"A Question of Some Checks"

In the midst of the Senate debate on the Japanese Treaty Maine's Owen Brewster got a message and hustled off the floor. A few moments later, on the House side of the Capitol, he settled down amiably in the witness chair before the King subcommittee investigating tax scandals. Said Brewster: "I do not know precisely what has been brought out here. I understand there is a question of some checks."

The question had come up while Committee Counsel Adrian DeWind was ferreting through the financial records of Henry ("The Dutchman") Grunewald, the mysterious, too-sick-to-testify Washington influence man who keeps popping up in stories of tax influence peddling (TIME, Dec. 17 et seq.). In Grunewald's records, Counsel DeWind had found a $10,000 deposit and five other deposits totaling $16,500, identified by the symbol "Br." Grunewald's tax consultant explained that "Br" was Owen Brewster.

"I am not familiar with all of these," said Senator Brewster briskly, "but I have the records of this $10,000 item . . . which is covered by my check of May 8, 1950, I believe." His explanation: as chairman of the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee in 1950, he thought it advisable to help out California's Richard Nixon and North Dakota's Milton Young in their primary campaigns. Under campaign rules, Brewster was not allowed to spend the committee's money in primaries to help one Republican against another, but he felt that these were exceptional cases and he personally borrowed $10,000 to help Nixon and Young. "I did not want to do it directly myself . . . so I spoke to Mr. Grunewald and asked him whether he would act as a conduit for the transaction . . . In the course of time, for which I was profoundly grateful, [Nixon and Young] were nominated [and] entitled to the $5,000 grant from the committee . . . They repaid me the money."

Why had he chosen Grunewald (at one point Brewster referred to him as "Henry") for such a confidential mission? Said Brewster: "He was apparently well known to members on both sides of the chamber. I think the one who originally spoke highly of him to me was Vice President Barkley . . . as well as Senator Holland of Florida . . . I didn't realize all that was involved, but if I wanted to get a man who had a capacity to keep his mouth shut . . . I didn't realize he was that good." (Laughter.)

Brewster departed with another smile and a word of thanks for the committee's courtesy, and the mystery of Henry Grunewald was more mysterious than ever.

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