in Washington!
'Remind Harry Truman's office that I gave fifty thousand dollars to his campaign fund during the last election and I intend to do the same,for Adlai.'
'I've already done that,' said Henry. 'In fact I would advise you to give fifty thousand to the Republicans as well.'
'They're making a - moun'tain out of a molehill,' said Abel. "A molehill that Kane will turn into a mountain if we give him the chance - ' His fingers continued to tap on the table.
Chapter 31
Thaddeus Cohen's next quarterly report revealed that Abel Rosnovski had stopped buying or selling stock in any of Lester's companies. It seemed he was now concentrating all his energy on building more hotels in Europe.
Cohen's opinion was that Rosnovski was lying low, until a decision had been made by the S.E.C. on the Interstate affair.
Representatives of the S.E.C. had visited William at the bank on several occasions. He had spoken to them with complete frankness, but they never revealed how their enquiries were progressing. The S.E.C. finally finished their investigation and thanked William for his co - operation. He heard nothing more from them.
As the Presidential election grew nearer and Truman seemed to be concentrating his own efforts on - the dissolution on the Du Pont industrial combine, William began to fear that Abel Rosnovski might have been let off the hook. He couldn't help feeling that Henry Osbome must have been able to pull a few strings in Congress. He'remembered that Cohen had once underlined a note about a fifty thousand dollar donation from the Baron Group to Harry Truman's campaign fund and was surprised to read in Cohen's latest report that Rosnovski had repeated the donation for Adlai Stevenson, the Democrats' choice for President, along with another fifty thousand for the Eisenhower campaign fund. Cohen had underlined the item again.
William, who had never considered supporting anyone for public office who was not a Republican, wanted General Eisenhower, the candidate who had emerged on the first ballot at the convention in Chicago, to defeat Adlai Stevenson, although he was aware that a Republican administration was less likely to press for a share manipulation enquiry than the Democrats.
When General Dwight D. Eisenhower - it appeared that the nation did like Ike - was elected as the thirty - fourth President of the United States on 4 November 1952, William assumed that Abel Rosnovski had escaped any charge and could only hope that the experience would persuade him to leave Lester's affairs well enough alone in the future. The one small compensation to come out of the election for William was that Congressman Henry Osborne lost his Congressional seat,to a Republican candidate. The Eisenhower jacket had turned out to have coat - tails, and Osborne's rival had clung to them. Thaddeus Cohen was inclined to think that Henry Osborne no longer exerted quite the same influence over Abel Rosnovski that he had in the past. The rumour in Chicago was that, since divorcing his rich wife, Osborne owed large sums of money to Rosnovski and was gambling heavily again.
William was happier and more relaxed than he had been for some time and looked forward to joining the prosperous and peaceful era that Eisenhower had promised in his Inauguration.Teech.
As the first years of the new President's administration went by, William began to put Rosnovski's threats at the back of his mind and to think of them as a thing of the past. He informed Thaddeus Cohen that he believed they had heard the last of Abel Rosnovski. The lawyer niade no comment.
He wasn't asked to.
William put all his efforts into building Lester's, both in size and reputation, increasingly aware that he was now doing it as much for his son as for himself. Some of his staff at the bank had already started referring to him as the 'old man'.
:It had to happen,' said Kate.
Then why hasn't it happened to you?' replied William.
Kate looked up at William and smiled. 'Now I know the secret of how you have closed so many deals with vain men." William laughed. 'And one beautiful woman,' he added.
With Richard's twenty - firat birthday only a year away, William revised the provisions of his will. He set aside five million dollars for Kate and two million for each of the girls, and left the rest of the family fortune to Richard, noting ruefully the bite that would go in estate tax. He also left one million dollars to Harvard.
Richard had been making good use of his