Citizen Hughes - Michael Drosnin [217]
Howard Hughes was also about to be called to justice.
It was not only Watergate that was closing in on him but also a side deal he had made with Nixon, his illegal Air West takeover the president had agreed to approve the same day Hughes agreed to give him the hundred-thousand-dollar payoff.
Early on the morning of December 20, Hughes fled London one jump ahead of the law. He boarded a jet borrowed from the Saudi arms merchant Adnan Khashoggi and flew back to the Bahamas, where two floors were reserved and waiting in a Freeport hotel owned by shipping magnate Daniel K. Ludwig.
Hughes had hardly settled in when he was indicted by a Las Vegas grand jury, accused of criminal fraud and stock manipulation in the Air West deal. He faced a possible twelve years in jail.
A fugitive from justice now, he desperately needed sanctuary, and the Bahamas seemed a safe bet. Just a few weeks before he arrived, the islands had refused to extradite another fugitive American financier, the notorious swindler Robert Vesco.
Hughes was taking no chances, however. He had not forgotten how he had been forced to flee the Bahamas in the wake of the Clifford Irving affair, and he was determined to buy off his new protector, Prime Minister Lynden O. Pindling.
“Regarding the Honorable P.M.,” Hughes wrote Chester Davis, “I truly admire his courage and the actions he has been brave enough to take.
“I urge you to tell him this: I would like to be of assistance. The question is: how much assistance does he need and how quickly?”
While Hughes dangled dollars in front of Pindling, Chester Davis was unloading the Nixon hundred grand Rebozo had unloaded on him. After resisting for months, he brought the cash under subpoena to the Senate Watergate Committee, opened his briefcase, and angrily dumped the hundred-dollar bills in front of a startled Senator Sam Ervin.
“Here’s the goddamn money,” shouted Davis. “Take it, burn it, do whatever you damn please with it!”
But the senators were not satisfied with the money. They also wanted Hughes. In mid-January, the committee sent Davis a letter asking the billionaire to appear. Soon after, Ervin approved a subpoena.
Down in the Bahamas, already on the lam, Hughes remained vague about Watergate, even as others began to wonder whether he was somehow at the center of it all.
In a memo dictated to the Mormons, Davis tried to explain the “Hughes connection” to Howard Hughes.
“We are involved in the Watergate affair to this extent:
“1. E. Howard Hunt, convicted for the Watergate break-in, was employed by Bob Bennett (our current Washington representative). In addition, Bennett was maintaining liaison with the White House through Chuck Colson, who was deeply involved in the Watergate cover-up.
“2. Bennett, Ralph Winte (employed by us re: security matters) and Hunt are involved in plans to burglarize Greenspun’s safe, and even though those plans were rejected and never carried out, investigators see political motivation related to Watergate.
“3. The political contribution by Danner to Rebozo and visits by Danner to Mitchell, are claimed to be an effort for influencing Governmental decisions, including an alleged change in rulings of the Department of Justice.
“4. Payments made to Larry O’Brien and his employment has been claimed to have been part of the possible motivation for the Watergate break-in because of White House interest in that arrangement as a possible means of embarrassing O’Brien and the Democrats.
“5. The massive political contributions supposedly made by Maheu, particularly those made in cash, is part of the over-all Watergate investigation dealing with the need for reform.”
Hughes was not satisfied with the explanation. Alternately puzzled and put upon, seemingly unable to recall the $100,000 payoff, he demanded that Davis bring the entire Watergate investigation to a halt. He was sure it was all a plot designed to force him out of hiding.
“I have not yet received further information identifying exactly who are the persons