Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, June 12, 1973 (2/2)
Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, June 12, 1973 (2/2)
[01.04.15--STANS testifying about campaign finances and payments to KALMBACH and others] Mr. STANS. I think you are referring to disbursements in cash, are you, Senator? Senator MONTOYA. Yes. Mr. STANS. From time to time but,, only a very few occasions, Mr. Sloan gave me reports as to how much cash he, had on hand. Occasionally, I asked him and he would give me the figure. And he also gave me reports as to the contributions received in cash. To the best of my recollection, Mr. Sloan did not ever give me a report of the individual disbursements that, he made in cash to anyone. Senator MONTOYA. Did he ever tell you verbally about any big disbursements which he made? Mr. STANS. Well, I heard about, some that he had made in the past, For example, there was $25,000 given In 1971, almost, a year before I joined the committee, to help in the campaign of Congressman 'Mills in Maryland, I did not know about that at, the time, but after I became chairman, I was told that--- Senator ERVIN. I think you are distracting the attention of the committee and the witness, so please desist from taking pictures, Mr. STANS. At the time I became chairman of the committee or shortly thereafter, I was told that there was a loan of $25,000 still due from Congressman Mills' campaign. I asked Lee Nunn, N-u-n-n, who is one of the members of our committee, to check it out, and see if we could get paid, and the report was that there was no money and we could not get it back. So in that sense, I did learn from Mr. Sloan about, some of the earlier transactions. But I do not recall any full accounting for Mr. Sloan until June 23 of last year. Senator MONTOYA. Well, did you know of any disbursements made to anyone in Maryland for the Agnew dinner? Mr. STANS. Yes; I was a party to that transaction. Senator MONTOYA. Tell us about it. Mr. STANS. In March, Mr. Alexander Lankler was; the chairman of the Maryland Committee for the Re-Election of the President--the campaign committee in Maryland, not the finance committee. And he wanted to be sure that he was going to have adequate financing for his Campaign. So on one occasion, he brought in checks from a contributor totaling $150,000 in March. He said that, in return, he wanted a promise that, on call, we would give him $50,000 of that, money to use in the Maryland campaign at any time. I made the promise. I considered it, a, pledge to him to do so. Sometime in May, before the 19th, Mr. Lankler came in and said he, would like to call the $50,000 that had been promised to him, he would like it as a loan to be used in a salute to Agnew party on May 19. It did not look as though the receipts of that at, affair were going to be of a creditable size and he wanted the receipts to be increased. I gave him the money, with the understanding that it, would be returned promptly after the affair was over. It was returned to the committee in July. That is the story of that transaction. Senator MONTOYA. Did you ever in inquire or was not your curiosity aroused by requests for the large sums which were being disbursed by Mr. Sloan? Mr. STANS. Senator, Mr. Sloan was the treasurer of the committee, MR. STANS. He had the cash fund long before I got there. He continued to handle the cash transactions. My only interest was really in knowing who had made contributions in cash, because I wanted to know who our contributors were. I wanted to know from time to time how much cash he had on hand, because occasionally, he and I would discuss that subject and I would suggest that he ought to put some of it in the bank, and he did from time to time. My recollection is that he banked about half of the money that came in cash in the course of time. So that was the nature of my interest and my curiosity. senator MONTOYA. Why would you attend these budget meetings, because they were meetings about disbursements, then, if you were just interested in contributions? Mr. STANS. I do not, understand your question, Senator. [01.09.23]