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In his statement, Kalmbach said that he then told Rebozo to hire the best available tax lawyer, return what was left of the contribution, and submit the names of all the people who had received the money together with all records available of how they had used it. Rebozo did not like that idea. "This touches the President and the President's family," he responded, "and I just can't do anything to add to his problems at this time." Kalmbach offered to check out the matter with a friend, Stanley Ebner, general counsel of the Office of Management and Budget. Rebozo had his doubts, but finally approved when Kalmbach promised not to reveal the names of anyone involved but simply to present it as a hypothetical problem. Rebozo agreed to meet with Kalmbach the next morning at the White House.
When they met, Kalmbach told Rebozo that Ebner's advice was the same as his. But Rebozo seemed unconcerned and did not press Kalmbach for further help. "I had the feeling that he had made up his mind on what to do before that meeting," Kalmbach said in his statement, "and cut me short when he found that I had not come up with a more acceptable alternative."
Last January in San Clemente, the two discussed the matter for the last time. On this occasion, according to Kalmbach, Rebozo changed his earlier story. It turned out that he had not passed on the $100,000 after all, he told the lawyer. On going to his bank, he discovered all the bills still in a safe-deposit box in their original wrappers. "So it was clear," Rebozo said, "that no part of this money had been used during the several years it was in my box."
Tattered Bills. The Watergate committee investigators are inclined to believe that Rebozo was right the first time, though in his appearance before the committee, he denied that he ever told Kalmbach he gave the money away; Kalmbach must have "misunderstood," he testified. But other evidence unearthed by the investigators indicates that the cash had been disbursed, and Rebozo was looking for a fast, safe way to replace it in April 1973.
Though Kalmbach proved to be no help, Rebozo also went to William E. Griffin, counsel for the Hudson Valley (N.Y.) National Bank and a close associate of Robert Abplanalp, another millionaire friend of the President's. The investigators learned that Abplanalp met in Washington last May with Richard Danner, the Hughes executive who originally gave the $100,000 to Rebozo. Later in the month, Rebozo and Danner met with the President at Camp David. The investigators believe that Abplanalp provided the cash to replace the missing money in the safe-deposit box. Then last June, more than three years after the money had been paid to Rebozo, Griffin returned it to a Hughes representative in New York. When the cash was examined by the investigators, they came to a preliminary conclusion that the bills were not the same ones Hughes originally handed out. His gift was supposedly taken from a cash register in one of his Las Vegas casinos. But most of the bills in question were issued in the early '50s and were too tattered and scruffy to be used by a gambling house. The committee feels that it is more likely that they came from the storage vault of a bank.