Boca Raton, Florida, became a crucial point in Carl Bernstein’s investigation when a local bank’s $25,000 cashier’s check surfaced among funds deposited by the Watergate burglars. The city’s bank records led reporters from a specific payment to Kenneth Dahlberg and, through a chain of inquiries, to his political connection with Richard Nixon’s campaign.

The Check and the Watergate Funds

The Boca Raton check stood apart from four Mexican Checks: it was slightly wider, dated April 10, and drawn as a cashier’s check on First Bank and Trust Co. of Boca Raton. Numbered 131138 and payable to Kenneth Dahlberg, it was for $25,000. Carl Bernstein copied its details while investigating the checks, and Martin Dardis returned to the room as he finished.

The check’s significance lay in how it entered the account. The $25,000 was deposited on April 20 together with the four Mexican checks, bringing the total to $114,000. Four days later, Bernard Barker withdrew $25,000; the remaining $89,000 was withdrawn separately. Boca Raton thus supplied the bank named on a document that helped connect the broader money trail to the Watergate operation.

Tracing Dahlberg Through the Bank

At seven o’clock, Bernstein called Bob Woodward from a pay phone in the lobby and dictated the fifth check’s numbers and other details. He then returned to his hotel to look for Kenneth Dahlberg. His inquiries led back to the Boca Raton bank: its regular line went unanswered, so the police department provided the name and number of a bank officer available in emergencies.

The banker had never heard of Dahlberg. The check bore the signature of a bank officer whose first name was Thomas, but whose last name was illegible. Two bank officers named Thomas were contacted; neither remembered the transaction. Bernstein then asked for the bank president’s name and number. The sequence shows how little the check’s formal banking trail yielded at first, even as each failed inquiry directed the reporting toward someone better placed to identify its payee.

From Winter Home to Political Connection

The bank president knew Dahlberg only slightly, as the owner of a winter home in Boca Raton and as a director of a bank in Fort Lauderdale. That second connection led Bernstein to James Collins, the Fort Lauderdale bank’s president. Collins confirmed that Dahlberg was a director and, while describing Dahlberg’s business interests, added that he understood Dahlberg had headed the Midwestern campaign for Richard Nixon in 1968. Bernstein asked Collins to repeat the statement.

Boca Raton’s importance in this episode is not presented through a broader portrait of the city, but through the investigative path its bank set in motion. A cashier’s check, an unreadable signature, and a banker who did not recognize the payee gave way to a chain of local contacts and then to a political identification. The place became a link between the deposited Watergate funds and a figure associated with Nixon’s earlier campaign.