“I want to put O’Brien in jail,” said the president, pounding his fist on the desk. “And I want to do it before the election.”
Ehrlichman immediately called Nixon’s man in the commissioner’s office, who took a surreptitious look at O’Brien’s returns and found that he had received a whopping $325,000 from Hughes but had reported it all and paid his taxes.
Nixon was not satisfied. He had Ehrlichman call Secretary of the Treasury George Shultz and tell him to push the O’Brien audit. Shultz reported back that O’Brien’s returns had been examined and everything was in order.
Nixon was still not satisfied. He had Ehrlichman call Shultz again and demand that O’Brien be interrogated. The IRS interviewed him in mid-August and informed the White House that the audit was closed. Ehrlichman demanded that it be reopened.
Finally, Shultz reviewed the case with IRS Commissioner Johnnie Walters and together they called Ehrlichman to report that there was nothing against O’Brien. “I’m goddamn tired of your foot-dragging tactics,” shouted Ehrlichman, and he continued to abuse Walters until the commissioner hung up.
Nixon had been foiled again on O’Brien, but his cover-up of Watergate had succeeded. On September 15, a federal grand jury indicted only the five burglars and their ringleaders, Liddy and Hunt, ignoring their masters in the White House.
Nixon was not content, however, merely to beat the rap. He wanted revenge. Not merely against O’Brien but all his enemies.
“I want the most comprehensive notes on all of those that have tried to do us in,” he told Dean that same day. “They are asking for it and they are going to get it. We have not used the power in the first four years, as you know. We have never used it. We haven’t used the Bureau and we haven’t used the Justice Department, but things are going to change now.”
“What an exciting prospect!” exclaimed Dean.
A few weeks later, on November 7, 1972, Richard Nixon was reelected president in an unprecedented landslide.
Howard Hughes did not send in an absentee ballot, but he did send a check. Several checks, in fact, totaling $150,000. But he was still worried that he had not done enough.
“Why didn’t Chester do more in the area of contributions?” asked Hughes, now back in Nicaragua.
“We gave as much as we could safely,” his aides assured him, adding that his generosity was appreciated. “Because of the polls, which indicated a Republican landslide, contributions dried up and many committees were completely out of money when we came along like angels out of heaven.”
Nixon had not waited for Hughes to descend with the manna. In the spring of 1972, even as his fears about the original hundred grand were leading him to Watergate, even as the break-in was being planned and approved, the president had reached out for more Hughes money. It was a fatal attraction he apparently just could not resist.
Rebozo called his pal Danner in March or April and asked if Hughes was going to make another “contribution.” Danner explained that he was no longer the bagman, but Rebozo was not put off so easily. “Try to find out,” he insisted. Danner checked with his new bosses, Gay and Davis, but was told not to get involved, that the matter was being handled “back East.” And so it was.
Bob Bennett was taking care of everything. While he continued to secretly undermine the cover-up with leaks to the Washington Post and reports to the CIA, the mysterious Mormon was also slipping more Hughes money to Nixon.
Even before Rebozo called Danner, Bennett had advised his fellow Mormons to make a “voluntary, unsolicited, sizeable contribution,” but nothing “so ostentatious as to appear to be an attempt to ‘buy’ something.” They settled on $50,000.
On the morning of April 6, one day before a new law took effect requiring that donors to political campaigns be identified, Gordon Liddy took time off from plotting the break-in and dropped by Bennett’s office to pick up the money. So much secret cash was pouring in before the deadline that even Liddy had been pressed into service as a collector.
By the time of the November election, Nixon had accumulated a staggering $60 million and had a huge surplus. But he wanted more. On the weekend before the election, Bennett got a call from Thomas Evans, a partner in Nixon and Mitchell’s old law firm (which now shared Washington office space with the president’s campaign committee).
“I’m just checking, is Mr. Hughes going to give any more?” asked Evans, claiming that the money was needed to help cover Nixon’s “deficit.” Bennett asked how much more was needed. Evans said $100,000.
Hughes had planned to give the president only $50,000 more, and give another $50,000 to his opponent, George McGovern, but now he decided to turn over the entire hundred grand to the needy Nixon. Just like an angel out of heaven.
All Bennett asked in return was that the president call Hughes on Christmas Eve to wish him a happy birthday. Although Nixon was preoccupied with planning the Christmas bombing of North Vietnam, he agreed to call his benefactor. It would be their first direct contact.
As it turned out, however, Hughes had more urgent business to handle on his birthday. On December 23, one day before he turned sixty-seven, Howard Hughes was routed from his Nicaraguan penthouse by a massive earthquake that leveled most of Managua.
He was sitting naked in his lounge chair at 12:30 A.M. when the quake struck. He had just finished a twenty-four-hour film festival and called for another movie when the first violent shock toppled a heavy soundtrack amplifier that nearly crushed him. A Mormon rushed in and caught the speaker just before it hit his frail boss.
The room was still heaving, the lights had gone out, and chunks of plaster were falling from the ceiling, but Hughes remained calm. In fact, he refused to leave. “We’ll stay right here,” he told his frantic aides, and again asked for his movie.
The Mormons, certain the entire hotel was about to collapse, coaxed Hughes onto a stretcher and started to carry him down nine flights of stairs, but Hughes suddenly demanded they go back. He had forgotten his drug box.
The billionaire spent the night huddled under a blanket in the backseat of a Mercedes while the aftershocks continued, the earth split open across the city, buildings crumbled, fires raged out of control, and the death toll mounted to more than five thousand.
At sunrise, the Mercedes drove through the devastation, down streets clogged with rubble and dead bodies, past thousands of dazed homeless victims, taking Hughes to the safety of Somoza’s country palace. Secluded in a plush cabana alongside the dictator’s swimming pool, Hughes for the first time showed fear. He insisted that a blanket be draped across the windows, afraid that someone might see him.
That night, in the chaos of Managua’s airport, Hughes was loaded onto a private Lear jet and flew back for the first time in two years to America, landing just after midnight on the day before Christmas at Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Where the IRS was waiting for him with a subpoena. Instead of a birthday call from the president, Hughes was greeted by a surprise party of revenue agents. The tax probe that Intertel had instigated against Maheu, the runaway investigation that had already reached into the White House, had finally turned against Hughes himself.
Trapped in his hangared jet, surrounded by tax men demanding to board the plane, Hughes frantically maneuvered to escape the subpoena. His aides called Chester Davis. The gruff attorney ordered the agents to hold off until he contacted IRS headquarters in Washington. They agreed to wait, but only for half an hour.