June 21, 1972: FBI Investigation Stalling on Money Tracing

Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman tells President Nixon that the FBI is having trouble tracing the $100 bills found on the Watergate burglars (see 2:30 a.m.June 17, 1972). The money trail deadends at Miami’s Republic National Bank (see March-April 1972). Haldeman is also working on another diversion: claiming that investigative reporter Jack Anderson actually bugged the Democratic National Committee. The rumor is already circulating, Haldeman says. “The great thing about this is it is totally f_cked up and so badly done that nobody believes…” “That we could have done it,” Nixon finishes. “Well, it sounds like a comic opera, really.” Haldeman says the FBI cannot place “Plumber” E. Howard Hunt at the scene of the crime. “We know where he was,” says Haldeman. “But they don’t. The FBI doesn’t,” Nixon concludes. Haldeman adds: “The thing we forgot is that we know too much and therefore read too much into what we see that other people can’t read into. I mean, what seems obvious to us because of what we know is not obvious to other people.” [Reeves, 2001, pp. 506-507]