American Tabloid - James Ellroy [128]
Boyd said he skin-searched all Jack’s girls.
Boyd said Kennedy and Nixon were running neck-and-neck.
Pete didn’t say, I’ve got dirt. I can SELL it to Jimmy Hoffa; I can GIVE it to you to smear Nixon with.
Jimmy’s a colleague. Boyd’s a partner. Who’s more pro-Cause—Jack or Nixon?
Tricky Dick was hotly anti-Beard. Jack was vocal but still short of rabid.
John Stanton called Nixon “Mr. Invasion.” Kemper said Jack would green-light all invasion plans.
Boyd’s key campaign issue was COMPARTMENTALIZATION.
Ike and Dick knew the Agency and the Mob were Cuba-linked. The Kennedys didn’t know—and might or might not be told if Jack bags the White House.
Who decides whether to spill?—Kemper Cathcart Boyd himself. The deciding factor: moralist Bobby’s perceived influence on Big Brother.
Bobby could scut all Mob/CIA ties. Bobby could scut the Boyd/ Bondurant casino incentive deal.
Jack or Dick—one very tough call.
The smart bet: Don’t smear seasoned Red-baiter Nixon. Not so smart, but sexy: Smear him and put Jack in the White House. Vote Boyd. Vote the Beast. Vote Fidel Castro’s beard on a stick.
DOCUMENT INSERT: 10/13/60. FBI memorandum: Chicago SAC Charles Leahy to Director J. Edgar Hoover. Marked: CONFIDENTIAL/DIRECTOR’S EYES ONLY.
Sir,
The pro-Communist derogatory profile on SA Ward J. Littell is now complete. This memo supplants all previous confidential reports pertaining to Littell, with itemized evidence documents to follow under separate cover.
To briefly update you on recent developments:
1.—Claire Boyd (daughter of SA Kemper C. Boyd and longtime Littell family friend) was contacted and agreed not to tell her father of the interview. Miss Boyd stated that last Christmas SA Littell made obscenely disparaging anti-Bureau, anti-Hoover remarks and praised the American Communist Party.
2.—There are no leads in the Littell assault investigation. We still do not know what Littell was doing in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.
3.—SA Littell’s mistress, Helen Agee, was spot-surveilled for a two-week period last month. Several of Miss Agee’s University of Chicago Law School professors were quizzed about her political statements. We now have four confirmed reports that Miss Agee has also been publicly critical of the Bureau. One professor (Chicago Office informant #179) stated that Miss Agee railed against the FBI for their failure to solve a “simple assault case up in Wisconsin” and went on to call the Bureau “the American Gestapo that got my father killed and turned my lover into a cripple.” (A U of C dean is going to recommend that Miss Agee’s graduate school grant funding be rescinded under provisions of a student loyalty statement that all law school enrollees sign.)
In conclusion:
I think it is now time to approach SA Littell. I await further orders.
Respectfully,
Charles Leahy
Chicago SAC
DOCUMENT INSERT: 10/15/60. FBI memorandum: Director J. Edgar Hoover to SAC Charles Leahy.
Mr. Leahy,
No approach on SA Littell until I so direct.
JEH
51
(Chicago, 10/16/60)
His hangover was brutal. Bad dreams left him schizy—every man in the diner looked like a cop.
Littell stirred his coffee. His hands shook. Mal Chamales toyed with a sweet roll and shook almost as hard.
“Mal, you’re leading up to something.”
“I’m in no position to be asking favors.”
“If it’s an official FBI favor, you should know that I retire exactly three months from today.”
Mal laughed. “Like I said, the Party always needs lawyers.”
“I’d have to pass the Illinois Bar first. It’s either that or move to D.C. and practice Federal law.”
“You’re not much of a leftist sympathizer.”
“Or a Bureau apologist. Mal—”
“I’m up for a teaching job. The word’s out that the State Board of Ed’s breaking the blacklist. I want to cover my bets, and I was thinking you could edit your reports to show that I quit the Party.”
The tall man at the counter looked familiar. The man loitering outside did, too.
“Ward …”
“Sure, Mal. I’ll write it up in my next report. I’ll say you quit the Party to take a job with the Nixon campaign.”
Mal dashed some tears back.