blanket on my bed

Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford, portraying Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward in the 1976 film version of All the President's Men


[excerpt, All The President's Men]

     Meanwhile, Howard Hunt had not been seen since the day he had spoken briefly on the telephone to Woodward.  The FBI had assigned 150 agents to the search.  On July 7, the same day the Hunt Chappaquiddick story appeared in the Post, Hunt came in from the cold.  Several days later, Bernstein spoke to a Washington lawyer who knew William O. Bittman, Hunt's attorney.


     Bittman, the lawyer said, had received $25,000 in cash in a brown envelope to take Hunt's case.  The man was disturbed.  Bittman was a highly respected member of the bar, a partner in the prestigious firm of Hogan and Hartson, a former Justice Department attorney who had successfully prosecuted Jimmy Hoffa, the former president of the Teamsters' Union.

     "It's good information, that's all I can tell you about it," the man said.  There was one other thing.  At least $100,000 in CRP's budget was earmarked for "Convention Security," he said.  "The money is the key to this thing."

     Bernstein called Bittman.  He would not say how he had been retained.

     Had he gotten $25,000 cash in an envelope?  Bernstein asked.

     Bittman could not discuss any aspect of his involvement in the case, he said, but to Bernstein's surprise, he did not specifically deny it.

     Nevertheless, Woodward and Bernstein could not find anyone else who had even heard the story about money in a brown envelope.  They spent hours and hours getting nowhere, and not just on that question.

Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward

     Officials at the White House and CRP were in the business of sending reporters on wild-goose chases.  There had been leaks that the Watergate break-in was the work of anti-Castro Cubans out to prove that the Democrats were receiving contributions from Cuba.*


     The Watergate story had stalled, maybe even died.  The reporters could not understand why.  Bernstein's administration contact, the former official, was also unable to get any useful information and joked -- or so Bernstein thought -- that the White House had "gone underground."

     Bernstein, protesting, was shipped back to Virginia politics.  Woodward decided to take a vacation.

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

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I got this graveyard woman, you know she keeps my kid
But my soulful mama, you know she keeps me hid
She's a junkyard angel and she always gives me bread
Well, if I go down dyin' you know -- she's bound to put a blanket on my bed.


Well, when the pipeline gets broken and I'm lost on the river bridge
I'm cracked up on the highway and on the water's edge
She comes down the thruway ready to sew me up with thread
Well, if I go down dyin' you know she's -- bound, to put a blanket on my bed.


Well, she don't make me nervous, she don't talk too much
She walks like Bo Diddley and she don't need no crutch
She keeps this four-ten -- all -- loaded with lead
Well, if I go down dyin' you know -- she's -- bound, to put a blanket on my bed.


Well, you know I need a steam shovel mama to keep away the dead
I need a dump truck baby to -- unload my head
She brings me everything and more, and just like I said
Well -- if I go down dyin' you know -- she, bound to put a blanket on my bed.

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Lyrics / "From a Buick 6"
-- the fourth song on Highway 61 Revisited album / Bob Dylan

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