of the gallows humor: “I see, by the way, that this morning our friends on the High Court ruled that warrants are required for all bugging done in internal-security investigations.”
“Too bad they didn’t issue that ruling last Friday morning,” snapped Mardian, who had lost all patience. “Maybe that would have given those jerks of yours a little pause on Friday
night
.”
Mitchell took two quick puffs on his pipe, as if to say, “Now, now,” and then the bedroom phone rang. The General rolled his eyes, and LaRue, knowing who it would be, got up to answer it.
Sure enough, the operator had a collect call from the Newporter Inn in California.
“You’ve fired Jim McCord! Thrown him to the wolves!”
LaRue took a pause before saying, as soothingly as he could, that they just weren’t able to retain as campaign security chief a man who’d broken into the opposition’s headquarters. He wondered, as he said it, how Martha had even found out about the firing. Had the
Post
’s story already spread to the other coast, even before the evening news broadcasts out there?
“Honey,” said Mrs. Mitchell, able to tell what LaRue was thinking, “Helen Thomas can read me the papers whenever she calls.
Or when I call her
. But you get your mind back to Jim McCord now. That man used to drive my little girl to
school
. And you all have
thrown him to the wolves
.”
The Mitchells were each other’s second spouse, and people often imagined Marty, their eleven-year-old daughter, to be a grandchild or niece instead of the baby Martha had had with John when she was pastforty. The General’s wife regarded it as an honor, not a small humiliation, for McCord to have been asked to chauffeur the girl to school from time to time. Whether she now saw an injustice to him or to herself wasn’t fully clear.
“Miz Mitchell,” said LaRue, trying something that would probably just make things worse. “We’re not even sure Jim McCord wasn’t workin’ for the other side—that this whole thing wasn’t some kind of trap the Democrats sprang on us.”
Martha laughed with sudden exuberance at the possibility, at the sheer deviousness and fun it seemed to inject into the situation, and LaRue hoped this new mood would last until he could get her off the phone.
Before he could think of the next thing to say, she’d hung up.
As he reentered the living room, he heard Magruder saying that Hugh Sloan, the buttoned-up kid who was the campaign’s treasurer, had come to him today, upset to say the least, with news that the money found on the burglars could be traced back to the CRP.
Dean said he’d heard the same thing. “And by the way,” he added, “Gordon may not
need
to be stashed away with Howard Hughes. He’s offered to be shot.”
“How do we respond to that?” asked Jeb Magruder.
“Tell him things haven’t quite come to that.”
Understatement was typically lost on Jeb, and when it came to Liddy, nothing was a laughing matter. “I don’t even want to
think
about guns in connection with that guy,” he said. “A while back a couple of us made a joke about having Jack Anderson bumped off and, Christ, Liddy thought we were serious.”
“You might be interested to know,” said Dean, “that he blames you for Friday night.”
Magruder squirmed and pouted. “Oh, swell!”
“To return to the problem of the moment,” said Dean, “Ehrlichman definitely wants to get Hunt out of town.”
Mitchell at last spoke. “This whole thing feels like a Chuck Colson production, doesn’t it?”
LaRue knew that he was asking the question rhetorically, just to indicate a direction he’d like them to start thinking in, the way Deanhad mentioned the dark, absent Ehrlichman to implicate him in what everybody here, even Magruder, understood was already a cover-up. Who knew for sure whether Ehrlichman had said a damned word about Howard Hunt, or whether Colson’s fingerprints could be found on the events of Friday night?
Dean
“Too bad they didn’t issue that ruling last Friday morning,” snapped Mardian, who had lost all patience. “Maybe that would have given those jerks of yours a little pause on Friday
night
.”
Mitchell took two quick puffs on his pipe, as if to say, “Now, now,” and then the bedroom phone rang. The General rolled his eyes, and LaRue, knowing who it would be, got up to answer it.
Sure enough, the operator had a collect call from the Newporter Inn in California.
“You’ve fired Jim McCord! Thrown him to the wolves!”
LaRue took a pause before saying, as soothingly as he could, that they just weren’t able to retain as campaign security chief a man who’d broken into the opposition’s headquarters. He wondered, as he said it, how Martha had even found out about the firing. Had the
Post
’s story already spread to the other coast, even before the evening news broadcasts out there?
“Honey,” said Mrs. Mitchell, able to tell what LaRue was thinking, “Helen Thomas can read me the papers whenever she calls.
Or when I call her
. But you get your mind back to Jim McCord now. That man used to drive my little girl to
school
. And you all have
thrown him to the wolves
.”
The Mitchells were each other’s second spouse, and people often imagined Marty, their eleven-year-old daughter, to be a grandchild or niece instead of the baby Martha had had with John when she was pastforty. The General’s wife regarded it as an honor, not a small humiliation, for McCord to have been asked to chauffeur the girl to school from time to time. Whether she now saw an injustice to him or to herself wasn’t fully clear.
“Miz Mitchell,” said LaRue, trying something that would probably just make things worse. “We’re not even sure Jim McCord wasn’t workin’ for the other side—that this whole thing wasn’t some kind of trap the Democrats sprang on us.”
Martha laughed with sudden exuberance at the possibility, at the sheer deviousness and fun it seemed to inject into the situation, and LaRue hoped this new mood would last until he could get her off the phone.
Before he could think of the next thing to say, she’d hung up.
As he reentered the living room, he heard Magruder saying that Hugh Sloan, the buttoned-up kid who was the campaign’s treasurer, had come to him today, upset to say the least, with news that the money found on the burglars could be traced back to the CRP.
Dean said he’d heard the same thing. “And by the way,” he added, “Gordon may not
need
to be stashed away with Howard Hughes. He’s offered to be shot.”
“How do we respond to that?” asked Jeb Magruder.
“Tell him things haven’t quite come to that.”
Understatement was typically lost on Jeb, and when it came to Liddy, nothing was a laughing matter. “I don’t even want to
think
about guns in connection with that guy,” he said. “A while back a couple of us made a joke about having Jack Anderson bumped off and, Christ, Liddy thought we were serious.”
“You might be interested to know,” said Dean, “that he blames you for Friday night.”
Magruder squirmed and pouted. “Oh, swell!”
“To return to the problem of the moment,” said Dean, “Ehrlichman definitely wants to get Hunt out of town.”
Mitchell at last spoke. “This whole thing feels like a Chuck Colson production, doesn’t it?”
LaRue knew that he was asking the question rhetorically, just to indicate a direction he’d like them to start thinking in, the way Deanhad mentioned the dark, absent Ehrlichman to implicate him in what everybody here, even Magruder, understood was already a cover-up. Who knew for sure whether Ehrlichman had said a damned word about Howard Hunt, or whether Colson’s fingerprints could be found on the events of Friday night?
Dean
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