he said I never engaged in this kind of thing before

[excerpt, All The President's Men] ----------------- From one incident in early September, the reporters were made aware that the fears were not groundless.

     They had picked up a copy of the committee's latest expenditure report, which listed the names of all salaried employees.  Bernstein noticed the name of someone he had once met and called her for lunch.  

He suggested half a dozen places where they could meet and not be seen, but she insisted on a sandwich shop where dozens of Nixon campaign workers were at the tables.  

When they sat down, she explained:  "I'm being followed.  It's open here and doesn't look like I'm hiding anything.  People won't talk on the phones; it's terrible."


     Bernstein asked her to be calm.  He thought she was overdramatizing.


     "I wish I was," she said.  "They know everything at the committee.  They know that the indictments will be down in a week and that there will only be seven.  Once, another person went back to the DA because the FBI didn't ask her the right questions.  That night her boss knew about it.  I always had one institution I believed in -- the FBI.  No more.

     "I've done my duty as a good citizen.  I went back to the DA, too.  But I'm a fatalist now.  It'll never come out, the whole truth.  You'll never get the truth.  

You can't get it by reporters talking to just the good people.  

They know you've been out talking to people at night.  Somebody from the press office came up to our office today and said, 'I sure wish I knew who in this committee had a link to Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward.'


     "The FBI never even asked me if I was at the committee over the weekend of the break-in.  I was there almost the whole time.  Odle didn't tell them everything he knew.  He kept removing records.  I don't know if he destroyed them or not.  

He would tell everybody to get out of the room and then close the door.  

Then he'd leave with the records.

     "Everything else I know is hearsay," she said.  "I've done my duty, I told the DA. ... The whole thing is being very well covered up and nobody will ever know what happened."

     The Prince George's County Police Department could do a better job than the FBI, and she was through with presidential politics forever.  She asked Bernstein to walk back to the office with her, to avoid any appearance of furtiveness.  

While they were waiting to cross the street at 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, Maurice Stans pulled up to 1701, across the avenue, in his limousine.


     "He was an honest man before all this started," she said.  "Now he's lying too."

_____________________________

All the President's Men, by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward.  1974.  Simon & Schuster.

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Oh! - God said to Abraham, "Kill me a son"

Abe says, "Man, you must be puttin' me on"

God say, "No."  Abe say, "What?"
God say, "You can do what you want Abe, 
but --

The next time you see me comin' you better run"
Well Abe says, "Where you want this killin' done?"
God says, "Out on Highway 61"

...

...Now the rovin' gambler, he was very bored
He was tryin' to create a next world war
He found a promoter who nearly fell off the floor
He said I never engaged in this kind of thing before
But yes I think it can be very easily done
We'll just put some bleachers out in the sun
And have it out on Highway 61

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"Highway 61 Revisited" - title song from Bob Dylan's album

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