Yet Eisenhower worried that dumping Nixon might do more damage to his candidacy. He directed Paul Hoffman, an old friend who was now head of the Ford Foundation, to undertake a careful investigation of Nixon’s records with the help of the accounting firm Price Waterhouse. He asked Nixon to release all documents relating to the fund; the senator would have to be “clean as a hound’s tooth” in order to continue the fight against corruption—a remark that, when reported to Nixon, struck him like a punch to the solar plexus. Ike told the press, “I believe Dick Nixon to be an honest man,” and then
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