Citizen Hughes - Michael Drosnin [145]
Precisely at the stroke of three A.M., he suddenly emerged in an old rumpled suit, haggard from the ordeal, and announced he was ready to claim victory. The outcome was still uncertain, but Nixon savored the moment. It was at the same hour eight years earlier that he had conceded defeat to John F. Kennedy.
Beaten in 1960, buried in 1962, he had delivered his own obituary—“You won’t have Nixon to kick around any more”—in the famous “last press conference.” But now he was back, risen from the grave and ready to enter the White House.
In Nixon, Hughes had at last what he had always wanted—a debtor in the Oval Office.
“I am determined to elect a president of our choosing this year and one who will be deeply indebted, and who will recognize his indebtedness,” he had declared early in the 1968 campaign.
“Since I am willing to go beyond all limitations on this, I think we should be able to select a candidate and a party who knows the facts of political life.”
“If we select Nixon,” he later wrote, “then he, I know for sure knows the facts of life.”
Theirs was a special relationship. It stretched back more than two decades, had survived multiple crises, and still endured. Hughes, of course, flirted with other politicians, but with the others it was often hard to tell how far he could go, and he always came back to Nixon, who appreciated a big spender, and would always go all the way
Hughes had supported Nixon in every bid for office since his first congressional race in 1946 and would continue to back him to the end. In addition to campaign funds, he provided large sums for the personal use of the president and his family. The known bequests—the few made openly and the hidden payoffs later discovered—eventually totaled more than half a million dollars.
More than a financial angel, Hughes was a virtual fairy godfather in Nixon’s faltering rise to power. In 1956, when Eisenhower was ready to find a new running mate, Hughes ordered a covert operation to crush the “Dump Nixon” movement, sending Maheu to infiltrate the enemy camp and concoct a spurious pro-Nixon poll. Whether the problem was hanging on to Ike’s coattails or flying a planeload of dignitaries to a testimonial dinner or saving a relative from financial ruin, Hughes always seemed to materialize when Nixon was in need. Then, suddenly, the spell was broken.
The billionaire’s largesse may have cost Nixon his first bid for the presidency when a scandal erupted in the closing days of the 1960 campaign over a never-repaid $205,000 Hughes “loan.”
Nixon had personally requested the money four years earlier, shortly after he was reelected vice-president, ostensibly to bail out his brother Donald’s failing business—a chain of restaurants featuring “Nixonburgers.” The cash came from a Canadian subsidiary of the Hughes Tool Company, was transferred through a cutout to the vice-president’s aged mother, Hannah, who passed it on to her bankrupt son. The name Hughes appeared nowhere on the loan agreement, and none of the Nixons was responsible for repayment. Their only collateral was a vacant lot in Whittier, California, once the site of the Nixon family home. It had an assessed value of $13,000.
Hughes was pleased to play the friendly pawnbroker. “I want the Nixons to have the money,” he told his reluctant business manager, Noah Dietrich. “Let ’em have it.”
Nonetheless uneasy about the secret deal, Dietrich flew to Washington in a futile attempt to dissuade the vice-president. “About the loan to Donald,” he cautioned Nixon, “Hughes has authorized it, and Donald can have it, but if this becomes public it could mean the end of your political career.”
Nixon, unfazed, responded self-righteously. “Mr. Dietrich,” he reportedly said, “I have to put my relatives ahead of my career.”
Donald’s fast-food enterprise soon collapsed despite the easy credit, and Hughes never did get back his money. Still, he apparently came out well ahead.