In a Senate interview and in court testimony, Maheu recalled the attempt to deliver the money directly to Nixon in Palm Springs on December 6, 1968: “Through Governor Paul Laxalt arrangements were made for an appointment with president-elect Nixon, at which time Governor Laxalt and I would deliver the money personally to President Nixon. Unfortunately something happened during the day that scuttled the president-elect’s schedule.”
Just before his trip to Palm Springs, Maheu withdrew another $50,000 from Hughes’s personal bank account in two installments on December 5 and 6 “for Nixon’s deficit,” and on December 5 also apparently received $50,000 from the cashier at the Sands casino. That same day Danner flew to Las Vegas to meet with Maheu and agreed to go to work for Hughes. A week later both Maheu and Danner were down in the Bahamas, but there is no direct evidence that they passed any money to Nixon, as indicated on the Sands withdrawal slip.
Bank records show that Maheu withdrew another $50,000 from Hughes’s personal bank account on June 27, 1969, and Hughes lawyer Tom Bell testified that on Maheu’s instructions he gave Danner $50,000 from the Silver Slipper on October 26, 1970. Danner denied receiving the money.
In conflicting statements to the IRS, the Senate Watergate Committee, and in court testimony, Maheu at one time or another claimed that each of the withdrawals was the source of the $100,000 eventually passed to Nixon through Rebozo. In any event, Rebozo, Danner, and Maheu all confirmed in sworn testimony that Nixon did receive $100,000 from Hughes in two deliveries of cash to Rebozo.
Danner joined the Hughes organization in February 1969. He testified that in April and May Rebozo began “needling me” about Hughes contributions to Humphrey, and that in May and June Rebozo asked for $100,000, telling him “the president was interested in beginning to raise funds for the 1970 congressional elections.” Rebozo, who kept the money past the 1970 elections, denied Danner’s account and testified that “it was money that was intended for the president… it was for the president’s 1972 campaign.” In fact, Rebozo admitted that he put the cash in his safe-deposit box, did not use it for any campaign, and kept it until the IRS came after him in 1973.
Danner testified that “sometime during the summer” Maheu told him, and Danner told Rebozo, that “$50,000 was available now, and another $50,000 would be made available later on.” Danner’s June 26, 1969, meeting with Rebozo in Miami was confirmed by travel records he submitted to the Senate Watergate Committee. According to bank records, Maheu arranged a withdrawal of $50,000 from Hughes’s bank account the next day and picked up the cash on July 11. His son Peter testified that he kept the money in his safe a few weeks, and then, on his father’s instructions, turned the $50,000 over to Danner for delivery to Rebozo.
Danner’s delivery of the Hughes ABM memo to Rebozo on June 26 and Rebozo’s delivery of the memo to Nixon on July 4 are established by Maheu’s reports to Hughes. Danner also testified that he gave the memo to Rebozo, and that Rebozo told him that “the president and Dr. Kissinger both examined it and were very much impressed and felt that they would like to brief him further… Dr. Kissinger would do it.” Rebozo himself confirmed the Kissinger offer in Senate Watergate Committee testimony: “I do know that the offer was made to have Kissinger brief him on it.”
Nixon’s July 16 meeting with Kissinger was established by Maheu’s report to Hughes on the same date and by White House logs obtained from the National Archives, and was confirmed by Alexander Haig in an interview. Haig also recounted Kissinger’s reaction to Nixon’s order that he brief Hughes, and two members of his National Security Council staff independently confirmed Kissinger’s tirade. Kissinger himself refused repeated interview requests.
Larry Lynn, a senior aide who handled the ABM, recalled Haig’s own reaction to Hughes’s memo, and in an interview speculated that the Hughes connection may have led Nixon to propose abandoning the ABM as part of the SALT negotiations a year later: “I have always felt that some of Nixon’s zigs and zags on the ABM issue were unexplainable by anything I knew. He seemed to abandon it too quickly, and for all I know if Howard Hughes was stuffing his pockets full of money, that might have made a difference.”
Nixon’s and Kissinger’s review of plans to test the ABM warhead in July 1969 was confirmed by members of the NSC staff and detailed by AEC and State Department documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. One “Memorandum for the President” from the NSC Undersecretaries Committee noted that moving the nuclear tests to Alaska would cost $200 million and warned that “the Soviets can be expected to be sensitive to our plans to conduct tests of this magnitude in the Aleutians.” Nixon, however, ordered the biggest blasts moved to Alaska, apparently more worried about Hughes.
11 Howard Throws a Party
When Hughes first announced his intention to buy the Landmark late in 1968, the Johnson Justice Department warned Hughes that his acquisition “would violate the Clayton Act” and threatened antitrust action. A month later, on January 17, 1969, three days before Nixon’s inauguration, the department told Hughes that it did not “presently intend to take action with respect to the proposed acquisition.” Maheu received advance word and flashed the good news to the penthouse: “We just received a telephone call from the anti-trust division advising that they had formally approved our purchase of the Landmark.”
The description of the Landmark is based on contemporaneous local press reports and personal observation.
Dean Martin ultimately did perform at the opening, as did Danny Thomas, and even Bob Hope offered to make an appearance, only to drop out at the last minute due to the death of his two brothers. Hughes apparently never forgave Hope. When the comedian called Maheu six months later seeking a donation of $100,000 for the Eisenhower Hospital, Hughes at first refused to give anything and reluctantly agreed to contribute $10,000 only after being told that Nixon had also asked his help.
Martin had points in the Riviera casino, which FBI wiretaps in the early 1960s revealed as being secretly controlled by the Chicago underworld. Mafia informer Jimmy Fratianno also claimed that Sidney Korshak, a reputed organized crime leader, owned “a pretty good piece of the Riviera” (Ovid Demaris, The Last Mafioso: The Treacherous World of Jimmy Fratianno, Times Books, 1981, p. 272).
The depth of Hughes’s angst over the Landmark opening is demonstrated by the fact that in all the thousands of memos he wrote during his four years in Las Vegas, it was only during the Landmark brawl that he really got into deep introspection, that he summed up his life, that he searched his soul.
And his fight with Maheu over the opening was so intense that years later Maheu’s wife would recall that brawl above all others, remembering the shouted phone conversations she heard through many nights (Ron Laytner, Up Against Howard Hughes: The Maheu Story, Manor Books, 1972, pp. 34–35).
12 Nixon: The Betrayal
Several Nixon aides recalled the president’s intense involvement in planning the moon-walk dinner. “This was not only the big state dinner of his administration, the highpoint of his first year in office, but also was on his home territory, California,” said Ehrlichman. “He was certainly involved in preparing the guest list. I know that Haldeman went over the draft guest lists with Nixon in great detail several times.” Haldeman himself claimed not to recall the party preparations, but one of his aides said Nixon personally reviewed all 1,440 invitations and also made a list of “enemies” he did not want invited, including one of his wife’s best friends.