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The memos dealt for the most part with matters taking place at the Democratic National Committee. Contributors seek to be reimbursed for their largess with positions, contracts, and influence, and it is only when the spoils system transcends the limits of law and appearances that it becomes a political problem. The greedy are never satiated, and there is a natural progression in this process toward corruption. That had happened to some degree toward the end of both previous administrations, and the question was whether it was happening again. In one of his memos, Bartlett recalled that in February he had told Kenny O’Donnell that “the committee would have been more balanced if someone like Siegenthaler [sic] had gone there.” O’Donnell, who fancied himself a tough man in a tough world, reportedly replied that he [O’Donnell] “was responsible for the dealings with contractors and that he was determined they would ante up to the party.”

O’Donnell may have been the chief political operative in the White House, but he had already violated one of the fundamental rules by breaking down the firewall between the president and his top people and the often nasty business of patronage. John Seigenthaler had in fact been scheduled to move over from the Justice Department to the DNC precisely because of the reasons that so upset Bartlett. Seigenthaler was to have been what he called “the buffer and the string cutter,” saving Bobby from having to deal with big contributors and other favor-seeking supplicants. “Bobby had dealt with every major politician in America during the campaign, and every one of them thought that Bobby was obligated to them,” Seigenthaler reflected. When Bobby’s aide moved back to his home state to become the editor of the Nashville Tennessean, the administration lost a man who had both the moral fiber and the toughness to handle the largely thankless job of patronage.

Bartlett’s charges were for the most part in the gray area where most patronage takes place. Everything the journalist had said could be rationalized with a shrug and a wink. What was most devastating, however, was an account of a conversation that Bartlett’s source had purportedly had with Larry Newman, a Secret Service agent. Newman supposedly recounted an evening he had spent with O’Donnell at Lake Como in Italy at the end of the president’s recent European trip. “O’Donnell’s remark was that the president was in fact rather stupid and that if it were not for his assistance, he would fall flat on his face,” Bartlett wrote in his memo. “Newman said that O’Donnell’s power seemed to him to be total and that he was clearly a negative and evil force.”

Bartlett admitted years later that Paul Corbin had been the source of the story about the Secret Service agent hearing O’Donnell blowing hard and strong at Lake Como. Newman had not even gone on the European trip. He did not know O’Donnell, and even if he had, he was hardly so stupid as to spout such blustering nonsense. He was bewildered when he started hearing rumors that O’Donnell did not like him and that for some reason he was on the outs with the Kennedys.

In his cover letter Bartlett admonished the president that unless he “put a personal priority on learning more about what is going on, the thing may slip suddenly beyond your control.” Bartlett was one of Corbin’s friends and sources, and he may have been pulling the strings here, attempting a sweet, subtle revenge. Corbin had been wrong about Newman, but he was a prodigious researcher, and his other revelations were not necessarily wrong, only perhaps tainted in their purposes.

In most ethical matters that came across his desk, the president had sought Mike Feldman’s advice. Feldman never learned anything, however, of this matter. The president surely understood that by sending him these memos instead of investigating the administration and writing about it, Bartlett was letting his friendship take priority over his journalistic standards. Kennedy, however, was not so loyal to Bartlett as Bartlett was