A. Yes. Q. Do you also receive in connection with the performance of your duties requests from staff employees to purchase airline tickets for their travel on your credit card? A. Yes. Q. How do you process such a request when you receive it? A. Well, may I preface my remark by saying that if I received a request from a staff member, I would check back with the chairman to find out if that request was authorized. The request would come to me in a memo "The chairman has authorized such and such." I would then proceed to make out a travel request and send it over to the airline ticket office for the ticket to be made up and delivered back to my office for delivery to the staff member. Q. How is the actual airline ticket delivered to the staff member after you receive it from the airline office? A. They are called to either pick it up or if the chairman has asked me to order a certain ticket and send it over his office, I would do that either send it to the chairman's office or deliver it to the stuff member. I have a T-4 in my office that is signed as a receipt when the ticket is picked up. Q. In other words, the person who receives the ticket, the person who is scheduled to perform the travel, has to receipt for it by signature on a form that you have in your office? A. Yes. That's for tickets that are purchased on my card. Mr. HAYS. I am asking this, Mrs. Dargans, because I am unfamiliar with this procedure. You say you make out a request and send it over to the airline ticket office? The WITNESS. Yes. Mr. HAYS. You gave some sort of name to it. Do you send your card along with it? The WITNESS. Heretofore I went over to the airline ticket office with my card and had several requests stamped with my card, so that when I sent the request over, my card did not have to go along with it, just this request. Mr. HAYS. I see. The WITNESS. A little later another control was put on the ticket; that the signed travel request, along with the card-this was the chairman's order-would have to go over to the airline ticket office for every ticket that was issued. In other words, I Mr. TAYLER. When was this? Mr. Chairman Mr. HAYS. When was this done? The WITNESS. As closely as I can recall, some months ago. I am sorry I can't pinpoint it as to the exact time. Mr. HAYS. It has been a matter of some months? The WITNESS. Yes. Mr. DEVINE. Prior to adjournment? The WITNESS. Oh, yes. By Mr. TAYLER: Q. When you say that a transportation request is sent over to the airline ticket office here in the Capitol, are you referring to this airline-Eastern Airlines-form for transportation receipt, universal air travel plan? Yes; this is the type of request. Q. That is not a ticket. That is a transportation receipt, as it is called, which is like a charge receipt. Isn't that correct? A. Yes. Q. And it bears your credit card stamp in the lower right-hand corner and shows the name of the traveler in the upper left-hand corner, and it also shows the travel that is to be performed on the ticket to be issued against that form? A. Yes. By Mr. O'CONNOR: Q. What is your credit card number there? A. EAQ091224NEA127429. Mr. HAYS. This is a procedure I am unfamiliar with. If one of these forms is issued, then when they issue the ticket, your credit card stamp would not necessarily appear on the ticket, would it? The WITNESS. No; I don't believe so. Mr. HAYS. We have seen some tickets here that had this number on them, but didn't have the imprint of your ticket. The WITNESS. I know. Mr. HAYS. As a result of this, that could happen. Is that correct? The WITNESS. Yes; it could. Mr. HAYS. I am not trying to confuse you. What I am trying to find out for myself is that nobody could just take that number, get hold of your number, and walk over there and get a ticket and say, "I want this charged to credit card so-and-so," could they? The WITNESS. I don't know, Mr. Hays. Once I got a receipt back where the imprint of my card had been just printed in on a request, and that had been honored. I didn't know about it. Mr. HAYS. I am not sure it could happen, but this is what we want to try to find out and ask Eastern Air Lines if it could happen. The point I make here is, could anybody get a ticket without anybody on the committee knowing about it? The WITNESS. It so happened that that particular travel was authorized. It was for a member, but a member of that member's staff went over and picked up the ticket in that fashion. I say now they did tell me about it, but they didn't have my card, nor did I know about the authorization for the ticket beforehand. By Mr. TAYLER: Mrs. Dargans, did you ever lend your credit card to anyone during the period of the 89th Congress? A. Yes: I did. Q. Would you tell us to whom you lent it and the dates involved? A. On March 28, 1965, Chairman Powell requested me to use my travel card and purchase four one-way shuttle tickets, Washington to New York City, in the names of four staff members and turn them over to a staff member of his congressional staff. I accompanied the staff member to the airport, since it was impossible for me to follow my normal procedure of securing tickets from the Capitol airline ticket office. The Eastern Air Line agent at the airport informed me that shuttle tickets could not be purchased on a credit card before boarding the flight. They had to be purchased in flight. I gave my credit card to the congressional staff member at the airport. Q. Would you identify that staff member by name? A. Mrs. Lillian Upshur. U-p-s-h-u-r. Q. What was her position on the staff? A. She is a clerk on Chairman Powell's congressional staff. Q. Is she still employed on his congressional staff? A. Yes, as far as I know. Q. Very well. Proceed. By Mr. O'CONNOR: Q. She is clerk hire A. Yes. Q. Who are the other three members? A. Aurora Harris, Odell Clark, and Louise Dargans. Q. They were the other three taking the trip? A. Yes. Mr. HAYS. Just a minute. You just said you didn't buy a ticket because you couldn't. You loaned your card, and those are the names they bought the tickets under. The WITNESS. I gave my credit card to Mrs. Upshur at the airport with the assurance from her that she would make the four purchases in flight, return the card to me as soon as she reached New York, which she did. I reported my action to the chairman. The chairman had already told me to buy these tickets. When I found that I couldn't buy them, I told him what I had done. When the Eastern statement arrived, I noted from the coupons that Mrs. Upshur had made only the purchases in flight, as requested by the chairman. This was the one rare instance in which I have let another staff member, or anyone other than myself, have my card. And I did this at the direct instruction of the chairman. By Mr. TAYLER: Q. From whom did the chairman instruct you to make the purchase of tickets, for which staff members? You mentioned three. A. Don Anderson, Aurora E. Harris, Odell Clark, and myself. By Mr. O'CONNOR: Q. You went to the airport with them to acquire those tickets? Q. Was Mr. Anderson present there at the time? A. No; I did not see him. Q. Did you see Miss Harris? A. No. Q. What is the name of the other party? A. Odell Clark. Q. Was Odell Clark there? A. No; I did not see him. Q. In other words, you were there and you knew that four tickets would be purchased. Was Miss Upshur there? A. Yes. Q. Miss Upshur was the only one traveling at that time? A. No; there were to be three other people with her. Q. Who were the other three people? A. Mrs. Pearl Swangin, Mr. Jack Duncan, and Adam Clayton Powell, the third. Q. Were these people members of the congressional staff? A. No; not as far as I know. Q. Were any of them on the full committee? A. No. Q. Do you know the employment of these people? A. No. Q. Did you meet them at the airport with Miss Upshur? Q. And you knew that they were going to travel? A. As to who got on the plane, I don't know. By Mr. TAYLER: Q. You got instructions from Mr. Powell before you went to the airport to purchase tickets for four staff members? A. Yes. Q. And you went to the airport with one of Mr. Powell's clerks from his congressional office, and when you arrived there, you discovered that the travelers that were going to use these tickets were not the four staff members but other persons who were not on the staff of Mr. Powell and his congressional office or on the committee staff. Is that right? A. Not entirely, sir. Mr. Powell gave me the instructions to purchase the tickets. All four people who were going to actually do the traveling were with Mr. Powell at the time. By Mr. O'CONNOR: Q. Do you mean physically with him? In his office? Where were you when you received these instructions? A. At the home of one of Mr. Powell's friends. Q. And Anderson and-who are the other names? A. Clark Q. So Mr. Clark and Mrs. Upshur were the only staff members present when you received the instructions? A. Other than myself; yes, sir. By Mr. TAYLER: Q. You gave your credit card then to Mrs. Upshur at the airport? A. Yes. Q. She took it on the flight? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did she go on the flight? A. She was supposed to. Q. You mentioned three people three other people—as using these tickets; Swangin, Duncan, and Adam Clayton Powell III. Was there a fourth person who used one of the tickets? A. Mrs. Upshur. Q. Now, you have before you, Mrs. Dargans an Eastern Airlines transportation receipt indicating that on March 28, 1965, your credit card was used in flight on the shuttle between New York and Washington to purchase a ticket and in the upper left-hand corner what name appears as the signature of the cardholder? A. Maxienne Dargans. Q. Were you on that plane? A. No, sir. Q. So someone using your credit card purchased a ticket and signed your name on the transportation receipt on the Eastern Airlines shuttle; is that correct? A. Yes, sir. Mr. TAYLER. May that be marked "Dargans Exhibit 1"? Mr. O'CONNOR. I don't believe we have the date of that travel there. Mr. TAYLER. March 28, 1965. (The above-referred-to document was marked "Dargans Exhibit 1” and received in evidence.) By Mr. TAYLER: Q. I show you a similar transportation receipt showing an in-flight purchase of a ticket on the Eastern Airlines shuttle between Washington and New York, date of issue shown as March 28, 1965, bearing your credit card stamp and there appears to be a signature in the upper left-hand corner of Don Anderson. I ask you to examine that exhibit. Does the signature appear to be that of Don Anderson? A. I don't know. Q. Are you familiar with Mr. Anderson's signature? A. I have seen it, but to say that this is or is not his signature, I don't remember Don's signature well enough to identify this. |