Citizen Hughes - Michael Drosnin [131]
My God! That would be a real tragedy. It could imperil his own private “Late-Late Show,” his beloved “Swinging Shift.” Having taken the necessary precautions on that vital front, Hughes moved on to other business.
“Returning to this morning, I am certain that you, at no time, really understood what I was urging you to do. Bob, it is true that I have discussed another project with you: The proposal to select one Repub. and one Demo, candidate and then to give that candidate full and all-out support. This project I still want carried out. Just as I still want the Reno TV project carried out. However, the item set forth in my first message of Thursday morning was something entirely different.”
That was his plan to buy the Kennedy gang and place his own man in the White House. He had to make sure that Maheu understood the mission. Yet not even that megalomaniac vision could still his hatred of the Kennedys. It had been building all night while he watched TV chronicle their whole damn glorious and tragic saga. Now, on the day of Bobby’s death, it all came boiling up out of Hughes, even as he continued to coldly calculate the opportunities presented by the assassination.
“I am mor[e] familiar than you realize with the history and the remaining entity of the Kennedy family,” he wrote, thinking now of old Joe and letting loose his long-nurtured grudge. “… The Kennedy family and their money and influence have been a thorn that has been relentlessly shoved into my guts since the very beginning of my business activities. So you can see how cruel it was, after my all-out support of Nixon, to have Jack Kennedy achieve that very, very marginal so-called victory over my man.
“So, as I point out, thru this long-standing feeling of jealousy and personal enmity, I have become fairly well informed about the organization of people that sprung up, first around Jack, and then around Bob. Essentially the same group. They just moved over. But think of the experience they have had in the two campaigns combined!”
These were the men he needed, and now they were vulnerable. Hughes was not so blinded by hate as to miss the opportunity.
“Now, I am positive that all of these people (and dont forget the Convention and victory was virtually within their grasp) that all of these people, after they come- to following a 48 hour effort to drink themselves into oblivion, will feel awfully and terribly alone and frightened. Of course, they might make it again with Ted, but that is a long and uncertain road. Now, Bob, just try to visualize how it would feel,” continued Hughes, imagining the horrible shock his own death would cause his gang. “I have a group of people who have remained loyal to me, or so I have chosen to believe, and I have worried sufficiently about them being faced with such a situation, that I have gone to extreme lengths in furnishing them protection against any such adversity.…
“Also, there is some similarity between the group who assisted the Kennedy brothers and my organization,” he added, comparing the Irish Mafia to his strange crew of Mormons, “although, unfortunately, I do not have the lovable qualities of Jack and Bob that led to their famous popularity.
“Anyway, I do feel competant to judge the feelings of fear and lonliness which I am certain must have consumed the Kennedy group by now. I have experienced these emotions myself and I know how powerful they can be. So, I repeat that I am positive this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to acquire a ready-made political organization, all trained and ready to go.…”
Hughes sensed that he had to move fast, before the Kennedy gang sobered up and found new patrons.
“So, Bob,… instead of waiting until somebody else grabs these people, let’s move first!”
Bobby Kennedy was not yet buried as Hughes plotted to steal his legacy. His body lay in state at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, where the men Hughes planned to hire