Citizen Hughes - Michael Drosnin [227]
The quoted CIA list of “possible culprits” is dated July 4, 1974, and was obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. The discovery of the Castro plot by the Senate Watergate Committee was disclosed by a staff investigator. The details, including Maheu’s call to Hughes, were disclosed by the Senate Intelligence Committee in 1975.
The five earlier Hughes break-ins were described in LAPD, FBI, and CIA reports, and further detailed in interviews with detectives involved in the local police investigations. The quoted LAPD report on the Romaine case is dated July 30, 1974. Davis’s refusal to submit to a polygraph and Kelley’s failure of his polygraph are noted in the same police report. The FBI report on Kelley’s lie-test is also dated July 30, 1974.
Kelley arranged a second polygraph through a private eye named Robert Duke Hall, who was murdered two years later on July 22, 1976. According to Burbank police Lt. Al Madrid, who handled the murder case, the same two men charged with killing Hall—Jack Ginsburgs and Gene LeBell—also staged the April 1974 break-in at Hughes’s Encino office and delivered the stolen voice scrambler to Hall, who eventually returned it to Kelley. Madrid said in an interview that he found no evidence that the Encino theft was linked to the Romaine break-in six weeks later, or that Hall’s murder was in any way connected to either of the burglaries.
Howard Hunt first revealed Winte’s involvement in the aborted Greenspun break-in in sworn testimony before the Senate Watergate Committee, later confirmed by G. Gordon Liddy in Will (St. Martin’s Press, 1980, pp. 204–205), and by Bennett in statements to both the Senate committee and the Special Prosecutor’s Office.
The LAPD’s conclusion that the Romaine heist was an “inside job” is quoted from its July 30, 1974, report.
The inside story of the break-in was revealed to me in a series of interviews with one of the burglars, my confidential source called the Pro, and as noted above his account was verified by LAPD, CIA, and FBI records, by interviews with law-enforcement officials, and by my own investigation.
The Chester Brooks ransom calls were detailed by police reports, grand jury testimony, and a transcript of the call recorded by the LAPD. The Hughes memo left by Brooks was later filed in court. The police dragnet for Brooks was detailed in LAPD and FBI reports. Henley’s failure to receive the final call and her attendance at the Glomar event was noted in LAPD and CIA reports. Henley apparently left instructions for Kay Glenn to receive the ransom call in her absence, but Glenn also missed the call, according to a CIA report.
Glenn’s discovery that the Glomar document was missing is noted in CIA reports. Sources at the CIA, FBI, and LAPD detailed the series of contacts that ensued. The Sullivan briefing was described by a detective who was present. The CIA suspicion that the Hughes organization staged the break-in and then falsely claimed the Glomar document was missing was noted in a July 5, 1974, report by the Agency’s task force. CIA Director Colby confirmed his meeting with President Nixon in a series of interviews, and his quoted remarks are from those interviews.
All accounts of the Gordon-Woolbright meetings are based on Gordon’s grand jury testimony, further detailed by Gordon in a series of interviews. Woolbright’s background was obtained from Los Angeles and St. Louis police records. Their contacts with J. P. Hayes and Maynard Davis were confirmed by both Hayes and Davis in interviews. Winte’s report that Korshak and Shenker may have been involved was noted in an LAPD report dated August 25, 1976.