Kenneth H. Dahlberg - Watergate

Watergate

During the Watergate investigation by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, chronicled in All the President's Men, Bernstein traveled to Miami to see Martin Dardis, the head investigator for Dade County District Attorney Richard E. Gerstein. Since most of the Watergate burglars were from Miami, the district attorney's office had launched an investigation. Dardis showed Bernstein a photostatic copy of a cashier's check for $25,000 that had been deposited into the bank account of a real estate firm owned by Bernard Barker, one of the Watergate burglars. The check was drawn on a Boca Raton, Florida, bank and was made out to Kenneth H. Dahlberg. Bernstein telephoned this information to Woodward who was back at the Post in Washington, D.C.

Woodward located Dahlberg's telephone number from information and called him at home. At first, Dahlberg did not believe Woodward was actually a reporter. He later called Woodward back and explained that his neighbor, Virginia Piper, had been recently kidnapped and it was an upsetting experience. Dahlberg told Woodward he had the check made out to himself while he was in Florida on business and did not want to carry that much cash around. Dahlberg could not explain how the check got into Barker's bank account, but said it was either given to the Committee for the Re-Election of the President or to Maurice Stans.

Dahlberg was the Midwest finance chairman for the Committee to Re-elect the President during President Richard M. Nixon's 1972 campaign. In 1968, Dahlberg was the finance chairman for Clark MacGregor's unsuccessful Senate campaign in Minnesota. MacGregor was later appointed the head of the Committee to Re-elect the President in 1972 after former attorney general John Mitchell had resigned. It was later learned the $25,000 came from Dwayne Andreas, chief executive officer of Archer Daniels Midland, as an anonymous donation to the Nixon campaign. Woodward later commented that finding Dahlberg's check was a turning point in their Watergate investigation because it led to the discovery of how the Watergate burglars were financed through a money-laundering scheme.

Kenneth H. Dahlberg was never charged with any wrongdoing as a result of the Watergate scandal.