Citizen Hughes - Michael Drosnin [121]
Soon top AEC officials were exchanging memorandums almost as frequently as Hughes and Maheu, trying to determine if the man who might soon be president of the United States had actually joined with its wealthiest private citizen in an antinuclear alliance.
“I called Col. Hunt in the Vice President’s office to discuss with him rumors we had been hearing in Las Vegas as regards an agreement between the Vice President and the Hughes organization,”reported the agency’s director, Arnold Fritsch. “I indicated to him that while we had this only as a rumor, we were concerned since the high-yield test program involves some vital national security needs.”
When the AEC discovered the rumors were indeed well founded, it first tried to abort the “independent” Hughes study, then, unable to block it, scrambled to remove the panel from the billionaire’s control.
AEC Chairman Seaborg got word to the president. Johnson was angry. He had enough troubles without a new ban-the-bomb crusade to fuel antiwar feeling, and he did not appreciate Hughes’s attempted end run. Besides, Humphrey was hardly being discreet about his dealings with the billionaire. Already it was common knowledge in the White House that the vice-president was getting campaign money from Hughes. Johnson was not merely angry. He was worried.
“Hubert had better keep his pants zipped,” the president told an aide. “He’s going to get caught with his pecker in Hughes’s pocket.”
Nervous about Humphrey’s now open advocacy of the Hughes protest, Johnson took charge. He scuttled the Hughes-Humphrey plan by himself appointing a panel to investigate the bomb tests. But instead of Humphrey’s half-dozen doves, Johnson picked a group of scientists more likely to call down tactical strikes on the Las Vegas Strip.
Still, Humphrey had forced the first official probe of nuclear hazards. And when the presidential panel made its report, its findings came as quite a shock. Hughes was right. The big blasts were dangerous. A blue-ribbon panel of conservative scientists hand-picked by the AEC, led by its own former research director and two top White House advisers, declared Hughes’s fears well founded, warned that the megaton explosions could trigger major earthquakes, and called for a halt to the Nevada tests.
Humphrey had come through. Too late, however, to do either himself or his hidden benefactor any good. By the time the scientists convened in November, Humphrey had already lost the election. He was never even allowed to see their report, which first Johnson and then Nixon entirely ignored and completely suppressed. Despite the warnings of real and present danger, the bombing continued unabated.
Back at the penthouse, Hughes, always dubious about Humphrey’s indirect approach, anticipated just such a debacle.
He had checked with his own scientists at the Hughes Aircraft Company, who warned that the government would simply reject any adverse findings: “They said, ‘If you could bring Einstein back from the grave and let him make the study, it would not make one damned bit of difference.’ They said, ‘You are playing with a stacked deck, and surely you have been in Las Vegas long enough to know what a stacked deck is!’ ”
Indeed, Hughes knew precisely what a stacked deck was. He was using one, stacked in his favor, in the high-stakes game he was playing with candidate Humphrey.
As the AEC battle raged through the summer and into the fall of 1968, Hughes found new tasks for the vice-president. Still fighting the Justice Department on the antitrust front, and certain he was the victim of some unknown conspiracy, he expected his candidate to discover who was behind the vendetta.
“Here is what I dont understand,” complained Hughes, speaking of Humphrey as if he were just another employee. “If we have notified H.H.H. of our responsiveness to his prior requests, then why dont we simply tell him we want to know who has instructed the Attorney General to threaten action against us in the S/dust matter. It is unrealistic to assume that Humphries does not