International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT) offers the Nixon administration $400,000 to finance the GOP’s 1972 national convention in San Diego. [The People’s Almanac, 1981] President Nixon wanted San Diego as the site of the convention, but the San Diego city government has no intention of spending lavish amounts of money subsidizing a convention it does not need. The ITT contribution, privately arranged by White House and GOP officials, is key to having San Diego as the site of the convention. In early July, the Republican National Committee announces San Diego as the convention site; eight days later, the Justice Department announces that it is dropping its antitrust suit against ITT (see July 31, 1971). Shortly thereafter, Richard McLaren, the head of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division and an enthusiastic trustbuster whose atypical decision to let ITT off the hook confuses many observers, abruptly quits the department; within days, McLaren lands a federal judgeship without benefit of Senate hearings. Syndicated columnist Jack Anderson believes the whole deal is fishy, and will write a December 9, 1971 column to that effect, but he will not learn the entire truth behind the GOP-ITT deal until months later (see February 22, 1972). [Anderson, 1999, pp. 194-200]