Citizen Hughes - Michael Drosnin [238]
Hughes’s order of a million-dollar bribe was described by Maheu in a sworn deposition.
Maheu’s visit to the LBJ Ranch was recounted in a memo to Hughes, described by two White House aides who were present, and detailed in the president’s daily diary.
White House Appointments Secretary Jim Jones said in an interview that Johnson told him Maheu had offered him money, and that the president had told Maheu “to stick it up his ass.” Press aide Tom Johnson, who was also at the ranch that day, said that the president told him Maheu had asked him to halt the bomb tests, and that he later heard from other members of the White House staff that Maheu had offered a donation to the LBJ Library, which the president angrily refused.
Arthur Krim refused an interview request but in a letter confirmed that Johnson asked him to arrange the Hughes library donation and that Krim met with Maheu in Las Vegas in an attempt to get it.
Maheu reported in an interview Hughes’s refusal to make the contribution.
8 Poor Hubert
The account of Humphrey’s speech was drawn from press reports and television videotapes. On Election Day 1968, Humphrey vividly described his chronic lack of campaign funds in his diary: “I’ve climbed that damn ladder of politics, and every step has been rough. I wonder what it would have been like with money enough. That top rung is never going to be mine.” The quote is from Humphrey, The Education of a Public Man (Doubleday, 1976, p. 4), an autobiography in which he also revealed his haunting memories of his 1960 loss to JFK (p. 207).
Humphrey received $91,691 in illegal corporate funds from the Associated Milk Producers, Inc., in 1968, according to a Senate Watergate Committee report. Dwayne Andreas was indicted in 1973 by the Watergate special prosecutor for giving Humphrey’s 1968 campaign an illegal corporate “loan” of $100,000.
In the wake of these Watergate revelations, Humphrey told the New York Times (October 13, 1974): “Campaign financing is a curse. It’s the most demeaning, disgusting, disenchanting, debilitating experience of a politician’s life. I just can’t tell you how much I hate it. But when you are desperate, there are things you just have to do.”
Humphrey lost to Nixon in 1968 by less than 500,000 votes. He spent about $5 million on the race, Nixon at least $20 million.
Humphrey’s arrangement of the Sawyer-Johnson meeting was recounted by Maheu in a report to Hughes and confirmed by files at the LBJ Library. His arrangement of the Sawyer-AEC meeting is reported in an AEC memo dated April 24, 1968. His earlier attempts to plead Hughes’s case with Johnson were described by White House Chief of Staff Watson in an interview.
LBJ’s tormenting of Humphrey was recounted by Humphrey himself in his autobiography (pp. 307–308), by Merle Miller in Lyndon (Putnam, 1980, p. 175), by Theodore H. White, The Making of the President 1968 (Pocket Books, 1970, p. 347), and in interviews with Humphrey and Johnson aides.
Humphrey’s outburst over Maheu’s phone call was recounted by his friend and adviser Dr. Edgar Berman in his book Hubert (Putnam, 1979, p. 205). Berman, who took the call and relayed the message to Humphrey, also detailed the incident in an interview.
Humphrey’s son Robert confirmed his employment by Maheu in an interview. He said that he had met Maheu a few years earlier through California Governor Pat Brown but was actually recruited for the job by John Meier. “It happened by accident. I bumped into him while I was with my dad in California. He was doing a press conference, and I was waiting out in the hall, and Meier introduced himself. I was a college graduate, looking for work, and I already knew Bob Maheu.”
Maheu described his offer of $100,000 to Humphrey at their May 10, 1968, Denver meeting in sworn court testimony. He said that the vice-president “seemed very grateful.” Two Humphrey aides confirmed that Maheu and the vice-president met at that time. A lawyer representing the Humphrey estate refused me access to Humphrey’s