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...most eagerly awaited answers involved Mitchell's relationship with ITT Lobbyist Dita Beard, who claimed in her confidential memo to her corporate superiors that Mitchell was "definitely helping us" with the ITT settlement. Mitchell's response was swift and curt. Mrs. Beard approached him three times at a Kentucky Derby party in Louisville, he said, and on the third sally, "I told her in rather harsh terms that I didn't appreciate her approaching me." His message was: shove...
Shredding. After Mitchell came ITT President Geneen. He too disavowed any connection between the ITT settlement and the convention offer. In fact, he said, that offer, made by the Sheraton Corp., an ITT subsidiary, was not for $400,000 but for $100,000, and on condition that the presidential headquarters would be set up in a new Sheraton hotel. An additional $100,000 was offered if needed and if matched by other businesses. Geneen said the money was a routine investment to publicize the opening of a new hotel...
There was one particularly intriguing chapter in the week's testimony. Last month Jack Anderson's assistant, Brit Hume, had appeared in ITT's Washington office and showed the original of the Beard memo to Mrs. Beard and her boss, ITT Vice President W.R. Merriam. According to Geneen and ITT Senior Vice President Howard Aibel, the Washington staff was ordered "to remove any documents that were no longer needed for current operations, as well as documents which, if put into Mr. Anderson's possession, could be misused and misconstrued by him so as to cause embarrassment...
Stock Sale. Nor was ITT's case buttressed by the revelation that for six weeks last summer, from June 18 to the end of July, Aibel and six other top officials of ITT and an ITT subsidiary sold 41,280 common and 8,500 convertible preferred shares of ITT stock. ITT spokesmen said the sales were mere coincidence, yet at least some ITT officials learned around June 18 that the Government had proposed the ITT antitrust settlement. As it turned out, the settlement caused a $7 a share drop in the price of ITT stock...
Then came Dita Beard's disavowal of the memo that Anderson had published. That claim seemed at best peculiar, since Anderson's assistant had showed her the memo three weeks before, giving her plenty of time to denounce it. If the memo was a fake, why did ITT go to the trouble of shredding its documents in Washington? Early on, ITTs defenders went to some lengths to portray Mrs. Beard as a sometimes irrational incompetent. Having first tried to discredit her, they are hard pressed to defend what she says...