[excerpt, All The President's Men]
--------------------------- So Bernstein had rested his bike against the wall of the little guardhouse at the entrance and not bothered to lock it. He was there to hear Vice President Agnew talk about cutting red tape to get help to victims of the Great Flood caused by Hurricane Agnes. And he had run into Ken Clawson in the hallway.
"You guys back at the Post are going to bark up the wrong tree one too many times on Watergate," Clawson had said.
* * *
A few hours later, Hugh Sloan answered the door, looking as if he had just stepped out of the pages of Management Intern News. Thirtyish, slim, hair nicely trimmed just long enough, blue blazer, muted shirt, rep tie, quite handsome, maybe too thin.
"My wife told me to probably expect you," he said, and let Bernstein step out of the rain and into the hallway. He left the door open. "As you know, I haven't talked to the press." It was stated apologetically. That was a good sign. One eye on the open door, Bernstein decided to shoot for the moon.
The morning's story had changed the situation, he argued.
People now knew that Sloan was not guilty in Watergate. But Sloan knew who was, or at least he knew things that could lead to the guilty. Now that part of the story had come out, Sloan should put the rest on record, clear his own name and let people know the truth.
Maybe there was a legitimate explanation for the cash handed over to Liddy and John Mitchell's aides. If there was, and that was the whole story, so be it. Maybe things were a lot worse even than that day's story had suggested. If they were worse...
"They're worse," Sloan interrupted. "That's why I left, because I suspected the worst." Suddenly he looked wounded. There seemed to be no vengeance, only hurt. He was shaking his head.
Then why not tell what he knew? Now. Publicly. To keep others from getting hurt. In the long run, it would help Nixon, Bernstein argued, because the President was going to be hurt badly if the coverup lasted much longer.
Sloan nodded. He would like to, he said. He really would. But his lawyers had advised against it; whatever he said publicly might be used against him in any civil suit arising from his role as treasurer of the Nixon campaign.
Bernstein resisted the temptation to advise Sloan to get a new lawyer; that's what he would do if he were innocent and in Sloan's place -- get a new lawyer and sue CRP.
Sloan had also pledged to the prosecutors that he would not make any public statement before the Watergate trial. So he was twice bound to remain silent, he said.
How sure was Sloan that the prosecutors were on his side?
He thought they were, he said, but he didn't have much faith in anybody any more. ------------------------------ [end, excerpt]
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All the President's Men, by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward. 1974. Simon & Schuster.
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When your mother sends back all your invitations
And your father to your sister he explains
That you're tired of yourself and all of your creations
Won't you come see me, Queen Jane?
Won't you come see me, Queen Jane?
Now when all of the flower ladies want back what they have lent you
And the smell of their roses does not remain
And all of your children start to resent you
Won't you come see me, Queen Jane?
Won't you come see me, Queen Jane?
Now when all the clowns that you have commissioned
Have died in battle or in vain
And you're sick of all this repetition
Won't you come see me, Queen Jane?
Won't you come see me, Queen Jane?
When all of your advisers heave their plastic
At your feet to convince you of your pain
Trying to prove that your conclusions should be more drastic
Won't you come see me, Queen Jane?
Won't you come see me, Queen Jane?
Now when all the bandits that you turned your other cheek to
All lay down their bandanas and complain
And you want somebody you don't have to speak to
Won't you come see me, Queen Jane?
Won't you come see me, Queen Jane?
_____________________________
"Queen Jane Approximately" - Song 6 on Highway 61 Revisited album by Bob Dylan
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