Citizen Hughes - Michael Drosnin [210]
Nixon was still not satisfied. He had Ehrlichman call Shultz again and demand that O’Brien be interrogated. The IRS interviewed him in mid-August and informed the White House that the audit was closed. Ehrlichman demanded that it be reopened.
Finally, Shultz reviewed the case with IRS Commissioner Johnnie Walters and together they called Ehrlichman to report that there was nothing against O’Brien. “I’m goddamn tired of your foot-dragging tactics,” shouted Ehrlichman, and he continued to abuse Walters until the commissioner hung up.
Nixon had been foiled again on O’Brien, but his cover-up of Watergate had succeeded. On September 15, a federal grand jury indicted only the five burglars and their ringleaders, Liddy and Hunt, ignoring their masters in the White House.
Nixon was not content, however, merely to beat the rap. He wanted revenge. Not merely against O’Brien but all his enemies.
“I want the most comprehensive notes on all of those that have tried to do us in,” he told Dean that same day. “They are asking for it and they are going to get it. We have not used the power in the first four years, as you know. We have never used it. We haven’t used the Bureau and we haven’t used the Justice Department, but things are going to change now.”
“What an exciting prospect!” exclaimed Dean.
A few weeks later, on November 7, 1972, Richard Nixon was reelected president in an unprecedented landslide.
Howard Hughes did not send in an absentee ballot, but he did send a check. Several checks, in fact, totaling $150,000. But he was still worried that he had not done enough.
“Why didn’t Chester do more in the area of contributions?” asked Hughes, now back in Nicaragua.
“We gave as much as we could safely,” his aides assured him, adding that his generosity was appreciated. “Because of the polls, which indicated a Republican landslide, contributions dried up and many committees were completely out of money when we came along like angels out of heaven.”
Nixon had not waited for Hughes to descend with the manna. In the spring of 1972, even as his fears about the original hundred grand were leading him to Watergate, even as the break-in was being planned and approved, the president had reached out for more Hughes money. It was a fatal attraction he apparently just could not resist.
Rebozo called his pal Danner in March or April and asked if Hughes was going to make another “contribution.” Danner explained that he was no longer the bagman, but Rebozo was not put off so easily. “Try to find out,” he insisted. Danner checked with his new bosses, Gay and Davis, but was told not to get involved, that the matter was being handled “back East.” And so it was.
Bob Bennett was taking care of everything. While he continued to secretly undermine the cover-up with leaks to the Washington Post and reports to the CIA, the mysterious Mormon was also slipping more Hughes money to Nixon.
Even before Rebozo called Danner, Bennett had advised his fellow Mormons to make a “voluntary, unsolicited, sizeable contribution,” but nothing “so ostentatious as to appear to be an attempt to ‘buy’ something.” They settled on $50,000.
On the morning of April 6, one day before a new law took effect requiring that donors to political campaigns be identified, Gordon Liddy took time off from plotting the break-in and dropped by Bennett’s office to pick up the money. So much secret cash was pouring in before the deadline that even Liddy had been pressed into service as a collector.
By the time of the November election, Nixon had accumulated a staggering $60 million and had a huge surplus. But he wanted more. On the weekend before the election, Bennett got a call from Thomas Evans, a partner in Nixon and Mitchell’s old law firm (which now shared Washington office space with the president’s campaign committee).
“I’m just checking, is Mr. Hughes going to give any more?” asked Evans, claiming that the money was needed to help cover Nixon’s “deficit.” Bennett asked how much more was needed. Evans