Citizen Hughes - Michael Drosnin [244]
Rebozo did not respond to an interview request but in testimony before the Senate Watergate Committee gave his own account of events leading to his receipt of the Hughes $100,000. “Morgan, I presume, had the money with him,” said Rebozo, “but he wanted to hand the money to the president, himself, and I told him that the president would never accept it.” Morgan told Senate staff investigators that he merely wanted some formal acknowledgment of the transaction, which Rebozo refused. Danner confirmed Morgan’s account.
“The atmosphere just didn’t seem appropriate to accept the contribution,” Rebozo testified. “I recalled, vividly, the 1956 loan to the president’s brother, and the fact that Drew Pearson had made a lot of that in the 1960 campaign … the fact that Ed Morgan represented Drew Pearson, and the fact that I just did not want to be responsible for anything that might create embarrassment. I declined.”
In Senate testimony Rebozo recounted the attempt by John Meier and Donald Nixon to deliver the Hughes money: “I was concerned about the possibility of some more embarrassment, such as he had showered on the president in 1960 and 1962 … I just didn’t think that Don Nixon should be consorting with a representative of Hughes.”
In a Senate interview and in court testimony, Maheu recalled the attempt to deliver the money directly to Nixon in Palm Springs on December 6, 1968: “Through Governor Paul Laxalt arrangements were made for an appointment with president-elect Nixon, at which time Governor Laxalt and I would deliver the money personally to President Nixon. Unfortunately something happened during the day that scuttled the president-elect’s schedule.”
Just before his trip to Palm Springs, Maheu withdrew another $50,000 from Hughes’s personal bank account in two installments on December 5 and 6 “for Nixon’s deficit,” and on December 5 also apparently received $50,000 from the cashier at the Sands casino. That same day Danner flew to Las Vegas to meet with Maheu and agreed to go to work for Hughes. A week later both Maheu and Danner were down in the Bahamas, but there is no direct evidence that they passed any money to Nixon, as indicated on the Sands withdrawal slip.
Bank records show that Maheu withdrew another $50,000 from Hughes’s personal bank account on June 27, 1969, and Hughes lawyer Tom Bell testified that on Maheu’s instructions he gave Danner $50,000 from the Silver Slipper on October 26, 1970. Danner denied receiving the money.
In conflicting statements to the IRS, the Senate Watergate Committee, and in court testimony, Maheu at one time or another claimed that each of the withdrawals was the source of the $100,000 eventually passed to Nixon through Rebozo. In any event, Rebozo, Danner, and Maheu all confirmed in sworn testimony that Nixon did receive $100,000 from Hughes in two deliveries of cash to Rebozo.
Danner joined the Hughes organization in February 1969. He testified that in April and May Rebozo began “needling me” about Hughes contributions to Humphrey, and that in May and June Rebozo asked for $100,000, telling him “the president was interested in beginning to raise funds for the 1970 congressional elections.” Rebozo, who kept the money past the 1970 elections, denied Danner’s account and testified that “it was money that was intended for the president … it was for the president’s 1972 campaign.” In fact, Rebozo admitted that he put the cash in his safe-deposit box, did not use it for any campaign, and kept it until the IRS came after him in 1973.
Danner testified that “sometime during the summer” Maheu told him, and Danner told Rebozo, that “$50,000 was available now, and another $50,000 would be made available later on.” Danner’s June 26, 1969, meeting with Rebozo in Miami was confirmed by travel records he submitted to the Senate Watergate Committee. According to bank records, Maheu arranged