“So, I want you to convince the Governor that I will use every last dollar I have to prevent the President from using Nevada as his political football in his attack on organized crime,” he continued, ready to buy a reprieve.
“I want you to convince Laxalt that he can count on me to prevent the President or anybody from damaging the reputation of Nevada Gaming, which I want to be treated like the New York Stock Exchange.”
Right. And now for the hook.
“But, if I am to fulfill this promise, I must have the support of the Governor and his Gaming Commission.
“Bob, there will never be another opportunity like the one existing today to pick up an additional one or two casinos and to satisfy this crying drive inside of me against what I consider the many unfair competitive inroads—the competitive build up.
“It would only take the acquisition of a very few additional casinos plus the elimination of these same casinos from the competitive group—in other words, just a small tipping of the scales—a small addition to one side of the scale and a small elimination from the weight resting on the competitive side—just a small change in the balance, and I would be satisfied.”
On April 30, 1968, Hughes got the support of the governor and his gaming commission. It approved the billionaire’s purchase of the Silver Slipper and his planned purchase of the Stardust, granting him his fifth and sixth casino licenses, a small tipping of the scales that made him the undisputed king of gambling. He was not satisfied.
The vote was not unanimous. Two commissioners had dared to challenge his sovereignty. “It is obvious from the vote that there is considerable serious concern over the extent of your acquisitions,” reported his lawyer, Richard Gray. “I do not believe we will be permitted to control so much of the economy of this state no matter what our intentions are.”
Hughes was outraged. “I know God-damned well that people would not be making money around here as if they had a printing press if I had turned south out of Boston and gone to the Bahamas, as I almost did,” he fumed. “They should have some gratitude for the fairy-godfather who pulled their chestnuts out of the fire, the same fairy-godfather who started the whole ball rolling.”
If Hughes didn’t quite see himself as the new Godfather of Las Vegas, he did feel that as its “fairy-godfather” he was entitled to own it all. The casinos. The hotels. The politicians. Everything.
He saw himself as bringing the best of American capitalism to what had been an underworld money-laundry, but in a real sense Hughes was less part of the established order, more hidden, than the Mob. And he was also more corrupt. The mobsters were content to run the casinos and skim the take, while Hughes demanded absolute control over the entire state, driven to purify Nevada by corrupting it completely.
His latest acquisition, the Silver Slipper, now became on odd fixture of Nevada politics. Its neon-lit high-heeled slipper revolving on top of a twenty-foot pole just across the Strip from the Desert Inn became a beacon for local statesmen. They flocked to the Hughes-owned casino next door, the Frontier, where his bagman Thomas Bell—law partner of the governor’s brother—handed out hundred-dollar bills drawn from the cashier’s cage at the Slipper.
Over the next three years, $858,500 passed from the gaming tables of the Silver Slipper to Nevada politicians, always in hundred-dollar bills, always in cash. There was hardly a political race Hughes didn’t finance. He instructed Bell to support the likely winner, regardless of party or politics, and back both candidates if the race was too close to call. United States Senator Alan Bible got at least $50,000, his colleague Senator Howard Cannon got $70,000, Lieutenant Governor Harry Reid $10,000, Attorney General Robert List $9,500, District Attorney George Franklin $5,000, and twenty-seven state-legislature candidates trooped into Bell’s office to collect a total of $56,000. Judges and sheriffs and assorted commissioners all came by and left with cash-filled envelopes.
From time to time, Governor Laxalt himself visited Bell to solicit contributions from the Silver Slipper slush fund. At Laxalt’s request the state Republican chairman got $15,000, and the governor urged that Hughes go all out for his would-be successor, Edward Fike, who personally picked up his $55,000. Fike’s Democratic opponent Mike O’Callaghan was more discreet. He sent an aide to get $25,000. The parade of office-holders and -seekers never stopped.
Nor did the demands from Hughes for a return on his investments. From his penthouse lair across the street, he ordered Bell to “advise him on every single bill introduced in the Nevada legislature… to encourage members of the legislature to adopt his views… to defeat bills authorizing dog racing… to stop the sales tax, the gasoline tax and the cigarette tax… to stop the Clark County school integration plan… to prohibit governmental agencies from realigning any streets without his personal views being first given… to do whatever was necessary to shield him from having to appear personally in any courts… to advise him on all ordinances or laws regarding obscenity and pornography… to take whatever action necessary to prohibit rock festivals in Clark County… to prevent any change of the rules of various gambling games, and in particular, roulette… to discourage state officials from permitting communist bloc entertainers from appearing in Las Vegas hotels.”
In short, to control the life and laws of the entire state. The list was endless. Nothing escaped his attention. And although he almost always got his way, he was never satisfied.
“I feel we must go to work at once or the legislature will pass bills resulting in a Nevada I will not want to live in,” wrote Hughes, eager to exercise his veto power. “Send me at once a very brief summary of all legislation of any consequence that is likely to pass. I would like to know if under any circumstances there is any chance at all of overturning them.”
Hughes harbored a deep suspicion of all new laws. But he was especially opposed to new taxes.
“Please tell Gov. Laxalt that if he will follow my urgent appeal for avoidance of the increased sales tax, and if he will cut back a little bit in the unfair demands of the teachers, he may rely on me to assist in any fiscal emergency.
“With further reference to the tax bill, I think Laxalt knows I would not permit the State of Nevada to be in any really serious position of insolvency or poverty.
“However, I would very much rather make some contribution or take some simple action, such as bringing additional industry to Nevada, or to bring the Hughes Medical Institute to Nevada, which would at least bring me a little personal recognition. I would rather do something of this kind voluntarily, than to have the sales tax passed and then have some tax collector take it out of my pocket from now on, no matter what the circumstances may be. Day in and day out.”
Given the free-spending ways of the local lawmakers, they would soon pick his pockets clean. Hughes had to watch them every minute.
“I just heard the most absurd thing on the news I ever heard—a $5,000,000 zoo!
“Bob, this is all we need—a zoo bigger than the one in San Diego! Please, please kill this one some way.
“It seems to me that these people in local government just dont have anything to do under the sun except dream up new ways to spend money.”
In fact, Hughes didn’t want the Nevada legislature to meet at all.
“There is a lot of pressure on Laxalt to call a special session,” he noted with alarm. “Bob, for many important reasons I am violently opposed to this.
“Can’t you get some of the other important political figures to come to his assistance and announce their strong support of his decision to keep this state out of financial chaos by resisting all the efforts to lay open the treasury of the state to the mass of blood thirsty vultures who are trying to remove all restraint and simply turn the sack upside down?