Steve Buttry on the Minneapolis Tribunes local angle on Nixons resignation: The Tribune had the strongest front-page local story [compared with the Duluth and Des Moines papers], a Robert Franklin interview with a Twin Cities Watergate figure, Kenneth Dahlberg. If you’ve read the book or watched the movie “All the President’s Men,” you may remember that Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were trying to find out why a $25,000 cashier’s check from him ended up in the bank account of Bernard Barker, one of the Watergate burglars. Dahlberg was a Nixon fund-raiser. Woodward (played by Robert Redford in the movie), called Dahlberg and asked him about the check. Dahlberg said he handed the money over to Maurice Stans (former Commerce Secretary, who was finance chairman of Nixon’s re-election effort). Dahlberg told Woodward/Redford, “I’ve just been through a terrible ordeal! My neighbor’s wife has been kidnapped!” (which was true). Dahlberg also came up in the “smoking gun” tape. White House Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman, told Nixon about the Dahlberg check and Nixon asked, “Who in the hell is Ken Dahlberg?” That was a great local angle to pursue for the Tribune and a worthy front-page story. I love this quote in the Franklin story, explaining why Dahlberg worked for Nixon’s re-election: “I kind of had the idea, right or wrong, that if McGovern was president I might see what’s his name — William Kunstler — as attorney general and Jane Fonda as secretary of state.” (Conservatives trying to scare each other about liberals is not a new feature in American politics.) stevebuttry.wordpress/2014/08/08/looking-back-on-nixon-resignation-front-pages-from-40-years-ago/
Posted on: Fri, 08 Aug 2014 14:22:01 +0000
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