reporting of flame machismo of G. Gordon Liddy, Mau- Maurice Stuns: Oddly enough, still one of the President's Men, BY DILL 5HEAD-11-1E WAS}1IHGTOH POST , • - hundreds of charges against dozens of sal. called "Watergate figures" like himielk subtracts the 14 men convicted anctfinds STANS, From Fl among the remaining innocent an unceo? .s. scionable surplus of shattered lives Snd. ss- "You're right about that," Stans personal suffering, his own among them:- ",'- says. Last month, as the 20th anniversary :of Which in turn demands a certain ac- Watergate approached, he dashed off a let; ::.counting: ter to the nation's 30 leading newspapers '- ss- Why has Maurice Starts just spent wire services and newsmagazines pleadini four years raising $27 million for the with them to "exercise discretion" in any ''Nixon Library? upcoming retrospective articles when they ' identify someone as a "Watergate 'conspir- Sense of Obligation ator' . Watergate 'character' or similar: ._ is the central paradox of Mau- term of lasting stigma? -rice Stank While he has won retraction of such la- s "I don't know how you rationalize bels in the past, he wrote, "that has been , my thinking," he says of his continued costly. Meanwhile, my financial affairs sservice to the man who brought him have been shattered. My defense expenses -;down. "Many people have been angry have been enormous. Awards and honork ,for me. Many people have thought I justly due, have been denied me. Positio4s ;Should have acted differently. But of trust have been withheld." ;:maybe it's my Minnesota smalkown For an 84-year-old son of Shakopee, still-- —attitude.. seeking validation in the wider world, it's What happened was Nixon asked been a heavy price. But Stans has never, sshini over to dinner and, after he'd for one moment, lain even an ounce of that/ ,sturned down the fund-raising job three price at the feet of Richard Nixon. times, "tried the one thing that always "It never occurred to me to pin my Prob- -;:lgorks: flattery. He said 'Maury, lems on him or anybody else," Stans says: siau're the only man in the country thoughtfully, making a tepee of his longs: s.,who can do this. Without you there freckled fingers after adjusting his presi- :swill be no Nixon Library: And I said, dential seal tie clasp. "I never felt I wanted sffelliMr. President, if you put it that to go back and demand accountability, fi- s. way, T accept. But it won't be easy.' nancial or otherwise, from anybody that And it wasn't.... got me in trouble. It always seems best to But I felt an obligation to Nixon as me to forget the misdeeds and mis-evalua-- I did to Eisenhower. Eisenhower tions of my friends and go on doing my.' piCked up a guy with no government business as best I can. .. ." experience whatever and put him in Stans, however, has done far more than charge of the federal budget. Nixon taking care of business. He also appears to put me in charge of raising money for have sustained one of history's world-class his campaign when I'd never raised cases of unrequited love, toward a presi; more:than $1.5 million before... dent who at best ignored him and at worst "Those things became challenges to hung him out to dry. me, opportunities. And whatever suc- In his book, he notes without complaint cesses I've had in my life have flowed that, despite his Cabinet position (he was from opportunities like that" Nixon's first secretary of commerce) and- his record-breaking achievements in ftind- `You Don't Want to Know' raising, he was routinely excluded from the Stans is explaining how he could president's inner circle. His budgetary ad-' have been blind to what his 1972 vice was ignored. His counsel was discard- fund-raising was paying for. ed. On the night of his overwhelming elec-+= - "There were two parts to the mon- tion victory, Nixon spurned even a token' ,ey,:bperation: getting the money, appearance before Stans and the Contribit-: --which was my job, and handling the tors who had paid for it all. money, which was Hugh Sloan's. He Once Stans's three-year legal nightmare; deposited and dispersed the money, of accusations, innuendo and investigation paid the bills and so on, and along the began (his wife was critically iII much of he got involved in a couple of the time; she died in 1984), Nixon offered of cash I didn't know anything neither money or support. When the fa-- about, until the whole thing came out mous White House tapes were made pub- Ss. in court.. Ins . lie, Stans discovered Nixortliad,a;ecretly "I remember one instance when planned to make him a fallIAL e scan- Slosin; came to me and said, 'Liddy dal, nominating hirn4qt.'SSI _w= ia orshiia s :wants $50,000 to spend in New s so his stormy conlii-mation earwigs won% panips.hire: And I said, 'What's Liddy • take the heat off the president. I' got to do with New Hampshire?' And Didn't that kind of smack of ingratitude? .• he said, 'I don't know but Magruder See STq INS. F. cot t says, he should have it.' And I said, ':'Wait'Wait a minute: Let me talk to John .', Mitchell.' So I called Mitchell and I Z.: said, 'Is Liddy entitled to get any mon- 4.4k,ei -for campaign purposes?' And he Stans, Sloan said, replied, "I don't 'How much should I give him: $25? <', 'Yes, but it should go through want to know and you don't want to $50? Or does he expect more than , Gan,' And I said. 'That's the way it know." that?' " -,... e:but I just want your approval.' It was, Stans says today, none of his So fund-raising rule number one, '' he said, 'Okay, tell Sloan to give affair.