Expense accounts I have known
The British press is having a feeding frenzy over one of the biggest scandals ever to hit their “sceptered isle,” a scandal that may see the House of Commons depleted of many an errant parliamentarian and lords stripped of their ermine for the first time in centuries.
The politicos have been caught cheating on their expense accounts. A Tory toff charges the exchequer for cleaning his moat, while lesser breeds without the law have simply put in for mortgage payments they had already paid off.
But the journalists who are throwing the first stones should stop for a moment to consider the time-honored habits of their own trade in which expense accounts have played a major role. In the immortal words of Joel McCrea in Alfred Hitchcock’s film "Foreign Correspondent": "Give me an expense account and I’ll cover anything."
Consider the oft-told tale of the reporter who put some article of clothing on his expense account, only to have it kicked back with a note saying that his newspaper did not pay for clothes. The expense account is resubmitted with the clothing removed, but the amount is still the same. The accompanying note from the correspondent reads: “The coat’s still in there. Find it.”
This story has been told so many times about so many people that it is probably apocryphal. But my favorite expense account story involves a legendary Time correspondent, who shall remain nameless. In Saigon, where it was possible to have just about anything made in a back street, he had copies made of the bill forms expensive restaurants used, complete with the correct logos.
He had a rubber stamp made to say “paid, ” and every week he would make out receipts for meals he hadn’t eaten, with sources with whom he hadn’t dined, to be sent to Time’s comptrollers in New York.
I recall a New York Times reporter in Cairo being introduced to an important official and saying, “So glad to finally meet you, Sir, you have figured so prominently in my expense accounts.”
Then there was the time when, during the Vietnam War, a reporter was called in by his bureau chief and quizzed about his expenses. “You have put down for taxis,” the bureau chief said, “but I distinctly recall that I sent you out to visit an aircraft carrier in the South China Sea on those particular days.”
Caught red handed the correspondent said, weakly: “ Very big those carriers, Chief. You need to pay to get a ride on the flight deck.”
You could get in trouble for telling the truth, too. I once put in for a couple of pipes of opium for a good diplomatic source of mine who liked to haunt the dens of Phnom Penh in the old days. My foreign editor send me a sharp note saying that, although he considered my source legitimate, I was never, ever again to put down opium on my expense account. He suggested whiskey would be an acceptable substitute.
Once long ago I was in upper Burma for the Washington Post, accompanying the Shan State Army, a group that was in rebellion against the central government in Rangoon. Some said they were more interested in the opium trade than rebellion, but there was a story there in either case.
The terrain is one of very steep, heavily wooded hills. The commander asked me if I would like to ride on one of the little, shaggy horses found in the foot hills of the Himalayas, but I, being young and foolish, said that I could march along with his men.
After about a few hours of this I was having trouble keeping up. A horse was brought up from the rear, and this time I accepted with alacrity.
I asked the Shans how much to rent the horse, but I was told I would have to buy it for $100. I named it Katherine after my publisher, Katherine Graham, who was then at the height of her Watergate fame. A fawning article back in the states had called her “the most powerful woman in the world.”
I closed the deal and the horse did well by me. But when I got back to Washington, I found that you can rent just about any form of transportation, but if you buy something it gets problematical for book keepers. The Washington Post Company did not wish to own a horse.
As it turned out I was summoned to the eighth floor of the Post’s building and ushered into the presence of Katherine Graham herself.
“I hear we now own a horse in Burma, ” she said, “but what I want to know is why you called it Katherine?” I said that I had done that to ingratiate me with her expense account mavens, hoping they might be more inclined to accept it if the horse was named after the boss. I thought I was about to get a royal dressing down, but Mrs Graham said only: “Oh well, I can only assume it must be the most powerful horse in the world. Case dismissed.”
I wonder if some of the members of parliament might have thought to put down horses on their expense accounts and named them Elizabeth II?
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