On the Stand

By last week Boston Real Estate and Textile Operator Bernard Goldfine had become far more of a Washington attraction than his good friend, Presidential Assistant Sherman Adams. Tourists nudged one another and gawped as he swept through hotel lobbies with his entourage. Reporters and TVmen jumped at the beck of his pressagents any time of day or night. Seasoned politicos of both parties swallowed nervously every time he dropped a new political name. And behind the guarded gates of the White House, the President's staff read the news tickers in continuing wonderment to see what manner of man this was for whom Staff Chief Adams had vouched as a close personal friend.

The Peepers. Goldfine's pressagents got the week off to the wildest of Marx Brothers starts. In charge was one Jack Lotto, modestly describing himself as "a former ace reporter for the I.N.S.," who set up shop in a three-room Sheraton-Carlton press headquarters. The headquarters featured free whisky and "Press Receptionist" Bea Duprey, a toothsome Boston model who seemed mostly interested in making sure reporters got her measurements right (35-22-35). In a ridiculous midnight affair, Lotto & Co. soon caught a couple of snoopers listening in with a microphone and a tape recorder from the room next door.

Caught in the eavesdropping act: Jack Anderson, a legman for Newspeeper Columnist Drew Pearson, and Baron (name, not title) Ignatius Shacklette, chief investigator for the House Special Subcommittee on Legislative Oversight and a veteran congressional shamus. Next day the House subcommittee fired Shacklette (but Pearson kept Anderson on, saying: "I need him"). Then, the Goldfine entourage, hastened by a belated report from Goldfine's secretary, Mildred Paperman, that her room had been rifled of important documents, moved out of the Sheraton-Carlton amid much tub-thumping and hoopla, took up new quarters across K Street in 19 rooms ($1,000 a day) at the Statler.

Close to Contempt. The greater the attention, the more B.C. seemed to thrive --even though investigators were closing in relentlessly on details of shadowy business and political connections (see box next page). Settling back in the witness chair for his second week before House investigators, Goldfine played to the gallery, shouted give-'em-hell answers when provoked, slipped and dodged among questions, refused to discuss most of his fast-shuffle business affairs--and came perilously close to a contempt citation. During the committee give-and-take, Goldfine:

P: Swore that neither Sherman Adams nor other public officials had received any of the $776,000 in mysterious treasurer's and cashier's checks bought by his companies since 1941 and still uncashed as of last May 7.

P: Admitted that since May 7--about the time that committee investigators hit his trail--he had redeposited $395,572 worth of the checks in his company bank accounts, declared that another $209,671 worth had "never been used," that neither he nor Mildred Paperman could explain what had happened to an additional $89,000 worth of checks drawn in the 1940s. The bank, said Miss Paperman blandly, has "made mistakes in the past, and these can be an error."

P: Told the committee that it was none of its business why and how he used the enormous sums in treasurer's and cashier's checks.

P: Raised the tab on the amount of hotel bills that he had picked up for Sherman Adams and family from a previous $2,000 to a total of 21 hotel visits costing $3,096.56--carefully claimed as business expense on his tax returns.

P: Admitted paying hotel bills of $675 for Maine's Republican Senator Frederick Payne, of $340 for New Hampshire's Republican Senator Norris Cotton,*and of $182 for New Hampshire's Republican Senator Styles Bridges. "I met quite a few Senators in hotels in my day."

P: Rose to his most dramatic moment when Illinois Democrat Peter Mack, out of the blue, asked if it was not true that Goldfine had once been indicted for concealing assets in a bankruptcy case. As it turned out, the case dated from 1909, when Goldfine was 18 years old, and even then it had been dropped by the prosecutor. Cried Bernard Goldfine: "I'm just not going to have anybody come down here and blackmail Mr. Goldfine." After the exchange, Committee Chairman Harris ordered it stricken from the record.

"That's My Business." For a few moments. Mack's charge made something of a martyr of Goldfine. but he did not wear well in that character, was soon dodging and blustering again. Next day California Democrat John Moss was needling Goldfine about having charged off the Bridges, Payne and Cotton hotel bills to business expenses. Replied Goldfine heatedly: "If you are going to discuss bookkeeping and what auditors do, then I think you ought to get my auditor down and see."

Moss: I think . . .

Goldfine: Just a minute.

Moss: I will not wait just a minute. I am . . .

Goldfine: That's too bad.

Moss: I am not asking you to respond now. Will you be silent?

Chairman Or en Harris: That is out of order. Mr. Moss, you may ask a question.

Moss: How you determine to pay your bills is your responsibility.

Goldfine: That's my business, not yours.

Moss: Yes, but you are subject to the same laws as the rest of us.

Goldfine: That remains to be seen.

Building a Record. No sooner had Goldfine blurted out his above-the-law self-appraisal than his Boston Lawyer Sam Sears jumped up, conferred hastily with Pressagent Lotto. Lotto went right to work, typed out a statement for Goldfine to deliver to the TV cameras after the subcommittee adjourned (in the statement Lotto misspelled his boss's name--"Goldfein"). The statement as edited by Goldfine: "What I meant was that after this thing is over, then I'll be able to tell whether I have been treated like everyone else--which is all I want. Certainly I did not mean to imply that I was above the law. No man is."

In fact. Bernard Goldfine even then had considerable reason for believing that the law might be closing in on him. The subcommittee was threatening a contempt citation against Bernard Goldfine for his refusal to answer questions and was patiently building a record to support such a citation.

*Who tells of a favorite Goldfine gambit. Goldfine liked to invite a Senator or other bigwig to his Boston office, then pick up a telephone, call one of his good customers and say: "Bennie, you know who's sitting right here at my desk--Senator Norris Cotton, an old friend of mine . . . Say hello to Bennie, Norris." At which point, Goldfine hands the phone over to his distinguished visitor, who is supposed to say something agreeable like "Hello, Bennie, glad to know you."

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