Hughes’s call to Laxalt and the governor’s call to the AEC demanding that the tests be moved to Alaska are recounted in AEC reports dated February 8 and 9, 1968. AEC records reveal that Laxalt intervened on Hughes’s behalf on at least two other occasions, June 13, 1967, and January 11, 1969.
Senator Gravel’s suggestion that the nuclear tests be moved to Alaska is noted in an April 15, 1969, AEC report, as is his appearance on KLAS-TV. In an interview, Gravel admitted that Hughes flew him to Las Vegas and that he had a complimentary suite at a Hughes hotel; while he denied receiving Hughes money, he said he did expect a campaign contribution.
The subpoena threat came from Congressman Craig Hosmer, a member of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy who later became a lobbyist for the nuclear power industry. Maheu said he killed the subpoena through committee chairman Senator Chet Hollifield: “You will be happy to know that we have been in touch with Holifield.… He guarantees that whatever may happen in the fight with the AEC such a subpoena will definitely not be forthcoming.”
In the final days before the “Boxcar” blast, Hughes sent three ambassadors to Washington. Gillis Long, at the time a former congressman from Louisiana, now chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, lobbied the AEC. Grant Sawyer, former governor of Nevada, met with Vice-President Humphrey. Lloyd Hand, an intimate of Johnson’s who had recently resigned as White House chief of protocol, tried to get in to see the president. Ultimately Humphrey arranged for Sawyer to see Johnson instead.
7 Mr. President
The scene of Hughes writing his letter to Johnson was described by an aide who was present and also established by Hughes’s own memos. Attorney Finney hand-delivered a copy of the letter to White House special counsel Larry Temple, who forwarded it to National Security Advisor Walt Rostow, who sent it to the president at 7:50 P.M. on April 25, 1968, according to documents on file at the LBJ Library in Austin, Texas.
The president’s daily diary shows that White House Chief of Staff Marvin Watson was in the Oval Office when Johnson received the letter. Watson claimed in an interview not to recall the incident. But another member of the White House staff said Watson that same day told him Johnson’s reaction: “Who the fuck does Howard Hughes think he is?!” A third aide, Devier Pierson, recalls the president saying something similar to him: “Who the hell does Howard Hughes think he is that he can dictate nuclear policy?”
AEC Chairman Seaborg confirmed in an interview that Johnson withheld approval of the bomb test until the last minute, and his account is verified by documents at the LBJ Library. “I remember that the question of whether we should go ahead with ‘Boxcar’ was under consideration up to the very end,” said Seaborg. “I don’t remember President Johnson, in holding the test in abeyance, relating it specifically to Hughes, but I do recall that the president was more than a bit concerned by the Hughes protest, because of the potential political impact of Hughes. He talked to me about it at least two or three times.”
Several White House aides recalled Johnson showing them Hughes’s letter. Special Counsel Pierson said: “There was almost a sovereign-to-sovereign-like quality to the exchange. I think Johnson viewed it as an irritation, and made some caustic comment, but he was also intrigued, fascinated by the direct approach that Hughes had made. And he certainly got very involved in handling it, and stayed involved.” White House speech writer Harry McPherson said the president told him Hughes had also telephoned the Oval Office: “Johnson told me that Hughes himself had called, and had gotten his secretary on the line and asked to speak to Johnson. When told that the president was not available he dictated very rapidly a rather long memorandum. And I recall Johnson saying he was quite impressed by the logical and forceful case that Hughes had made.” By the time LBJ told the story to another White House aide a few days later, he claimed to have actually talked directly to Hughes and gave a detailed account of the conversation. However, White House files and Hughes’s own memos and interviews with his aides make it clear that the billionaire never called or talked to Johnson.
The account of the president’s general mental state at the time was drawn from Doris Kearns’s Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream (Signet, 1977, pp. 324–40 and 358), and was confirmed by several White House aides. Johnson’s activities and mood on the day he received Hughes’s letter were recalled by aides and detailed by his daily diary and other White House documents. His remark about King Olav was quoted by Merle Miller, Lyndon (G. P. Putnam, 1980, p. 552).
Noah Dietrich recalled Hughes’s early financial support of Johnson in a series of interviews and also described LBJ’s visits to the Hughes Tool Company. “I dealt directly with him; he was a close personal friend of mine,” said Dietrich. “He was in my office many times, way back when he was a young upstart congressman. Johnson asked for the billboards, but I think the money—five thousand dollars a year—was on Hughes’s initiative. He wanted to buy political influence.” Dietrich also said that Hughes may have met with Johnson in a Los Angeles hotel room but could not recall the details. “He was running for some office and we gave him some financial support, but I’m not absolutely sure Howard saw him.”
A Hughes lawyer told an associate he handled a cash contribution to Johnson in 1960, but claimed that he did not recall the amount. The attorney said that LBJ regularly received funds from Hughes. Maheu stated in a deposition that he channeled Hughes money to candidates Johnson designated.
Sawyer’s meeting with the president is confirmed by files at the LBJ Library. The call to Watson about Hughes’s offer to back Humphrey in return for blocking the bomb test is transcribed in a memo dated April 24, 1968. Johnson’s mobilization of his White House staff to deal with Hughes is detailed in numerous documents and was confirmed in interviews with Johnson’s aides. The Rostow and Seaborg reports were obtained from the LBJ Library.
Press aide Tom Johnson recalled the president showing him Hughes’s letter late on the night before the blast. “So many things were coming in to the president, I can’t imagine how many pieces of paper a day, but certainly rarely a day without a hundred or two hundred, but that one really struck the president because of the name on it, Howard Hughes. That set it apart from everything else.”
Hughes’s sleepless vigil is recounted in his own memos and was also recalled by two of his Mormons.
Clark Clifford confirmed in an interview that Hughes personally retained him in 1950. Hughes was mistaken in writing that Clifford had been under retainer for twenty-five years. Clifford denied that he was personally involved in blocking the helicopter probe and lobbying the tax law but admitted that his law firm did assist Hughes on both matters.
Johnson awoke at nine A.M. E.S.T. on April 26 to find the report from Hornig waiting; it was marked “sent for delivery to the president’s bedroom at 8:50 A.M.” and was immediately handed to Johnson by his personal aide Jim Jones.
Hughes’s reaction to the blast was described by an aide who was present. The impact of the explosion in the world beyond was detailed in AEC records and press reports.
Johnson’s letter to Hughes was obtained from the LBJ Library. Files there show that the president had Seaborg draft a reply, then ordered at least three rewrites by his staff, and had the final version reviewed by national security advisor Rostow. Before sending it to Hughes, Johnson had an aide show the letter to Hughes’s lawyer Finney to get his okay.
Maheu’s phone conversations with Hughes just before his meeting with Johnson were recounted by Maheu in a sworn deposition. The president’s March 1967 discovery of the Castro plot was described by one of his aides, recounted in 1975 reports of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and detailed by a staff investigator of the House Select Committee on Assassinations. An April 4, 1967, FBI report by the Bureau’s White House liaison Cartha DeLoach stated: “Marvin Watson called me late last night and stated that the president had told him that he was now convinced that there was a plot in connection with the [Kennedy] assassination. Watson stated the president
felt that CIA had had something to do with this plot. Watson requested any further information we could furnish in this connection. I reminded Watson that the director had sent over to the White House some weeks back all the information in our possession in connection with CIA’s attempts to use former agent Robert Maheu in contacts with Sam Giancana and other hoodlums, relative to fostering a plot to assassinate Castro.” Among the reports Hoover had sent Johnson was one that described Maheu as a “shady character” whose detective agency “has business dealings with a number of foreign governments and has frequently been engaged in wiretapping,” and the director also charged that Maheu’s “ethics and trustworthiness have been ‘questionable.’ ”
Hughes’s order of a million-dollar bribe was described by Maheu in a sworn deposition.
Maheu’s visit to the LBJ Ranch was recounted in a memo to Hughes, described by two White House aides who were present, and detailed in the president’s daily diary.
White House Appointments Secretary Jim Jones said in an interview that Johnson told him Maheu had offered him money, and that the president had told Maheu “to stick it up his ass.” Press aide Tom Johnson, who was also at the ranch that day, said that the president told him Maheu had asked him to halt the bomb tests, and that he later heard from other members of the White House staff that Maheu had offered a donation to the LBJ Library, which the president angrily refused.
Arthur Krim refused an interview request but in a letter confirmed that Johnson asked him to arrange the Hughes library donation and that Krim met with Maheu in Las Vegas in an attempt to get it.
Maheu reported in an interview Hughes’s refusal to make the contribution.
8 Poor Hubert
The account of Humphrey’s speech was drawn from press reports and television videotapes. On Election Day 1968, Humphrey vividly described his chronic lack of campaign funds in his diary: “I’ve climbed that damn ladder of politics, and every step has been rough. I wonder what it would have been like with money enough. That top rung is never going to be mine.” The quote is from Humphrey, The Education of a Public Man (Doubleday, 1976, p. 4), an autobiography in which he also revealed his haunting memories of his 1960 loss to JFK (p. 207).
Humphrey received $91,691 in illegal corporate funds from the Associated Milk Producers, Inc., in 1968, according to a Senate Watergate Committee report. Dwayne Andreas was indicted in 1973 by the Watergate special prosecutor for giving Humphrey’s 1968 campaign an illegal corporate “loan” of $100,000.
In the wake of these Watergate revelations, Humphrey told the New York Times (October 13, 1974): “Campaign financing is a curse. It’s the most demeaning, disgusting, disenchanting, debilitating experience of a politician’s life. I just can’t tell you how much I hate it. But when you are desperate, there are things you just have to do.”
Humphrey lost to Nixon in 1968 by less than 500,000 votes. He spent about $5 million on the race, Nixon at least $20 million.
Humphrey’s arrangement of the Sawyer-Johnson meeting was recounted by Maheu in a report to Hughes and confirmed by files at the LBJ Library. His arrangement of the Sawyer-AEC meeting is reported in an AEC memo dated April 24, 1968. His earlier attempts to plead Hughes’s case with Johnson were described by White House Chief of Staff Watson in an interview.
LBJ’s tormenting of Humphrey was recounted by Humphrey himself in his autobiography (pp. 307–308), by Merle Miller in Lyndon (Putnam, 1980, p. 175), by Theodore H. White, The Making of the President 1968 (Pocket Books, 1970, p. 347), and in interviews with Humphrey and Johnson aides.
Humphrey’s outburst over Maheu’s phone call was recounted by his friend and adviser Dr. Edgar Berman in his book Hubert (Putnam, 1979, p. 205). Berman, who took the call and relayed the message to Humphrey, also detailed the incident in an interview.
Humphrey’s son Robert confirmed his employment by Maheu in an interview. He said that he had met Maheu a few years earlier through California Governor Pat Brown but was actually recruited for the job by John Meier. “It happened by accident. I bumped into him while I was with my dad in California. He was doing a press conference, and I was waiting out in the hall, and Meier introduced himself. I was a college graduate, looking for work, and I already knew Bob Maheu.”
Maheu described his offer of $100,000 to Humphrey at their May 10, 1968, Denver meeting in sworn court testimony. He said that the vice-president “seemed very grateful.” Two Humphrey aides confirmed that Maheu and the vice-president met at that time. A lawyer representing the Humphrey estate refused me access to Humphrey’s activity, appointment, and telephone logs for this and other relevant dates unless I agreed to prepublication censorship of this book, which I, of course, refused.
Humphrey’s efforts to establish a White House panel to investigate the bomb tests are recounted in AEC reports dated June 12, 25, and 26, 1968.
Johnson’s science adviser Donald Hornig said in an interview that the president appointed his own panel “to preempt the Hughes-Humphrey panel.” Johnson’s caustic remark about the Hughes-Humphrey dealings—“Hubert had better keep his pants zipped”—was reported by a top White House aide. “There was talk around the White House that Humphrey was getting money from Hughes and that he was in regular contact with Maheu,” the aide noted. “The president was not happy about it.”
The presidential panel, chaired by former AEC research director Kenneth S. Pitzer, issued its report on November 27, 1968. “The panel is seriously concerned with the problem of earthquakes resulting from large-yield nuclear tests,” the report stated. According to a December 13, 1968, AEC memorandum, the White House assured the AEC that “the vice-president was not given the report,” and that Hughes therefore would not get access to it.
Maheu described passing the $50,000 to Humphrey on July 29, 1968, in sworn court testimony. He said that when he greeted the vice-president at the fund-raising dinner, he told him, “I have the item we discussed,” and that he again referred to “the matter we discussed” when he placed the cash-filled briefcase at Humphrey’s feet in the limousine. Maheu testified that he did not show Humphrey the money because “it’s not proper to open the envelopes and count the cash in the presence of other people.”
Humphrey denied in a sworn statement that he ever personally received any cash from Maheu or that he was personally aware of any contribution made by Hughes to his campaign. However, the evidence of the backseat payoff is overwhelming.
Lloyd Hand, former U.S. Chief of Protocol and a close Humphrey friend, testified that he was in the limousine with Humphrey and Maheu, that Maheu definitely had a briefcase when he entered the car, and that he had “an impression” that Maheu left the briefcase behind when he got out. Gordon Judd, a Hughes lawyer who brought half the cash from Las Vegas to Los Angeles, testified that he watched from the hotel balcony as Maheu entered Humphrey’s limousine with the briefcase and that he saw Maheu leave the car without it.
Moreover, Humphrey himself acknowledged the contribution. Although he later claimed to have no personal knowledge of any Hughes donation, the vice-president wrote Maheu a letter dated November 1, 1968, thanking him for a second $50,000 Hughes gave his campaign on October 18, and in that letter clearly noted that he had received Hughes money before. “Dear Bob,” wrote Humphrey, “Dwayne has told me about the additional help you have given us. Bob, you are the greatest! We needed it badly and have put it to good use.” (Emphasis added.)
Humphrey’s selection of Muskie as his running mate was described by O’Brien in his book No Final Victories (Doubleday, 1974, p. 253). Muskie confirmed in an interview that he had known Maheu for years and visited him in Las Vegas, but denied knowing of any influence Maheu may have had in his selection.
The meeting between Humphrey and O’Brien on the morning after the Chicago convention was described by O’Brien in No Final Victories (pp. 253–56), and in two interviews. All the dialogue was quoted by O’Brien. He said that Humphrey called Maheu about eight A.M. on August 30, 1968, and told him: “
I understand that you and Larry have worked out a business arrangement, and I’d like to ask you to postpone that arrangement until after the election. It would be a great personal favor to me.”
O’Brien claimed that he had no knowledge of the $100,000 Hughes gave Humphrey, although he was in regular contact with Maheu during the campaign. However, Maheu told the Senate Watergate Committee that he kept O’Brien informed of “all political matters,” and specifically told him about the money passed to Humphrey.
9 Camelot
Interviews with at least a dozen persons who knew either Joseph P. Kennedy or Hughes during their early days in Hollywood turned up no indication that they ever dealt with each other, ever came into conflict, or even met. Kennedy’s mistress in those years, Gloria Swanson, said that she could not recall him even mentioning Hughes. Noah Dietrich, who joined Hughes shortly after he arrived in Hollywood in 1925 and handled the business end of his moviemaking, said he was certain Hughes never dealt with Kennedy.
Information on Joe Kennedy’s background was drawn from Richard Whalen, The Founding Father (Signet, 1966), as was the “pants pressers” quote (p. 80).
Pierre Salinger confirmed his solicitation of Hughes money for the RFK campaign in a letter: “Steve Smith, who was raising money for the campaign, asked if I might have some special contacts who would help. I met Mr. Maheu in Las Vegas. He did not immediately pledge a contribution, but during the Oregon primary he called me in Portland to say that Mr. Hughes would give the campaign $25,000. After the death of Robert Kennedy, I received a call from Mr. Maheu telling me the contribution would still be made. I reported that to Steve Smith.”
Citizen Hughes Page 53