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A month or so later another contract was presented to Fred W. Walker, director of the conservation and economic development agency of which the Travel Service is a part.
This second contract provided for the hiring of DeBolt as a consultant for a period of two years. His fee would be a hefty S7,000 per month. Unlike advertising contracts, competitive bids are not required in the hiring of consultants. Thus Walker signed the contract and on April 1 DeBolt went to work.
Walker explained that DeBolt’s services were needed to assess the agency’s advertising effort in the context of the fuel shortage. His duties also would include training travel service personnel and evaluating the cost effectiveness of the service’s advertising methods.
Walker, a Dalton appointee, accepts responsibility for hiring DeBolt, although precisely where the idea originated remains a mystery. Dalton’s staff insists that the governor had nothing to do with it. Even more incredibly, in light of the annual $84,000 fee involved, they say Dalton did not even know about DeBolt’s hiring until after the contract had been signed.
All this moved the Richmond Times-Dispatch, normally a strong supporter of the governor, to declare in a tearful editorial that DeBolt’s hiring had been a “colossal mistake” which smacked of a political payofff. - In addition to his other close associations with the Republican administration, the press duly noted the close personal and professional ties between DeBolt and William E. Royall Jr., Dalton’s former top staff aide who resigned May 31.
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