The Arrogance of Power

by Anthony Summers

  10. A 1977 article in Barron’s magazine cited the bridge’s annual income as “around a million.” Sy Alter, who ran the bridge in 1967, gave the author the same figure, while Paradise security director Paul Shealy said the bridge grossed up to eighteen thousand dollars over a three-day weekend. (Barron’s, Sept. 26, 1977; int. Seymour Alter; memo to file, IRS Informant TW-24 [known to be Norman Casper], Nov. 7, 1973, Casper Papers, and research for author by Nassau researcher Catherine Kelly.)

  11. The third partner, according to Butler, was Senator George Smathers, mutual friend of Nixon and Rebozo’s. Nixon’s last chief of staff, Alexander Haig, has recalled being told by the president to issue denials to Time or Newsweek. A written inquiry about Nixon and the ownership of the bridge, addressed to the White House by Robert Hutchison (an authority on the Vesco affair) elicited not even a pro forma response. (Smathers: Hutchison, op. cit., p. 282; Haig: int. Alexander Haig in Strober, eds., Nixon, op. cit., p. 427; Hutchison: Hutchison, op. cit., p. 282.)

  12. The former agent, Gerald Behn, had accompanied Kennedy on a visit to Chicago in April 1961. He was asked about the visit in 1992 because the president’s former mistress, Judith Exner, had said Kennedy met secretly on that occasion with the local Mafia boss, Sam Giancana. Behn claimed not only to know nothing of the Giancana allegation but even to have forgotten the visit itself. He went on to become head of the Kennedy White House detail and later president of the former Secret Service Agents’ association. The association censured four former agents for having discussed Kennedy’s private life with the journalist Seymour Hersh. (Research supplied to author by Mark Allen.)

  13. There were many phone interviews with Silberman, two prison visits, and extended correspondence, from 1996 to 2000.

  14. This seems an outlandish sum to the layman. Obviously, even though the price of gold tripled in the year following the closure of the gold window, a simple tripling of the initial $180,000 investment would have meant a profit of $360,000, not the astonishing figure of $10 million claimed by Silberman. The explanation is in Silberman’s reference to buying gold “futures.” According to an investment adviser consulted by the author, a return on this scale is indeed plausible when commodities futures are traded. A “future” is an agreement to buy or sell a fixed quantity of a fixed asset at or by some fixed future date at a price agreed to on the day of making the agreement. A buyer, however pays not the full price but an agreed “margin,” a form of deposit. Silberman could have made a margin payment of as little as a dollar an ounce, thus securing for himself, from the massive increase in the gold price that followed—as he knew it would when the gold window closed—a massive profit on the margin paid when he made the agreement. (Int. and corr. Peter Metcalf.)

  15. Silberman said he believed that Selix, who owned a chain of formal men’s wear shops, had visited China at the same time as Nixon. Selix is not on the list of those who accompanied Nixon to China on the famous 1972 visit, and it has not been possible to check on the participants in the subsequent trip during the Ford presidency. Selix’s widow said she knew nothing of her husband’s having accompanied Silberman to Florida to meet Nixon. Silberman meanwhile indicated that he received instructions from a go-between, yet declined to identify who that person was. After repeated questioning of Silberman, the author came to suspect he was using Selix’s name as a decoy to avoid identifying a real go-between. (China 1972 list: Anne Collins Walker, China Calls, Maryland: Madison Books, 1992, p. 411.)

  16. Nixon was at San Clemente from December 26, 1973, to January 11, 1974. Official logs for the stay include no reference to Silberman, but that record is not conclusive. Entries contain notes like “We received no record of the President’s activities after 12:39 P.M.” or “he took a ride with Mr. Rebozo yesterday afternoon. . . . I do not think Pres. wants reported.” (Rebozo was evidently present much of the time.) Ladislas Farago, a possible candidate to write an authorized Nixon biography, recalled having been asked to use a pseudonym when on a visit to San Clemente early in Nixon’s exile period. (President’s daily diary and schedules, WA, end int. Ladislas Farago by FB, FBP.)

  17. The Kokomo Tribune, serving central Indiana.

  18. There may also have been a link between DeBoer and Nixon himself that dated to before the presidency. As a New York attorney in the mid-sixties Nixon recommended several clients to the Italian financier Michele Sindona. Sindona was represented in New York by DeBoer’s security firm, Baerwald & DeBoer. Sindona offered a million-dollar contribution to Nixon’s 1972 campaign, a sum that was supposedly not accepted. He oversaw efforts to get Nixon the Italian-American vote. Said to have been the Sicilian mob’s head banker, Sindona later drew a U.S. jail term for fraud, was convicted in Italy on narcotics and murder charges, and died of cyanide poisoning while in custody. (RN recommended: Luigi DiFonzo, St. Peter’s Banker, New York: Franklin Watts, 1983, p. 152; Sindona, DeBoer: Stephen Haberfield to Hughes-Rebozo file, Jan. 10, 1974, Campaign Contributions Task Force, Int. folder 804, WSPF, NA; Judith Denny to files, Aug. 15, 1975, DeBoer folder, Box 98, WSPF, NA; million-dollar: Stans, Terrors, op. cit., p. 186; oversaw: Penny Lernoux, In Banks We Trust, Garden City, N. Y.: Anchor Press, 1984, p. 188; crimes, death: Scheim, op. cit., p. 321.)

  19. The partner was I. G. (“Jack”) Davis, then president of the Crosby company. (DeBoer Executive Session testimony, E, NA, Aug. 8, 1973, p. 52–.)

  20. DeBoer later repaid the money, according to the SEC. He consented to the commission’s findings, without admitting the allegations. (WP, Oct. 3, 1973.)

  21. Alter claimed later that his money movements related solely to the finances of his gift shop on Paradise Island. (NYT, Jan. 21, 1974.)

  22. Newell has the receipt for three tapes given by her to the Watergate Special Prosecution Force and the record of the disposition of the tapes as of December 1973. The story of how the tapes were smuggled out of the offices of the Special Prosecution Force after the Saturday Night Massacre is told in chapter 32. (Oct. 13, 1973, receipt signed by Carl Feldbaum, in Newell file supplied to author, and John Galus to Feldbaum, Dec. 10, 1973, and receipt signed by Arthur Quinn, Feb. 3, 1975, Box 6, Huges-Rebozo files, WSPF, NA.)

  23. The reference is to Robert Abplanalp, the aerosol tycoon and a Nixon friend and supporter for many years.

  24. Casper’s discovery emerged in fragments in the 1975 House Oversight Hearings into the Operations of the IRS, cited earlier.

  25. The Bahamian voters’ list for 1972 did turn up two Nixons with Richard as one of their first names. The first, an upholsterer named Henry Richard Nixon, died in 1981. His son knew nothing of his father’s having had a Castle account but oddly recalled that his father had once been photographed in the company of the Richard Nixon. The upholsterer signed himself “Henry R.” and never used the “Richard.” There was also a King Richard Nixon, a former servant to a British naval officer. He recalled that his employer opened an account for him at a bank he at first thought might have been Castle, though a friend believed it had been the Bank of New Providence, in the same building. This Nixon account, however, had been opened in the fifties, when neither bank yet existed. His employer, moreover, could not have opened the account in either bank since he had left the Bahamas before they started business. This Nixon signed himself “King Richard Nixon” or “King R. Nixon.” There are no other possible candidates in the Bahamas. While it is not easy now to determine how many people by the name of Richard M. Nixon lived in the United States in 1972, an indicator of the name’s prevalence may be gained from a 1999 check, which located eleven. (Bahamian Nixons: research and ints. by Nicki Kelly; 1999 check: www.switchboard.com.)

  26. A closing memo to the Watergate special prosecutor deemed the allegation of a Nixon account at Castle Bank “probably unfounded.” The force’s examination of the matter, however, was cursory and incomplete. Neither Casper nor key bank official Michael Wolstonecraft would cooperate, and the prosecutor’s staff avoided even looking at the purloined documents on the ground tha
t they had been obtained illegally. (Paul Michel to Henry Ruth, Oct. 16, 1975, pp. 91, 235–, WSPF [H-R], NA.)

  27. Whether the sums mentioned as deposited in the name of “Zepher Group. (N&R)” are in U.S. dollars or in Swiss francs—the latter is more likely—there is no way now of discovering how the sums were held. If they were merely managed by the bank, as opposed to being used by the bank in the normal way for loan purposes, they would not show up in the bank’s published statistics. (Int. and corr. Peter Metcalf.)

  28. “m” could conceivably have been Michael Wolstonecraft, vice president and secretary of Castle Bank and the man in whose briefcase the Cosmos document was discovered.

  29. Cosmos Holding AG, Zug, Switzerland, held ten shares, while Cosmos President H. U. Rinderknecht held three. Cosmos Equities Corporation of New York held nine. (Stockholders’ List, Paradise Island Bridge Co., Box B78, E, NA.)

  30. Anderson was sentenced in 1987 to a month in prison and five months’ house arrest for tax evasion and operating an illegal offshore bank in the Caribbean. Just before becoming treasury secretary, in 1957, he completed a deal with a group of oilmen that was designed to bring him nearly a million dollars and that would influence his policy in office. Eisenhower, however, admired Anderson and reportedly would have preferred him to Nixon as a presidential candidate in 1960. (sentence: NYT, Aug. 16, 1989; oil deal: WP, July 16, 1970; Sanford Ungar, FBI, Boston: Little, Brown, 1975, p. 272; Charles Ashman, Connally, New York: Morrow, 1974, p. 83; Ike preferred: FB, pp. 351, 355.)

  31. Morgenthau referred to Max Orowitz, who was convicted on securities offenses involving a Swiss bank. Entwined in his case were Lou Chesler, Lansky man and Nixon contributor, and Max Courtney, the Lansky bookmaker who casually testified that one of his eminent customers was Nixon. It was Morgenthau, too, who convicted Peter Crosby, brother of Paradise Island casino boss James Crosby—heavy Nixon contributor and friend of Rebozo—for stock fraud. (Orowitz int.: Robert Morgenthau; Waller, op. cit., pp. 91–, 118; Newsday, Oct. 11, 1971; Block, op. cit., pp. 37, 43, 123, 189; Chesler/Courtney: ibid., and—re. Courtney—see p. 127.)

  32. The sending of the anonymous note, as late as July 26, 1997, was doubtless triggered by a New Yorker piece on Morgenthau. The article quoted Morgenthau as saying, “I always thought he [Nixon] had Swiss bank accounts.” (New Yorker, July 28, 1997; int. James Traub.)

  33. Jonathan Aitken, a biographer to whom Nixon gave unusual access, refers without explanation to the former president’s benefiting in 1978 from payments “into the ‘silent partner’s’ bank account” at Rebozo’s bank. (JA, p. 543.)

  Chapter 21

  1. Another source priced the apartment at $425,000. (Troy, op. cit., p. 178.)

  2. The Sanchez couple was Spanish-born but had lived in Cuba until becoming exiles after the Castro takeover. They had started working for the Nixons in 1961 and were to remain in their service until long after Nixon’s resignation. In 1968 Nixon would interrupt his hectic campaign schedule to appear as their sponsor when they applied for U.S. citizenship. After the Sanchezes retired to their native Spain, around 1980, they were succeeded by a Chinese couple. (Raymond Price, With Nixon, New York: Viking, 197, p. 14; Bryant with Leighton, op. cit., p. 251; int. Edward Nixon; Spanish: MEM, p. 291; Chinese: New York, June 9, 1980.)

  3. A wealthy Florida contractor, Louis Berlanti, perished in a plane crash in August 1963, reportedly while carrying more than half of the $53 million siphoned to him by Trujillo. Berlanti had funded Kohly’s Cuban peso-counterfeiting scheme. (Hinckle and Turner, op. cit., p. 201.)

  4. Nixon was to tell the FBI and the Warren Commission that he had been in Dallas for two days before the assassination, omitting to mention that he had still been there on the morning of the day itself. It was a curious Nixonian obfuscation, inviting black humor when the facts came out and, to those with a paranoid turn of mind, suspicion. (FBI Assistant Director John Malone report of RN int., Feb. 28, 1964, FBI NY 10538431, and see Warren Commission Exhibit 1973, Matthews, op. cit., p. 247, citing RN letter to commission, Aug. 4, 1964.)

  5. Later, in statements to the FBI and the Warren Commission, Oswald’s widow Marina would claim her husband had earlier intended to kill Nixon. Her account of the episode was hopelessly confused, however, and Nixon had not been in Dallas at the time in question, April 1963. While the Warren Commission deemed the story of “no probative value,” Nixon repeated it as if it were fact in his 1978 memoirs. (Scott, op. cit., p. 289–; Sylvia Meagher, Accessories after the Fact, New York: Vintage, 1976; MEM, p. 252.)

  6. Nixon printed the full text of his letter to Jacqueline Kennedy and a facsimile of her reply in his memoirs. In 1971, while he was president, Pat Nixon invited Jacqueline and her children to a private viewing at the White House of new Kennedy portraits. Kennedy’s widow was moved by the warmth of the Nixons’ welcome. (MEM, p. 502; AMII, p. 416; Matthews, op. cit., p. 293.)

  7. “Richard Nixon,” John Ehrlichman said, “simply didn’t want to spend the kind of time that was required to cultivate these folks [the Congress].” Nixon would also disdain his cabinet, calling them “clowns.” He “never took a vote,” Haldeman recalled, “and would have cared less concerning the result.” “Screw the Cabinet and the rest,” he is heard to say on a tape revealed in 1998. (“simply didn’t want”: int. John Ehrlichman, in Miller Center, eds., op. cit., p. 133; RN, cabinet: eds. Strober, Nixon, p. 88–; WP, Dec. 27, 1998.)

  8. Nixon returned again to Moscow and to Sokolniki Park, site of his 1959 encounter with Khrushchev, in 1967. His purpose was unclear. (Witcover, op. cit., p. 194.)

  9. The author writes “supposedly” because researchers must take it on trust that Nixon’s contemporary notes, or the personal diary he sometimes referred to, are as cited in his memoirs. Nixon Library archivist Susan Naulty told the author in 1998 that “the diaries are the private property of the President’s Estate, and there are no plans at present to release them to the public.” Given Nixon’s less than perfect record for truthfulness, the author notes the possibility that purported citations may not be authentic. (Susan Naulty to author, March 23, 1998.)

  10. According to Ehrlichman, the woman concerned was Shelley Scarney, a veteran Nixon campaign worker and later White House receptionist who went on to marry Nixon aide and future presidential candidate Pat Buchanan. Contacted in 2000, Mrs. Buchanan said she did not recall the incident. (NYT, Feb. 21, 1971; Patrick Buchanan, Right from the Beginning, Washington, D.C.: Regnery Gateway, 1990, pp. 9, 259.)

  11. The FBI aspect of this story, including Director Hoover’s alleged use of the episode to bring pressure on Nixon as president, is covered at greater length in the author’s book on Hoover. (Summers, Official & Confidential, op. cit. pp. 371–, 376, noting document, Director to SAC San Francisco, Aug. 18, 1976, FBI 105-40947-8.)

  12. The author interviewed several of those who, in 1976, were involved in the Enquirer coverage. Al Coombes, now a lawyer, and Gerry Hunt recalled their joint interview with Liu. “I read it back to her,” Coombes said, “and she agreed that that was what she said.” Coombes conducted several interviews with Liu. Hunt recalled that initially Liu spoke “freely.” (Ints. Al Coombes, Gerry Hunt, Dick Saxty, Brian Wells, Malcolm Balfour, Bernard Scott, Shelley Ross, John Cathcart, John South, and Robert Smith.)

  13. In conversation with Liu’s attorney, Nixon too denied any sexual involvement. He said he knew Liu “casually.” (SF Examiner & SF Chronicle, Feb. 8, 1981.)

  14. The publishing magnate Walter Annenberg, who served as U.S. ambassador to London in Nixon’s presidency, was a longtime personal friend. (Fortune, June 1970, MEM p. 977.)

  Chapter 22

  1. Under questioning by the Senate Watergate Committee, however, DeBoer denied contact with Mitchell personally. (DeBoer testimony, Executive Session, Aug. 8, 1973, p. 5, Box C-28, E, NA.)

  2. Nixon had also considered Ford as running mate in 1960. (Int. Robert Finch; Miller Center, eds. op. cit., p. 259.)

  3. As early as May, on a fl
ight to Portland, Oregon, he had fed the Washington Post’s David Broder the notion that if he were nominated, his running mate would be Agnew. (Crouse, op. cit., p. 91.)

  4.The Selling of the President (New York: Simon & Schuster), by Joe McGinniss, was first published in 1969. The TV producers were Frank Shakespeare and Roger Ailes; the “creative supervisor” was Harry Treleaven.

  5. Press aide Herb Klein has queried whether Smith was with Nixon on election night. In his interview with the author, however, Smith insisted that as news reports have stated, he was present. (Klein, op. cit., p. 37; int. Arnholt Smith.)

  6. Former IRS Special Agent David Stutz, later a deputy district attorney in San Diego, recalled receiving a call from John Caulfield at the White House. Saying he was phoning on behalf of Ehrlichman, Caulfield asked Stutz to fly to Washington with all the information he had on Alessio and Smith—without informing his superiors. Stutz took the call with a colleague listening in and told Caulfield to put the request in writing. The line then went dead. (Int. David Stutz, Ramparts, Oct. 1973.)

  7. Hughes’s memorandums, later circulated and cited in scattershot fashion, are best accessible in Michael Drosnin’s book Citizen Hughes. For this author, however, the most authoritative account is The Hughes Papers, by Elaine Davenport and Paul Eddy, because it relies almost entirely on sworn testimony and exhibits. (See Bibliography.)

  8. The secret cash payments aside, Hughes made one legitimate donation in 1968: Fifty thousand dollars, routed through Governor Laxalt, was distributed in seventeen checks paid to seventeen campaign committees, as a device to circumvent the limit on individual contributions to any one committee. Donald Jackson, a Nixon campaign official, had formally asked for financial assistance in March that year. The fifty-thousand-dollar donation was paid in October. (Legitimate donation: Stephen Haberfield to Hughes-Rebozo file, Aug. 20, 1974, Campaign Contributions, file 804, WSPF, NA; formally asked: Donald Jackson to Robert Maheu, March 4, 1968, file 804, Box 111, WSPF, NA.)