The Last President. Michael Kurland

January 5, 1973, special to the Washington Post

      In a surprise news conference in the Oval Office this morning, the President announced the appointments of Charles Ober, Uriah Vandermeer, and Dr. Peter Gildruss as the three chief officers in a new “Supercabinet” to oversee the executive branch of the government.

      “The reorganization,” the President said, “will be along the guidelines set up in a report by the President’s Advisory Council on Executive Organization, a group that has been working on the problem for the past four years.

      “In general terms,” the President added, “the three offices will be chairman of the Domestic Council, who will have charge of the formation and implementing of domestic policy, the chief of the Office of Management and the Budget, who will, among other things, oversee Congress’s attempts to spend the taxpayers’ money, and the head of the newly formed Foreign Advisory Council.”

      The President named Uriah Vandermeer, his chief aide, to head the Domestic Council, Charles Ober to oversee the OMB, and Dr. Peter Gildruss to head the Foreign Advisory Council.

      WATERGATE CAMERA

      TRACED TO WHITE HOUSE

      POLICE SOURCE REVEALS CIA INVOLVEMENT

      by Ralph Schuster

      Washington, Friday, January 5—A Leica camera left behind by five burglars who entered the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate complex last June 16 has been traced to a staff member of the White House Executive Department, a highly placed government source revealed today.

      The camera’s serial number has been traced back to the Fleming Importing Company, reportedly a Central Intelligence Agency front organization in New York. According to a confidential source, CIA records show that the camera was borrowed, along with other equipment, by a member of the White House staff two days before the robbery.

      The five burglars were actually arrested while still inside the Watergate Complex, but they were subsequently released and their booking record was destroyed. An official of the Metropolitan Police confirms that pressure was brought on the arresting officers by the CIA to effect the release of the five men.

      The burglars were apparently interrupted before they could accomplish their goal, still undetermined. A roll of film found in the camera had not been exposed.

      A White House spokesman, when questioned about the alleged connection, denied any knowledge or involvement of the White House in this “second-rate burglary attempt.” The Central Intelligence Agency declined comment.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      Edward St. Yves’ appearance revealed nothing about the inner man. Not that he was nondescript. He was, if anything, too descript. His light-brown hair was kept closely and meticulously cropped, and massaged several times a day with a pair of military brushes. His angular face was well tanned except for the thin white line of an ancient scar running under his right eye. His mustache was neat and thin, and looked as though each hair had been carefully ironed into place. From a distance he gave the illusion of being quite tall, although he was of average height.

      He seemed to have complete run of the White House and the Executive Office Building, although few people in the EOB knew precisely what he did. He was liable to show up at any office at any time and make some strange request of its occupant. If the requests were checked, they were always found to have been approved from on high, although he never cited higher authority, but merely demanded what he demanded as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

      It was Kit’s first day back at the job after a two-week trip to Maine with Miriam, where they had holed up in her parents’ summer cabin. St. Yves appeared at the door to Kit’s office on the second floor of the EOB shortly after ten o’clock. “You Kit Young?” he asked.

      “That’s right,” Kit said.

      “I’m St. Yves. You free for lunch?” He barked out the question and stared intently at Kit, waiting for the answer.

      “Yes,” Kit said.

      “Good. We’ll eat together. I’ll buy. Things to talk about. Pick me up at my office at twelve-thirty. Room Sixteen.”

      “I know.”

      “’Course you do. Twelve-thirty.” And with a curt nod, he strode off down the corridor.

      Which left Kit with a shade over two hours to catch up with all the scut work that no one else had bothered to do in his absence, and wonder what the hell St. Yves wanted to see him about. Room Sixteen, the Special Intelligence Unit, was popularly known within the Executive Branch as “the Plumbers,” or the Dirty Tricks Unit, and St. Yves was reputed to be in charge.

      Kit took the logbook for classified documents that was his responsibility and spent the next hour and a half wandering from office to office, verifying that the last person signing for each document was, in fact, currently in possession of it. Then he went to the interoffice loan vault, where documents on loan to the White House from the various intelligence agencies were stored. There he spent the next half hour checking red-and-gray-covered documents against the list, and was pleased to find that they were all there. Nothing was less fun than searching the corners of the White House and the Executive Office Building for a document that some executive assistant borrowed from some assistant secretary and then shoved in the back of a desk drawer and forgot about.

      At twelve-thirty sharp Kit showed up at the door to room sixteen. A thin, hawk-faced woman met him at the door. “You’re Kit Young,” she said, holding out a slender, well-manicured hand. “I’m Dianna Holroyd. That’s with two n’s. I’m executive secretary and den mother for this group. Mr. St. Yves asked me to tell you he’ll be a few moments.”

      “What’s happening?” Kit asked, gesturing into the office, where workmen were moving filing cabinets and ripping telephones from the wall with chaotic efficiency.

      “We’re expanding,” Dianna told him. “Part of our operation is moving across town, and the rest is taking over most of this hallway.”

      “What’s happening to the Vice-President’s press office?” Kit asked, amused at the constant game of musical chairs that went on in the EOB.

      “That’s moving into the President’s Counsel’s office. The President’s Counsel is moving across the street into the White House. I don’t know whose office he’s getting.”

      “Fascinating,” Kit said sincerely.

      “It’s like dominoes,” Dianna agreed, smiling. She was very pretty when she smiled.

      “Greetings!” St. Yves said, appearing from behind a moving file cabinet. “We got our marching orders this morning, and so we march. Into bigger digs. The SIU takes on new functions, grows with the times. You hungry?”

      Kit admitted to hunger, and St. Yves shepherded him upstairs and out onto Seventeenth Street. As they walked over to the nearby restaurant, St. Yves kept up a steady stream of small talk. He had led an adventurous life, traveled all over the world, and spoke with equal facility of Kathmandu and of Paris. His stories were sprinkled with the names of heads of state, movie stars, authors, rich men, wise men, beautiful women, traitors, spies, and assassins, all of whom he knew well or had been closely associated with.

      Kit learned two things from the conversation: first, that St. Yves was at least ten years older than he looked, and, second, that St. Yves wanted something from him. What it could be, he had no idea, but he was sure that before the meal was over St. Yves would let him know.

      The Sans Souci was the in-place for those few in official Washington that knew, or cared about, good food. Since Dr. Gildruss, the President’s Adviser for International Affairs, was such good copy, the Sans Souci had been mentioned several times in various newspaper columns and news magazines. Now it was becoming the in-place for those who wanted to be seen eating in the in-place. This had not, as of yet, St. Yves assured Kit as he ushered him through the doors, affected the food.

      “And,”