HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_015106.jpg

we became the recipients of kickbacks from our own government’ s aid to the Saigon government. | do not ask for forgiveness. No, rather | must live with the memory of myself as an idealistic adolescent first reading about the Teapot Dome scandal and saying to my mother, while helping her to mash the potatoes, “| would like to become an honest lawyer who can’ t be brought by crooks.” But my character had already been set. When | was only five years old, my mother intended to buy me a copy of 7he Prince and the Pauper, but she asked a bookstore clerk for 7he Prince, and so of course he gave her Machiavelli’ s book. Mo mother was a saint. Her little mistake changed my life, and | will always be grateful for what | feel must have been a touch of divine intervention. We created a couple of Frankenstein monsters, and when | say we, | mean the administration and the media in an unintentional collaboration. One such monster was Martha Mitchell. The first time she made one of her famous telephone calls and we saw how the press ate it up, we realized we had a political gold mine. The wife of the attorney general could serve as our mouthpiece for floating various trial balloons. HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_015106