The megaton-plus blast went off as scheduled on Thursday, December 19, 1968. It triggered a violent artificial earthquake that shook Las Vegas and sent out tremors powerful enough to register on seismographs around the world. Alone in his bunker, Hughes gripped the sides of his bed, once again foiled in his plot to buy nuclear peace.
But his battle against the bomb was not over. And neither was his obsession with the Kennedys. Having bought O’Brien, Hughes never gave up hope that the last surviving Kennedy brother could himself be persuaded to sell out.
“Ted Kennedy is going to make a speech here, and I authorize you to offer him the sky and the moon and unlimited support for his campaign for the presidency if he will use our material and take the AEC apart in his speech here,” wrote Hughes, making his big move to snare the last pretender to the throne.
“Bob, if he mentions the sheep in Utah, I tell you he will bring the house down,” Hughes continued, again invoking the martyred flock, and the five thousand sacrificial lambs killed in a biological-warfare test gone awry. “He must know this, and surely he does not hesitate to embarass the Nixon administration if he has the opportunity.”
It was April 25, 1969. Teddy Kennedy was coming to Las Vegas to keynote a hundred-dollar-a-plate testimonial dinner for his Senate colleague, Nevada’s Howard Cannon. It was the perfect opportunity for Hughes to cement his new Camelot connection and at the same time to score a real blow against the bombers.
That battle had by now escalated to the point that Hughes was threatened with a congressional subpoena. He needed powerful allies. He wanted Teddy Kennedy.
“Do you have any word from Kennedy?” he asked Maheu, growing restless as speech time neared.
“And also, please tell me what it is we want him to mention, I have forgotten,” added Hughes, either so far gone on codeine and Valium that the bomb had actually slipped his mind, or more likely just testing his lieutenant, making sure that he had not forgotten the Teddy-AEC-sheep scenario. But now he was suddenly seized by another obsession.
“Incidentally,” he added, “I think you should have somebody explain most carefully our position on the water system to Kennedy, otherwise he is sure to say something suggesting his support of the lake system in his speech.”
The reminder reached Maheu at the Sands, where he was throwing a predinner private cocktail party for two hundred select invitees to the big Cannon bash. The guest of honor was Teddy Kennedy.
Whatever Maheu may have said to the senator at his little soiree, Teddy did not savage the AEC, or blast the bombing, or eulogize the dead sheep in his speech that night. And he never got the sky or the moon or any of Hughes’s money.
But Kennedy did get a showgirl.
The assignation was arranged by Jack Entratter, Hughes’s entertainment director at the Sands. The onetime bouncer at the Stork Club met with Kennedy at midnight and took him upstairs to a suite on the eighteenth floor. Teddy spent the night there—although he was registered at another hotel—and so did the showgirl.
When the publisher of a local scandal sheet got wise and threatened to reveal all the racy details, Maheu tried to buy him out to suppress the story. When the feisty muckraker, Colin McKinlay, refused to sell, Maheu had to tell Hughes.
“Until several hours ago Bell was convinced that he had McKinlay under control,” reported the worried fixer.
“McKinlay, however, informed Bell that he had a ‘hot story’ pertaining to Senator Kennedy’s recent trip to Las Vegas when he appeared to make a speech on behalf of Senator Cannon. McKinlay claims that upon the completion of the festivities that evening, Senator Kennedy went to the Sands Hotel and spent the evening with a ‘broad’ which was furnished to him by Jack Entratter.
“Today McKinlay made the statement that he is going to bury Kennedy and you and me by publishing this story in his next News Letter. In an attempt to prove that when important people appear in Las Vegas all provisions for their satisfaction are made available through the Hughes interests.
“Unfortunately, Howard, there is substance to the story, although Entratter had not cleared any of the details with me,” concluded Maheu, admitting the worst. “We are still making every effort to make sure that this next scandal sheet will not be printed and distributed.”
It was futile. The story ran. But without Maheu’s secret admission of its truth, the report was virtually ignored—although it told of a “bosomy blonde” who answered the door at Kennedy’s suite when a bellhop arrived with liquor that night, who was still there when room service brought up breakfast—and although by the time the story appeared, Kennedy’s womanizing had become front-page news.
It was July 1969. Mary Jo Kopechne was dead. And Teddy Kennedy was preparing to go on national television to explain Chappaquiddick.
“What is the most educated guess as to what is going to happen about the Kennedy situation?” Hughes inquired on the evening before Teddy emerged from a week of seclusion following the accident.
“I just heard a newscast saying Kennedy is planning a statement tomorrow. Do you have any idea what it is likely to say?
“I only want to know what, if anything you already know. Please do not become in any way involved in this, and please do not permit O’Brien to become entangled in it.
“I heard that all the Kennedy hiarchy was gathered today at Hiannisport Mass. I hoped OBrien was not included, but I realize it could be very dangerous if it should filter back to Kennedy that any such request was made of O’Brien.
“So, tread very carefully in this entire affair.”
Larry O’Brien was not actually working for Hughes at the time the billionaire sought to shield him from the taint of Chappaquiddick.
Just as O’Brien had been about to go on the payroll, he backed out. It was not a moral decision, no sudden pangs of conscience. At the last minute, he simply got a better offer from Wall Street. He never broke off his relationship with Hughes, however. He kept in touch with Maheu and persuaded Hughes to hire two close associates, Joe Napolitan, a media consultant who had worked with O’Brien in both the Kennedy and Humphrey campaigns, and Claude DeSautels, a top Washington lobbyist who had been O’Brien’s deputy in both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Both Napolitan and DeSautels received $5,000 a month, and both regularly consulted with O’Brien on Hughes business.
“Although O’Brien took the position with the investment company,” reported Maheu, explaining the setup to Hughes, “he has continued to make himself available to us and has kept his basic team intact. Larry continues to be of great help, and there are many things he can do which he could not if he were an employee.”
Indeed, all the while O’Brien labored on Wall Street, Maheu reported his Hughes missions to the penthouse.
“Re: CAB, Howard, things are progressing unbelievably well,” wrote Maheu, as he maneuvered to get federal approval of the Air West takeover. “It is obvious that Larry O’Brien and his people had done a good job prior to the meeting.” Of his own CAB testimony, Maheu later added, “I think I did a reasonably good job at keeping perjury to a minimum.”
As Hughes continued to battle TWA, O’Brien tried to roll back the mammoth default judgment. “As a result of having accomodated a few select people in Washington,” Maheu noted, “O’Brien and Long reported just last night that we have a 50-50 chance of tagging a provision to pending legislation that will make it impossible to secure treble damages.”
And for the big battle against the bomb, the O’Brien team lined up reliable allies in Congress: “O’Brien and his people have carefully deleted from opponents of the tests those which have any tinge of liberalism. They are working very closely with the solid group, and they will launch programs of their own which will not be traceable to us.”