Citizen Hughes - Michael Drosnin [186]
“Howard, the ‘top man’ has asked that the following information be imparted to you,” reported Maheu with no hint of irony. “In deference to you he rejected, out of hand, the suggestion that the gas be exploded by the AEC in Nevada. The decision to dump the gas at the designated location was made because the area is restricted by virtue of Cape Kennedy activity, and continuously monitored.
“I was also asked to tell you that you would not believe the pressures (particularly from the South and East) which they withstood in order to avoid the necessity of bringing the load to Nevada,” he continued, unfolding a tale that could have been written by O. Henry. “The man said that he truly believed he was cooperating with you to the fullest in this matter.
“We have just received a telephone call asking if you have any alternative means for the disposition of this gas, and we are assured that if you do it will be considered very seriously.”
Hughes was not appeased. He no longer trusted Nixon, who first took his money, then bombed him, and was now about to gas him. But the billionaire did have an alternative to suggest.
“If the Administration can be persuaded to dump the gas at a location further away from the Bahamas than the presently selected location, I would be very grateful,” he wrote.
“In such event, I would like to study the situation before suggesting a location.
“My desire is to see a location selected as far as possible from the Bahamas,” he reiterated. “Preferably near the Arctic Circle, or as far North as they can possibly take it.”
Yes, the North Pole would be excellent. No need to study the situation after all. Meanwhile, distrustful of Nixon, Hughes pressed for his covert operation, the plan that would pit the president against the calypso boy.
Maheu wanted no part of it.
“Since I feel Danner and I are primarily responsible for any White House intervention, it would be absolutely irresponsible for us to be identified with a caper which could end up embarrassing the White House,” he advised Hughes. “Therefore, I think it is important that the ‘tiger hunt’ designed to embarrass the President should not be identified with Danner and me.
“Since Davis and Gay took over responsibility for the Bahamian situation a year ago,” he added, revealing some pique over his rivals’ role in the escape plans, “I am awaiting a report from them pertaining to the situation there before Danner and I can make our next move with the White House.”
Seizing the chance to gain on Maheu, Bill Gay and Chester Davis immediately set out on the tiger hunt their rival had refused to join.
They first went to work on a Bahamian government eager to lure Hughes and his millions down to the islands and within days had inspired the cabinet to meet in emergency session and issue a “strong protest” against the threatened nerve-gas dumping, the first formal complaint it had ever lodged against another nation.
Meanwhile, Gay made his own move on the White House. He contacted an obscure bureaucrat in the Department of Transportation, a fellow Mormon named Robert Foster Bennett, whose father happened to be a United States senator and, like Gay himself, a leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
Gay knew that the younger Bennett also had a White House connection, Nixon’s bully boy Chuck Colson. Gay asked Bennett two questions. Could he, through Colson, block the gas dumping? And would Maheu really be able to do it through his Danner-Rebozo connection?
Nothing could stop the nerve gas, Bennett reported back. Not him. Not Colson. Not Maheu. No one.
While Gay made his secret move on the White House through his mysterious Mormon connection, Chester Davis was having more success with a clandestine court action.
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