University of Virginia Library

Violates Spirit

Then came the $10 million
secret fund of Nixon
contributors. Maurice Stans,
Nixon's fund raiser and former
Secretary of Commerce,
criss-crossed the country
getting fat cats to contribute to
the Nixon campaign before the
new federal law requiring
disclosure of contributors went
into effect. This deliberate
attempt at secrecy violates the
spirit, though not the letter of
the law.

When the Nixon
Administration raised dairy
price supports (13 days after it
said it would not), over
$300,000 was contributed to
the Republicans by Dairy
interests.

The Russian Grain Deal is
the most flagrant example of
conflict of interest in the
Nixon administration. Political
functionaries in the
department of agriculture
called the largest grain dealers
to give these companies
advance notice of the
impending grain sales.

As a result, the wheat
companies were able to buy
wheat at low prices and register
the same wheat for export at
high subsidy rates. And here's
the key: as soon as the grain
deal was publicly announced,
grain prices skyrocketed and
the government subsidy
plummeted.

The big grain companies,
with the help of the
Republican Administration,
made a killing on the market at
the expense of small farmers at