Letter from Washington

Former officials for the Hubert Humphrey and Wilbur Mills presidential campaigns have taken the Fifth Amendment in refusing to testify to Senate investigators about their campaign financing practices. But whatever these officials did in their campaigns, they could probably learn a thing or two about—dare we say it?—trickiness from Senator George McGovern. Last year, when McGovern was gearing up for this year’s reelection race in South Dakota, he was asking his creditors to settle some 1972 presidential campaign debts at 50 cents on the dollar. Because these settlements involved bills from 37 corporations, the discounting of the bills amounted to corporate contributions, which are illegal. Moreover, while these discounts were being arranged, McGovern was quietly shifting $340,000 surplus from his presidential campaign fund to his Senate reelection campaign fund.

And then in another campaign financing matter, Senate Watergate investigators report that a New York highway official extracted from a road building firm a $10,000 cash contribution to John Lindsay’s stillborn presidential campaign, and the road building firm later got a $1.7-million asphalt contract from Mr. Lindsay’s New York City government.

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Former officials for the Hubert Humphrey and Wilbur Mills presidential campaigns have taken the Fifth Amendment in refusing to testify to Senate investigators about their campaign financing practices. But whatever these officials did in their campaigns, they could probably learn a thing or two about—dare we say it?—trickiness from Senator George McGovern. Last year, when McGovern was gearing up for this year’s reelection race in South Dakota, he was asking his creditors to settle some 1972 presidential campaign debts at 50 cents on the dollar. Because these settlements involved bills from 37 corporations, the discounting of the bills amounted to corporate contributions, which are illegal. Moreover, while these discounts were being arranged, McGovern was quietly shifting $340,000 surplus from his presidential campaign fund to his Senate reelection campaign fund.

And then in another campaign financing matter, Senate Watergate investigators report that a New York highway official extracted from a road building firm a $10,000 cash contribution to John Lindsay’s stillborn presidential campaign, and the road building firm later got a $1.7-million asphalt contract from Mr. Lindsay’s New York City government.