Citizen Hughes - Michael Drosnin [230]
2 Bob and Howard
Maheu himself recounted his first assignment from Hughes in a sworn deposition and provided further details in an interview. An associate of the lawyer who hired him confirmed several details. Maheu also testified in his deposition that Cramer worked for the CIA.
Maheu confirmed his own CIA retainer in an interview and in testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in 1975. The committee report reveals that he produced the Sukarno pornographic movie for the CIA, and a staff investigator disclosed that CIA files show that Maheu obtained prostitutes for foreign leaders, including Hussein, on behalf of the Agency.
Maheu’s successful effort to scuttle the Onassis contract is also revealed in the Senate report, which notes that he “worked closely with the CIA.” A staff investigator said that CIA files reveal Nixon’s involvement and that Maheu in fact met at least once with Nixon, and state that “the possibility that he has had continuing contact with Nixon on this or other matters cannot be ruled out.”
Maheu himself recounted his early assignments for Hughes in depositions and court testimony. He testified that he first saw Hughes while in the Bahamas to make contact with Sir Stafford Sands, leader of the ruling white clique known as the “Bay Street Boys,” to whom Hughes had ordered him to give $25,000 to ease the way for a real estate deal.
The Miss Universe caper (mistakenly identified as a Miss America contest) was described by Maheu in court and also detailed by Jeff Chouinard, a Hughes operative who ran his harem guard. In his memo claiming credit for killing a 1966 Senate probe of the incident, Maheu failed to mention his real coup: killing a Senate probe of Robert A. Maheu Associates, with the help of the CIA. Maheu’s firm had acquired a shady reputation, and, according to FBI reports, several of the “associates” were suspected of offenses ranging from wiretapping to extortion to kidnapping, but the CIA managed to quash a subpoena for Maheu’s testimony.
Maheu’s role in the Castro plot was detailed in a 1975 report of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders, and again in a 1979 report of the House Select Committee on Assassinations. According to staff investigators for both committees, an unpublished 1967 CIA report on the plot refers to Maheu as “a tough guy who can get things done.” Exactly what Maheu had done to justify such confidence is unknown. There is no evidence of a prior homicide in known CIA files, although one of Maheu’s “associates,” John Frank, was suspected of the kidnapping and presumed murder of a Dominican dissident on behalf of dictator Rafael Trujillo, one of Maheu’s clients. In any event, no one else was even considered for the Castro job. Maheu was the first and only choice.
The passing of the poison pills was described by another Maheu operative, Joe Shimon, who claimed to have witnessed the transfer. There are several other versions of who passed the pills to whom, but every version except Maheu’s has him handling it. Roselli claimed that Maheu met with the Cuban in Maheu’s hotel room, “opened his briefcase and dumped a whole lot of money on his lap, and also came up with the capsules.” Maheu admits only to seeing the pills, not delivering them.
According to a Senate staff investigator, unpublished CIA reports confirm that Maheu informed Hughes of the Castro plot and did so with the approval of his CIA case officer James O’Connell. Maheu himself described his phone conversations with Hughes in Senate testimony and in later interviews.
Maheu’s role in handling Hughes’s political contributions began in 1961, according to his court testimony, which he reiterated in an interview, but he claims that “the amounts were very nominal for quite a few years” and that he handled no major contributions