The Passage of Power (The Years of Lyndon Johnson, #4)

by Robert A. Caro

The amount of the premium had been $73,631, Reynolds said, but that hadn’t been the amount that McCloskey & Company had actually paid. McCloskey had paid $109,205, with the understanding that of the approximately $35,000 overpayment, Reynolds would receive a second $10,000 for being the “bag man” and the remaining $25,000 would be given to what Reynolds described as “Mr. Johnson’s campaign.” Reynolds said he was instructed to deliver the money to Baker in cash—in installments that were never to be more than $5,000 each. He said he made three such deliveries—each of fifty hundred-dollar bills—although, since the performance bond was not written until after the Democratic convention, McCloskey did not pay the $109,000 until October 17, 1960, and the cash was delivered not for Lyndon Johnson’s campaign but for the “Johnson-Kennedy campaign.”