Citizen Hughes - Michael Drosnin [135]
It was December 12, 1968. The Atomic Energy Commission had just announced another megaton blast, the first since “Boxcar” started Hughes on his ban-the-bomb crusade eight months earlier. He had hoped to stave off the holocaust until a more pliant president took office. Now, with an unbought LBJ still in the White House and a bought Nixon elected but not yet sworn in, Hughes was faced with a real problem: he didn’t know whom to bribe.
“Please press to reach Humphries, or let O’Brien take my offer to the Democratic chief of finance,” wrote a frantic Hughes. “I implore that we pull out all the stops.”
Once more Hughes demanded that Maheu offer a million dollars—to Johnson again, to the defeated Humphrey for his campaign deficit, to the depleted treasury of the Democratic party, to the victorious but still powerless Nixon—to anyone who could block the impending blast.
The AEC’s sneak attack caught Maheu down in the Bahamas, hobnobbing with the Nixon gang. While he continued to work on the incoming administration, he called in his new recruit to pull out ’the stops in Washington.
“Larry O’Brien will meet with the top man tomorrow morning,” Maheu reported to Hughes. “Howard, I have thought of going to Washington but after serious consideration I cannot think of anything I could do there more effectively than O’Brien.”
While O’Brien prepared to meet with Lyndon Johnson, the man he had helped make president, Maheu shuttled between Miami and the Bahamas in an effort to reach the president-elect, and also reached out to the still cooperative vice-president.
“I have a call in right now for Humphrey,” he assured Hughes. “I really want to tap his brain in great depth before making any further moves, so please bear with me, Howard.
“On the other side, [Lee] DuBridge, who will be Nixon’s top scientific advisor, is behind us but recommends very strongly to the new administration that they, definitely, take a hands off policy insofar as this particular blast is concerned.
“Nixon’s closest advisors informed me that the president-elect in no way will stick his nose in this matter until, in fact, he has taken over.
“Howard,” Maheu concluded, “this leaves us pretty much with the Democrats at this particular time, and that is the reason why it is so important for me to exhaust every possibility insofar as Humphrey and LBJ are concerned.”
Up in his penthouse, sweating out another grim countdown, Hughes was dismayed by the failure of his henchmen to find a taker for his million-dollar payoff.
“I am heartbroken that you propose a hands off policy,” he wailed, “and that we have not even come close thus far in delaying this test.
“You say we should accept this one because it will be successful. I dont question that it will be successful in terms of visible evidence.
“However, now I feel our prestige and entire public image will be most seriously damaged if we permit this one to proceed, or if we have not the political strength to stop it.
“I implore you to reverse your attitude and pull out all the stops. I have received no indication that my offer of support (20 times Humphries)* has ever been put to anyone who was in a position to accept it or negotiate.
“I agree with concentrating on the Democrats. My message of yesterday urged it.”
Maheu was quick to assure Hughes that he was not once more playing the reluctant bagman.
“I am continuing the battle to the fullest extent,” he reported to the command post. “As to the offer, I am happy we did not proceed too quickly, because it is obvious that it would have done no good, for instance, to make it to the Republicans.
“I had a very long talk with Vice President Humphrey. He will make one more big try at delaying the blast, but admitted that he was not necessarily encouraged. He is most appreciative of our offer to help in the deficit, but would prefer not to accept it unless he is capable of causing the delay, or after we are fully convinced that his efforts will produce the necessary results as to future and bigger blasts.”
Meanwhile, back in Washington, Larry O’Brien was also waging