Maurice Stans

Stans was born on March 22, 1908 in Shakopee, Minnesota, the son of James Hubert Stans and Mathilda Stans (nee Nyssen). His father was the only child of Jan Hendrik Stans and Maria Catharina Crijns, a Belgian couple who immigrated to the United States in 1880.[1] Stans graduated from Shakopee High School in 1925. He worked at a local foundry before traveling to Chicago to find work with friend, Otto F. Schultz. The same year he began work as a stenographer and bookkeeper for a Chicago importer, while attending evening classes at Northwestern University. In 1928 he joined the Chicago-based firm of Alexander Grant and Company, certified public accountants, and continued his part-time studies at Columbia University while working at the firm's New York City office.[2] He attended Columbia from 1928 to 1930. He was an executive partner with the Alexander Grant & Co. accounting firm in Chicago from 1940 until 1955. He was a Certified Public Accountant, licensed in New York, Ohio and Virginia. He was President of the American Institute of Accountants from 1954 to 1955 and won the Gold Medal for Distinguished Service to the Profession in 1954. He was inducted into the Accounting Hall of Fame in 1960.[2][3] [4]

External video

1973 Watergate Hearings; 1973-06-13; Part 1 of 3, 1:36:09, Library of Congress, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (WGBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC[5]

He later served as U.S. deputy postmaster general from 1955 to 1957, in the Dwight Eisenhower administration. He served as deputy director of the Bureau of the Budget from 1957 to 1958, and director of the Bureau of the Budget from 1958 to 1961, still under Eisenhower. He joined the Nixon administration as Secretary of Commerce from 1969 to 1972. In 1961, Stans was one of the founders of the African Wildlife Foundation.[6]

Watergate scandal
Watergate complex
Events
List Presidency of Richard Nixon Timeline Nixon White House tapes Operation Sandwedge Operation Gemstone The 1972 presidential election "Saturday Night Massacre" "White House horrors" Impeachment process against Richard Nixon United States v. Nixon Resignation speech Inauguration of Gerald Ford
People
Watergate burglars Bernard Barker Virgilio Gonzalez Eugenio Martínez James W. McCord Jr. Frank Sturgis
Groups Master list of Nixon's political opponents Nixon's Enemies List Watergate Babies Watergate Seven White House Plumbers
CRP Committee for the Re-Election of the President (CRP) Fred LaRue Jeb Stuart Magruder Robert Mardian John N. Mitchell Kenneth Parkinson Hugh W. Sloan Jr. Maurice Stans
White House President Richard Nixon Alexander Butterfield Charles Colson John Dean John Ehrlichman Gerald Ford H. R. Haldeman E. Howard Hunt Egil Krogh G. Gordon Liddy Gordon C. Strachan Rose Mary Woods
Judiciary Archibald Cox Leon Jaworski John Sirica
Journalists Carl Bernstein Bob Woodward Barry Sussman Harry M. Rosenfeld Howard Simons Ben Bradlee Lesley Stahl The Washington Post
Intelligence community Mark Felt ("Deep Throat") L. Patrick Gray Richard Helms James R. Schlesinger
Congress Howard Baker Sam Ervin Peter W. Rodino U.S. Senate Watergate Committee Impeachment process
Related Frank Wills (security guard) James F. Neal (prosecutor) All the President's Men (book, film) The Final Days (book, film) Dick (1999 film) Mark Felt: The Man who Brought Down the White House (2017 film)

In mid-February 1972, Stans resigned as the US Secretary of Commerce, to chair the Committee for the Re-Election of the President (CRP), Richard Nixon's re-election campaign. Money that he raised for the campaign was clearly used to finance some or all of the illegal Watergate activities. Stans denied any knowledge of what the money was used for, only that it was authorized to be spent.

On 12 March 1975, Stans pleaded guilty to three counts of violating the reporting sections of the Federal Election Campaign Act and two counts of accepting illegal campaign contributions. He was fined $5,000.[7] The convictions were related to improperly giving campaign funds to G. Gordon Liddy, though Stans insisted that his guilt ended there and that he was not aware of Liddy's plan to use the money for what became the Watergate break in.[7][8]

He later authored a book, The Terrors of Justice: The Untold Side of Watergate, in which he detailed his side of the Watergate story.

Stans died at the Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena, California on April 14, 1998, at age 90, following a congestive heart failure. He was preceded in death by his first wife Kathleen and first-born daughter, Maureen Stans Helmick. He was survived by his wife Penny, his daughter Terry, her husband Bill and their three children, his sons Steve and Ted, his son-in-law, Walter E. Helmick Jr., and his grandchildren, Shelia Helmick and Peter Helmick, and Peter's wife Lois and their three children: Rebecca Tafline, Samantha Helmick, and Deidre Helmick.

• Papers of Maurice H. Stans, Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library
• Appearances on C-SPAN