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In response to a White House memo saying that "Ohio is crucial to our hopes in November," Gray flew to Cleveland. There he talked about much more than crime, boasting: "We are on the threshold of the greatest growth pattern in our history—growth in the quality of life for all our citizens—growth in our total effort to eradicate the imperfections in human society." He was on another campaign trip when an incredible Teletype message went out over his name from Washington to 21 FBI field offices. It ordered agents to speedily gather information on topical matters of criminal justice in their regions that might have political implications. This was to be done, "in order for John Ehrlichman to give the President maximum support during campaign trips over the next several weeks."
A few agents refused to comply, considering the order an improper political use of the FBI, as it certainly was. Asked about it by agents at the FBI Academy, Gray accepted responsibility for the wire and asked: "Wouldn't you do that for the President?" (He has since denied saying this.) Yet when news of the order was printed (by TIME), Presidential Aide Ehrlichman termed the order improper. He said that the memo, which had originated in his office and gone to the Justice Department, should never have been sent to the FBI.
All that political activity was damaging enough to FBI morale, but it was the Watergate investigation that totally soured many agents on Gray. Five men with electronic eavesdropping equipment were caught on June 17 inside Democratic National Headquarters. Also implicated were two former White House aides, G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt Jr. All seven were convicted of conspiracy and wiretapping. Trial testimony indicated that Nixon's re-election committee had put up at least $89,000 to finance this spying.
Obviously, the involvement of former White House aides and Nixon's closest campaign workers would lead any investigative agency to suspect that presidential advisers might have inspired the operation. If ever there was to be a test of whether the FBI could pursue its purely police function and stand aloof from partisan politics, this was it. Gray flunked the test.
In fact, he severely limited the FBI's initial probing at the behest of Attorney General Kleindienst and Henry Petersen, the Justice Department's liaison man with the bureau. Gray was convinced that there was no need to try to find out who had originally contributed the $89,000 that financed the bugging. This money had been given by secret donors in Texas to Robert H. Allen, president of Gulf Resources & Chemical Corp. of Houston. To hide the identity of the donors, it had then been channeled through a Gulf Resources attorney in Mexico and was finally sent to Washington. There it wound up with other cash in a safe in the office of Maurice Stans, former Secretary of Commerce and head of the Nixon re-election finance committee. The money has since been returned to Allen at his request, but the names of the original donors are still secret.
Petersen also persuaded Gray at first not to have the FBI look into the activities of a