Part 3, page 1

Transcript

The scan is the source; the transcript is machine-generated from it.

[illegible — heavy microfiche degradation across full-width top strip; partial words visible but not reliably reconstructable]

---

McCauley later wrote me that Thomas [was] the kind of person we all remember in grade school: the type who trudges into the cloakroom, hangs up his mackinaw, and then all the other kids rush in and stuff snowballs into his mackinaw hood and pockets. [illegible] One of the nagging problems about the story was the difficulty and near-impossibility of verifying any of Cooper's statements. To go to anyone, the airline, to Boeing, and certainly to the FBI to verify the story would not be intelligent. That would be blowing my story, and causing Cooper's arrest even before anything could be published. [illegible] If there was now a chance Thomas or someone else there might talk as seemed likely, then I would have to do something, quick. I telephoned Morgan in Atlanta, and he rapidly devised a plan. He left instantly for Washington, went to the Justice Department, and reported that he had a client, unnamed, who had knowledge of a serious federal crime, that the client planned to publish a story about it, and that the client would turn over the information he would print — 10 days before publication — providing the client could get a promise of immunity. Here was the legal danger: were I to publish the story and Cooper take flight, then I might be liable for aiding and abetting a criminal to take flight to avoid prosecution, and other things. But if the FBI got the information 10 days ahead of publication, they'd have a fair shot at doing their jobs, and for that matter, possibly establishing whether Cooper's story was true. The promise of immunity was made. Meantime, Morgan urged me to hurry.

---

[illegible top strip] only visible [partially] — about the Cambodian invasion [illegible] more populous, and emboldened enough to appear by day scuttling under cars and running across the streets. Now at the end of the term with John Connally heading up the Democrats for Republicans Committee, they're in parks, not running, but standing still contesting with the pigeons for dry bread crumbs. In this city of predators the rats have no natural enemies. Yes, there's a rat- abatement program, but like so much under the Nixon Administration it doesn't work. People don't realize that. They think these Republicans are efficient because they don't make big, dreamy, Democratic promises and then fail to carry them out. You can break modest promises too, but that hasn't sunk in any more than the Watergate Scandal or the Milk Scandal or the Wheat Scandal or the You- Fill-in-the-Blank Scandal. Nor does the country, over which this capital presides know about another scandal: the almost nightly escape from Washington's jails. Since January they have averaged one escape every four days. They make good their get-aways not only singularly, but in groups. Fat City, Rat City, who's to blame? One test of an administration is how it runs Washington. Do we blame the low caliber of Nixon's appointees or are the crooks bribing their way out? That accusation has been made but not answered. No questions get answered in the rat kingdom where the rodents come out of their holes, and a faceless President slips down and out of sight broadcasting modest radio messages in the Television Age from impenetrable places. Many, many questions. There are questions to be asked about John Ales[truncated] purposes, the mice must live off Ziegler briefings, and they only have half enough of them because he has the cut the daily briefings from two to one. [illegible] With their rations reduced to the level of pernicious anemia last week, they squeaked at their keeper as he stood in front of the blue curtain in the White House briefing room; but Ziegler squelched the weakened things, telling them that, "We're not going to have this type of chaos in future briefings...(and) as far as this briefing is concerned, ending it, it's ended." The questions pile up. Instead of answers there are diversions, such as Marina Whitman, the most presentable member of the Council of Economic Advisors, who makes those monthly admissions that prices have gone up again. "Dahlings," the ZsaZsa Gabor of economics says in effect, "we have our good months and we have our bad months, and this was a bad one again, but not so bad if you know how to read the numbers like us experts. Sure, bread's up, rent's up, milk's up, but we've got GM to hold the line on Cadillac, and diamond prices are stable." Fat city, Rat city, who's to blame? Copyright, 1972, The Washington Post-King Features Syndicate

---

[illegible top strip — partial words: Cooper, No do[ubt], FBI, [il]licit, military, search for Cooper] Cooper had been located [illegible] — he was dying of an incurable disease. The fraud case was yet to be tried, but strong evidence seemed to be accumulating that Donald Sylvester Murphy — my Cooper — is not the real Cooper. A private investigator checked again last week and says that Murphy had not been employed at Boeing, and had [no] military record as a jumper. Neither fact, of course, is proof that Murphy did or did not hijack the airplane. In theory anybody smart enough to pull it off would be smart enough to concoct an elaborate fictitious background for himself. Or, anybody smart enough to do it would be smart enough to do it and tell the story for money, but tell it in such a way that it appeared to be a hoax. [illegible] But in the end, or to this point, it seems appropriate to conclude that Murphy — not Cooper — which means I jumped his [story] I fell hard. Long ago I played in a poker game with a bristly-browed old curmudgeon who had run whiskey for Capone in Philadelphia. He was one tough old man. He would try to goad me into calling his bets, when my cards didn't indicate I should. "Go on. Take a chance," he taunted. "Columbus took a chance." Yes. Columbus took a chance and discovered America. Now I had taken a chance, everything on the line, and had discovered what? More than likely an impostor, an actor, a pretender — herculean deeds. Still there lingers a small gut feeling, maybe self-serving, maybe not, that [I] had the right man all along. And if [I] didn't, well, so be it. It was a great taking story that didn't check out. And that is what a reporter is for.

---

[row of microfiche index/tracking symbols — alphanumeric characters and symbols not representing readable text]