Hennings had telephoned Senator Case that Tuesday morning to invite him to testify at two o’clock that afternoon before his Campaign Finance Subcommittee, and Case had agreed to do so. Johnson, learning of this, moved fast—with Nixon’s help. In a formal ruling which the New York Times said was “without known example in the Senate,” Nixon awarded the Select Committee exclusive jurisdiction over the Case investigation. A letter, hastily typed for Walter George’s signature, and delivered to Case at 1:40, just twenty minutes before he was to appear before the Hennings Subcommittee, summoned him to testify before the Select Committee on Friday. The letter notified him of Nixon’s ruling, and said that therefore “they [the Select Committee] respectfully request that you appear before no other committee” prior to that time. The written request was reinforced by an oral communication, described by Arthur Krock: “Mr. George just sent word to Mr. Case that at two o’clock he was to come to the Vice President’s room, where Mr. George’s Select Committee was to assemble, and Mr. Case was to go nowhere else.” And when Case arrived, he was told by George that his first public testimony “had better be to the Select Committee.” He was not requesting Case to testify before the committee first, Walter George said; he was directing him to do so.
While Senator George was thus taking steps to keep the subcommittee from holding its hearing, Senator Johnson was taking his own steps, asking Senator Hennings to come to see him in his office, and then trying to persuade him, at length, to leave the investigation to the George Committee.
Johnson had wanted to see Hennings alone, but the Missourian had brought Gore along, and the three men were arguing heatedly when Gore told Hennings, “Let’s go. It’s after two o’clock and Case was scheduled to meet with us at two.”
“Go ahead,” Johnson said angrily. “I didn’t invite you here.”
The two senators went to the subcommittee room, but Case was not there. When the South Dakota senator finally did appear, he was carrying George’s letter, which he read to the subcommittee to explain why he couldn’t testify before it. And then Hennings and Gore were summoned to a hastily called closed meeting of their subcommittee’s parent Rules Committee, and although they angrily protested the “unprecedented” Johnson-Knowland attempt to gag a senator, the rest of the committee said that, in view of Nixon’s ruling, the George Committee had exclusive jurisdiction over the Case affair. Once again, all other arguments had faded before what Arthur Krock called “Mr. George’s unique prestige.” In a column bearing the accurate headline “IT DOESN’T PAY TO CHALLENGE MR. GEORGE,” Krock wrote that “The old man doesn’t hold with argument if he says a thing is so, or is to be done thus and thus. He doesn’t hold with it even if he is acting in his individual capacity, which is pretty powerful. And that goes double when Mr. George has been deputized by the Senate leaders of both parties, and another Senator tries to put on the same show in another tent.”
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THE SELECT COMMITTEE TRIED to keep the focus on the Case contribution, and on Case’s motives for disclosing it and on the timing of the disclosure. Questioning the Senator for four hours, committee counsel Charles W. Stead-man “bored in like a prosecuting attorney,” the New York Times reported, so that Case “was cast somewhat in the role of a defendant.” Nonetheless, it was impossible to avoid calling the man who had made the contribution, and asking where he had gotten the money, and as soon as Neff began to testify, the names of more senators began to surface.
Neff testified that he had gotten the $2,500 from Elmer Patman, and then Patman had to be called, and he testified that he had gotten it from Howard Keck. Asked the nature of his connection with Patman and Keck, Neff testified that he had been employed by Keck’s Superior Oil Company to represent it not only in South Dakota but in Nebraska as well. The name of an “old friend” in Nebraska, Donald R. Ross, the U.S. Attorney, came up, and Ross was questioned by the Justice Department. He was shortly to resign, but before he did he stated that Neff had offered him $5,000 after receiving assurance that both of Nebraska’s senators, Republicans Carl Curtis and Roman Hruska, would vote for the natural gas bill (as, in fact, both of them had). And, Ross added, Neff had offered to make additional contributions to Nebraska’s Republican State Finance Committee. Then the chairman of that committee, Joseph Wishart, revealed that Neff had pulled out “this handful of money,” had peeled off $2,500 and given it to him for the committee, and had said he wanted to make additional donations. And Ross also added that Neff had said his employers wanted to make contributions in other states where the people were not unfriendly to the natural gas industry. He had mentioned trying “to get in contact with somebody” in Montana, and had mentioned that he had also made trips to Wyoming and Iowa, and in Iowa had spoken to GOP national committeeman Robert K. Goodwin. It was impossible to avoid calling Goodwin, and he testified that Neff had indeed visited him, had told him that he “had $2,500 … to contribute to Senator Hickenlooper’s campaign,” and had “offered to leave one thousand dollars” with him “pending the time when he could see Senator Hickenlooper.” Goodwin said he had turned both offers down because they “seemed like a down payment on a purchase.” And then there was a development which made it seem likely that the names of other senators might surface. Goodwin said that when Neff had visited him, he had “apparently inadvertently” left behind a list of the ninety-six senators. Next to each name was written “For,” “Doubtful,” or “Against,” and against the names of ten of the fifteen “Doubtful” senators a checkmark had been made.
It became obvious that more money might be involved than the amounts that had been mentioned. Testifying before the committee, Keck said that he did not consider $2,500 a “substantial” contribution. He said he could not say what other senators had received contributions—substantial or not—because he did not keep records. It became obvious that contributions were mostly in cash. Just as there had been an envelope with twenty-five hundred-dollar bills intended for Case, the money offered to Wishart had been in hundreds, and in an envelope.
Booth Mooney sat in on every hearing of the George Committee “on Johnson’s orders, and gave him a detailed report at the end of each day’s session,” he was to recall. “He was worried, more deeply than I had ever seen him, that his name or John Connally’s would come up in the course of the investigation.” But somehow, Mooney wrote, “that did not happen,” despite the fact that Connally had worked closely with Patman.
Nor was that the only subject unexplored. Neff had testified that “he had contributed to the ‘personal campaign fund’ of no Senator except Senator Case since last October.” But, as the New York Times put it, “He was not asked to explain the qualification ‘personal campaign fund,’ and no attempt was made to determine whether he had made any contributions before last October.” Editorials demanded that the Select Committee broaden its probe; ADA Chairman Rauh accused it of merely “scratching the surface of this scandalous incident.” “Only the most naive would think that this is all the money involved,” the New York Times said. Why was Case singled out, “or was the ‘benevolence’ one of many?” Arthur Krock asked. “The questions call for answers.” But Senator George said, “Personally, I see no need for any further inquiry.” The committee’s hearings were adjourned on March 5. Noting that it “was limited in its scope and confined in its authority by the express direction of the Senate” to the Case contribution, its report, issued on April 7, kept within these limited confines. Commenting that it “left much unsaid,” the Washington Post stated that its “strangest deficiency … lies in its failure to commend Senator Francis Case for his courageous exposure of what the gas bill lobbyists were up to. At the committee’s hearings it sometimes appeared that Senator Case was the culprit rather than the people who tried to influence his vote by contributing $2,500….” As for the other senators whose names had come up in the hearings, the committee’s report mentioned them only in passing. It assailed Neff, Patman, and Keck, and said it was turning the transcript of
the hearings over to the Justice Department to determine if any statutes had been violated. (Neff and Patman were later indicted for failure to register under the Lobbying Act and both men pled guilty, thereby avoiding a trial in which other names might have been mentioned; they were each given a one-year suspended jail sentence and fined a token—a rather whimsical token—$2,500.) And, saying that the Federal Lobbying Act and the Federal Corrupt Practices Act were “too vague and loosely defined,” it contained the usual recommendations that Congress make a “thorough and complete” study of campaign financing laws.
THE NEXT EPISODE in the natural gas fight took place, on February 17, not on Capitol Hill but in the White House. President Eisenhower numbered many titans of the oil industry among his friends. He was as indebted to the industry for past campaign contributions as was Johnson—and, as he prepared for his re-election campaign, he was as hopeful of future contributions. He was philosophically committed to reducing, not increasing, government regulation of industry in general, and he was particularly committed to reduction in the case of this industry, for he had become persuaded of the validity of the argument that oil and natural gas exploration entailed great risk, and high profits were therefore necessary to encourage exploration. But to Eisenhower all those considerations were invalidated by the circumstances surrounding the passage of the Natural Gas Act. “There is a great stench around the passing of the bill,” he wrote in his diary. It is “the kind of thing that makes American politics a dreary and frustrating experience for anyone who has any regard for moral and ethical standards.” Announcing that he approved the bill’s basic objectives but that because of the “arrogant” lobbying efforts on its behalf, he could not sign it without creating “doubt among the American people concerning the integrity of governmental processes,” he vetoed it. Taking into account his approval of the bill’s objectives, as well as the fact that the Republican Party was counting on millions in contributions from the oil industry for the coming campaign, “the veto was an act of some courage,” Eisenhower’s biographer, Stephen Ambrose, has written.
Lyndon Johnson issued a statement which said, “Since the President himself has regarded this bill as meritorious, his veto is difficult to understand.”
NARROW THOUGH JOHNSON had kept the Select Committee investigation, he hadn’t kept it narrow enough to accomplish his purposes. Despite his efforts, enough hints of the vastness of the oil industry’s lobbying efforts had emerged to fuel indignation over the Senate’s failure to police itself, and, in editorials in major newspapers in every section of the country except the Southwest, the indignation was laid at the door of the senator at which it belonged. The Denver Post, for example, told its readers that it was “Lyndon Johnson’s slippery leadership of the oil bloc” that “has blunted one of his party’s sharpest campaign weapons. He’s helped turn what had the makings of a crusade against ‘giveaways’ into a Hollywood production interspersed with drawling commercials for Col. Johnson’s banana oil…. The plunderbund was Mr. Johnson’s victory.”
Demands for a full investigation escalated. “The honor and dignity of the Senate require that it expose every aspect of the efforts of the gas lobby to influence the vote through political contributions—both those made recently and those made before the bill was under active consideration,” the Washington Post said. Calling Senator George’s inquiry “unsatisfactory,” the New York Times said, “There is every reason for a much fuller investigation…. Even seasoned veterans of legislative battles have been astounded at the pressures brought to bear.” And the indignation was summarized, eloquently, by a journalist who was rising to rare respect and influence in the capital.
Ever since Francis Case made his statement, James Reston Sr. wrote on February 20, “this city has been full of the most disturbing rumors, not only that this kind of money is passed around by wealthy organizations that stand to gain by the enactment of certain legislation but that the leadership of the Senate is in cahoots to conceal the facts. The immediate question is whether the majority and minority leaders are going to use their power and influence to correct the evils they know to exist or whether they are going to try to conceal them and allow the rumors of widespread misconduct to stain the reputation of what they are fond of referring to as ‘the world’s greatest legislative body.’”
Given Johnson’s plans for an imminent entrance onto the national stage, there was little alternative to authorizing a more complete investigation, and one was authorized—with appropriate fanfare. The day after the Reston column appeared, the Majority Leader took the floor. Declaring that he had been “unfairly, unjustly and almost unmercifully” portrayed as blocking a Senate inquiry, he said his whole purpose from the start of the controversy had been to have a full inquiry and not one confined to the Case contribution. “You senators and reporters—you better saddle your horse and put on your spurs if you’re going to keep up with Johnson on the flag, mother and corruption,” he said. Then he introduced a resolution, endorsed by Knowland and quickly passed, to create a new Special Committee that would conduct, he promised, a “far-reaching and thorough” investigation dedicated “to uncovering any wrong-doing of any kind and accomplishing something constructive.” Instead of having the customary Democratic majority, half of its eight members would be Republican, which, he said, would “give no unfair advantage to either party”; it would have a full-size—$350,000—budget; it was assumed that its chairman would be Albert Gore, who, as the Times put it, lauding his appointment, “has been insisting on an intensive investigation” which he had intended to carry out through the Elections Subcommittee but which Johnson had now persuaded him could be better conducted by the Special Committee. The resolution was greeted enthusiastically by the press. “The lobbying investigation” promises “to become the year’s liveliest,” Time said.
Because of what a complete investigation might reveal, however, there was no alternative to making sure that the Special Committee did not actually conduct one. That insurance was put in place by naming to the committee, as the senior Republican member, the ubiquitous Bridges, who was totally unabashed by the revelation that he had been one of the senators visited in his home state by Elmer Patman and hence might himself be a target of the investigation. Gore had assumed that the chairmanship would carry with it a chairman’s customary prerogatives, such as the right to appoint the committee’s chief counsel and the rest of its staff, and to issue the subpoenas indispensable to any financial investigation. That assumption, however, now proved to be incorrect. At the committee’s organizational meeting, at which Gore had expected the first order of business to be his election as chairman, Bridges said that since the committee was not a Standing but a Special Committee, the Senate’s normal rules for a committee did not apply, and that new rules would have to be made. “Speaking for the Republicans,” he said, an agreement on the rules would have to come “before we proceed to election of any personnel such as chairman.” Among the rules the Republicans wanted, Styles Bridges said, was the right, should a Democrat become chairman, to name the vice chairman—him, Styles Bridges. And, he said, the vice chairman must have the right to co-sign all subpoenas. Furthermore, if the Democrats selected the chairman, the Republicans must have the right to select the chief counsel—who, he made clear, would be a Republican with whom he was personally comfortable. Since the Democrats did not have a majority in the committee, Gore was helpless. No chairman was elected, no counsel appointed, no subpoenas issued; after one meeting, Newsweek reported, Gore, “boiling with rage, ran out of the building and leaped into a cab before newsmen could catch up.” Journalists’ initial enthusiasm faded before reality. “Bipartisanship can play Jekyll-Hyde” and the Senate leadership “has found a way to frustrate the lobby investigation…and still remain on the side of the angels,” The New Republic said on March 12. “The new 8-man Senate Committee on Lobbying … is headed by the Tennessee crusader Albert Gore. But there will be no Great Crusade here.” (Bridges told reporters that his con
ditions were simply “reasonable proposals drawn up to prevent abuses by a “runaway committee.”) The Republicans supported as chairman McClellan, whose Little Rock law firm represented several oil and natural gas companies, and who, as the Times put it, has “evinced little sympathy for Senator Gore’s objectives.” (Bridges was elected vice chairman.)
McClellan moved with deliberation. His first task, he said, on March 10, was the selection of a staff, “which might take some time.” That prediction proved accurate. An entire meeting of the committee in mid-April was devoted, the Washington News reported, “to discussion of the qualifications of a lady applicant for the job of file clerk.” That pace was maintained in all other aspects of the inquiry, which hardly touched on the specific revelations that had been made. Bridges, of course, was never asked about Elmer Patman’s visit—or about whether the lobbyist had arrived bearing gifts. Hruska and Curtis were never asked whether they had received the $5,000 contributions, Hickenlooper was never asked about the thousand-dollar offer that “seemed like a down payment on a purchase.” John Neff was never asked if any of the fifteen senators listed as “Doubtful” on his list had received funds—or about the significance of the checkmarks by ten of the names. No attempt was made to learn the full extent of the cash distributed by Keck and the Superior Oil Company—or by any other individual or oil company. Key figure though John Connally was in the natural gas lobby, closely though he had worked with Patman, he was never called as a witness. The interest of the press slowly but surely waned, and faded entirely when the national conventions came to dominate the news that summer. The investigation finally petered out in 1957.
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Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson Page 107