Page 390 of Edge of Eternity (The Century 3)

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The front page of The Washington Post carried an odd story on the morning of Sunday, June 18. To most readers it was a bit baffling. To a handful it was utterly unnerving.

5 Held in Plot to Bug Democrats' Office Here

By Alfred E. Lewis

Washington Post Staff Writer

Five men, one of whom said he is a former employee of the Central Intelligence Agency, were arrested at 2:30 A.M. yesterday in what authorities described as an elaborate plot to bug the offices of the Democratic National Committee here.

Three of the men were native-born Cubans and another was said to have trained Cuban exiles for guerrilla activity after the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion.

They were surprised at gunpoint by three plain-clothes officers of the metropolitan police department in a sixth floor office at the plush Watergate, 2600 Virginia Ave., NW, where the Democratic National Committee occupies the entire floor.

There was no immediate explanation as to why the five suspects would want to bug the Democratic National Committee offices or whether or not they were working for any other individuals or organizations.

Cameron Dewar read the story and said: "Oh, shit."

He pushed away his cornflakes, too tense now to eat. He knew exactly what this was about, and it presented a terrible threat to President Nixon. If people knew or believed that the law-and-order president had ordered a burglary, it could even derail his reelection.

Cam scanned the paragraphs until he came to the names of the accused men. He feared that Tim Tedder would be among them. To Cam's relief, Tedder was not mentioned.

But most of the men named were Tedder's friends and associates.

Tedder and a group of former FBI and CIA agents formed the White House Special Investigations Unit. They had a high-security office on the ground floor of the Executive Office Building, across the street from the White House. Taped to their door was a piece of paper marked: PLUMBERS. It was a joke: their job was to stop leaks.

Cam had not known they planned to bug the Democrats' offices. However, he was not surprised: it was quite a good idea, and might lead to information about sources of leaks.

But the stupid idiots were not supposed to get themselves arrested by the Washington fucking police.

The president was in the Bahamas, due back tomorrow.

Cam called the Plumbers' office. Tim Tedder answered. "What are you doing?" Cam said.

"Weeding files."

In the background, Cam heard the whine of a shredder. "Good," he said.

Then he got dressed and went to the White House.

At first it seemed that none of the burglars had any direct connection with the president, and throughout Sunday Cam thought the scandal might be managed. Then it turned out that one of them had given a false name. "Edward Martin" was in fact James McCord, a retir

ed CIA agent employed full-time by CREEP, the Committee to Reelect the President.

"That does it," Cam said. He felt crushed and devastated. This was terrible.

Monday's Washington Post carried the information about McCord in a story bylined Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.

Still Cam hoped the president's involvement might be covered up.

Then the FBI stepped in. The Bureau began to investigate the five burglars. In the old days, Cam thought regretfully, J. Edgar Hoover would have done no such thing; but Hoover was dead. Nixon had installed a crony, Patrick Gray, as acting director, but Gray did not know the Bureau and was struggling to control it. The upshot was that the FBI was beginning to act like a law enforcement agency.

The burglars had been found in possession of large amounts of cash, new bills with sequential numbers. This meant that sooner or later the FBI would be able to trace the money and find out who had given it to them.

Cam already knew. This money, like the payments for all the administration's undercover projects, came from the CREEP slush fund.

The FBI inquiry had to be shut down.

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