Citizen Hughes - Michael Drosnin [214]
He told Rebozo to hire a good tax lawyer, return what was left of the $100,000 to Hughes, and come clean with the IRS.
Rebozo was shocked. “This touches the president and the president’s family,” he exclaimed. “I just can’t do anything to add to his problems at this time, Herb.”
On May 10, Rebozo met with the IRS. He did not come clean. He said he had kept the Hughes money intact and untouched in his safe-deposit box for three years and now planned to return it all. The bitter power struggle in the Hughes empire had made him nervous about putting it into Nixon’s campaign. The president was not even aware of the contribution, not until Rebozo mentioned it to him a few weeks earlier. Nixon immediately said, “You ought to give it back.” That was the whole story.
The IRS agents did not probe. They were not eager to interrogate the president’s best friend. Indeed, although Danner had confirmed the $100,000 transaction a full year earlier, agents handling the Hughes case were refused permission to interview Rebozo until now. And before they had come to see him, Nixon’s man in the IRS commissioner’s office called the White House to ask if it was okay. “We’re scared to death,” he told Ehrlichman. “He’s so close to the president.”
As soon as the agents left, Rebozo started calling Richard Danner. He told his old pal to come to Washington immediately, but he didn’t tell him why. Danner flew in on May 18. Only when they met over breakfast in Danner’s room at the Madison Hotel did Rebozo reveal that he wanted to give back the Hughes money. He said he had the very same hundred-dollar bills Danner had delivered three years earlier. Rebozo stressed that repeatedly. The money was still in the original Las Vegas bank wrappers. It had never been touched. Not once. Not a penny.
Danner refused to take it. For two and a half hours they argued, but Danner wanted no part of it. The cash that Rebozo first feared was too hot to take, and now feared was too hot to keep, Danner feared was too hot to take back.
“It’s your money,” the Cuban shouted at him angrily.
“It’s not my money,” said Danner. “It’s your money. And if I were in your place, I’d go see a lawyer.”
Rebozo instead took Danner to see Nixon’s other millionaire crony, Bob Abplanalp. “Do you like fresh trout?” asked the aerosol king. “I know just the place.” They drove out to the airport, hopped on Abplanalp’s private jet, and flew up to his lodge in the Catskills. Just for lunch. It was an impressive display of the rewards of good fellowship. But Danner remained unwilling to take back the Hughes money.
Rebozo was desperate to unload that cursed cash. He told Danner to stay in Washington over the weekend. The president wanted to see him. The three men met at Camp David on Sunday, May 20. It had been a bad week for Nixon. On May 17 the Senate Watergate Committee began its televised hearings. On May 18 Archibald Cox was named special prosecutor. And now Nixon was holed up alone at his rustic retreat preparing a “definitive statement” on Watergate, to be released Tuesday. But he took time off to see Danner.
The president exchanged a few pleasantries, then launched into a lengthy and passionate defense of himself. “I’m not guilty of anything,” declared Nixon. He said he would weather the storm. He would not resign. The three old friends spoke for more than two hours, but all would later claim that no one mentioned the $100,000 Nixon had personally asked Danner to get from Hughes. Not in the hour they sat in the cabin. Not in the hour they walked together through Camp David in the light misting rain.
But Danner knew why he had been summoned to the mountaintop, and both before and after he met with the president, Rebozo pressed him again to take