Kenneth Dahlberg

Kenneth Dahlberg, who has died aged 94, was an American fighter ace during the Second World War, later becoming a multi-millionaire and playing a significant, if unwitting, role in the Watergate scandal that brought down Richard Nixon’s presidency.

Dahlberg was the Midwest finance chairman of Nixon’s 1972 re-election campaign. After collecting donations of $25,000 he wrote a cheque which he delivered to the president’s re-election committee in Washington. The cheque then surfaced in a bank account of one of the five Watergate burglars – who had been paid by Republicans to break in and plant listening devices in the headquarters of their political rivals. As a result an article appeared in the Washington Post on August 1 1972 headlined: “Bug Suspect Got Campaign Funds”. The story immediately triggered three separate investigations and helped seal Nixon’s fate. As one Post reporter commented: “It [the cheque] was the first real connective glue between Watergate, its funding and the Nixon campaign.”

As a result Dahlberg became an object of intense scrutiny by federal investigators. Though they cleared him of any wrongdoing, his role in Watergate was turned into a moment of high drama for the film that documented the scandal, All the President’s Men (1976). While Dahlberg admitted the scandal “made good copy”, he thought it was unfortunate that incident overshadowed his many other accomplishments.

Kenneth Harry Dahlberg was born on June 30 1917 in St Paul, Minnesota, and graduated from St Paul Harding High School in 1935. His first job was at the Lowry Hotel washing pots and pans. He rose quickly, and by 1941 was in charge of food and drink at almost two dozen hotels owned by the Pick chain across the United States.

Dahlberg was drafted in 1941, some months before the United States entered the war, and trained as a pilot. One of his instructors was the future Republican presidential nominee, Barry Goldwater, who remained a lifelong friend.

Dahlberg completed his flying training in 1942 and, like many other graduates early in the war, was immediately assigned to be an instructor, serving in Arizona. Finally, however, he was selected to be a fighter pilot in 1944, arriving in England in May. He joined his squadron on June 2 and flew his first mission four days later, on D-Day, having had just 30 minutes flying experience in the P-51 Mustang (he had trained on the P-47 Thunderbolt).

During August he was leading his flight when it encountered a force of 40 Messerschmitt Bf 109s. In the ensuing dog fight he shot four of the fighters down but a fifth hit his Mustang and he was forced to bail out near Paris. He was sheltered by the Resistance and, after donning a disguise, bicycled back to Allied lines, then only 40 miles away.
Rejoining his squadron, his successes mounted until he transferred to a unit equipped with the P-47 Thunderbolt, which he thought much inferior to the Mustang. Attacking enemy tanks in the Ardennes during the Battle of the Bulge, his aircraft was crippled by ground fire and he was forced to crash land. He was picked up by a forward patrol of American tanks.
By early 1945, just six months into his operational flying career, Dahlberg had crashed two aircraft and twice escaped capture by the enemy. But he had also shot down 15 aircraft, placing him 23rd on the list of fighter aces in Europe during the war and making him a “triple” ace.
On February 2 1945, Dahlberg’s aircraft took a direct hit and blew up; he was thrown clear and parachuted down. Despite being wounded he managed to avoid capture; eventually, however, he was taken prisoner and marched more than 100 miles to Stalag VIIa at Moosburg near Munich. Patton’s Third Army liberated the camp in May.
Dahlberg returned to the United States and joined Telex, a maker of hearing aids and hospital communications equipment. Soon afterwards he joined an Air National Guard unit in Duluth and suggested that Telex should use its audio expertise in military flight helmets. The company duly became a leading maker of headsets for aviators.
In 1948 Dahlberg and his brother began their own business. Over the years, he developed and marketed the Miracle Ear hearing aid, a pioneering all-in-the-ear device, which became the largest selling brand of hearing aids in the United States. In 1994, the firm was sold to Bausch and Lomb and he began a venture capital company called Carefree Capital.
In addition to his business career, Dahlberg also became involved in politics – a result of his wartime friendship with Barry Goldwater. Dahlberg was deputy chairman of fund-raising for Goldwater’s presidential campaign in 1964.
Dahlberg remained an active pilot, flying with the Minnesota Air National Guard until 1951 and as a civilian into his 90s. He was a generous supporter of the Museum of Flight in Seattle, and was a director of both the Air Force Academy Foundation and the American Fighter Aces Association.
For his wartime services he was awarded the Silver Star, the Distinguished Flying Cross with cluster, the Bronze Star, 15 air medals and two Purple Hearts. In 1945 he was awarded one of the United States’ highest awards for gallantry, the Distinguished Service Cross but, as he was a PoW, he could not collect it. In the end, the medal was presented in 1967 in Washington, DC, by Vice President Hubert Humphrey, with the Joint Chiefs of Staff also present.
Kenneth Dahlberg married Betty Jayne Segerstrom in 1947. She survives him with their son and two daughters.